When Worlds Collide (1951)
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When Worlds Collide Movie Review
When Worlds Collide is a 1951 science fiction film directed by Rudolph Mate and produced by George Pal. It’s a surprisingly effective early genre piece.
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“Your salvation doesn’t interest me; mine does“
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A new planet is headed towards earth to destroy all living beings. A group of survivors build a rocket which will take them to a new place where they might have better chances of survival. This movie is pretty much on par with its predecessor, which was George Pal’s ‘Destination Moon’. It has its glaring flaws, but when put into perspective, this is a very solid flick.
As a big fan of hard science fiction, I have to first comment on the “sci” side of things by saying that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. A star is basically colliding with Earth, which is ludicrous. It’s as if they didn’t know about asteroids or comets back in the fifties. How they decided to transport only a handful of people through lottery also wasn’t particularly grounded in reality, though it did make for an interesting and climactic third act nonetheless.
The characters are utterly uninspired as you’d expect from these early SF features. The actors are all unknown B-listers, and although they were passable, none of them made any significant impact. The added romance was also quite unnecessary.
When Worlds Collide is rather uneventful and dull in its first half, which favors too much talking and planning and not enough action for what was clearly supposed to be a blockbuster. The third act is thankfully where the movie changed directions literally and figuratively and became quite fun.
The disaster elements are actually quite groundbreaking for the time owing to superb special effects that rightfully garnered an Oscar win for this film. The flooding scenes looked particularly strong. The painting-quality to the imagery actually worked for me as it fitted the Bible references well.
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The highlight, however, came toward the very end when they came to the planet Zyra. The planet’s scenery was gorgeous and lush while the hint at a civilization already being there was quite a clever, subtle one. It is clear to me that this movie would have been so much better and grander had they had a bigger budget at their disposal, but what we got was still solid and underrated.
When Worlds Collide is a solid, underrated early SF flick. The first half is uneventful and rather dull, but the second half is where the story picked up serious momentum and it became quite fun. The characters and performances are disposable, but the VFX were superb for the time and the third act is full of memorable disaster genre imagery.
My Rating – 3.5
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#1. What other sci-fi movies were released in 1951?
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