Fantastic Voyage: Psychedelic Nanotech in 1966

As always there are spoilers ahead!

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An extra huge thank you to my wonderful guests as this episode had to be re-recorded due to a major problem with the audio file the first time.

You can find the synopsis of the film on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Voyage#Plot

In 1966 20th Century Fox chose a steady pair of hands in Richard Fleischer (the son of animation superstar Max Fleischer) to helm what at the time was both the tiniest and the biggest science fiction adventure. Tiny because of the nano science storyline and biggest because of it being the most expensive science fiction film ever made (at that time) costing over five million dollars.

I talk to two top tier guests about the film.

Jay Tellote is Professor Emeritus of film and media studies at Georgia Tech. He has written/edited numerous books and articles about science fiction film including the 2023 book Selling Science Fiction Cinema.

Lisa Yaszek is Regents' Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech and has written/edited multiple books on science fiction.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:40 Big budget scifi

05:45 Richard Fleischer

09:10 The history of Nanotech sci-fi

16:41 Sci-fi and scale in cinema

19:42 Richard Feynman and small science

22:55 1950s influences

25:53 James Bond and Spy-fi

27:05 Psychedelic scifi

31:22 Harper Goff, Disney and design

33:36 1960s crew dynamics

42:48 Asimov's novelisation

44:24 Secularism vs religion

46:52 Legacy

52:57 Recommendations

Recommendations:

The Diamond Lens by Fitz-James O'Brien (which can be found here)

Surface Tension by James Blish

Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon

Dr Cyclops (1940)

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989)

NEXT EPISODE!

Next episode I will be speaking with Oscar winning Special Effects Supervisor Paul Franklin to discuss his favourite sci-fi film Blade Runner (1982). Paul has worked on an array of blockbusters including The Batman Begins trilogy, Venom (2018), Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014).