MovieChat Forums > The Lost Missile Discussion > Who would launch such a thing?

Who would launch such a thing?

posted 17 years ago by sjpagliuca
7 replies | jump to latest

Possible real-world inspiration for this film: See Project Pluto aka SLAM aka the Flying Crowbar. We have met the evil space-aliens and they is us.

[–] LaPalonis 17 years ago

In the movie there was no doubt that it came from another planet.

Sorry to disappoint your paranoia.

[–] sjpagliuca 17 years ago

'Tain't "paranoia", McGee: the U.S. considered deploying a craft with a strikingly similar m-o. Before being scrubbed, the project got far enough along that a full-scale nuclear ramjet motor that was powerful enough to push this large, very heavy vehicle at supersonic speed at low altitude was successfully tested. This movie and weapon appearing in the same era made me wonder if one inspired creation of the other. An early-90s issue of Air and Space Smithsonian features an engrossing story about this machine.

[–] bdl7431 17 years ago

Hi - See my comment - Project Pluto originated about a year before the movie. One thing - it may of been classified - in fact, I suspect it WAS highly classified - and given the lag between movie production and release - say a year - I think it is coincidential. But it IS weird.....

[–] meowlin 15 years ago

>>See Project Pluto aka SLAM aka the Flying Crowbar.<<

http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html

>>We have met the evil space-aliens and they is us.<<

Indeed.

Then again, in the context of the movie, the "space aliens" may not have been so evil. Originally, the missile was cruising through the neighborhood at a safe altitude (and probably a safer temperature, being in thinner or no atmosphere), when the Russians tried to shoot it down and succeeded only in shooting it... lower.

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[–] babettegillette 14 years ago

Had to be an errant weapon of another planet's war. An alien crew on board would have been able to detect the incoming Russian missile and destroyed it.

[–] omega2064 14 years ago

Not necessarily. Theres no reason to assume the ship had external weapons since it had the energy shield protecting it. The thing may well have been preparing for braking and re-entry with whatever passed for crew preoccupied when the Russian missile intercepted it. The blast killing them since it seems to just be orbiting un-guided after that.

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

[–] jonbecker03 13 years ago

i get the impression that the missile was similar to the alien machine in the star trek series that had been used in an interstellar war and then "escaped" from the control of its inventors. this machine (in essence a very sophisticated drone) then went careening through space, destroying solar system after solar system, before encountering the uss enterprise. as for the question of,"who launched 'the last missile'?," i think the answer is obvious. the "lost missile" was launched by the same people who created the weapon from the star trek episode. (ha ha.)
Jonathan Becker