Metaluna IV doesn't answer

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Movie
German title Metaluna IV doesn't answer
Original title This Island Earth
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1955
length 87 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Joseph M. Newman
Jack Arnold (anonymous)
script Franklin Coen
Edward G. O'Callaghan
production William Alland
music Henry Mancini
Hans J. Salter
Herman Stein (all unnamed)
camera Clifford Stine
cut Virgil bird
occupation

The American science fiction film Metaluna IV Doesn't Answer was directed by Joseph M. Newman . The film was shown in German cinemas for the first time on December 25, 1956 . Metaluna IV Doesn't Answer is about aliens who have landed on Earth and need the help of Earthly scientists.

action

The nuclear scientist Dr. Jack Meacham flies to his research station in a US Air Force jet . Shortly before landing, his machine becomes uncontrollable and threatens to crash when a strange green light envelops the aircraft. As if by magic, the jet is landed without Meacham's intervention. When he arrives at the station, the next surprise awaits him. Parts that his assistant ordered did not arrive; instead, better, miniaturized parts were sent by a mysterious department. Nobody seems to know this department. At first Meacham still believes in a joke by his colleagues. But then he gets instructions in the form of a book several hundred pages thick, the pages of which are made of metal. Meacham sends another request and receives a bunch of large boxes full of electronics. Meacham gets to work with his assistant and puts together a machine whose function he can only puzzle over.

When the machine, with a large triangular screen protruding from it, is finished, it turns out to be some kind of all-purpose device, as well as a means of communication. A mysterious man named Exeter reports on this device and tells Meacham that he has passed an aptitude test by assembling the "Interozitor".

Meacham is interested in more information, but Exeter does not reveal it; instead he invites Meacham to come and see him in Georgia , where he will find out more. Meacham is then picked up by an unmanned aircraft of which he is the only passenger.

Once in Georgia, Dr. Meacham from his former girlfriend, Dr. Ruth Adams, picked up, who is acting strangely. Upon arriving at Exeter's lab, Meacham discovers that the world's brightest minds are gathered here. Lauter Nobel laureate working on a secret project that Exeter has initiated. Meacham decides to stay and work on the project. However, he soon realizes that something cannot be right. Events roll over and it quickly becomes clear that Exeter and its staff are extraterrestrials who are on Earth for a purpose. Meacham, Adams and Steve Carlson try to escape, but what is discovered by Exeter and his coworker Brack. While trying to escape, Carlson is killed by rays that Brack sends out using the interocitor. Dr. Meacham and Dr. Adams are kidnapped by the aliens, the house with the laboratories and the other scientists are blown up to cover up the traces.

During the flight in Exeter's spaceship, he explains his true mission to the two people: He comes from the planet Metaluna far outside the solar system, and in order to survive the war with Zhargon, an overpowering enemy, they need Meacham's knowledge of the production of synthetic uranium to maintain the radioactive, planetary protective shield. What Exeter does not know, however, is that Monitor, Exeter's boss, intends to relocate the people of Metaluna to Earth. In the context of this resettlement, he wants to prevent complications with the people by trying to take away their free will by means of “thought transformation”. When Exeter notices this, he helps the two people to escape instead of bringing them under the Thought Shifter. On the way to the spaceship there is a fight with a mutant who was used as a worker on Metaluna; Exeter is seriously injured.

Than the spaceship with the three on board Island Earth leave the planet will again attacked massively from the Zhargonern and meteor strikes destroyed. While Exeter is fleeing to Earth with the two humans, another attack by a mutant occurs on board the spaceship. However, the mutant dies from the changing air mixture on board before it can cause further damage.

The fatally injured Exeter manages to bring Meacham and Adams back to Earth. After both of them have left the spaceship, he throws himself into the sea with his spacecraft.

title

English-language reviews unanimously praise the original title This Island Earth . The German title Metaluna IV does not answer, however, seems quite silly. However, he is in the tradition of many science fiction titles in which someone "not responding": He probably was based on the early and successful German science fiction film responds FP1 not of 1932 selected. In 1960 a science fiction film co-produced in the GDR and Poland appeared in the FRG under the title Raumschiff Venus does not answer (in the GDR: The Silent Star ), which incidentally does not use music from Metaluna IV answers without authorization . In addition, The Angry Red Planet launched in Germany in the same year as the spacecraft MR-1 gives no answer . Finally, there is a radio play from 1969 entitled Spaceship UX3 does not answer , a Perry Rhodan booklet called Gom does not answer and the 1975 film New York no longer answers (in the original: The Ultimate Warrior ). The alien planet is called Metaluna; Metaluna IV appears to be a station on the planet.

Others

  • The film is based on the novel The Alien Machine by Raymond F. Jones , who in 1956 as Utopia -Großband no. 37 under the title island between the stars appeared [1]
  • Director Jack Arnold is not mentioned in the titles, but shot scenes .
  • Faith Domergue's space suit, which she wore on board the spaceship, was so skin-tight that an assistant had to help her with putting on and taking off her pants and she couldn't wear underwear.
  • The film also ran under the alternative title War of the Planets .
  • The film served as the basis for the cult comedy Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie .
  • In the film The End of an Odyssey from the science fiction series Battle Star Galactica , a scene from Metaluna IV does not answer and is somewhat skeptically referred to as 'entertainment' by the pilot Troy.
  • In the film Explorers - A Fantastic Adventure you can also see a short scene from Metaluna IV does not answer . Here the re-entry into the earth's atmosphere after the visit to Metaluna was inserted in the background of a TV program when Ben climbs up on the roof to admire the stars.
  • In the film Looney Tunes: Back in Action , a section takes place in a facility in which various aliens are housed for research purposes. One of them is a mutant of Metaluna.

Reviews

"Naive imagination with a lot of technical clutter."

- 6000 films. Critical notes from the cinema years 1945 to 1958. Handbook V of the Catholic film criticism. 3. Edition. Verlag Haus Altenberg, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 303.

“As naive as the film's political message may sound, it is stylistically clear and very excitingly staged. The decorations of the planet Metaluna, which give the film an avant-garde accent, are breathtakingly beautiful and strange. The mixture between the trivial B-film and avant-garde magic in the distant universe gives the film its special charm. "

- Lexikon des Internationale Films , original edition, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag 1987, p. 2573.

“One of the most fascinating SF films of the fifties, another form of close encounter of the third kind with a dramatic outcome. The pyrotechnic effects in this film are particularly superbly staged ... "

- Science Fiction Club Germany , quoted from Hahn / Jansen, Lexikon des Science Fiction Film, p. 350.

“Our reality of technical-scientific progress with space rockets and artificial terrestrial satellites, which in many cases already borders on the uncanny, forces the authors of utopian film stories into ever more fantastic capers of the fantastic ... Neither the book nor the director have seriously thought through and logically polished this story ... More demanding viewers are becoming therefore it is easy to get annoyed by the nonsense, but may be impressed naive ones after all. An overstimulation of the imagination or the nerves is to be feared for children. "

- Film service, quoted from Hahn / Jansen

literature

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