This movie needs to be completely digitally remastered for Blu-Ray
I would love to see this film completely fully digitally remastered in beautiful Technicolor, and then released on Blu-Ray.
Dejael
The 2000 Image DVD still in print does suffer from a couple of small but noticeable cuts and others issues. It's good but not as good as it should be. Earlier VHS versions actually had a slightly different print of the film with its own (but different) sound and picture issues. Combining the best elements of each would result in a complete print of optimum quality but I don't know if anyone will ever try to get a better source print, let alone release it on Blu-ray or even standard DVD. Wade Williams is not noted for his respectful treatment of the films he controls, notably Rocketship X-M.
My fantasy is a Criterion set of these two films plus a couple of other early 50s sci-fi classics, all neatly remastered and complete. But I hold little hope for any such development, or even a decent upgrade, anytime soon.
I agree, this milestone film, the first major science fiction film of the 1950s, in beautiful Technicolor, does need to be preserved with a state-of-the-art archival digital master which could then be used to master a Blu-Ray release. If Wade Williams III is not interested, then perhaps he will allow a film archivist or foundation like AFI to oversee the work, since this film is of vital historical significance. It is light-years better than ROCKETSHIP X-M, which is now so severely dated that it is now not credible at all. George Pal's film was made as realistic as possible to show American Industry that a rocket to the moon was not only possible, but practical, in the not-too-distant future, and was a main talking point in Washington D.C. in the early 1950s which contributed to the foundation of NASA in 1958.
Archiving it will also be a fine tribute to George Pal, Irving Pichel, Chesley Bonestell, Leith Stevens, and many other craftsmen associated with this excellent film.
Dejael
I agree with all you say about DM, but have to respectfully disagree about RXM.
While I prefer Destination Moon, Rocketship X-M actually has improved in many people's opinions. Sure, it's dated -- though, to be fair, so has DM -- but most of that is due to technological advances unforeseen (or not foreseen accurately) in 1950. RXM actually got at least two technical aspects correct that DM did not -- that the rocket would first orbit Earth, to boost its escape velocity, and that it would be a staged rocket, not the entire ship making the trip.
Also, because George Pal strove for scientific accuracy and derived his drama from that foundation, the film has both the strengths and weaknesses of that approach. It's stronger because it's more realistic. But cinematically, this weakens the film somewhat because such dramatics become less persuasive as technology moves ahead of what the film depicts. In RXM, drama (or, more properly, melodrama) drives the narrative. This actually helps the film because, despite its scientific lapses, the story relies primarily on human interactions, which are more of a constant and therefore remain more "real" to most viewers.
It must also be said that RXM has an excellent cast (better, overall, than DM's, of whose cast members I am very fond), a beautiful score in its own right and superb black & white cinematography by the great Karl Struss. Also, despite its greater reliance on "science fiction" trappings, in its way it's something of a "message" picture, with its downbeat ending and warning about the dangers of nuclear warfare. This is in large part the work of its uncredited screenwriter, none other than the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, one of the finest in the business at the time...though director Kurt Neumann is given the writing credit. There's a lot of serious stuff going on behind the outward events in the film.
One thing I find curious is that both films state that a major reason for going to the Moon is to use it for military purposes. What's interesting is the way in which this proposition is dealt with in each film. In DM, General Thayer says, "There is absolutely no way to stop an attack from outer space. The first nation that can use the Moon for the launching of missiles will control the Earth," a rather militant pronouncement. In RXM, the same point is made, but from a more pacific view: "Today, there is even the possibility of establishing an unassailable base on the Moon to control world peace," as it's put by Dr. Ekstrom. One looking to use it for war, the other, to keep the peace. This seems to reflect the ideological sensibilities of the conservative Robert Heinlein vs. the liberal Trumbo.
Anyway, I share your admiration for DM. I run a classic film each Thursday during ther summer, and when I ran the movie eight years ago my initially skeptical audience loved it, and talked to me about it for days afterward. So I don't take second place to anyone in my liking of the movie; it's in my top five favorites. But I very much like RXM, a fine film in its own right. I leave with a quote from an article on the movie by the late Tom Reamy, a fine writer on science fiction films. While discussing in detail the film's scientific and dramatic shortcomings, he also praises the actors, dialogue, and the decision to shoot in the Mojave Desert as "far more suitable than a set," and writes:
"It is really a surprisingly good film to be a self-confessed imitation of an excellent one....Rocketship X-M is an honest, serious film with something to say. It is even better in some ways...than Destination Moon. Its successes far outweigh its failures, and its second-class citizenship is undeserved."
I do appreciate your comments about both films, which have been made by others I have known such as my associate Robert Skotak, but I still see RXM as a lesser effort, very badly dated now, mostly due to its low budget, lackluster production design, antiquated sets, props and costumes, and dodgy dialogue, made on a budget of less than $100,000 with a shooting schedule of 7 days. I did a transcript of an interview with Lloyd Bridges and he said he was on the film for only 5 shooting days, and the picture was wrapped up in one week.
By contrast, almost everything we see in DM was made specifically for the production, and in 1950, was very futuristic in design. Both films have their strengths and weaknesses, but a scientific audience I was with on a screening at the Planetary Society at JPL in Pasadena kept laughing at RXM, but when we watched DM, the only laughter I heard was when the Woody Woodpecker cartoon was playing.
DM is a film which scientists and engineers could take seriously in the 1950s, and that's why it inspired a generation of young people to go into the hard sciences and NASA.
George Pal managed to make his half-million-dollar budget look like more than a million or two, and the film still works well today, and was prophetic in some scenes of the Apollo 11 Moon Mission 19 years later, such as the claiming of the Moon for the USA for the benefit of all Mankind.
Dejael
I've read many things Mr. Skotak has said, including his high regard for another low-budget favorite of mine, The Man From Planet X, and I've found his commentary to be considered and intelligent.
I don't agree that the fact that RXM was made on a low budget (I believe $94,000) in itself makes it a bad, or badly dated, picture. The fact that the film was shot in a week is utterly irrelevant; this kind of thing was the norm for that budget range in that era, and quality is not solely dependent on money or, certainly, shooting schedules. (Yes, low budgets and quick shooting schedules have contributed to the poor quality of many films, but big budgets and long shoots hardly insure either quality or success, as scores of modern films attest.)
Again, while I too like DM better, it's also dated very badly in many respects. The fact that it adheres to scientific knowledge much more scrupulously than RXM is a mitigating factor, but in its details DM is as badly dated as its rival. Many of the same factors you cite -- sets, props, costumes, and dialogue -- as drawbacks in RXM are equally dodgy about DM. Much of it is stilted and even a bit slow.
Of course professionals at JPL would find DM a more serious film and view it more favorably, compared to RXM; all that proves is that, as professionals, they appreciated its relative scientific accuracy over any other aspects. Pal meant his film to be taken seriously on a scientific level, but he also sought to entertain. RXM never had any pretensions to scientific accuracy; it was intended as entertainment, yet it also wound up carrying a cultural message.
Both films also end on a note of triumph, but while in DM this was realized in a conventional manner -- the men overcome last-minute problems and return alive and successful -- RXM manages the same note by far more difficult means, after the crew is all killed and the ship crashes. It's easy to project "the beginning" born of success, but to say that progress will be realized even from the ashes of death and destruction is a much more difficult theme to put across. Yet RXM does it.
I don't agree that the planting of the flag on the moon in DM is in any way "prophetic"; what gesture has man committed so regularly since exploration began? If you seek prophecy, see the very low-budget Project Moonbase (1953), based on a story by Heinlein. He not only comes close to the date of the first moon landing (1970), the craft he envisioned looked remarkably like the real LEM that landed 16 years later. In those senses he was far more on the mark than he was with Destination Moon.
I also don't really agree that Pal made his $550,000 budget look like "more than a million or two". Not to quibble, but a million, maybe; more than that, not really. It's interesting you raised this aspect, because after my last post I thought about the same issue. I think that, on $94,000, Lippert managed both a film that looked costlier than that (maybe $150,000) and incorporated a lot of quality, in cast, story, score and other matters.
While the two films are frequently compared owing to their trailblazing status and the nature of their origins, in fact each takes very a different tack in its plot and intention. Rocketship X-M may have begun as a commercial vehicle designed to cash in on the pre-publicity avalanche for its more prestigious competitor, but it went its own way and never pretended to be merely a cheap knock-off of a more expensive (and better) film. It has its own merits and on its level works just as well as Destination Moon.
Your comments are well taken and considered.
One thing I really do like about RXM is the marvelous music score by Ferde Grofe. How Lippert managed to hire him to do this score is a real mystery, and a fait accompli. Another is the Martian artifacts and ruins found on Mars, and the red sepiatone color while they are on Mars. However, RXM is more closely related to the 1930s sci-fi action serials like FLASH GORDON and BUCK ROGERS than it is with modern rockets and space travel.
Robert Skotak was part of the team that "restored" RXM in 1980 with better visual effects, which were a great improvement over stock footage of Dr. von Braun's V-2 missile tests at White Sands.
Dejael
Dejael,
I don't know how I missed your reply from last September, but don't recall getting a notification of it. Anyway....
Thank you for your comments. Re Rocketship X-M, I also agree with you about Ferde Grofé's score, which is really quite stunning. Did you know the soundtrack is available on CD? (As is that of Destination Moon: I have threads with full details on both CDs on this site and RXM's.) Robert Lippert went to Grofé to get someone different from the usual Hollywood B-movie music composer, and as a way of adding some prestige to his project. Lippert could only offer him $5000, and there are conflicting stories about precisely what Grofé said. One version has it he told Lippert that for that price he could only write the basic score but not orchestrate it, which is why you see Albert Glasser credited for his arrangements; but it's also said that the orchestration notes are in Grofé's hand, meaning he did all the work. Regardless, it's his score.
I've also always thought that the artifacts they discover on Mars were an incredibly creative, thoughtful and unique touch. The ruined Martian city is also very well done, and the red tint adds to the illusion. Considering these scenes were filmed in Death Valley, what's amazing is that they're completely convincing in summoning the image of another world. The lunar landscape created for DM is remarkable (and Oscar-nominated), but each method of depicting an alien world works for its movie.
However, I differ sharply with you over Skotak's special effects, or should I say, Wade Williams's. (I'm glad you put "restored" in quotes because you cannot "restore" something that never existed in the first place.) Williams bought the rights to this movie because he claimed he loved it so much, then promptly turned around and began mauling it by inserting his own ideas of special effects, cutting out whole portions of the film in the process. The present DVD has only brief insert shots in three places of these new effects, all as you said replacing the V-2 stock footage: taking off (which uses real footage of a nighttime rocket launch) and the landing on and departure from Mars, using Williams's effects. But originally Williams had lots of other footage inserted into the film -- of the ship in space, several of the scenes on Mars (using doubles for the actors), and a couple of others. These were on some VHS and early DVD releases. They were all finally removed but the V-2 replacement footage remains.
I'm a great believer in leaving films as they were made: that means no colorization, no changing the dialogue or digitally inserting new visuals, nothing altered or edited, and no new invented footage, especially when actual footage of the original is cut out for it. I want Rocketship X-M as it was made, warts and all, not some fast-buck artist's personal whims stuck into someone else's work. Williams screwed around with a few other films and has been a great bane in the film world for his high-handed destructiveness.
Thankfully he and others have left Destination Moon alone. But this film desperately needs a proper restoration.