I remember as a kid seeing this cassette at the video store and thinking "amazing - Disney plus sci fi." But it underwhelmed then and underwhelms now - its remarkable Disney greenlit something with such a bodgy script but then it was when the studio was under Ron Miller, the well meaning incompetent.
In hindsight you wonder why they didn't just remake 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea in space - they would've had the rights to the script, Maximilian Schell is clearly channeling Nemo. But this film doesn't learn from the lessons of that one - that plunged the viewer into the action, had clearly defined characters, milked the excitement.
This one has a little bit of action at the start and some at the end but far too much is people standing around talking. Now standing around talking can work if the characters and conflicts are interesting but not here - while Leagues had a nice tight trio stuck, allowing character development and interaction with Nemo, this one has far too many: Yvette Mimieux, Ernest Borgnine, Anthony Perkins, Joseph Bottoms, and Robert Forster. All good actors (though Mimieux can look bored in certain roles and does here) but only Perkins has much to play (a man attracted to Schell's ideas); Mimieux should have been given more to do (the daughter of a man on Schell's trip... she should have been Schell's daughter) and the characters of Borgnine, Forster and Bottoms could be merged into on.
The director is dull - little tension, excitement. The effects are stunning as is the music and the ending of the movie is remarkable. As a child I did find it sad when a robot died and that death still moved me.
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