Watch When Worlds Collide For Free

Simply Perfect

Nice effects though.

hyped garbage

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

You maybe familiar with the story, as it has been parodied endlessly in cartoons and other forms of popular culture. An astronomer discovers that the Earth is on a collision course with another star. Despite all the warnings he gives, nobody believes him except for a billionaire tycoon, whose solely invested in his own preservation. Together with pilot David Randall(Richard Derr) and a group of builders, they set about constructing a rocketship that will jettison them to safety on a new planet, and restart the human race.When Worlds Collide is directed by Rudolph Maté, and he does a good job of making the circumstance and story feel real enough that the audience doesn't role their eyes at all the Sci-Fi mumbo jumbo. The film was made In 1951 and won the Oscar for best visual effects, and it's easy to see why. The film looks fantastic in all its technicolor glory. The simplistic design of the ship has helped the ageing of the film, even when it's plain to see the miniature sets and where the rocket is held up by two pieces of string. The film does have a few Issues though. It's essentially a modern take on Noah's Ark, and there are moments where it does get preachy. Also the characters have next too no personality save for the main character played by Richard Derr. This is a very plot driven film, all-most nothing else seems to matter. There are a-lot of dull scenes of people talking in a room that leads nowhere. This unfortunately makes the film more forgettable especially in a time period where Science Fiction was hugely popular.

There were some great science fiction movies coming out of the Fifties, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) and "Forbidden Planet" (1956) are ones that immediately come to mind. Contrary to what a host of reviewers on this board have to say, I don't think this was one of them. With a title like "When Worlds Collide", I expected a bit more colliding in the movie than actually occurred. Most of the story had to do with preparatory work to get ready for the eventual destruction of Earth by a runaway star and it's orbiting planet, or vice versa as the case may be. Inserted into the picture was a romantic triangle of sorts that managed to work itself out over the course of the story, but it's not something I'm interested in watching a sci-fi flick. Don't get me wrong, the movie isn't terrible by any means, for example it doesn't approach "First Spaceship on Venus" territory. But when you have a film that conjures up an image of destruction on a massive scale it ought to deliver something along those lines. If only the script had used the word 'azimuth' in any of the scientific calculations coming out of the differential analyzer, I could have thrown in a bonus point in my rating of the picture. Instead, Dr. Tony Drake (Peter Hansen) had this weird patch of brown in the back of his otherwise full head of black hair. Never mind, those two items cross each other out.

I found myself wondering why it wasn't getting pretty darn hot on earth? It didn't seem to be. But - shouldn't it have been? I mean, the story tells us that there's a star - A STAR! - approaching the earth that's eventually going to collide with our planet and destroy us. A STAR!! Well, stars are pretty darn hot, you know. But as this one gets close to earth, our little blue planet doesn't really seem to heat up. I mean, this star called Bellus is called at one point a "giant star" - even though it's described as only a dozen times bigger than the earth, which actually makes it a lot smaller than the sun as well as a few of the larger planets in our solar system. But surely it would still be hot - if only because it's a star! Oh well. Go figure.It's 50's sci-fi. You can't take it too seriously. Some call this a sci-fi classic. I wouldn't go that far. In fact, I didn't even think it was especially good. Certainly, I've seen 50's sci-fi stuff that was more enjoyable. The attempts at science really threw me. When Bellus and its planet Zyra are discovered, it was noted that they had moved a million miles in two weeks. Which doesn't really seem that fast to me in interstellar terms. I wondered how this star approaching our solar system could have gone unnoticed until it was only three billion miles away (which would have put it well within the bounds of our own solar system.) A lot just seemed pretty strange. Of course, it might have just been that George Pal and his pals who made this realized that your average movie goer in 1951 probably wasn't all that up on astronomy, so they figured they could get away with it. It just bothered me all the way through, though.So, basically, this is a doomsday movie - and it's even introduced with a reference to the story of Noah and the ark from the Bible. And it's replete with the scepticism that always surrounds doomsday preachers, with good reason since they've all been wrong so far. But Dr. Hendron isn't wrong. He knows. Bellus will crush us unless we figure out a way to - well - get out of the way. So, conveniently, Bellus has this planet Zyra that might be able to support human life, so - what the heck - even though we only have a few months we'll build a giant spaceship and transport a few dozen people (and some puppies to make the little boy who hitched a ride happy) to this new world. OK. For the most part, everyone seems pretty calm about the coming apocalypse, although there is some panic at the end, and there was no real logic to how people were selected to be among the few dozen. Aside from a handful of hand picked folks, everybody else was just drawn by lot. There's a romance involved in this - because the end of the world should never get in the way of love - and it's passing strange that flying from Earth to Zyra is a little bit like flying from New York to Chicago - just get in your seat, fasten your seatbelt, and enjoy the ride. No word on whether there were complimentary snacks along the way.No. I didn't care much for this. 50's Sci-fi classic? Meh. I've seen better. To give credit where credit is due, though, I did like the special effects. I thought the scenes in which a major city (New York?) was flooded was quite well done. I did think they could have done a little better with the depiction of the surface of Zyra though. I waited through to the end, confident that they'd make it to Zyra and hoping to get a glimpse of what the new world would look like - and as it turned out it looked like it was painted on a canvass by a 7 year old. (3/10)

Though the great space race between America and the U.S.S.R. was still a number of years away, the fact that space travel was a real possibility fuelled audiences desire for sci-fi that was rooted in scientific theory. I emphasise the word theory as the science behind the Golden Age of sci-fi was generally rather loopy, though the films were happy to make heroes of scientists. They were no more self-isolated lunatics cooking up destructive experiments or digging up corpses to make a monster, but wise, goateed intellectuals, or square-jawed protégées capable of saving humanity from any potential threats. Of course, the 1950's mainly gave us rubber-suited aliens or giant, mutated monsters, but there were a few directors and producers that were aiming to give the audience a more satisfying, thoughtful experience, such as Rudolph Mate's When Worlds Collide.After scientists discover that there are a pair of rogue planets hurtling towards Earth, pilot David Randall (Richard Derr) is given the task of delivering the information to New York for further research. When Dr. Cole Hendron (Larry Keating) confirms the fear, the news is brought to the attention of the United Nations, where they are laughed out as crackpots. It is believed that the first planet will pass so close to the Earth, it will cause devastating damage, only return from its orbit of the Sun to destroy Earth completely. With the help of Sydney Stanton (John Hoyt), who provides the funds, Hendron and his colleagues begin work on a spacecraft that will transport a small band of survivors to the second planet, which they believe is habitable and will remain on a stable orbit.Rather than giving us special-effects filled set-pieces or killer aliens, When Worlds Collide entirely focuses on humanity's reaction to potential catastrophe. The story is an obvious parable of Noah's Ark, with God venting his fury upon the Earth he saw as fallen into sin, and this theme comes to fruition near towards the end as a lottery-system is drafted to choose who stays and who goes, with the inevitable violent rebellion of those facing death. This harsh depiction of the human race was the most intriguing idea the film had, which makes it sad that the film-makers failed to capitalise on it, instead focuses on a dull love story between Randall, Hendron's daughter Joyce (Barbara Rush) and Dr. Tony Drake (Peter Hansen).The film was successful and went to be hugely influential in the genre, but it is held back from being anything great by some gaping plot-holes, lazy plot devices, and some erratic special effects. It took home to Academy Awards for Special Effects, but the new world reveal at the climax is a rather hastily painted backdrop, ruining any sense of wonder the ending may have provided. There is plenty of fun to be had with When Worlds Collide and gave many future writers and directors to think about, but producer George Pal funded better and more satisfying sci-fi in The War of the Worlds (1953) and The Time Machine (1960).www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com