Fantastic Voyage

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the 1966 Sci Fi film classic “Fantastic Voyage” with the all star cast of Stephen Boyd as Grant, Raquel Welch as Cora, Edmond O'Brien as General Carter, Donald Pleasence as Dr. Michaels, Arthur O'Connell as Colonel Donald Reid, William Redfield as Captain Bill Owens and Arthur Kennedy as Dr. Duval.

For those of you who are viewing this film for the very first time you are in for a visual treat. So prepare to be miniaturized to microscopic dimensions as we take a Fantastic Voyage into the inner space of the human body. 

Fantastic Voyage Comicbook

Here is the basic plot line without any major spoilers:

The United States and the Soviet Union have both developed technology that allowed matter to be miniaturized using a process that shrinks individual atoms, but its value is limited. Objects only stay miniaturized for a limited amount of time depending on how much miniaturization the object undergoes.

Scientist Jan Benes, working behind the Iron Curtain, has figured out how to make the shrinking process work indefinitely. With the help of the CIA, he escapes to the West, but an attempted assassination leaves him comatose, with a blood clot in his brain. To save his life, Charles Grant (the agent who extracted him, played by Stephen Boyd), pilot Captain Bill Owens (William Redfield), Dr. Michaels (who is later revealed to have a fear of small spaces, played by Donald Pleasence), surgeon Dr. Peter Duval (Arthur Kennedy) and his assistant Cora Peterson (Raquel Welch) board a specially designed nuclear submarine, the Proteus, which is then miniaturized and injected into Benes. The ship is reduced to one micrometre in length, giving the team only one hour to repair the clot; after that, the submarine will begin to revert to its normal size and become large enough for Benes' immune system to detect and attack.

For those of you who enjoyed this movie and would like to explore the Sci Fi concept of miniaturization further allow me to suggest the following:

Isaac Asimov’s novelisation of the film classic and the novel “Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain”, also written by Isaac Asimov as an attempt to develop and present his own story apart from the 1966 screenplay. This novel is not a sequel to the original, but instead is a separate story taking place in the Soviet Union with an entirely different set of characters.

By far my most favorite novel in this series is Kevin J. Anderson’s “Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm” which is a third interpretation of the Fantastic Voyage Universe published in 2001. This version has the crew of the Proteus explore the body of a dead alien that crash-lands on earth, and updates the story with such modern concepts as nanotechnology (replacing killer white cells).

A comic book adaptation of the film was released by Gold Key Comics in 1967. Drawn by industry legend Wally Wood, the book followed the plot of the movie with general accuracy, but many scenes were depicted differently and/or outright dropped, and the ending was given an epilogue similar as that seen in some of the early draft scripts for the film.

A 3D remake of this “Fantastic Voyage” was slated for release in 2013.And now without further adieu we present the 1966 Sci Fi film classic Fantastic Voyage!!!

Fantastic Voyage is available on DVD from Amazon Books.

Fantastic Voyage (1966) (Watch The Entire Film Here)

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