Geez, does someone actually say that in the film? That's kind of like saying an aircraft carrier is almost as big as an SUV! How inane can you get? I guess Ed Wood wasn't the only one capable of writing unbelieveably bad dialogue thinking it was good.
shareWhen I love a movie from my childhood, as I love this one, I bend over backwards to give it the benefit of the doubt.
In this case, no bending is necessary.
That line was meant as HUMOR.
There is no question of that in my mind. In those days, one was constantly hearing jokes about how big Texas was, and how everything was bigger in Texas (some of the jokes were somewhat risque, too).
In 1958, saying an entire planet was "almost" as big as Texas, was right in line with these "nothing's bigger than Texas" jokes.
In fact, in that very year, a lot of talk was generated about Alaska joining the Union, thus making Texas the SECOND biggest state in the Union. A lot of Texans were not happy about that, and the bragging only intensified. That had to be the inspiration for this line in this 1958 movie, when the size of Texas was a major topic.
You're right, it was obviously another lame "joke" bragging about the size of Texas. There was a similar exchange in ROCKETSHIP X-M (1950), where Hugh O'Brian tells Texan Noah Beery, Jr., that from their vantage point in space Texas would only appear as "a mere speck", which causes Beery to get uppity and warn O'Brian never to let another Texan hear him say that. But later, when they're approaching Mars and O'Brian looks back at the vastly-farther-away Earth through his telescope, he says to Beery, "All right to call Texas a 'mere speck' now?"
shareIn fact, in that very year, a lot of talk was generated about Alaska joining the Union, thus making Texas the SECOND biggest state in the Union. A lot of Texans were not happy about that, and the bragging only intensified.I remember that!
The monster was almost as scary as Bambi
shareFirst of all, you are looking at things from a modern, 21st century perspective. Remember, this was the 1950s and they didn't have the same kind of scientific equipment and precise measuring devices we have today. Back then, if a scientist looked through a telescope, Mars would look pretty tiny. He would more or less just have to guess how big it was. Admittedly, he probably should have said Russia or Bolivia or something.
I wanna buy your carbon offsets.
First of all, the size of Mars was determined long before your precious precision instruments of the 21st century were even dreamt of.
Mars was measured with two ancient precision instruments: A clock and mathematics.
JEEZE IT WAS MEANT AS A JOKE.....THEY HAVE KNOWN FOR SOMETIME HOW BIG MARS IS!
shareYeah it's just a weak cliched joke. And if this movie had been made in the 40s, there would similarly have been some barely intelligible comparison instead to Brooklyn and "toidy toird street". And now I think of it, didn't they do that in "Angry Red Planet", made after this film.
But the screenwriter accidentally backed into a point most movie-viewers miss. Mars is a small world. Looking it up the width of Texas is 1244km, the diameter of Mars is about 6700 km, and Earth diameter is 12715 km. If you could set Earth and Mars on a level, the North Pole of Mars would be roughly level with the north coast of Australia. Most old sci-fi movies instead present Mars as an Earth twin.
Dudes and Dudettes: Texas and Mars are not THAT different in size!
shareWhat I still get a kick out of (ever since I first saw this on CREATURE FEATURES in 1973) was how American rocket science was supposed to become so "advanced" by 1973! Which, in turn, raises the question I would like to sarcastically ask Van Heusen:
"Hey, Van! Why would Carruthers need to kill to compile a ten year-long food supply if Earth can send rockets to Mars every four months?"
LOL!
It should also noted that the monster was defeated - probably because the oppressive Martian government hadn't allowed him to buy a gun.
few visible scars