Damn the bureaucracy of government oversight – space travel is the patriotic duty of America’s entrepreneurs!
Sure, George Pal’s “Destination Moon” (1950) is astonishing for revealing just how much was actually known or conjectured about space at that time. Really, it’s a remarkable film, in terms of scientific accuracy and educated guesswork as to what it would be like to actually travel to the moon. What a long way from Georges Méliès’ vision of being launched out of a cannon in 1902!
But now the film is even more prescient than most of us ever realized, with the conquest of space having fallen to the tycoons and robber barons. Somehow, I think the creators of “Destination Moon” (including Robert A. Heinlein, upon whose story it is based) imagined more altruistic motives. They certainly held a more optimistic vision of humanity. Hence the pronouncement at the end of the film: “This is the end of the beginning!” How wonderful it must have been to live with such hope.
This week on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, we travel back to the future to talk about this genre classic, actually suggested to us by Roy’s dad, who will pop in to share some of his recollections of seeing the film as an impressionable boy. Hang around in the comments section (zero-G, of course) for a discussion of “Destination Moon,” when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., this Friday evening at 7:30 EST!
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