When I was a kid I just loved this movie and it has actually stood the test of time fairly well. Better than most of its genre. The saucer effects by Ray Harryhausen are top notch and were not really surpassed until the digital age. We are also not subject to the thinly veiled aliens are really communists. As much as I hate to say it this was a thinking mans saucer film.
Time has not been kind to all of the film and that has given it some charm of its own. The scene with the universal translator, which was a very, very large mechanical computer with lots of rotating gears and a pen that writes in cursive are all but laughable these days but must of seemed very high tech at the time.
Also minus the flying saucers we nearly have all the power that the aliens had in this film in one form or another. Right down to the enhanced vision and hearing, laser and sound weapons and various other devices.
Another plus of the film, much like independence day decades later is that the earth takes a beating before the aliens are shown the door. We even see people crushed under the collapsing Washington monument. Good Stuff!
Do catch the film if you have never seen it before. It has inspired many, many directors and producers. Tim Burton pretty much copied the saucers for his film Mars Attacks and he borrowed a whole lot more! It is worth it just to see how it influenced all these people, plus it is a pretty good, not very preachy Sci-fi film from the 50's and that is rare!
Time has not been kind to all of the film and that has given it some charm of its own. The scene with the universal translator, which was a very, very large mechanical computer with lots of rotating gears and a pen that writes in cursive are all but laughable these days but must of seemed very high tech at the time.
Also minus the flying saucers we nearly have all the power that the aliens had in this film in one form or another. Right down to the enhanced vision and hearing, laser and sound weapons and various other devices.
Another plus of the film, much like independence day decades later is that the earth takes a beating before the aliens are shown the door. We even see people crushed under the collapsing Washington monument. Good Stuff!
Do catch the film if you have never seen it before. It has inspired many, many directors and producers. Tim Burton pretty much copied the saucers for his film Mars Attacks and he borrowed a whole lot more! It is worth it just to see how it influenced all these people, plus it is a pretty good, not very preachy Sci-fi film from the 50's and that is rare!