The planet Zyra and the star Bellus are hurtling toward Earth! Zyra will pass close enough to cause chaos on Earth ("1:00 on the afternoon of July 24," to be precise)... There will be tidal waves! Eruptions! Nineteen days later Bellus will collide with Earth and destroy us all! After this discovery is made by a scientist in South Africa, our dashing star, David, a mere courier, is hired to fly the data to the American scientist Dr. Hendron. Dr. Hendron's scientist daughter Joyce is immediately smitten with David, eventually dumps her fiance, and sets off the love story portion of the movie. Dr. Hendron, meanwhile, is laughed at by the scientific community when he makes his information public. He ignores the laughter, though, and sets off to build a rocket that will take about 40 lucky people away from Earth before the star hits and land them on Zyra, where they hope to start a new colony for the survival of our culture.
Just look at their rocket...
What to say about this movie? One thought I had as I watched was that an interesting drinking game might involve drinking something each time you can identify anything about this movie that seems to have led to something in a current disaster movie. Maybe someone else can work out the details.
The other big thought I had is that this is probably just one step away from being a perfect Mystery Science Theater movie. I certainly sounded like I was on Mystery Science Theater while I was watching it. Hopefully I wasn't too annoying!
burlap space suits...
I really cannot give this movie more than one star, but I can totally imagine watching it again. Thank you so much to my dad for buying (!) this movie and lending it to me.
(Why??? Why are people currently in pre-production talking about a 2008 remake of this movie??? Did someone feel it is important to remake it without the burlap space suits?)
