innovate-issue-005

Rocket Ship XMBelow is a review by Grey Wolf of the 1950 black-and-white film Rocket Ship XM, starring LloydBridges, something of a trail-blazer for the science fiction to come in that decade, and beyond. Allstatements and impressions are entirely the opinion of the author.This film, made in 1950 and starring Lloyd Bridges, more or less made sense. Much of what modernaudiences might question in the science probably wasn't known too well back then - for example whilewe see a cute bit of weightlessness with the floating flying jacket, it seems to have been assumed thatif you had the will to remain weighted down, you would.There is a woman in the crew, an excellent far-sighted development that real life America would notduplicate until the 1980s. She is not a foil, and is shown as an intelligent character who has deservedher place there. Of course you get the idiots at the start who say space is no place for a woman, why onEarth is a woman going and so on, but they are well beaten down by showing that she is an importantand necessary member of the crew. And of course, later she plays something of the stereotypicalmaiden in distress, but as with Uhura a decade and a half later, that is not all she is displayed as, and amodern audience can overlook it well enough because of what else she does.Distances in space, and the necessary speeds to travel them were not as well known then, as now, buteven now most people you would ask would not realise that going from Earth to Mars is not simply amatter of some extra days, or perhaps just about weeks, on top of going from Earth to the Moon, but isactually many months longer in duration. If we suspend our disbelief here, midway between anunderstanding that this was not understood then, and that some kind of super speed effect IS actingupon the ship, then their arrival on Mars is not a belief-killer in the film.Mars, is in fact, a key lesson in the film, probably what one would call the moral lesson of the film.There the crew discover a breathable atmosphere, and the ruins of a great civilisation, that at firstappearances resembles ancient civilisations on Earth but on closer inspection proves to be that of anadvanced scientific people. But they are gone. Initially, the crew assume that the planet is deserted butthen the mutated savages who will be such a staple of post-apocalyptic science fiction for the nextseveral decades make an appearance. Mars' societies destroyed themselves in nuclear war, and this isall that is left.Unfortunately for the crew, it is a lesson that is learnt the hard way with deaths and severe industriesbeing taken at the hands of these barbarians. A few do make it back to the ship and take off, but thejourney back is a lot less easy than the journey there was. Things then go from bad to worse, andwhilst the audience always has hope, they cannot but feel that chances are running out for the crew tomake it back.As with much 1950s era science fiction, both written or filmed, the characters continue to wear Earthclothes throughout, albeit with a nod to flying jackets etc. But as we all have seen from the Shuttlemissions from the 1980s onwards, as long as the atmosphere remains sealed, it does not actually matterwhat you wear within it, and the heavy spacesuits of the first astronauts, whilst an excellent safetyprecaution, probably were not ultimately necessary until they attempted to walk in space, or land onthe Moon.I like this film, and will definitely be watching it again. No doubt, when I do I will find much morethat I like, and some more that is dubious, but the balance will not change.