Auteur/Perpetrator: Terrell O. Morse
Star of Shame: No one to speak of
Monster(s): Man himself, apparently
“Plot”: Clinically depressed scientists try to save civilization by burrowing 1,000 miles into the Earth; mission goes awry when they failed to take into consideration that it’s dark underground
By Richard Romano
The word “bore” can mean either “to pierce with a turning or twisting movement of a tool” or “to cause to feel boredom.” In the case of 1951’s Unknown World, both senses are appropriate, as a team of deluded scientists spends 74 agonizing minutes in a large, motorized drill burrowing into the Earth and getting on each other’s nerves. In fact, it often seems like an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground. “I’m a sick man...a mean man. There’s nothing attractive about me. I think there’s something wrong with my liver.”
As the titles begin, it seems that the original aspect ratio was 7.142367:5.6254879265 and was randomly chopped down to 4: 3.14159265358979323846..... Or they did the video transfer in a completely light-proof room as part of some sort of sensory deprivation experiment.
The separate title screens dissolve into each other as if each credit were a crazy flashback. Which, by the end of the movie, it will seem like. Directed by Terrell O. Morse—Not Terrell Owens Morse? No wonder everyone is hostile in this movie. I bet morale on the set was abominable.
And we open with newsreel footage. Cool, it’s just like Citizen Kane. Oh, wait...It’s so not. And immediately, we are treated to a nuclear explosion. That’s why you don’t put metal in the microwave. We are told that it’s “Civilization vs. The Atom.” This is the weirdest episode of The People’s Court ever. (Well, not really.) Get ready for “The Case of the Perilous Proton.”
And we get a whole montage of nuclear explosions. “What the future will bring, no man can say,” says the narrator. That never stops economics forecasters. The narrator is apparently the same guy who used to do those old Federal Express commercials—he speaks a mile a minute. The gist of his spiel is that mankind is at a crucial turning point: thanks to the atomic bomb, we are in danger of destroying all of civilization. Somehow, the atomic age had something to do with farming, the building of skycrapers, and the construction of the Los Angeles freeway system, the latter of which I will admit does have the feeling of the Apocalypse about it, especially the 10/110 interchange. “For many, the promise of atomic energy means a more abundant life.” It does? “For others...it is the paralyzing panic of our times.” Which side are you on? Choose! Choose! So, to solve the problems posed by the atom, everyone has turned to the “forum of public affairs.” Oh, that’ll be a big help.
The public is educating itself by listening to lectures by the likes of Dr. Jeremiah Morley, founder of the “now defunct Society to Save Civilization.” That pretty much sums it all up right there. Morley’s big thesis: exploding atomic bombs are a really bad thing. He is going out on a limb. As a result, he is labeled a “prophet of doom.” Kind of like Nouriel Roubini. The bottom line: “It could cause the death of every living thing!” Morley’s subsequent report, the newsreel narrator tells us, pointed out that every major civilization throughout history has declined and fell. Isn’t there a difference between a particular civilization like Ancient Greece or Rome “falling” and the physical extinction of all the actual people? “Said Morley, modern civilization could, through the phenomenon of atomic fission, be brought to dust and ashes.” On the plus side it would mean no more American Idol, so it has that going for it.
The narrator then points out that if an atomic bomb were detonated at the Empire State Building, ”the area of devastation would cover two miles.” That’s it? That doesn’t seem so bad. And it’s mostly overpriced, fly-by-night electronics stores and a Starbucks or two. I think civilization could summon up the wherewithal to continue. But wait...there’s more! “Now since the A-bomb is already obsolete, consider the area of total destruction of an H-bomb.” According to the onscreen graphic, it’s mostly Jersey and Queens. Again, the downside? (Oh, but I kid Jersey and Queens.) Morley, being the glass-is-half-empty type, says that scientists have promised bombs thousands of times more powerful. Promises promises.
Morley isn’t all doom and gloom. He has a plan, a cunning plan, to “preserve human life on this planet.” This should be good. “I hope you will join with me in carrying it out.” And the crowd applauds, seemingly in favor of preserving human life. He knows how to please a crowd, I’ll give him that. But what’s this cunning plan? We still don’t know, but the newsreel narrator tells us that lots of people wrote Morley letters in response to the announcement that there was a plan. A few even sent in their underpants. The first order of business was to paint the name of the organization on a door. That’s always step one of any successful project.
We then meet Morley’s crackerjack team of experts who will save civilization—well, not as we, but as probably someone knows it. There is:
Okay, this is the team, but what exactly is the project? Whatever it is, Morley took it to the “Carlisle Foundation.” The Kitty Carlisle Foundation? Tell the truth!
Morley gives his impassioned speech to the Board of Directors. “My colleagues and I believe that humanity can escape annihilation, can find a temporary haven, a promise of hope that, come what may, life can be sustained deep within the Earth itself. Far below the surface, we shall seek a natural, a geological shelter.”
Oh, that— wait...what?! That’s the cunning plan: to move underground? All it seems that Morley needs is money.
The director of the Carlisle Foundation (not Kitty, although who knows how he dresses when he’s at home) asks, “First of all, isn’t the inside of the Earth...solid?” A reasonable question. Morley goes to his visual aids. “The interior of the Earth is made up of channels and air pockets, joined by natural avenues leading from the surface.” It is? Apparently, one big avenue lies within the world’s largest extinct volcano, Mount Nelly. Whoa, Nelly! Oh, Mount Neleh. I see. “This is where we intend to start our journey.” These avenues and tunnels go down, says Morley, hundreds of miles, maybe thousands. All the way to the core itself. Um...yeah.
Asks the director, “Isn’t the core of the Earth a molten fiery mass?” “On the contrary,” says Dr. Bauer, the temperature of the core “is cooler than the temperature at the surface.” Say what? This is the team’s eminent geophysicist? I guess Hitler ousted him from the University of Munich before he took “Introduction to Earth Science.”
All right, even granting these tissue-paper-thin premises, how do they plan to traverse these avenues? They get out the drawings. “A cyclotram.” A what? “It’s an amphibious conveyance based on the principle of an ovoidal atmosphere.” “Like a submarine,” says Dr. Max “The Earth Has a Creamy Nougat Center” Bauer, “with the mobility of a tractor.” Yeah. Um, do we really want to entrust the future of the human race to these guys?
The upshot is that they will drill into the Earth to find some sort of “haven.” Okay; good luck with that. “There is no other alternative,” says Morley. I think there are myriad alternatives.
The director cuts to the chase: “The cost?” No man can say! Actually one man can say. Morley hands the director a folder. The director reads it and clucks his tongue. “That’s a lot of money,” he says. And that’s not even including gratuity. But how much is it? Maybe no man can say after all.
“I know you mean well,” the director says. “Mean well!” says Joan, leaping to her feet. “Next you’ll be calling us starry-eyed idealists.” No, that’s not the phrase I would use. “You’re out of order,” says the director. “The whole world is out of order,” says Joan. You’re out of order! The whole trial is out of order! “And you and your associates can set it right?” the director asks her. “We couldn’t set it wronger if we tried.” Oh, and they’ll try, all right.
“Wronger”?
Needless to say, they didn’t get the money. The Carlisle Foundation decided instead to finance the development of Hercules Hook technology. So Morley starts his own pledge drive, and someone sends him a nickel. Well, it was the 1950s. That was a lot of money back then. How much? No man can say!
It seems the nickel was all Morley got, and the newsreel narrator tells us, “The Society to Save Civilization was itself extinct.” Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes. So what was next for Dr. Morley and his Scooby gang?
“To newsreel reporters, Dr. Morley had only this to say...” “Bite me.” Oh, wait...
“We have no plans. We have no hope.”
The end.
Cool, that was a pretty short movie. I— Oh, wait, that’s just the end of the newsreel. Dang!
It turns out, that Morley and his gang had been watching a preview of the newsreel hosted by its producer, Wright Thompson. He asks Morley what he thinks. Pretty Pathe-tic. (Ahem.) “It’s like asking a man what he thinks of his own obituary.” Aren’t people dying to read that? The group is not pleased by the unflattering portrayal of their work. “You’ve been crucifying us for a year, Mr. Thompson,” protests Morley. I do hope he’s speaking metaphorically. He will not be crucified on a cross of newsreels! It turns out that Thompson controls a vast media empire of magazines, newspapers, and syndicates. Heh; wait until the Internet. Says Thompson, “You’ve seem to have me confused with my father. He dictates the policies of our publications.” He’s quite the dictator. “Like father, like son,” says Dr. Bauer. Zing! “Dr. Bauer, nothing could be less scientific,” says Thompson. Well, with Bauer, science hardly enters into it. The Earth’s core is cooler than the surface. Feh! “My father has all the virtues of our society. He makes all the money, and I spend it.” But on women’s shoes? That’s just weird. And remember: two wrongs don’t make a Wright.
Now we come to the whole point of this weird exchange: “Your idea, Dr. Morley, of exploring the inside of the Earth. I’d like to try that, just for the kicks.” For the kicks? I think it would be fun to own a cyclotram! Thompson announces that he will personally finance their project. What is he, Richard Branson? They all start salivating. Dr. Bauer’s ardor is hotter than he thinks the Earth’s core is. There is one small stipulation: “I get to go with you.” Oh, that would be fun; trapped in a tiny submarine-like thing with this lot. Sounds like a hoot. Anyway, they are all against the idea. “What could you do?” asks Dr. Texting. Well, he’s paying for the thing. How’s that for a start? “I don’t think you realize what you’ll be up against,” says Morley. Yeah, them.
It is agreed, and newspaper headlines herald the news of the expedition. Another explains how Dr. Bauer solved the “fuel problem.” Yeah, I bet. Nestle’s Quik? “It burns hotter than the Sun when combined with milk.” Joan writes in her diary how swimmingly things are going. They’ll have food and water and everything. Oh, and rabbits. Rabbits? “By the study of our laboratory animals in a new environment, we expect to obtain important scientific data.” Ah.
Soon, the cyclotram is done, and they set sail for Mount Neleh, “where the center of the Earth begins.” I guess they moved it. Either that, or the earth’s core was so successful that they opened up another one on the surface. They are left on a desolate beach at the foot of the volcano, and don’t seem too happy about it. They pile inside their cyclotram, and look out the window to see another volcano erupting in the distance. Grouses Texting, “What a place to spend our last night on Earth.”
Andy Ostengard is to be the pilot. And they’re off. Or not. There is what sounds like gears grinding. Maybe Andy can’t drive a stick. “Something’s wrong,” he says. Already? This bodes well. Morley flicks some random switches, there is weird, faintly oscillograph-like images dancing on a screen, and suddenly everything is fine. That was suspenseful. And now they’re off!
The cyclotram climbs the volcano. There is some technobabble, reading off of random but scientificky numbers, etc. Thompson starts complaining.
So wait a minute: they’re going underground to find a haven to keep the human race alive—and it’s six men and one woman? Um, shouldn’t they have brought more women? I mean, Joan is going to have to do a heck of a lot of reproducing. And looking at those guys, I don’t envy her in the slightest. So basically the human race is pretty doomed.
They reach the summit of the volcano ahead of schedule. The argue over whether the dead volcano they are about to enter will come back to life “Don’t bet on it,” says...someone. Don’t know which one that was.
Says Morley, “There’s no reason to wait until dawn. We’ll descend into the crater now.” Why were they going to wait until dawn anyway? Did they need the light to...burrow into the ground? And they climb back into the cyclotram. Joan pauses. “One last look at the Earth.” Not really. She must mean “the surface of the Earth.” God knows they’ll be seeing a lot more of the Earth. There is a cutaway to the erupting volcano. “What a way to remember it,” says Andy morosely. I hope they brought Prozac with them.
And they’re off again. “Keep to the inside ledges,” cautions Morley. You mean, don’t drive off into a gaping chasm? Best line: “Brother, it’s really black out there,” says Andy. Really? He’s shocked, shocked to discover that it’s dark inside the Earth. Where did they get these clowns.
Their high-tech depth gauge looks like a polygraph. Oops, someone told a lie at two miles. So maybe it’s not really two miles. Joan is still keeping her diary. “I have observed no unusual physical symptoms.” It’s been two minutes; what was she expecting? “Texting seems withdrawn, irritable.” Well, as long as it’s not unusual. You want irritable, withdrawn people to be on a mission where you’re going to be spending every waking minute of every day for god knows how long together. She thinks it is due to his being annoyed by having Thompson there. Even better.
So basically the human race is pretty doomed.
They stop and have breakfast, which consists of pills. Thompson was pretty soundly asleep, as I suspect are most of the audience by this time. He looks at the pills. “Like I say, there’s nothing like starting off a hard day’s work with a good breakfast.” Zing! And then he lights up his pipe. Oh, good, that’s just what you need in a closed, cramped environment where air needs to be cleaned and recirculated. Thompson gets into a verbal spat with Joan. “You don’t like my kind of guy, do you?” “Not very much,” she responds. But then who does she like? “But I’ll make an exception for you. You I don’t like a lot.” Zing! He is paying for this thing; you could cut him a little slack. But then if I understand these movies correctly, they’ll be in each other’s arms by act three.
Everyone but Coleman gets out to scout the road ahead. “I don’t like this!” grouses Texting. “Wright Thompson doesn’t belong here!...He’s just a useless piece of excess baggage, a selfish thrill-seeker.” Yeah, but, he’s paying for your little expedition.
Thompson, meanwhile, catches up with Andy. “I like those scientists,” he says. “What’s your trouble?” asks Andy. “Don’t they ever talk?” Weren’t they just talking? “Not unless they got something to say. That’s the way it is with smart people,” says Andy. It is? “Maybe they’re not so smart,” retorts Thompson. Well, who’s the one that financed this silly mission? “Maybe they don’t know what they’re doing down here.” What, just because Bauer thinks that the Earth’s consists of chocolate pudding you’re skeptical? “Listen, buster”—no one says “listen, buster” anymore—“each one of them has taught at more colleges than you’ve flunked out of.” Bauer did teach at Carl’s College and Auto Detailing Shop, but aside from that, he’s got a point. Andy, remember, is not a scientist but a sandhog, and I guess Thompson is in his sandbox. Their explosives expert certainly has an explosive temper, which is always a good combination. Andy decides to make Thompson useful by making him his pack mule. It’s a fair point.
At the end of the tunnel, they come across an inscribed rock from a previous expedition that was unable to go any further. The message adds, “Why anyone would want to go any further, we don’t know.” That’s the spirit of exploration!
Joan spots some flaming rocks; Morley points out that it’s pressure from the other volcano. Really? Texting finds where the opposite wall is weakest, and they prepare the cyclotram for boring. As if it wasn’t already.
“I wonder what we’ll be running into,” says Andy. The wall, I would imagine. “There’s only one way to find out.” You knew someone was going to utter that line. It’s pretty much de rigueur in these movies. And they bore into the wall and emerge in another tunnel. “It looks like a tunnel,” says Morley. No! “So far so good. Put on your gas masks just in case.” I think we can all read between the lines there. He must have swapped his breakfast pills for huevos rancheros.
Everyone but Coleman again gets out and walks ahead of the cyclotram. This goes on for a while.
Abruptly, Morley exclaims, “The air is fresh and clear!” I’m not sure how, but okay. They look around. “This place is enormous,” someone says. “I wonder where it leads.” Isn’t that why you’re there?
There is more walking. It takes rather a while. This might be a good time to orient you to the structure of the planet on which we live. Please locate the exit nearest you.
The outer layer of the Earth is called the crust and, since that is where we humans live, it can be considered a flaky crust. The crust ranges from 18 to 30 miles thick, depending on whether you’ve ordered thin crust or deep-dish. The crust is 3 miles deep under the oceans and may be filled with mozzarella cheese. Under the crust is the mantle. The mantle is where the Earth displays its trophies, festive urns, and holiday decorations. The barrier between the crust and the mantle is called the Mohorovičić discontinuity, often abbreviated simply “Moho” since pronouncing it is actually more difficult than reaching it. Various attempts—in particular, Project Mohole—have been made to reach it, but none have been successful. Project Moe-hole involved poking Larry in the eye and squeezing Curly’s head in a vise until the vise took on the shape of his head. It had nothing to do with the Earth’s mantle, but it was fun.
Wait—I think something interesting is happening in the movie....Nope, my mistake...
The mantle is about 1,775 miles thick. Below that is a low-viscosity liquid outer core about 1,375 miles thick, and finally, at the very center of the Earth, is an 800-mile-thick solid inner core which geologists believe is spinning at a slightly higher angular velocity than the rest of the planet. Despite what Dr. Bauer thinks, the temperature at the Earth’s core is 7,000 degrees Kelvin which scientists describe as being “hotter than Pasadena.” But the humidity is very low, so it’s not as uncomfortable as you would think.
Morley and his gang come across stalactites (from the Greek stalaktites, which means “that which drips”) and stalagmites (from the Greek stalagma, which means “drop” or “drip”). The former hang down, the latter protrude up. There will be a quiz later. If a stalactite and a stalagmite join together, it is called a column. If they don’t exist at all, everyone stays quiet. Anyway, water drips, as one would expect given the etymology of these thingies. “How did it all happen?” someone asks. Says Morley, “A long time ago, the Earth was covered with water.” Adds Bauer (hoo boy): “When the sea vanished, it left great limestone deposits behind.” Yadda yadda yadda. They call to Coleman to bring up the cyclotram.
Before long, they are down to 100 miles below sea level. Says Joan, “Funny, when we first got here I felt a sort of exultation. Now I feel depressed.” “I, too, feel suffocated,” chimes in Bauer. Huh. Who would have expected that a tiny cyclotram burrowing through narrow tunnels 100 miles below the surface of the Earth would be dark, suffocating, and claustrophobic?
Adds Andy, “Once when I was working in the Holland Tunnel, I got cut off from my crew for 10 hours. I felt this way then.” That’s nothing; once when I was driving through the Holland Tunnel I was stuck in traffic for 10 hours. While they are moping about and talking about how depressed they are, Thompson goes to the water cooler and pours himself a cup of water. He takes a sip of water dramatically. “I think I know what it is.” Oh, this should be good. Don’t they hate him enough already? “It’s a feeling of a person away from people.” No, that’s...what’s the word I’m looking for?...Bliss. “I felt it on the top of a mountain in Tibet.” It was just before he was punched in the face by the Dalai Lama. “In a jungle. In the Arabian desert.” Adds Joan, “Alone, man is as useless as any rock out there.” Oh, I don’t know, but then I’ve been in committee meetings.
So let’s see: these brilliant, eminent scientists didn’t expect that the interior of the earth would be:
Huh. I thought it would be like a crowded beach in the Bahamas. So basically the human race is pretty doomed.
Texting jumps up. “You’re both talking nonsense!” For once I’m with him. “Nature doesn’t influence man. Man influences nature. One man, one strong man, can change nature.” But just remember that it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature. Chimes in Thompson, “It isn’t one man, it’s many men working together.” No, I think it’s one moderately strong man, one really strong man, and about a dozen not so very strong men but who have good organizational skills. Or, maybe one strong man and a family of badgers. Texting disagrees. “Men together are no more than sheep.” Especially when they wear wool. “One man, standing alone, leads the way.” He then incoherently insults everyone, especially Thompson.
“You call yourselves ‘scientists,’ swayed by a self-indulgent young fool.” He then leaves in a huff. Coleman leaves in a minute and a huff. “I’d better go with him. It isn’t safe for a man to be alone down here.” It’s a rough neighborhood. Thompson pokes fun at Texting, “But he’s the leader type.” Coleman responds, “There wouldn’t be leaders if there weren’t sheep like me to be led.” Is that really something to brag about?
A short time later, they are driving the cyclotram, looking for Texting and Coleman. There is a weird clicking noise that sounds like they left the cyclotram’s directional on. Suddenly, an alarm sounds and a display that reads “Toxic Gas” lights up. I guess Morley had another disagreeable breakfast. They all scramble into gas masks, then run outside to look for Texting and Coleman. They find them on the ground. They’re dead, Jim. I guess there’s not much advantage to being either a leader or a sheep, especially if the leader leads the sheep into poisonous gas.
They shrug it off and forge ahead, and in no time are 240 miles down. Bauer serves breakfast; more pills. Says Thompson, “I’d give a thousand dollars for a hamburger, and another thousand dollars for onions on it.” Oh, so he wants to go to a Hard Rock Cafe. Joan goes to the water cooler. Ruh roh. Remember back when they were all moping and Thompson got up to get water? Apparently he left the valve or something on the water cooler open and all their water got contaminated by the toxic gas. Doh! That goes over well, and Andy is now really pissed at Thompson. “We may never find water again. Now I suppose you’d pay a thousand dollars for a glass of that.” Oh, so like the bottled water you find in hotel rooms. So now job one is finding water. Good luck.
Suddenly, they are attacked by a whole pack of rampaging leader dots!
Jeepers, whoever added the leader dots (which are a signal to movie theater projectionists when to start the second projector and kick in the next reel) went nuts, as they appear three at a time over the entire frame. Were the producers afraid that the movie would have put the projectionist to sleep and this was some subtle way of waking him up?
The reel safely changed, they go looking for water. This takes a while, as you can well imagine. Andy climbs down a steep cliff face, for some reason. They all watch as he makes it to the bottom without incident. After all that, he yells back up, “No water here!” And back up he goes. This takes rather a while. They all start whining about not having any water. Joan reaches into her pack and takes out a canteen. “I was saving it for the animals.” So instead of saving it for themselves, they all pour out a helping and suck down what is now the absolute last of the water. Andy makes a snide remark to Thompson, who then throws the water in his face. Fisticuffs break out. Andy stalks off to go get the cyclotram.
A few moments later, as they are shuffling along weak and weary after being without water for about a minute, Joan spies a pool of water. Wait, nope, it’s just oil. Oil? Then they stop and listen for a second. They hear running water. Where is it coming from? Ah, from behind a rock wall. Huh? Remarkable hearing they’ve got. They suggest burrowing through with the cyclotram, but Bauer (oh, great) suggests they might hit too much water. “It could be an underground sea,” adds Joan. Or a naturally occurring water bottling plant. So Andy brings out a couple of sledgehammers. He strips to the waist and starts hammering on the wall. He points out to Thompson that he brought two hammers. Thompson smiles coyly, and then wastes no time himself in stripping to the waist and hammering at the wall. He and Andy seem to be scoping each other out. Great, so to save and propagate the human race, they brought one woman and six men, two of whom happen to be gay. So in their pursuit of their geological studies they appear to have skipped biology. So basically the human race is pretty doomed.
They break through the wall, and a huge billow of steam scalds Andy and Thompson. They all beat cheeks back to the cyclotram. Thompson has burned his arm, and Joan immediately patches him up. The others remark that the outside temperature is rising fast. “It could go on forever,” says Bauer. Yeah, uh-huh. Again he is wrong, as Morley points out that the temperature and pressure outside are now dropping fast. “Condensation will soon take place.”
Speaking of condensation (I have no idea what that means), Joan has finished bandaging Thompson’s arm. “You’re a pretty good doctor at that,” he says. She just wrapped a bandage around his arm, it’s not like it was brain surgery or anything. “You’re a pretty good patient at that,” she adds. Yep, they’re starting to fall for each other. Right on schedule.
Sure enough, condensation forms on the outside of the cyclotram. “Water!” everyone shouts exuberantly. They then run outside and begin licking the rocks, the ship, stalactites...it’s all rather upsetting. Joan suddenly starts freaking out, then faints. I guess the sight of her crewmembers licking the cyclotram was too much for her. I can sympathize.
Now comes the great debate. Do they continue on or go back? Thompson wants to go back. Bauer laments that they have failed, and is in favor of turning back. Morley asks, “Will we have failed any less if we turn back now?” Well, if you don’t all die, yes. But he is in favor of going forward. Andy is also in favor of continuing. A dead heat. Morley looks downcast. But wait, I thought women were allowed to vote? Joan suddenly pops up. ”I say go on. And let’s not waste any more time about it.”
And so they do. And before long they are 850 miles below the surface of the Earth.
Thompson slinks into the back of the cyclotram to make time with Joan. She, however, is busy making time with her rabbits. Uh oh; it’s Night of the Lepus all over again. Hmm... Good! At least in that movie, things happened. Stupid things, but they were at least things. Out of the blue, he gives her a good luck ring. “It saved my life in Tibet.” It made him invisible when the wraiths came after him. My precioussssssssss. She is bemused, but curious. “Why give it to me?” “Haven’t you ever been romanced before?” “Not 900 miles below sea level.” And not so awkwardly. “If there were any flowers around here, I’d pick them for you.” I’d defoliate an entire forest, or chase down and bite the head off a deer—all for you! She says, “There is a highly scientific theory”—it’s a good thing it’s highly scientific—“which states if any man and any woman are cast away anywhere, for any length of time, sooner or later they’d think they were in love.” Oh, like the Skipper and Gilligan. Is there any data on this? She insists it applies to him, but not to herself.
This just gets better. So, let’s recap: to save and propagate the human race, they brought six men, two of whom are dead, at least one of whom is gay, and one woman who’s an ice queen. So basically the human race is pretty doomed.
And the cyclotram gigs deeper. Their directional is still on by the sound of it. Thompson starts complaining. “How much longer is it gonna be like this?” Like what? Descending to the center of the Earth? “Why go on? We’re wasting time.” Does he have an appointment somewhere? Andy has a go at him. “You’ve never one anything but waste time.” Zing! “Listen, you meathead,” says Thompson. Aw, Arch! There is some badly miked, incoherent arguing between the two of them. “Just because you’re a sandhogging electrical protoplasm slobbering around on the ground.” That can’t be right. “And you’re a mai tai with his head in the clouds.” What?
They break up their fight to discover that they are underwater. The cyclotram bobs to the surface. “We’re out of it,” says Bauer. They spot what looks like an underground seashore. “This could be what we’re looking for.” They head for the shore.
On the shore, Morley analyzes the water and discover that it has a high calcium content, but it’s drinkable. And builds healthy bones, too. Thompson comes running over and shows everyone some pearl-like spheres he found. Morley identifies them as “cave pearls.” Looks like the Oyster Bunny came early. It turns out there are such things as cave pearls, which are concretions of calcium salts which form in limestone caves. Okay, movie, I’ll give you this one. Thompson asks Morley how much they’re worth. “Calcium carbonate,” he responds cryptically. Okay... Thompson then produces a flower-like object. “How about this?” “Sulfate of lime. Plaster of Paris.” “Professor, you take the romance out of everything.” Great, so Thompson was romancing Morley now?
Thompson gives these formations to Joan. “Souvenirs from Hades.” My lunk-headed pseudoromantic interest went to Hades and all I got were these lousy calcium formations. Speaking of taking the romance out of everything, Andy chimes in. “Take a cave pearl into the sunlight, and it turns gray and ugly.” The same could be said of Andy. “And the flower?” Joan asks. “It’ll crumble to dust,” says Morley cheerfully. Why? Does Plaster of Paris usually deteriorate when it’s exposed to light?
Andy also announces that he has found fish. “It’s a rare species,” says Morley, “but they’re edible.” Thompson is grossed out. “They have no eyes! I think I’ll stick to pills.” I guess the eyes are his favorite part. Hey, he could stick two pills in the fish’s head and pretend. Or use the cave pearls. “They lost their eyes 10 million years ago,” says Morley. Have they looked behind the sofa?
Thompson starts freaking out. “What kind of place is this?” Um, wild guess: an underground place? “Flowers that crumble to dust in your hands, stones that look like pearls.” Yeah, you never get that on the surface. Flowers up there last forever. And stones never look like pearls. “Fish without eyes. Nature sure is a practical joker.” No, you really don’t need eyes when there is no light. It just seems practical, actually. “I suppose you could do better,” says Andy. Than what? Than if...Thompson were nature? That’s a very weird insult. “10 million years? I couldn’t have done worse.” And that’s a very weird retort.
There is a segue and they are sitting morosely on the shore. Joan is writing in her diary, which has a text-to-voiceover-narration feature. “Morley believes this is the shelter we have been searching for. A valley of shadows, where light can be sustained. A shelter for humanity.” A place for their shoes. “Yet, our morale is very low. What do we want? A ray or two of sunshine?” Come on, let’s all shout: What do we want? Sunshine! When do we want it? Now! Or, whenever it’s convenient, really. What else does she want? “A change of season, starry nights.” Well, you’re out of luck because, in case you haven’t noticed, you’re under the Earth!
Morley chimes in. “We can build a new life, right here!” “You mean this is what we’re looking for?” asks Thompson. What did you think? “You’ll get used to it,” responds Morley. Heck, he got used to Morley’s overpowering funk. They bicker a bit about staying where they are or going a little further. “We’ve come 1,100 miles,” starts Morley. “How can you measure what we’ve been though in miles?” challenges Thompson. They could probably convert to metric, if that would make him happier. They decide to forge ahead. Funny, you’d have thought that Earth scientists would have had a better idea of what the inside of the Earth looks like. Maybe they shouldn’t have used Jules Verne novels as textbooks.
They come to a fork in the tunnel. They debate which way to go. “We’ll have to explore both tunnels.” Remember the classic Robert Frost poem:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence if this movie ever ends:
Two tunnels diverged in the impenetrable darkness 1,100 miles beneath the earth’s surface, and I—
I took the one less traveled by, even though no one has ever traveled on either of them and both will likely lead to our certain doom,
And that has made all the difference.
Or something like that.
Andy gets up. “I’ll take the right one. Wright, you take the other.” So Wright goes left. Har har har. Thompson is annoyed. “I’m sick of taking your orders.” What orders has he ever had to take? “That’s the trouble with you, you always take, never give.” Non-sequitur! Faulty. I must reeeeeeee-evaluate. Thompson reminds Andy that he did give however millions of dollars that financed this bit of folly. “Well, that’s not enough.” Andy must work in the banking industry.
They go out and explore their respective tunnels. Thompson decides to crawl down a cliff face, and he loses his footing and slides down. He yells for help, and Andy, of all people, comes to his rescue. He ties a rope to a rock and, for some reason, instead of just throwing Thompson the rope, climbs down to hold the rope from the bottom. Don’t these bozos even know how rope works? Andy upsettingly watches Thompson’s butt as he climbs back up, However, the editor has other plans, and keeps cutting away to the rope fraying. Once Thompson has made it back up to the ledge, he holds the rope from the top as Andy climbs up behind him. Just as Andy reaches the ledge, the rope snaps, and Andy plummets to his doom. Thompson is inexplicably upset. Well, at least they know what road to take: the one less plummeted by.
Back in the cyclotram, Thompson smokes and paces disconsolately. “You’ve been like this for days,” says Joan. Days? What the heck have they been doing? “He didn’t like me any more than I liked him, yet he saved my life.” He starts waxing philosophical. “My trouble was, I never believed in anything.” Not even Crystal Light? “Maybe you can start now,” says Joan. What the heck does that mean?
As if things couldn’t get worse, in come Morley and Bauer, the two Neurotics of the Apocalypse. “Morley wants to go back to the valley of the shadows.” They argue yet again about whether to go back, or keep going. I would not say that this movie was stuck in a rut, stuck in a rut, stuck in a rut, stuck in a rut, stuck in a rut...
Thompson says, “Now that Andy is dead, we’ve got to go on.” Think how much more pleasant it will be. Well, that appears to settle that, and away they go. Soon, they are at 1,640 miles deep. Suddenly, up in the distance, they see daylight. Daylight?
They run outside, and appear to have landed at Niagara Falls. There is ample light and giant waterfalls. And chances are there’s a Dunkin Donuts around there somewhere. Says Joan, “It’s like a dream after a terrible nightmare.” A wet dream, quite literally. “I think we’ve found it,” says Thompson. I think we’ve found our Gigi! “The promised land,” says Morley. More like the “premised land.” Where is the light coming from? According to Joan’s diary entry, the light is coming from a phosphorescent dome. Yeah, but doesn’t phosphorous need to be exposed to light before it will then give off light? There is an underground lake, clouds (clouds?), and everything. “The area is rich in chemical resources, that means power and industry, according to Bauer.” Uh huh. “We can mine Marshmallow Peeps from the rocks and burn them to unleash vast quantities of power.” “And Wright says a real estate boom is on.” And it will never burst. Never. Nope. Housing prices will keep rising unsustainably forever. Whee! Still, your entire population is three men, a woman, and a rabbit. I think I see a flaw in your cunning plan.
Everyone has got their lab equipment out and they are performing experiments on the shore. Joan is still futzing with her rabbits. “They’re expecting in a week.” So’s Bauer, oddly enough.
They explore some more. Morley and Thompson enjoy dressing up like nuns and wandering through the desert. Desert? “This is a strange kind of sand,” says Thompson. “That’s not sand, that’s my wife,” says Morley. No, wait... “That’s volcanic ash.” Oh, real— Huh?! That can’t be good. Doesn’t volcanic ash imply a volcano? That doesn’t seem to bother anyone. Uh, guys...volcanic ash...I hate to rain fiery death on your parade, but you might want to think about that a bit...
Morley has certainly become less doomy-and-gloomy down there: “That ash will make good fertilizer for our crops.” Thompson is skeptical about the whole “crops” thing. “This place is a desert. The very word means deserted by life.” Thank you, William Safire. “It can be irrigated,” says Morley. Or even irritated. Morley runs down a laundry list of all the things they have available for growing crops. Thompson points out that they don’t have actual sunlight. Morley says they can adjust for that. “Crops don’t need sunlight.” “But do we?” Dum dum dum.
Meanwhile, Joan and Bauer come across a fossilized fish on one of the rocks. “It’s the fossilized remains of a species of lungfish.” No, it’s not! Lungfish don’t have feet! “It breathes by means of both lungs and gills.” Well, that’s true, in some species of lungfish. Don’t tell Thompson; remember how freaked out he got when he came across a fish with no eyes. A fish with lungs might just send him round the bend. “He came out of the sea 400 million years ago. He was the ruler of the animal kingdom! With his lungs, he was a pioneer.” Actually, lungfishes need to stay in water most of the time, although some can burrow into mud during dry seasons. He is thinking of amphibians. I will first quote from, then beat him about the head and neck with, the Encyclopedia Britannica:
Tetrapods are descendants from a group of sarcopterygian (lobe-finned) fishes. Precisely which group of sarcopterygians is still debated, although the consensus has shifted from the lungfishes (order Dipnoi) to an ancestor within a group of related fishes: family Panderichthyidae of order Osteolepiformes or fishes of the order Porolepiformes.
So there.
“How did they become extinct?” asks Joan. “Like some of us on Earth, they seem to have hurried the process of extinction.” Huh? Lungfishes aren’t extinct, although some species are, but that was largely due to geological changes. I am not sure how evolving lungs automatically doom a species to extinction. Anyway, either the fossil or Bauer gives Joan the willies (six of one...) and she rushes away.
The days pass. One particular day, everyone is in a giddy mood. Says Bauer, “This is the day we are expecting the first litter of rabbits.” “You see,” adds Bauer, “rabbits have evolved gills that are located in their large floppy ears. If you immerse their ears in water, they can extract dissolved air bubbles. Rabbits went extinct 400 million years ago. Their fossils have been found in the Earth’s core which, by the way, is actually a giant Cocoa Puff.”
Morley needs to explain why they brought the rabbits. “By observing the rabbits, we’ve already learned that they respond to nature basically as we do.” Only they don’t bicker as much. I suspect they also learned where they went wrong in that whole “let’s only bring one woman” idea. Morley also seems to believe that how the rabbit young turn out will be indicative of how human young will turn out. Hopefully with less fur. Unless this is Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos.
Joan calls everyone over to see the rabbits. Uh oh. “They’re dead. They’re all born dead.”That’s a bad thing. “I can’t understand it” says Bauer. “Why? Why?” Maybe you shouldn’t have used a pregnant rabbit for a football. “There must be some cause,” says Morley. That’s why he’s the scientist.
Joan looks into it. It turns out that all experimental animals born there are sterile. But why? No one explains it.
“Do you know what this means?” Joan asks Thompson. No Easter Bunny? “The new world. A haven for the dead.” Well, so all that was for nothing. Still it got you out of the house. “It appears our mission is a failure,” says Bauer. Yep. Pretty much. Morley tries to see the bright side. “Well, one generation could.” “And after that?” asks Thompson. “The end of humanity.” Here’s a novel ides: why not try to keep everyone from blowing the planet up? Just a wacky idea. Why not try solving the problem instead of running away from it? These guys probably also live in gated communities.
Thompson isn’t happy about that whole end of humanity thing. “I’ve always run away,” he goes on. “Climbing mountains, trying to prove something.” You know, buddy, not everything is about you. Could this clown be more self-absorbed? He’s too old to be a Baby Boomer.
They all start lamenting their failures as human beings. What a bunch of whiners. Morley still holds out hope that they at least can live out the rest of their lives in peace. Yeah, that worked out so well up to this point. They all want to go back up and leave this “resting place of the living dead.” Except Morley, but then he’s pretty much the embodiment of the living dead. He’s coming to get you, Barbara. Anyway, Morley has had it with humanity. At that point, there is a crash of thunder and a volcano starts erupting. Told you! But did anyone listen to me? They run for cover as lava and ash pour out of the volcano and head toward them.
They run into the tunnel to the cyclotram. Except for Morley, who stands in the tunnel and waits as the raging sea swells up and floods the tunnel. The cyclotram is swept out into the sea. The directional is still on. Something pulls them toward the sea floor. They hit 2,500 miles, which is far as their polygraph detector goes. They settle to the bottom. They’re stuck, nor breath nor motion, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.
They start whining about how “you can’t bury yourself in the Earth and expect to live.” I would think the funeral industry could easily have told you that. And you’d certainly have to pay extra for it. Says Bauer, “I used to be afraid of death.” Says Joan, “I was afraid of life.” Heck, I’m afraid of this movie never ending! Just shut up shut up shut up! Morrissey doesn’t whine as much as these yo-yos.
Then, for some reason, the cyclotram starts to rise. This makes everyone happy. 1,640 miles...960 miles...850 miles...20...55...0. Somehow, Bauer says, they found a direct channel to the upper ocean. And the cyclotram bobs to the surface not far from a tropical island. They see a sign that reads “Dharma Initiative”...no, wait... “There’s life on that island!” Joan exults. The Others? “There are people!” “I feel like I’ll live forever.”
Namaste.
The end.
You have to admire the moxie of a film that takes the bold stance that destroying humanity is a bad thing.
And now it’s time for another installment of
Dr. Max Bauer was born 1886 at the tender age of 10. It was a mid-July day; the temperature at the time of his birth was in excess of 110 degrees Fahrenheit. “It was one of the coldest days on record,” he would later say, much to everyone’s confusion.
When he was a scant four years old, he was visited by an old family friend, William Thompson, Lord Kelvin. Lord Kelvin was attempting to demonstrate to young Max how a thermometer worked, when Max started incoherently criticizing Kelvin’s work. (It was at that point that Lord Kelvin inadvertently invented the rectal thermometer.) Kelvin would pass away not long after that encounter, which left young Max Bauer profoundly nonplused.
In high school, Bauer had declared that he would pursue a career in science, which caused all his science teachers to unleash lurid streams of profanity. More than a century later, Bauer was heard to say, “Actually I didn’t mean ‘science.’ That was the wrong word. I meant, um...what’s the thing with the raisins?” No one is entirely sure what he meant by that.
When he was 18, Bauer was ousted from the University of Munich by Hitler, who, few people realize, was the Dean of Admissions for the university. Hitler had a reputation for a very strict admissions policy. (Some of his decisions would cause quite the furor. Ahem.) Anyway, Hitler would go on to become Dean of the School of Business before inventing World War II.
Anyway, Bauer ended up at the Wilhelm Schlickelmeinengrubenbieder College and Bagelrama, where he passed through a series of majors, from German Literature, to Massage Therapy, to Boiling Water (the WHCB had a world-renowned water-boiling program), to Earth Science, to Dressing Like Kaiser Wilhelm, to Applied Applications, to Theoretical Theories, to a custom-designed major called Applied Theoretical Theories and Their Applications...in Theory, to a major simply referred to as “G,” then finally back to Earth Science. By this time, he was in his mid-60s, so it was about time he picked something, since he had already outlived all his advisors.
Thus it was at the tender age of 66 he wrote his seminal work The Theory, Form, and Structure of the Earth, in which he laid out what he believed the internal structure of the Earth was. The work was revolutionary in that he eschewed empirical study and observation and instead documented a three-day Nyquil-induced fever dream. In one chapter on the Inner Core, he insisted that not only was the Earth’s center a cool, solid, rotating, iron-nickel sphere, but also that several Japanese teenagers were running on top of it and trying to keep from falling into the muddy liquid outer core. It was later learned that Bauer fell asleep while watching the 1959 film adaptation of Journey to the Center of the Earth and when he woke up an episode of Takeshi’s Castle was on. Thinking that it was still the same movie, he had one of those “eureka!” moments, which profoundly affected his thinking about the structure of the Earth. His technical illustrations, which also indicated the presence of a pink, foam rubber dolphin, have perplexed—or at the very least amused—geophysicists ever since.
Bauer has never actually died for, while he once admitted during the Morley Expedition that he was always frightened of death, it turned out that death was actually deathly frightened of Bauer. As a result, Bauer lives on to this day and is now 123. His mind is just as sharp as it was when he was a century younger, which really isn’t saying much.
Dr. Bauer has spent the last six years writing the Wikipedia.
Posted 04/07/09