Last time out we reviewed “Destination Moon,” the seminal George Pal SF film from 1950, the one that really *started* the Science Fiction boom in film sixty years ago. It was a surprise hit that didn’t talk down to it’s audience, and took the “Science” part of Science Fiction seriously. It was co-written by Robert Heinlein, and based on his “Rocket Ship Galileo” novel. Of course George Pal used his unexpected hit as leverage to tell more really ambitious films, many of which we’ll eventually get to here.

But what about Heinlein? What did he parley all the good will from “Destination” in to? Well, later that same year he went on to work for “Tom Corbet, Space Cadet” as a technical advisor, and then wrote a couple episodes of an SF Anthology show, and then he got involved in a new “Hard Science” SF pilot called “Ring Around The Moon” in 1953.

Last time out we reviewed “Destination Moon,” the seminal George Pal SF film from 1950, the one that really *started* the Science Fiction boom in film sixty years ago. It was a surprise hit that didn’t talk down to it’s audience, and took the “Science” part of Science Fiction seriously. It was co-written by Robert Heinlein, and based on his “Rocket Ship Galileo” novel. Of course George Pal used his unexpected hit as leverage to tell more really ambitious films, many of which we’ll eventually get to here.

But what about Heinlein? What did he parley all the good will from “Destination” in to? Well, later that same year he went on to work for “Tom Corbet, Space Cadet” as a technical advisor, and then wrote a couple episodes of an SF Anthology show, and then he got involved in a new “Hard Science” SF pilot called “Ring Around The Moon” in 1953.

I woke up this morning in a vaguely Derek Meddings mood, and wanted to watch something he was involved in. The only thing I had on hand was a copy of “Journey to the Far Side of the Sun”, also known in some markets as “Doppelganger,” so I decided to re-watch that. Of course I’ve seen it a zillion times - this is the kind of B-movie that was late-night gold when I was growing up. Shown infrequently at 3AM on Cable, it’s just a near-perfect example of what’s good and what’s bad about ‘60s SF movies

Recently, “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” was playing down in St. Grissom, and as R2 and I both missed that film in it’s initial release, we decided to check it out. Enchanted by the thought of seeing a ‘new’(ish) Olivier flick, made only 15 years after he died!We knew it was a bomb, but we thought it might be an interesting and memoral bomb - like Blade Runner - and not a bland and pointlessly forgetable bomb - like Armed and Dangerous 2: Armed and Fabulous - so we figured it was a good way to blow an evening.