This Island Earth
This Island Earth (1955)
“Smoke me a kipper, i’ll be back for breakfast.” I don’t know why, but man does Rex Reason’s Cal Meacham make me think of Ace Rimmer––he must have been a character they used in Ace’s design. He’s a scientist who can fly planes, assemble future technology, uncover conspiracies, and battle evil aliens on a distance planet while getting the girl. Scratch that, he’s like Ace Rimmer and James Bond rolled into one.
If I could only watch 1950’s sci-fi, i’d be fine. They just had better ideas back then. Sometimes the execution might not be perfect, and this one does have some dead space at times, but it also has cool models, incredible matte painting, crazy alien designs, and weird in camera effects. Was a more creative era in my opinion.
And how is there not a recent movie about aliens hiding out on Earth because they’re getting their asses handed to them by a different alien race, and they need humans to help them protect their own planet? (There was also some big Third Rock From the Sun Vibes) Sure, I guess Transformers has that kind of story, but we don’t fly off with them to watch their whole planet get blown up afterwards while battling the evil race. What a concept!
Most of the spectacular trailer for This Island Earth is in the second half of the movie, with the first being a lot more sedate, but I still enjoyed my time with the characters and letting the mystery unfold. I always try and think how an audience would have reacted back in the day when judging the pacing and presentation of these older movies, especially the B-Movie style Sci-fi.
The part i’m sure they would have reacted too was the evil alien with the enormous brain and clampy hands at the end fighting our two heroes. What a sight that must have been at some drive-in in the 50s. Could only wish for those kind of experiences now.
The alien suit looked cumbersome, and i’m not sure if the pincers worked, but fuck did it look cool. The matte painting on the planet was an absolute joy as well, along with the model shots as they skimmed the surface. I’ve said it before, but I’ll always take that over CGI.
Thought the ending was pretty brave too.
This Island Earth had some great ideas and a ton of ambition for when it was made. It’s not perfect, nothing from that era really is (With a few exceptions), but that only adds to the charm in my opinion. The movie literally aimed for the stars, and resulted in something thoroughly enjoyable with some iconic imagery that has lived on through plenty of sci-fi after it.
