|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product Details
|
Product Description
From Amazon.com
A textbook example of '50s-era science fiction, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers boasts not only a solid script and competent performances, but some genuinely impressive stop-motion effects courtesy of one of the industry's uncontested masters, Ray Harryhausen. Scientist Hugh Marlowe (who faced a more benevolent invader from space five years earlier in The Day the Earth Stood Still) discovers that UFOs are responsible for the destruction of a series of exploratory space rockets launched by his space exploration project. The saucers' helmeted pilots land on Earth and deliver an ultimatum to humanity via Marlowe: fealty or complete annihilation.
Harryhausen's painstakingly intricate saucers and the destruction they wreak (particularly during an assault on Washington, D.C.) are the film's unquestionable highlights, but Marlowe and Joan Taylor (as his wife/partner) are capable leads, and veteran B director Fred F. Sears doesn't let the dialogue and expositional scenes fall apart in between the barrage of effects. Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is a fun and effective slice of sci-fi that should please younger audiences as well as nostalgic return viewers. Sears later reused some of the effects footage for his jaw-droppingly awful 1957 effort, The Giant Claw. --Paul Gaita
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Earth vs. Ray Harryhausen...,
By Bindy Sue Frønkünschtein "bigfootsalienbaby" (under the rubble) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Earth vs the Flying Saucers (DVD)
Hughe Marlow stars as Dr. Marvin in this 50s sci-fi epic. Joan Taylor is his blushing bride and assistant in his work as a rocket scientist. Several sattelites have been lost in strange "accidents", causing concern, but not enough to postpone another launch. Marvin and wife encounter a flying saucer on their way to the space-lab, which they inadvertantly record on tape. Later, the saucers appear at the launch site, causing military types to open fire immediately (of course). Both men and guns are obliterated by the invaders' superior firepower. Marvin finally figures out that the burbled noise on his tape recording is actually the aliens trying to communicate with him. Too late! The invasion is under way. Mrs. Marvin's father (an army general) is abducted and zombified by the aliens, after they've sucked his mind dry (We get to see the ship interiors. Check out the cool, ultra-modern viewscreen! It looks better than some of our actual widescreen TVs of today!) Dr. Marvin must now race against time and develop a weapon that can save humanity! As others have said, Harryhausen's flying saucers are excellent. The characters are believable and the story is good. If you are a sci-fi addict you must own this...
5.0 out of 5 stars
People of Earth ... Attention! People of Earth ... Attention,
By road_king "road_king" (Doylestown, Pa USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Earth vs the Flying Saucers (DVD)
I'm a big fan of Ray Harryhausen from when I was a kid. I remember seeing this moving on TV about 40 years ago and just being awe struck. It looked so real back then. I still like it and in fact, I replaced my VHS copy of this with the DVD. The story is pretty typical and the low budget forced a lot of clips from newsreels of rockets (some look like V2's) blowing up but for it's day it's really good. Its fun to watch today too.
5.0 out of 5 stars
This movie still rules.,
By
This review is from: Earth vs the Flying Saucers (DVD)
This is the mother of all invasion movies here. Filmed in gorgeous black and white, and coming out two years before the Technicolor blitzkrieg of War of the Worlds, EVTFS is still superior on just about every level. The special effects, laughable to some who judge only by today's standards, are still eye-popping. The first half of the movie is mostly dialogue driven and is designed to up the suspense ante by stages. The second half is the reason to see it as the flying saucers (and Harryhausen!) pull out all the stops and go whole-hog on the invasion. The painstaking model work is just extraordinary, especially the destruction of the capitol building. Although an obvious product of the coldwar and the McCarthy eras, the movie, with its Us vs. Them mentality, is still very relavant today. You need only look at the headlines about American foreign policy to see this. Although EVTFS may come across as an exercise in coldwar paranoia, I would like to think that it is an exercise in optimism. For anyone living in those times and having to face the fact that almost two thirds of the world was on the way to becoming communist, if not already there, those must have seemed like dark times indeed. Like its modern day version, Independance Day, Earth shows that any problem can be overcome if people just put down their differences and work together. This, I think is the greatest strength Earth vs. The Flying Saucers. It's a good belief-for any time or age.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
