gershomgale

Several things about this film make it worth watching... beginning with the premise that Earth's abundant water is what makes it rare in the galaxy.

But more intriguing is how the alien visitor, landing with absolutely nothing but the clothes on his back and a gold wedding ring, and knowing absolutely nothing about Earth culture, "gets up to speed" with astonishing, ruthless, clear-sighted rapidity...within days raising the $10,000 he offers a patent attorney for one hour of the latter's time. In that hour, Bowie's character outlines three basic patents -- including two which we can recognize today as digital cameras and music.

A particularly fascinating scene has our newly rich and already bored alien watching about 20 TV sets at once, while holding a small, battery-powered propeller. Repeated viewings will reveal that the disparate programs (presumably actual images of television shows) occasionally "come together" to form coherent messages... at which time our hero spins the propeller.

This is not a great film,but it has one scene which goes a LONG way toward redeeming it.

The scene comes near the end, when a character is offered transportation to what we presume is the "home world" where both Martian and Terran life originated.

Doubtless, this destination is outside our solar system, so we're not looking at any kind of regular shuttle bus.

The solution portrayed involves our hero being totally immersed in a clear liquid, which he ends up breathing without harm. Suspension in this liquid then serves to protect him against immense acceleration stress as he and his "neutral density encapsulation" environment are shot off the planet.

Now, what makes this scene particularly interesting is that there IS such a breathable liquid. It was developed by a Dr. Tom Shaffer of Temple Universdity, with the intention of saving severely premature infants.

What Shaffer didn't know at the time, but later worked out (with the cooperation of Dr. Henry Kolm, formerly of MIT) is that his liquid would provide total long-term protection for up to 1,000 Gs. Modern pilots can currently survive only about 10 Gs.

This film, released when Virtual Reality was little more than a gleam in its inventor's eye, shows only SOME of the benefits that this new medium could provide, as it will go beyond merely replacing television and film to become a new form of entertainment/education altogether. Imagine, for example, being able to actually perceive the distance from Earth to Moon, as you today perceive the distance between chess pieces. Similarly, imagine being able to actually perceive the 3D distance between an ant's eyes, for example, and its back legs.

And imagine a fully "real/solid" 3D image approaching you more and more closely, until it actually passes BEHIND your eyes, into your brain. This opens the kind of educational possibilities portrayed in the movie.

For more (realistic) details of just what a Virtual Reality headset might look like, look up US Patent #4,952.024.