In "When Worlds Collide", the astronomer says that Bellus & Zyra are heading in our direction at incredible speed....specifically...faster than the speed of sound. Somehow, I do not think that is possible.
Why didn't they show Zyra passing by the Earth?
It should have been visible when they were building the rocket.
Bellus looks more like a planet than it does a star.
Actually, the speed of sound is about 330 meters per second, or about 0.330 km/sec. The sun moves around the galaxy at a rate of about 250 km/sec, or about 750 times the speed of sound! Difficult to believe, but there it is. Indeed, the earth is orbiting the sun at about 100 times the speed of sound. The pspeed of sound is not so great in astronomical terms.
WOW! I never knew that. Thanks!
* When Mr. Randall arrives at the observatory, he is told to board a commercial flight and take the contents of the top secret documentation to America.
If secrecy is so paramount, why board a commercial plane?...Especially when you consider the fact that Mr. Randall came to the observatory IN HIS OWN PLANE
Why not take his own plane back to America and put an armed guard with him?
* When Randall talks with Joyce in the taxi, she openly says: "I'm not ready for the end of the world" (or something like that)
What happened to "Top Secret"? Couldn't she tell Randall this when they got to the lab?
Especially when you consider the taxi driver might be eavesdropping.
* There is no emotional reaction when it is announced, "There is no error".
I would've expected screaming or crying upon hearing this news.
* Somehow I feel that the governments would not inform the general public that this disaster would happen. They'd only tell the elite.
* On the same note, there is no emotional reaction when the announcement is made on TV / radio about the impending doom.
In reality, there should be screaming or crying.....not to mention mass-suicides.
* There is no attempt by anyone in the general public to break into the camp when the rocket is being built.
In reality, people would be climbing the fences, armed with guns for a chance to survive.
* There's water in downtown Manhattan BEFORE the tidal wave hits. Where did it come from?
* One of the scientists says that many of the other rocket projects were cancelled because they felt that it was too risky to travel to another world....and nothing happens.
In reality, there would be riots and revolutions if this occurred.
* The shot of thew surface of Zyra looks fake.
(Paramount released the film before George Pal could fix this)
* Offhand, I'd say that the odds of "worlds colliding" are billions to one...especially when you consider that Earth is always moving.
* Zyra & Bellus are heading towards Earth...Zyra passes the Earth, disaster ensues. People escape to Zyra and everything is fine.
If Zyra was moving through space at incredible speeds, wouldn't it just keep going after it passed by Earth? For all we know, Zyra could be on a collision course with our sun...which would kill everyone...or worse yet, keep going until it leaves our system again...making things on Zyra bitterly cold...killing everyone.
UNLESS Zyra got trapped in Earth's orbit as it passed by...but again, with Zyra traveling at such incredible traveling speeds, I find that idea ridiculous.
* How come no one saw that the crane was on the brink of falling BEFORE they started to use it?
* In reality, no one would give any medicine or supplies to the people stranded on the island. The government would just let them die. (They're going to die anyway...right?)
* The chopper looks suspiciously like the "Bat-Copter" from the Batman TV series.
* Who put the little boy on the roof to ensure his survival? If it was one of his parents, where are they?
* Why is the rocket base announcer yelling over the PA system? I know time is short, but yelling will only induce panic....and possibly make someone to err somehow.
* Why are there only WHITE PEOPLE on the rocket?
In reality, someone would cry "racism" and force someone to select other races to be taken aboard the rocket.
* How come Earth exploded and Bellus did not?
* Boy, Joyce is a whore, isn't she? She is supposedly in love with Tony but drops him like a hot potato when Mr. Randall arrives.
* No one on the plane is showing any emotion when the President is talking about doomsday.
In reality, there would be screaming, crying and possibly people jumping out of the plane.
* There are MANY observatories on Earth, yet ONLY ONE sees the impending doom? RIGHT!
* Halley's comet appears every 75 to 76 years in our solar system. Yet Bellus and Zyra take less than a year to pose a threat to Earth.
Does this make sense?
* If there's "plenty of room" on the evacuation planes, families SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALLOWED to travel together...not the ignorant idea of "women & children first" Additionally, there would be hundreds of planes used in such an emergency.
* In the stock footage of the empty streets of NYC, you can still see people loitering around...Paul Frees (the narrator) covers this up rather nicely by saying that many people associated in the public works departments stayed behind until the last minute until everyone was evacuated.
* The people on the rocket had the right idea when they arrived on Zyra...open the door and breathe the air. If the air is bad (or no air at all), everyone dies....because at this point nothing matters anymore...because no one can go back to Earth because there's no Earth to go back to....and dying outside is a lot better than suffocating inside a rocket ship....because you'd be stuck watching people drop off like flies.
Zyra & Bellus are heading towards Earth...Zyra passes the Earth, disaster ensues. People escape to Zyra and everything is fine
I have no doubt similar quakes and tsunamis happened on Zyra when it passed by. The refugees should find evidence for this as they explore their new homes in more detail.
If Zyra was moving through space at incredible speeds, wouldn't it just keep going after it passed by Earth? For all we know, Zyra could be on a collision course with our sun...which would kill everyone...or worse yet, keep going until it leaves our system again...making things on Zyra bitterly cold...killing everyone.
Astronomers knew precisely where Zyra would be going after its encounter with Earth. Celestial mechanics told them that, and if the decision was made to evacuate people to it, obviously they knew there was no danger of the planet falling into the Sun. As for it becoming too cold to sustain life, Bellus is a red dwarf star, not a planet, and it will keep Zyra nice and warm as it had been doing for billions of years prior to the encounter.
How come Earth exploded and Bellus did not?
As I said, Bellus is a star, it has enough mass to absorb the collision with Earth without sustaining too much damage.
Halley's comet appears every 75 to 76 years in our solar system. Yet Bellus and Zyra take less than a year to pose a threat to Earth.
Does this make sense?
It does because those bodies are moving much faster than Halley's comet.
There are MANY observatories on Earth, yet ONLY ONE sees the impending doom? RIGHT!
In 1951, there were much fewer observatories than there are today, and few of them carried out the sort of general sky survey that would let them detect the coming danger. Also, the observatory in the movie is in the southern hemisphere, and Bellus and Zyra are coming from the deep southern sky. There were very few observatories south of the equator at the time, and those in the northern hemisphere would not have been able to see a threat coming from the southern sky.
Thanks. Now it all makes sense.
Why are there only WHITE PEOPLE on the rocket?
Dude, this is 1951, a time when black people weren't even allowed to use the same water fountains as white people (the Civil Rights movement was still years away at this point).
The writers of the movie were operating under the mindset of this time. It wasn't conscious evil on their part, it's just the way it was back then.
No doubt if this movie were made now, there would be blacks and other ethic groups aboard the rocket along with the white people. However, you can't impose 2013 values on a 1951 movie.
This movie marks one of Frank Cady's serious roles. He plays the part of Ferris.
He would later play Mr. Drucker on "Green Acres" & "Petticoat Junction"
(So...Mr. Drucker turns evil and points a gun at people in this movie)....(LOL)
They never mention how the press found out about Randall & the black box.
What was the point of hiding in the underground bunker when the worlds were about to collide?
Being in a bunker at that moment would be a complete waste of time....I mean it won't protect you when the world is blown up....right?
Maybe they were hoping for a miracle.
What happened to Earth's moon in this film?
Did it collide with Bellus too?
I don't think the fate of the Moon is addressed at all. In all probability it was just flung away on its own orbit when Bellus and Zyra flew by. There's a smaller probability that it also collided with Bellus. Either way, it's no longer a concern for the survivors.
Stars and planets do not randomly zip through space like Bellus and Zyra do here.
And even if they did, it would take them centuries to do so, giving us more than enough time to prepare.
The movie did not follow the original novel, and has made alterations that severely weaken the plot.
In the novel, Bronson Alpha ("Bellus") was a gas giant planet that swung by Earth and ripped it up badly. Eight months later, they collided. That way, Bronson Beta ("Zyra") doesn't get ripped up when a gravity field rips up Earth.
Bellus could not possibly keep Zyra warm enough to live on. They don't launch until Bellus is just minutes away from Earth, and yet the Earth isn't being roasted to a cinder. Zyra had a glacier that they landed on, so it probably has been thawing out from our sun, not Bellus. It also is necessary for Zyra to break from Bellus and go into orbit around our sun.
I much prefer the mechanics of the novel. Also, the discovery of the Bronson bodies was made two or more years before the collision, and kept secret for a year or so; Hendron and other scientists formed a secret group to plan for the disaster and consider possibilities.
I should add that they should have launched when Zyra was close by. As it is, they had to use huge amounts of fuel to escape Bellus and get out of its gravity well!
50's B movies are not known for being scientifically accurate.
Potential anti-nit. Bellus did not heat Zyra directly. Zyra was heated through tidal forces (see Io and Europa).
This movie was made 71 years ago.
Hard to believe.