Journey Through Sci-Fi: A Science Fiction Film Podcast · James Payne

Fantastic Voyage (1966) & Innerspace (1987): Attack of the Tiny Tourists

·1 hr 8 min·4 clips

Mike Myers reportedly proposed “Shagtastic Voyage,” with Austin Powers injected into Dr. Evil’s body.

They start with shrinkage. James and Matt open the discussion by circling back to mad science and then narrowing it to one particular gimmick: taking characters down to a microscopic scale and sending them through a human body. That is the setup. Fantastic Voyage from 1966 and Inner Space from 1987 are the two films on the table, with the second treated as a later, heavily inspired cousin to the first. They keep comparing them. The show leans into the fact that this is not just a size change, but a shift in geography, because the inside of a body becomes a strange terrain full of zones to cross. It gets gross. They spend time on the discomfort of being shrunk while trapped inside someone else, and on the extra weirdness of having a tiny vehicle shrunk along with the crew. The little vehicle matters. That vehicle becomes part of the pleasure of the premise, and they even liken the setup to Thunderbirds, except the rescue craft is now operating inside a body rather than outside one. The craft talk is strong. From there they dig into how Fantastic Voyage was put together, including the long miniature submarine used for interior shots and the smaller 18-inch model used for moments when the sub bursts through arterial walls and other body surfaces. The performers are part of it too. James and Matt describe the wire work and marionette-like movement that makes the actors look like puppets being pulled through an impossible environment. It fooled them at first. One of them says it took a few scenes to realise the action was not underwater at all, which is a pretty good sign that the illusion is doing its job. The movie still holds. They point out that the film won awards for best visual effects and best production design, and they make the case that the imagery still lands because each part of the body feels like a different realm. That is the big idea. By the end, they settle on the psychedelic quality of Fantastic Voyage as the thing that gives it lasting power, while Inner Space sits beside it as the cheekier, later spin on the same tiny premise.

As heard by us

A compact double feature of body-scale sci-fi and practical effects.

James and Matt pair Fantastic Voyage with Inner Space for a clean comparison of miniaturized sci-fi, moving the premise from shrinking people to traveling through the body itself.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Two tiny sci-fi trips: Fantastic Voyage from 1966 and its later, heavily inspired echo, Inner Space from 1987.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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