Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 science fiction film written by Harry Kleiner . 20th Century Fox wanted a book that would be a tie-in with the movie, and hired Isaac Asimov to write a novelization based on the screenplay. Both book and film were released the same year. Because Asimov wrote the novelization many people mistakenly believed he had written the movie, which was a source of some annoyance for him.

Cast and Production Credits

• Jean Del Val as Jan Benes
• Stephen Boyd as Grant
• William Redfield as Capt. Bill Owens
• Donald Pleasence as Dr. Michaels
• Arthur Kennedy as Peter Duval
• Raquel Welch as Cora Peterson
• Screenplay by Harry Kleiner
• Based on a story by Otto Klement
• Music by Leonard Rosenman
• Directed by Richard Fleischer
• Approx. 100 minutes

Synopsis

The United States and the Soviet Union have both developed technology that allows matter to be miniaturized using a process that shrinks individual atoms, but its value is limited because objects will return to normal size after a maximum of 60 minutes.

A scientist named Jan Benes, working behind the Iron Curtain, figures out how to make the shrinking process work for an unlimited time. With the help of the CIA, Benes escapes to the west, but an attempted assassination leaves him comatose with a blood clot in his brain. The US Government is anxious to save his life so that he can share the secret of unlimited miniaturization.

A group of scientists including Grant, Capt. Bill Owens, Dr. Michaels, Peter Duval, and his assistant, Cora Peterson, enter a submarine, the Proteus, which is miniaturized and injected into Benes. Because of the process's time limit the team has only one hour to find and repair the clot before certain death: once the miniaturized submarine begins to revert to normal size, it will become a target for Benes' immune system.

Many obstacles hinder the crew as they proceed on their journey. They are forced to travel through the heart (cardiac arrest must be induced to avoid turbulence), the inner ear (all in the lab must remain quiet to prevent similar turbulence) and the alveoli of the lungs (where they replenish their supply of oxygen). They cannibalize their communications radio in order to repair the surgical laser used to remove the blood clot. It becomes obvious there is a saboteur on the mission.

Logical flaw

In the original movie the crew (apart from the saboteur) manage to leave Benes' body safely before reverting to normal size, but the Proteus remains inside, as do the atoms of the saboteur's body (digested by a white blood cell). Isaac Asimov pointed out that this was a serious logical flaw in the plot, since the submarine should also revert to normal size, killing Benes in the process. Therefore in his novelization Asimov had the crew escape from Benes' body in the submarine.

Further novelization

A second novel, Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain, was written by Isaac Asimov as an attempt to develop and present his own story apart from the 1966 screenplay. This novel is not a sequel to the original, but instead is a separate story taking place in the Soviet Union with an entirely different set of characters.

See also

• Innerspace