So I watched Fantastic Voyage again after a long break (at least 15 years) and one glaring problem struck me as a fatal flaw, aside from the actual sci-fi miniaturization concept itself:
So they miniaturize the Proteus to its Phase One size, then drop it inside a huge syringe filled with water or saline solution. OK, fine. Then they seal it with the massive plunger and miniaturize the entire syringe, further shrinking the Proteus and its crew. OK - I'm hip to that as well. But when the Proteus is injected into the patient, all the fluid in the syringe gets miniaturized right along with it... about the volume of a very larch residential water boiler, if I recall correctly.
...see where I'm going with this yet?
Now in the 45 minutes they are inside the blood stream, heart, lungs, brain, lymphatic system, inner ear, etc., all this miniaturized fluid has traversed pretty much throughout the patient's circulatory system and vital organs. So how come at the end of those 45 minutes doesn't the patient explode when all those millions of shrunken water molecules expand back to their original size???? :lol
One might ask: "ok, but what about the Proteus itself? Even if it was devoured by antibodies, the molecules & atoms that comprise it would also have to expand." My answer would be: "maybe they surgically removed it before it could be decomposed." But obviously they didn't, which makes the water issue now completely moot, because the Proteus was shrunk
TWICE.
I don't think any members of the Academy asked themselves that question before awarding the film the Oscar for Best Special Effects...
Did they ever address this issue in Inner Space? I can't remember - it's been too long since I've seen it.
Incidentally, a very young James Brolin (Josh's dad) of
Westworld and
Capricorn One fame, plays a technician in the movie and is seen briefly as he secures the hatch on the Proteus before it's shrunken:
Discuss!
RR
