George Pals’ The Time Machine (1960)

Today on Far Future Horizons we mourn the passing of veteran actor Alan Young, who starred alongside Rod Taylor in George Pal's motion picture adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic science fiction novel “The Time Machine”.

City at Night - On the Set of Destination Moon

Today on Far Future Horizons we are going to be treated to a flashback of some classic 1950's Hollywood hoopla as City At Night, a talk/variety show that was produced live on location by pioneering, Los Angeles television station KTLA visits the set of producer George Pal's classic Sci-Fi movie-in-the-making, Destination Moon.

George Pál’s Destination Moon

Today on Far Future Horizons we will be featuring one of the greatest science fiction film classics of all time - Destination Moon.

Destination Moon was released in 1950 and directed by the legendary film director George Pál, who later produced other great science fiction film classics as “When Worlds Collide”, “The War of the Worlds”, and “The Time Machine”.

Pál commissioned the script by James O'Hanlon and Rip Van Ronkel. The film was directed by Irving Pichel, was shot in Technicolor and was distributed in the USA by Eagle-Lion Classics.

Destination Moon was the first major science-fiction film produced in the United States dealing seriously with the prospect, problems and technology of space travel. This movie was not the first such to hit the screens, however; Rocketship X-M stole its thunder.

The eminent science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein contributed significantly to the script and served as a technical adviser. Heinlein also published a novella of the same name based on the screenplay about the same time as the release of the film.

The film also foreshadowed many of the space milestones Apollo era and other space projects.

Much of the technology depicted in Destination Moon (such as nuclear propulsion and single-stage rockets) and other aspects like industry-driven project development vs. government driven, contrast with the eventual Apollo and Soviet Luna programs. However, in many aspects, the movie predicted elements of the Apollo Lunar missions and other first space flights. But, under President Barack Obama's new space policy goals industry- driven space projects have indeed become a reality. 

Now, without further ado dear readers we present – Destination Moon.

George Pal’s Conquest of Space

Today on Far Future Calling we are proud to present George Pal's Conquest of Space.

Conquest of Space is a 1955 science fiction movie produced by George Pal, which depicts a voyage to Mars. The science and technology were intended to be as realistic as possible. The poster tagline was "See how it will happen in your lifetime!" Which is rather ironic since many of the people association with the production of this motion picture have already gone to their eternal rest.  Yet, if Elon Musk succeeds many of us will be around to see the it. 

The War of the Worlds (1953)

Today on Far Future Horizons we are proud to present George Pals' film adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel of the Martian invasion of Earth - The War of the Worlds (1953).

This film version of the H.G. Wells classic still remains my all time favorite. 

When Worlds Collide (1951)

Today on Far Future Horizons we present George Pal's When Worlds Collide.


When Worlds Collide is a great movie classic based on the 1933 science fiction novel co-authored by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer; they both also co-authored the sequel After Worlds Collide (1934). It was first published as a six-part monthly serial (September 1932-February 1933) in Blue Book magazine.

Imagine a pair of rogue planets entering our solar system and one of them is on a direct collision course with the Earth. Our planet is first devastated, and then destroyed by "Bronson Alpha", a gas giant-sized rogue planet, orbited by "Bronson Beta", an earth-sized satellite. 

Fortunately, advance warning enables several groups of survivors to escape to Bronson Beta, whose orbit maps onto that of the destroyed Earth, and is torn away from its former primary by the gravitational impact of the Bronson Alpha/Earth collision. In the 1951 cinematic incarnation, Bronson Alpha was reimagined as a dwarf star and renamed "Bellus", while Bronson Beta was designated "Zyra."

Real Life Time Travellers

"The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline substance. And now I must be explicit, for this that follows--unless his explanation is to be accepted--is an absolutely unaccountable thing. He took one of the small octagonal tables that were scattered about the room, and set it in front of the fire, with two legs on the hearthrug. On this table he placed the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair, and sat down. The only other object on the table was a small shaded lamp, the bright light of which fell upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces, so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire, and I drew this forward so as to be almost between the Time Traveller and the fireplace. Filby sat behind him, looking over his shoulder. The Medical Man and the Provincial Mayor watched him in profile from the right, the Psychologist from the left. The Very Young Man stood behind the Psychologist. We were all on the alert. It appears incredible to me that any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however adroitly done, could have been played upon us under these conditions.

The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the mechanism. `Well?' said the Psychologist.

`This little affair,' said the Time Traveller, resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus, `is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through time. You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way unreal.' He pointed to the part with his finger. `Also, here is one little white lever, and here is another.'

The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing. `It's beautifully made,' he said.

`It took two years to make,' retorted the Time Traveller. Then, when we had all imitated the action of the Medical Man, he said: `Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveller. Presently I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future Time, and disappear. Have a good look at the thing. Look at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery. I don't want to waste this model, and then be told I'm a quack.'

There was a minute's pause perhaps. The Psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but changed his mind. Then the Time Traveller put forth his finger towards the lever. `No,' he said suddenly. `Lend me your hand.' And turning to the Psychologist, he took that individual's hand in his own and told him to put out his forefinger. So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage. We all saw the lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery. There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone--vanished! Save for the lamp the table was bare.

Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he was damned.

The Psychologist recovered from his stupor, and suddenly looked under the table. At that the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully. `Well?' he said, with a reminiscence of the Psychologist. Then, getting up, he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his back to us began to fill his pipe.

We stared at each other. `Look here,' said the Medical Man, `are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe that that machine has travelled into time?'

`Certainly,' said the Time Traveller, stooping to light a spill at the fire. Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the Psychologist's face. (The Psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged, helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.) `What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished in there'--he indicated the laboratory--`and when that is put together I mean to have a journey on my own account.'

`You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the future?' said Filby.

`Into the future or the past--I don't, for certain, know which.'

After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. `It must have gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,' he said.

`Why?' said the Time Traveller.

`Because I presume that it has not moved in space, and if it travelled into the future it would still be here all this time, since it must have travelled through this time.'

`But,' I said, `If it travelled into the past it would have been visible when we came first into this room; and last Thursday when we were here; and the Thursday before that; and so forth!'

`Serious objections,' remarked the Provincial Mayor, with an air of impartiality, turning towards the Time Traveller.

`Not a bit,' said the Time Traveller, and, to the Psychologist: `You think. You can explain that. It's presentation below the threshold, you know, diluted presentation.'

`Of course,' said the Psychologist, and reassured us. `That's a simple point of psychology. I should have thought of it. It's plain enough, and helps the paradox delightfully. We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate this machine, any more than we can the spoke of a wheel spinning, or a bullet flying through the air. If it is travelling through time fifty times or a hundred times faster than we are, if it gets through a minute while we get through a second, the impression it creates will of course be only one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it would make if it were not travelling in time. That's plain enough.' He passed his hand through the space in which the machine had been. `You see?' he said, laughing.

We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. Then the Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it all.

`It sounds plausible enough to-night,' said the Medical Man; 'but wait until to-morrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.'

`Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?' asked the Time Traveller. And therewith, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way down the long, draughty corridor to his laboratory. I remember vividly the flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from before our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The thing was generally complete, but the twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for a better look at it. Quartz it seemed to be.

`Look here,' said the Medical Man, `are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick--like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?'

`Upon that machine,' said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp aloft, `I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more serious in my life.'

None of us quite knew how to take it.

I caught Filby's eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he winked at me solemnly.

~ The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Is time travel possible? Would you like to become a real life Chrononaut? Will we ever be able to transverse the fourth dimension as easily as we transverse the three spatial dimensions of length, breath and height? And if it were possible to travel through time freely what will this reveal to us about the fundamental nature of reality? Will our forays into the fourth dimension reveal to us that we inhabit an infinite multiverse were any conceivable historic outcome is possible? Will we discover alternate realities in which Hitler was victorious and the Nazis won the Second World War or the American Revolution ended in disaster for the American Colonists and the British still rule the Americas? Or will we discover that time is in fact linear and that altering history will lead to strange mind boggling paradoxes?

Today we explore these questions on Far Future Horizons.