MovieChat Forums > The Lost Missile Discussion > Why couldn't the aliens aboard stop the ...

Why couldn't the aliens aboard stop the thing?

posted 15 years ago by hobnob53
7 replies | jump to latest

It's established that the titular missile was passing peacefully by Earth when the Commies, believing it to be a sneak attack, launched a counter-missile against it that instead of destroying it knocked it into its killer low Earth orbit.

It's also postulated, pretty reasonably, that there's probably an alien crew aboard, though this is never established. However, an unmanned -- unaliened? -- rocket of its size streaking through space would seem to be unlikely.

Besides, its engine is burning -- which it normally wouldn't be, cruising in space. This would infer somebody's at the on/off switch.

Anyway, if there were indeed aliens aboard, why didn't they halt the missile? Let's say the craft had suffered damage from the Soviet missile attack and the crew couldn't control its course or climb back out into space. Couldn't they have shut it down -- turned off the engines? Just done something -- maneuvering, shutting down the engines, anything -- to have stopped or at least slowed the missile.

Robert Loggia and Phillip Pine, the only two scientists who speak up during the conference, think it's a hydrogen-powered craft. Would this mean that its engine could run indefinitely? Wouldn't it at some point run out of fuel and crash? It seems to be burning up fuel at a huge rate.

Finally, why does this rocket come to be called the lost missile? It's not "lost". Redirected, yes. A mystery to us, yes. But not lost. But then, calling the film The Mysterious Redirected Missile sounds like a Hardy Boys adventure.

[–] meowlin 15 years ago

>>However, an unmanned -- unaliened? -- rocket of its size streaking through space would seem to be unlikely.<<

Why? What was its original mission? Where was it going? When did it need to be there? Unless you can answer those questions, you can't really make any assumptions about it.

>>Besides, its engine is burning -- which it normally wouldn't be, cruising in space. This would infer somebody's at the on/off switch.<<

Not necessarily. Maybe it was launched at point A, and left to accelerate until it got to point X, where it would receive a transmitted order to shut off (or reverse thrust & decelerate), getting it to point Z on schedule. Except that it was intercepted at point E (Earth) by the "locals." So it never got the shut-down command.

>>Anyway, if there were indeed aliens aboard, why didn't they halt the missile? Let's say the craft had suffered damage from the Soviet missile attack and the crew couldn't control its course or climb back out into space. Couldn't they have shut it down -- turned off the engines? Just done something -- maneuvering, shutting down the engines, anything -- to have stopped or at least slowed the missile.<<

If there were aliens aboard, maybe the damage from the Soviet anti-missile killed them.

>>Robert Loggia and Phillip Pine, the only two scientists who speak up during the conference, think it's a hydrogen-powered craft. Would this mean that its engine could run indefinitely? Wouldn't it at some point run out of fuel and crash? It seems to be burning up fuel at a huge rate. <<

That's probably confused/mistaken terminology on the part of the screenplay writer(s), influenced by the interchangeability of the terms "hydrogen" and "nuclear" when talking about bombs. The "Lost" missile was a nuclear-powered ramjet - I realize they don't exactly say this in the movie, but if you check out http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html, the weapon discussed there bears some physical resemblance to the "lost" missile, and considerable resemblance in its effect on the environment if flies over, as well as the fact that its "fuel" is, for all practical purposes, inexhaustible. I don't know if the writer(s) knew about this weapon project, or if they came up with, essentially, the same idea independently.

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[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

All I said was that a rocket of its size being unmanned would seem unlikely. I didn't assume anything, and in fact allowed that it might be unmanned; but the point of the post is why, if the craft were manned, the crew aboard didn't do something to stop or at least control it. That's not an assumption, just speculation based on the notion (one of many possible ones) that this was the case. Since no one can answer the questions you pose, any discussion about the missile, its possible crew, or its mechanics, is all hypothesis, though not strictly speaking "assumption".

The crew might have been killed in the Soviet attack, but I think this unlikely, as the craft itself, while deflected onto its deadly course, remained completely intact. They might have been injured or knocked out, for that matter. In fact, they might have been in a state of suspended animation, a la 2001, which would have made sense on a long flight, and so were never aware of what had happened to them. Or they might really have been unable to do anything -- stop it, slow it down, even self-destruct -- just because the mechanisms had been damaged. Just fun scenarios to play around with.

Frankly, I tend to think of it as an umanned craft, not because of anything in the film, which might actually argue in favor of a crew, but because as a plot point a relentless, untouchable, soulless mechanical thing is much more scary, since there's no one aboard you can deal with.

[–] meowlin 15 years ago

>>Frankly, I tend to think of it as an umanned craft... because as a plot point a relentless, untouchable, soulless mechanical thing is much more scary, since there's no one aboard you can deal with.<<

Agreed on that.

And, in the context of the plot, the characters know nothing about where it came from, who sent it, or whether anybody's on board they could deal with or not, or - if so - how to contact them -- they only know that they don't have time to find answers to those questions.

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[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Right, and this inablity to actually know anything, as opposed to the scientists' various speculations, is I think actually a strong plot development. I rather like the idea that for once no one really knows what's going on -- and that they never do find out -- which is probably closer to a potential real-life situation than is the usual sci-fi scenario where the scientists figure everything out and deal with it accordingly.

Here, besides its being a strong plot point, their lack of knowledge winds up being almost incidental -- they simply see the missile's danger, and focus on the rudimentary problem of destroying it, without the questions of its power source, purpose, origin, or possibly being manned coming into play except as meaningless (in the immediate context) and theoretical issues.

[–] meowlin 15 years ago

>>they never do find out -- which is probably closer to a potential real-life situation than is the usual sci-fi scenario where the scientists figure everything out and deal with it accordingly.<<

Agreed on that too. That's one of the reasons why this movie made such an impression on me back in the '50s, and why I still like it today.

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[–] omega2064 14 years ago

Or perhaps like in Assignment Outer Space the crew was long dead.

If they werent then its safe to assume they were killed by the detonation of the Russian missile.

But it is left totally unanswered in the movie. Imagine whatever you want.

Alien weapon, Robot probe. Dead aliens, Aliens trapped on a runaway ship unable to stop its deadly circle of the earth. Etc.

[–] The_Dying_Flutchman 11 years ago

I imagine that it was sent from Watts to tempt the earth into destroying itself cuz that's all this tripe is worth, exactly not much.

Significance is the popsicle of a melting mind.