Released mere weeks apart 19 years before the moon landing, ‘Destination Moon’ and ‘Rocketship X-M’ competed at the box office while offering two sharply contrasting visions of space travel.
One of these won an Oscar, the other is on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, which, in a way, might mean Rocketship X-M has now had a potentially wider audience.
The issue with the rights to that one is because they belong(ed) to the recently passed supercollector Wade Williams, who loved this film enough that in the late 70s, he hired some people from ILM to help him to make model shots to replace the instances of V2 stock footage in it (which are, of course, jarringly different from the rocket design seen elsewhere, and one of the many shortcuts Lippert and co made in the rush to get it into theaters before D-M)
Those weren't in the version the MST guys riffed, but Williams was majorly pissed regardless and kept the fees for renewing the rights to broadcast/release the episode deliberately insurmountable. Now that he's passed, it's anybody's guess who has the rights now and if they're any more amenable to the idea
As I was reading this article, I was thinking of my buried-in-storage copy of CineMagic #1 (published by Starlog!) with Rocketship X-M on the cover, detailing Williams' effects work for what may have amounted to the first "Special Edition."
As an engineer, I love DESTINATION MOON, but there's a point at the start that really bugs me.
A first attempt to launch a satellite fails (it's hinted that this was foreign sabotage but this is never followed up on) but it's decided that since they are certain that rocket was perfect and the launch SHOULD have worked, they don't actually need to prove this and can jump straight to the moon rocket. That's not how it works!
They also gloss over how the rocket is going to return to Earth, showing a graphic of the entire vehicle descending via a parachute. That would have had to be one gigantic parachute. But this is just nit picking.
There's a bit at the end I particularly love, when Earth tells them the rocket is still too heavy to return and a character says "You could be wrong, couldn't you?" only to be told "I could, but I don't think the computer could!".
One of these won an Oscar, the other is on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, which, in a way, might mean Rocketship X-M has now had a potentially wider audience.
I don't think I've seen that one and, looking it up, it appears to be one of the episodes tied up in rights issues. And yet... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AmJiVTBZNM
Internet Archive is a lifesaver for me for eps like this. Though, as one might expect, quality varies drastically.
I haven’t looked on there, but the one that continues to evade me (for obvious reasons) is Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster.
That was the first one I ever watched! And my first Godzilla movie, too.
“Water, the source of all Godzilla movies.”
The issue with the rights to that one is because they belong(ed) to the recently passed supercollector Wade Williams, who loved this film enough that in the late 70s, he hired some people from ILM to help him to make model shots to replace the instances of V2 stock footage in it (which are, of course, jarringly different from the rocket design seen elsewhere, and one of the many shortcuts Lippert and co made in the rush to get it into theaters before D-M)
Those weren't in the version the MST guys riffed, but Williams was majorly pissed regardless and kept the fees for renewing the rights to broadcast/release the episode deliberately insurmountable. Now that he's passed, it's anybody's guess who has the rights now and if they're any more amenable to the idea
As I was reading this article, I was thinking of my buried-in-storage copy of CineMagic #1 (published by Starlog!) with Rocketship X-M on the cover, detailing Williams' effects work for what may have amounted to the first "Special Edition."
As an engineer, I love DESTINATION MOON, but there's a point at the start that really bugs me.
A first attempt to launch a satellite fails (it's hinted that this was foreign sabotage but this is never followed up on) but it's decided that since they are certain that rocket was perfect and the launch SHOULD have worked, they don't actually need to prove this and can jump straight to the moon rocket. That's not how it works!
They also gloss over how the rocket is going to return to Earth, showing a graphic of the entire vehicle descending via a parachute. That would have had to be one gigantic parachute. But this is just nit picking.
There's a bit at the end I particularly love, when Earth tells them the rocket is still too heavy to return and a character says "You could be wrong, couldn't you?" only to be told "I could, but I don't think the computer could!".