By Jonathan Klotz | Published
Watch enough science fiction and you’ll come across a few themes that every series deals with And then there were no more Crime bottle episode about evil twins or parallel universes. Among these topics is the recently somewhat forgotten but once popular idea of a miniature journey into the human body.
Long before Mrs. Frizzle drove the magic school bus to one of her students and the Futurama The crew journeyed into Fry’s bowels, Fantastic trip explored the interior of a Soviet defector. The film won multiple awards, featured a star-studded cast, and provided the visual language for every film or television show you’ve seen that enters circulation to this day.
Where no one has been before
Published in 1966, Fantastic trip is a technical marvel. The film’s original trailer heralded it as “a new kind of cinematic experience,” and for once that wasn’t an exaggeration. It was a fact.
To save the life of a Soviet defector named Dr. To rescue Benes, who invented the science of miniaturization, a five-man crew boards the submarine Proteus. The submarine and its crew are then shrunk to the size of a microbe (one-tenth the size of a human cell) and tasked with the mission of removing an inaccessible blood clot.
The journey to their goal takes them through an unknown universe inside the human body. It’s a place full of things never seen before, and they only have an hour to survive.
The crew conducting the dive consists of brain surgeon Dr. Peter Duval (Arthur Kennedy), his assistant Cora (Raquel Welch in her debut role), the circulatory specialist Dr. Michaels (Donald Pleasance), Captain Owens (William Redfield) and the Proteus’ pilot and finally CIA agent Charles Grant (Stephen Boyd). Grant was sent by the United States Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces (CMDF) to make another attempt on Dr. To prevent Benes’ life. And of course that’s exactly what happens.
You only have to look at the cast and you’ll know exactly who the traitor is now, but that was a year before Donald Pleasance debuted as James Bond’s nemesis Blofeld. It was a twist back then.
A trippy visual showcase
A traitor aboard the Proteus adds tension as acts of sabotage arise, but without the Cold War subplot the story could have been about saving a life and that would have been just as good. Fantastic trip is best when the crew explores the inside of Dr. Explores Benes’ body, traversing the circulation through the heart that must be stopped to allow safe passage.
They go into the lungs to collect oxygen, into the ear, and even through the nervous system. Each new body part is another amazing visual playground for the cast to explore, and although the special effects are incredibly rudimentary compared to the VFX showcases of modern blockbusters, “antibodies,” which are clearly thick blobs of thread creatures, a cheesy appeal cast by crew members offscreen.
The backgrounds and visual effects of Proteus traveling through the body were enough Fantastic trip won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects and a second for Best Art Direction, now known as Best Production Design. It was a well-deserved victory, and even with the ’60s special effects, the creepy white blood cells look like monsters from outer space rather than a necessary, functional part of the human body.
A genre-defining film that is a must-see
As groundbreaking and revolutionary as Fantastic trip was visual, it’s the story that finds conflict and danger from the simple act of exploration that helped make it a genre-defining film. Isaac Asimov, one of the greatest science fiction authors of all time, wrote the novelization of the film, which was published before the film. This is what made the audience believe Fantastic trip was an adaptation when the film was actually first developed.
Asimov was a little frustrated with some of the scientific aspects of the film. While acknowledging it in the novel, he wrote a sequel: Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brainthat was scientifically more accurate.
Today, Fantastic trip represents a turning point in science fiction films by exploring a brand new setting that has never been done before on this scale. The story focused on exploration and discovery, something that Hollywood films had already replaced with aliens and monsters. It’s a simple act, but even if there were one No external conflict, the ticking timer of just an hour to complete the mission provided enough tension to keep the whole thing gripping throughout.
You can stream Fantastic trip today via Video on Demand via Amazon Prime, AppleTV, Google PlayAnd Fandango at home. It’s worth a trip.