When Worlds Collide
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Image:When Worlds Collide Book Cover.jpg
This article is about the 1932 novel. For the professional wrestling event, see When Worlds Collide (wrestling).
When Worlds Collide is a science fiction novel (1932) co-written by Philip Gordon Wylie and Edwin Balmer and also a motion picture (1951) directed by Rudolph Maté. The movie was filmed in Technicolor. It was winner of the 1951 Academy Award for Best Effects, Special Effects.
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Novel plot
Sven Bronson, a South African astronomer, discovers that a pair of runaway planets, Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta, will soon enter the solar system. The larger one, Alpha, will pass close enough to cause catastrophic damage. Eight months later, after swinging around the Sun, Alpha will return to pulverize the Earth and leave. It is believed that Bronson Beta will remain and assume a stable orbit.
Scientists led by Cole Hendron work desperately to build ships to transport enough people, animals and equipment to Bronson Beta in an attempt to save the human race. Governments are skeptical, but the scientists persist and develop the technology necessary for the spacecraft, which are built in various countries. Nations like the United States evacuate their coastal regions in preparation for the Bronson bodies' first pass. Tides of hundreds of feet, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes take their deadly toll, and the weather runs wild for more than two days.
The isolated Hendron camp manages to build two ships which take off together with all of the survivors of the camp (after beating off an attack from outsiders). One ship makes a successful landing, but without radio contact with any other ships, the crew members conclude that only they made it across. They find that Beta is inhabitable and that there are traces of a native civilization wiped out when, millions of years before, the planet was torn away from its sun.
A sequel, After Worlds Collide, reveals that at least three other ships made it, including their own companion ship, and there is an unknown group intent on eliminating Hendron's group... or enslaving it. Hendron's people explore the fantastic cities left behind by the previous occupants of the planet.
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Movie plot
A group of scientists predict an impending collision between the Earth and a marauding star (Bellus) that is entering the solar system with a planet (Zyra) in tow, but the government refuses to listen to them. They set about building a rocket privately with the financing of a wealthy industrialist, so that a few selected individuals can escape to the approaching planet and start a new civilization. The construction of the rocket ship is a race against time as doomsday approaches. Zyra passes by first, its gravity disrupting the Earth's surface. As the appointed day of complete destruction draws closer, the ship is loaded with all that is considered important for the construction of a new civilization: food and other supplies, microfiche copies of numerous books, equipment, and approximately fifty individuals selected by lottery (all, interestingly enough, youthful caucasians). The cynical industrialist, having bought weapons to defend the base, becomes more anxious as time passes. In the final hour, many of those not chosen riot, taking up arms to try and force their way aboard the ship. The elderly scientist who conceived and supervised the project stays behind at the last moment, forcibly keeping the (crippled) financier on earth as well in order to lighten the spaceship. The ship lands on Zyra just as the fuel runs out and disgorges its inhabitants who, presumably, go on to rebuild human civilization.
Tagline: Planets destroy earth!
New version planned for 2006
Steven Spielberg has recently announced that he will be the executive producer of a new version of When Worlds Collide to be released sometime in 2006.
Trivia
The name When worlds collide was used in a Far Side cartoon, portraying aliens resembling giant buttocks with eye stalks on top landing on Earth, and seeing a goat.
The Iron Maiden song When Two Worlds Collide is apparently based on the novel.
The band Powerman 5000 has a song called When Worlds Collide
When Worlds Collide is one of the many classic movies referenced in the opening theme ("Science Fiction Double Feature") of both the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show and its theatrical counterpart, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The film's producer, George Pál, is also mentioned.