Talk:Fantastic Voyage

Unlimited or limited?

should that word unlimited actually be 'limited' ? i havent seen the film but from the context of the article that seems like a mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.245.29.229 (talk • contribs) 05:26, 31 January 2005

The process only worked for a limited time until Benes discovered how to make it unlimited - they want to save him so they can use his knowledge to shrink people and machinery without the 60-minute time limit. Lee M 22:43, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've now rewritten and expanded the relevant paragraphs so that the plot is (hopefully) clearer. Lee M 22:55, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Coolio

There should be a link to a disambiguation page. "Fantastic Voyage" can also refer to a song by the rap artist Coolio.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.65.181.128 (talk • contribs) 05:46, 2 August 2006

Quote about Salvador Dali painting from Christie's website

Since it's possible that Christie's will not maintain their web page for Dali's Le voyage fantastique, here's an excerpt from the page about the painting which is cited in the article:

Le voyage fantastic is an hallucinatory portrait made at the height of Dalí's so-called 'pop' period in New York in 1965. The painting was made as part of the promotion of the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage starring Stephen Boyd, Donald Pleasence and Raquel Welch. Early in 1965 Dalí had been asked by Twentieth Century Fox to be in charge of the artistic part of this groundbreaking science fiction film. Dalí's first response to this challenge was to paint this work which incorporates many of the elements of the film with several of his most recent painterly techniques.

...

In Fantastic Voyage [the painting], these dots are rendered as a flat field in an op-art way that combines to form a partially recognisable image of Raquel Welch. This image is shown dissolving into particles in a way that echoes the plot of the film in which a crew of scientists were reduced to molecular scale and injected into the body of a man in order to save his life.

Dalí's painting of the subject seems to describe this transformation. Split into two halves with one, the facial image, shown dissolving into the figure of the patient at the left, the painting also shows the emergence of the space-suit-clad figures forming from the molecules and their injection into the man's skull. This, Dalí has also mysteriously adorned with a sequence of numbers. In addition, the patient also models another particularly Dalinean feature, an excessively elaborate and bushy moustache.

69.3.70.59 04:27, 29 January 2007 (UTC).

The link is indeed broken now. Oddly, when searching the web for a pictures of the painting, the images I get back in no way resemble the description above. This page http://www.dalinet.com/artnews/index.cfm?v=10077 , for instance, confirms that it was painted to promote the film, but in the painting shown I see a telephone receiver, a piano, a cloud, possibly a dragonfly and some kind of vegetable, but nothing that resembles Rachel Welch, op-art dots, space-suit-clad figures or a moustache. "Stochastic Voyage" might be a better title. 81.131.68.143 (talk) 13:12, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Minor factual errors in text of article

Quote: The "whirlpool" scene . . . was made using a large punch bowl, strawberry-flavored milk, and three cups of Cheerios cereal.

The "punch bowl" was, in fact, an 8-foot-diameter champagne glass originally made for the 1964 Shirley MacLaine vehicle "What A Way To Go!"

Quote: Much of the interior scenes of the secret complex were filmed at a football stadium at night. Brief glimpses of the outside playing field area can be seen . . .

The aforementioned scenes were actually filmed in the outer concourse of the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, a multipurpose indoor arena that hosts basketball, hockey, and entertainment events such as circuses and ice shows.

Source: L.B. Abbott, Special Effects: Wire, Tape and Rubber Band Style. Sorry, can't cite page numbers as I no longer own a copy of the book, but it's in there!

More Logical Flaws

I don't have a citation, but there seem to be other flaws:

When Cora stumbles into something, she triggers an immune response from Benes's system. The antibodies are somehow attracted to her -- and only her -- as she tries to get back into the sub. There is no explanation of how the antibodies "know" where she is and are drawn toward her. They do not attack her partner, despite the fact that he is wearing the same type of diving suit. (Apparently, the antibodies are attracted to her figure.)

By the way, the water that was shrunk with the Proteus in the final stage of miniaturization would have circulated and also expanded within Benes's body at the end of the operation. This may or may not have been a problem, depending on the volume.

A more serious flaw concerns the mass: What happened to the original mass of the Proteus and crew during miniaturization? Since the members of the crew, at least, spontaneously returned to their original sizes with their original masses at the end, it is reasonable to conclude that miniaturization doesn't change mass. But, if the Proteus and crew retained their mass, the Proteus would not have been able to move at that size. Can you imagine something the size of a bacterium that weighs a ton? Indeed, when injected in to Benes, it would have fallen out of his body -- even through the operating table and floor.

SlowJog (talk) 16:05, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Without references, you couldn't add it. If you want references, you may want to look for comments by Isaac Asimov about his second novelization of this story. In this second novelization, he addressed the technical problems with the first novelization, which followed the movie. — Val42 (talk) 04:49, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

If the shrinking had been accomplished by somehow compressing the atoms closer together, then the mass would be an issue. But if you're willing to accept technology that can turn them into smaller atoms, then it shouldn't be surprising that they also have smaller mass. I believe Asimov covered this in the first novelization. Joule36e5 (talk) 22:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

You are right. According to this, the atoms were "projected" to smaller atoms, with a corresponding loss of mass. Maybe the difference in mass was hidden in one of the other dimensions. SlowJog (talk) 23:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Plot Synopsis or Summary

Is/was there a plot synopsis or summary for this article? It's odd considering a lot of film articles have only a plot summary and not much info instead of the reverse. InsaneZeroG (talk) 08:31, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

It was removed by a vandal last month. I've added it back. --Itub (talk) 10:28, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Too Many Cite Requests

This article has too many cite requests for facts that have been common knowledge about the movie since its release. Would someone who is a *real* admin and not a sockpuppet-validated one please remove them? If people aren't going to take the time to look up their own cite requests, then they shouldn't make them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.188.250.148 (talk) 02:47, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Soviet Union/CIA?

Too much is assumed here. In the movie, and, the book, nowhere is the USSR mentioned--just the: "other side". Jan Benes' name sounds Czech; so it was assumed by the writer of this synopsis. And, Grant was a secret agent, true, but the "CIA" was never mentioned per se. Science and the sets/special effects, not politics, is in the forefront of this movie, like The Andromeda Strain. I ask these references be stricken as they are inaccurate/unnecessary/dead weight.68.231.189.108 (talk) 18:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Special Effects?

Although it is obvious the cells are spray paint on cheese cloth, and the heart valves are plastic bags animated by ropes; the special effects were very convincing for 1966. I have been a fan this movie and of anatomy since.68.231.189.108 (talk) 18:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)