From the George Pal movie of H G Well's The Time Machine. The "talking rings" are a fictional audio recording and archival technology and describe events from long ago.
@@dennisznaniecke490 In a way it did. The movie earlier referred to atomic satellites that could target cities of the enemy on Earth. Incredibly the original book was written by H.H. Welles in 1895 and predicted 3 World Wars to come after the turn of the century in 1900 and even to our 21st century. Atomic energy was just a theory in 1895 and not much was known nor even radiation from what will be created by atomic bombs by 1945.
The miracle of this motion picture is just how well it still holds up, in spite of its utter lack of the modern, digital technology we take for granted today. Made for a fraction of what the fancy remake cost, it blew away the CGI version, a testament to both the prodigious acting talents of the original cast, and the incredible efforts of George Pal. Rod Taylor just passed on the 7th of January. RIP.
When I first saw this movie, it creeped me out like few horror movies have ever done. Most of the movie wasn't creepy, but the wailing air-raid sirens, the Morlock sphinx, and the talking rings grimly but calmly describing humanity's demise and dropping in pitch at the end - all that gave me the shivers. Most people my age don't know what it was like to live under the threat of nuclear war, but because of this movie, I think I grasp it when I hear an air-raid siren. It's the sound of something far more frightening than mere death: everything you know and love will be annihilated.
I'm only 33 but I grew up terrified of those sirens. I knew what they meant, I heard the stories of my Grandmother hiding in the subways at night to escape the bombs, running when the rats started to run by. Strange but as a kid I was fully aware that the world might end at the push of a button, and the wail of those terrible sirens. Just like the blast scene from The Day After!!
Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux were good actors. Also, while the Talking Rings were not a feature of the original H.G. Wells novel, they are faithful to his narrative. You can also see another such device, in the global holographic computer data base portrayed in the 2002 movie interpretation of the novel. Wells was a typical early twentieth century progressive, and wrong about a great many things, but when I look at this movie, in particular, and see this scene, in particular, I wonder if he may have been at least partially right in some of his pessimistic musings. Look at this scene with Weena and the Time Traveler. Weena and the other Eloi have access to a large database of incredible information about science and history that is beyond the imaginings of the Time Traveler, and yet she and the other Eloi lack the education and contextual knowledge that would allow them to understand what the Time Traveler has deduced and inferred from what he has learned. Look at this scene again, and ask yourself if you do not see a Boomer and a Millenial in the Time Traveler and Weena. Notice how the Time Traveler asks Weena to "Make it talk." SHE knows how, and she shows him "how to Google it," but she has no comprehension of the information that The Talking Rings impart, whereas the Time Traveler does. It makes me wonder if Wells was onto something.
Also, it is not JUST "stern horror;" the Time Traveler is contemptuous of the Eloi and what it is into which they have descended. Remember the scene where the Time Traveler is shown the moldering books? Remember the scene of his "rant" in the domed cafeteria? It is not just horror over realizing the plight of Weena and the Eloi, he also experiences contempt and disgust at the complacency of the Eloi and with their apparent loss of respect for learning and knowledge, and human life and dignity.
“Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?”― Tennessee Williams
Yes! Right up there with comedian Mitch H’s joke: a friend of mine showed me a picture of himself and said “this is one of me when I was younger.” I said, “EVERY PICTURE OF YOU IS WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER! THINK ABOUT IT!”
Seeing this as a ten year old in 1960, the Morlocks terrified me and every other kid in the theater. I had a crush on Yvette after seeing the film, too. I had seen Rod Taylor in a Twilight Zone episode in 1959. I later learned they finished filming in June, four months before his TZ appearance. It was his first starring role in a movie and he was great.
Anyone interested in history, politics, and philosophy can’t help but love this movie. When I was a kid, George was my hero. That debate about the fourth dimension at the beginning is priceless.
I knew I was destined to be a voice actor when I first heard the voice of Paul Frees, who you hear in this clip as the talking rings. I think I first heard his voice in the trailer for a sci-fi classic called “Atlantis, the lost continent.” I was nine years old, and didn’t get to see “the Time Machine” until four or five years later when it popped up on TV. I found it very interesting to see Alan Young in a dramatic role, because I only knew him as Wilbur Post from the Mr. Ed TV show. People often ask why we don’t see the same quality of film projects today as we did 60 or 70 years ago, and the reason is they drew a larger portion of society as viewers… whereas today we have so many choices that almost no films get to be legendary like Star Wars or Avatar or other top box office hits.
Many more movies were made in the days of the studio system, plus there was radio. Actors like Paul Frees could earn a nice living working six days a week on multiple radio shows, and they were usually live. So you learned to be a pro, play to the listener's imagination, and sound like different people so you got more work.
These talking rings are an excellent idea to represent what could be perceived as a very advanced media format instead of cassette, tape or CD which became banal or obsolete with the passage of time.
technical almost all form of media have the same problem the are digital and demand a complex technology with manny diffrent parts and compoment. Even if you save all english writhen books inside one singel 5 cm diamond. it became worthless if you have no technology to read it. A book can be used to get the information out of it aslong people can read this english and aslong it don't rotten. a microfilm can store a picture and all you need was light and some lenses. and an LP can by played and the recording hear aslong you have a fine nedal. a slow spining mechanic and a mechical amplifier( what could be a papiercup)
Yvette Mimieux was actually underage when shooting began (she turned 18 during the shoot) and was not legally supposed to work a full shooting schedule, but did. She was inexperienced, but as she worked on this film she kept getting better and better, so that by the end of the shoot the producers went back and re-shot some of her earliest scenes.
One of the five greatest sci-fi movies of all times! The beautiful Time Machine, the talking rings and the Elois. The talking rings and the light on it was an ingenious idea!
Thank you, George Pal, Rod Taylor and the rest of the cast and crew who put this wondrous film together. Russell Garcia composed a wondrous score to this great film.
I have placed that original score album, (both sides) on my page...By Russell Garcia...You may want to check out sometime ! His work was brilliant.. This was just a total achievement all around..
@@doughelms558 Indeed! & here's where the Synchronicity kicks in... He did the same vocal style in ANOTHER George Pal Sci/Fi Classic 'War of the Worlds'! Of course... made famous (or, infamous) in the US by Orsen Wells!
George Pal produced some of my favorite movies. The Time Machine, When Worlds Collide, and Destination Moon among them. He had hoped to make a sequel to The Time Machine, but unfortunately was never able to do so.
Paul Frees, who voiced "my name is of no consequence", also did the Ghost Host for Disney's Haunted Mansion. Whenever I watch this video I always think of "There's no turning back now! (sinister laugh)"
It was the old man calling “the mushrooms are coming” that scared me witless as a kid. I saw it on TV in the very early Seventies when I as about 12. Old enough to know that Armageddon was in the air and we lived next to a major military “target” in UK so we would have been frazzled in an instant. Incredible film that has always stood the test of time. And the bonus is, humanity hasn’t destroyed itself - yet……
The talking rings are a simple, low budget prop, that is elegant, engaging, and memorable. Anyone who has ever seen the movie remembers the rings. All done with no CGI, no elaborate sets, no explosions.
Same here. One thing I didn't like about the remake is that we're supposed to believe that a 21st century computer could last 800,000 years. But these rings are based on an unknown technology that they don't bother to explain. So who's to say how long they would last?
"From the talking rings, I learned how the human race divided itself and how the world of the Eloi and the Morlocks began. By some awful quirk of fate, the Morlocks had become the masters and the Eloi their servants. The Morlocks maintain them and bred them like cattle only to take them below when they reached maturity, which explained why there were no older people among them. Now I knew I must go below. It was the only means of finding a way up into the sphinx, to reach my machine and to find out what happened to the little people when they did go below."
This is a deliberate distortion of Wells' Marxist theme: the Morlocks were brutalised factory workers (prols) and the Eloi the effete bourgeoisie who had become dependent on the workers...
we are looking down the barrel at this now, one days in the distant future, when there are no books or actual pictures or recorded record of the generations after computers. What happens if the plug on the interwebs is pulled? and all you are gonna have left is stuff before the computer age . HG Wells was on to something!
Unless we surpass ourselves as just one planet civilization. Once we travel to other star systems or part of a galactic organization... Likely our civilizations may live longer... Probably last long like the Galactic Republic Civilization from the Star Wars Universe.
There are two books that you can get to help rebuild civilization. 1. The Knowledge: How to rebuild our Civilization from scratch by Lewis Dartlnell 2. How to Invent Everything by Ryan North They show what you need to do to reboot or start civilization. You can download them free from the internet or purchase them from Amazon. Read and become prepared. Take care and have a Happy New Year.
Still my fav movie (since i was at least 10/11 yrs old). hah feel like compulsively downloading this. hg wells never fails. good night time machine. xo
According to the draft script of the film by David Duncan, dated 1959 (which is available online), the 326th year of the final war was 4829, hence this war began in 4503. This raises even more questions regarding the changing landscape prior to 802701, after the volcanic rock around George and the time machine erodes away. Who built those white buildings around the English countryside (prior to the construction of the Sphinx) and later the Eloi hall, which once had an adjoining tower? Why have the seasons vanished (as noted by George: "There was no winter...")? From the time dial footage at the end of the movie (when George returns to 1900), it is shown that the outside world of the future was only visible after AD 500,000 or so (note the sunlight shining on the dials). This means that the white buildings, Sphinx and Eloi hall were all built during the last 300,000 years prior to 802701. But by whom? The Eloi are too weak and dumb to have built such structures, while the Morlocks certainly could not have built them under the Sun...
I've wondered about that myself. The time traveller witnessed three world wars in the 20th century, the last being the most destructive and devastating, triggering off widespread volcanic activity. Were the bombs detonated along the tectonic plates and faults in the earth's crust, causing massive earthquakes? The time traveler's machine was engulfed in by the rising magma, but was not destroyed due to his travelling through time. The molten rock then cooled and rapidly solidified (from the time traveler's viewpoint). At this point, we do not know what humanity's fate is. He wonders if humanity survived and whether the war is still going on. We then see two readings on the machine's dial. It rapidly approaches the year 10,000 on the first reading. When we see the display again, it is approaching the year 100,000. Shortly after that, again from the time traveler's viewpoint, the rock finally erodes away and he look upon the scene of a recovering, verdant Earth. Behind him, a wall goes up, then structures appear in the landscape, then fade away. He states that, "Thousands of centuries have passed, and the earth has stayed green. There's no winter, no wars...and man has finally learned to tame both the earth and himself. I have to find out." But he stops too quick, and ends up in the year 802,701. The talking rings state that a long war (4503-4829) is at an end and describes the beginning of the divergence of humans into two distinct species. Those who chose a life underground became the troglodyte Morlocks, while those who chose to remain on the surface became the Eloi. Now, since the end of WWIII, civilisation recovered until the next global conflict of 4503. At the end of that war, both groups of survivors went their separate ways, with the cave dwellers having access to machines which were part of a network of underground settlements built during the conflict. Those on the surface, however, had to start all over again from scratch, eventually rebuilding what seemed to be a very advanced civilisation. Now, in keeping with the anti war theme of the movie, did humanity go through cycles of war and peace, with civilisations rising and falling after the 4503 war? And did this last trace of civilisation on Earth advance to the point where their technology created a stagnating society where no further progress was possible? The novel alludes to this, that a state of absolute permanency had been reached, which ironically lead to the demise of that civilisation. Meanwhile, the underground dwellers gradually devolved into a primal form, and their food sources began to run out. Over time, their need to survive took priority over technology, and they turned to the only source of food available to them, which was on the surface.
You're assuming the eloi were always like that. They would have evolved over the millennia just like the Morlocks, both were the same race around 4829. Maybe around 500000 when the buildings were being built they weren't so passive and more able to look after themselves, but 300000 years of Morlock dominance had made them weak and feeble by the time the traveler arrives.
Stephen Baxter's sequel 'The Time Ships,' (authorized by Well's estate) speculates that there may have been a third race during the hundreds of thousands of years the time traveler skips over, who were extremely advanced technologically and abandoned the planet at some point. (This is used to explain why the time traveler sees the sun dying less than thirty million years in the future when it should last another five billion years; They tinkered with the sun in some way and messed up.) Maybe they're the ones that built the things neither Eloi or Morlock could have.
I feel a script for ‘ Time Machine 2’ coming on. Maybe tie in or y mash up with its Logan’s run? Gimme ideas and I’ll put ‘em through Infranodus, we can write the script or maybe turn it into a short story!🎉🎉🎉$$$$
Yeah, but no. That was the ONE thing about the 2002 movie that was better than the original. The holo-Liberian was able to interact to fill in some of the gaps. The rings are just a monologue, but it never occurred to the scriptwriter to have some sort of interaction in the original.
these rings scared the heck out of me when I first watched this movie as a little kid. especially the things that were being said during the spin of the first one
This amazing, imaginative, really stunning movie in its sweeping story. A masterpiece. Plus, unlike the remake a dozen years ago, its not about us- our time. In this movie our time, us, are utterly forgotten, which is likely how it will be in 800,000 years...
I was born in 1988, and was introduced to this movie by my father when I was about ten years old. This fantastic piece of cinema has been an indelible piece of my imagination from my first seeing it. Thank you HG Wells for weaving rhis incredible story, and thank you to my father for first showing it to me
I had the great honor of holding the Oscar that my boss at the time, Tim Baar, received for the Special Effects on this movie. Along with Gene Warren I believe.
This scene is a perfect metaphor for the adage ignorance is bliss, and the intelligent are doomed to a life of sorrow. Weena and her people don't understand what the rings talk about, and she continues to smile as the rings play, but George understands perfectly, and as he listens the smile of fascination fades from his face as he learns we damaged the earth to the point we became shadows of ourselves.
"I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also was a chasing at the wind. For in much wisdom, is much grief. And he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow." I've always remembered that line, ever since Al Mualim said it in Assassins Creed, quoting Ecclesiastes 1:17. Ignorance it seems truly is bliss.
A wonderful and unforgettable movie. Rod Taylor with the beautiful and sweet Yvette Mimieux made a perfect couple. So way much better than the marvel trash we have today.
perhaps he grab the once that look the lesser used. as she say it. they speak about things nobody understand. perhaps one outer ring contain a song one artist want preserved this way. and this ring was played way way more offent as all outhers and look over fingerprints and lesser dust way more used...
Love this movie from the first time I saw it in the 60’s. The voice of the talking rings sounds like Paul Frees of Disney voice over fame, and Rankin-Bass programs.
My Mom used to joke that the only reason she married my dear Dad was because he looked just like Rod Taylor. RIP Mom & Dad - I will always love and never forget you ❤🙏😇
Jan. 31, 2019----Man of man....Yvette Mimeaux was so god damned hot in this and her other movies. Especially liked Jackson County Jail movie. And have this movie as VHS and dvd, along with the remake they did as a dvd. Both great classics. Thanks for the video clip.
A "timeless movie".........and it still remains the best adaptation of the classic HG Wells novel. It's a wonder there haven't been more attempts, as there hasn't been a movie yet which has really brought the full potential of the novel alive - but George Pal's 1960 attempt was certainly a great try.
"My name is of no consequence"- The Ghost Host Yeah but in all seriousness that's the voice of Paul Frees, the narrator for three attractions at Disneyland, The Haunted Mansion, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, and the extinct ride Adventures Thru Inner Space; and he provides many voices for Pirates of The Caribbean. When I first heard his voice I automatically said to myself that this was perfect casting, who else could provide the voice for the last remaining remnants of human society in the future, just so fitting and chilling. Its also interesting because Paul Frees appears again in the 1960s version of the war of the worlds for a scene, another HG Wells novel of course. Disney must have viewed these movies and decided he was their pick, makes sense since this movie predates all those attractions. I wish he had recorded audiobooks because his voice was just incredible.
Tom O'Connor yeah but it was happy surprise seeing him hunched over as Churchill in Inglorious Bastards for his final role. First close up they gave him just clicked when he said, “brief him”. I was like, “No way, Rod Taylor!”
To me, it seems inconceivable that any war like this would last 326 years. If those orbital satelites in 1966 had the strength to cause the catastrophic damage seen to London, then how would other countries of the world continue to maintain a population large enough to continue the fighting at a later time?
It's worth it just to hear those master voices of the past: Sir Laurence Olivier, and Paul Frees, in quick succession. This is exactly whom I would choose us to be represented to the Future World.
One of the wonderous moments, of this splendid film... Thanx for this...! ! ! I have placed the original complete soundtrack of this film on my page..you may enjoy.
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording. Prior to the development of sound recording, there were mechanical systems for encoding and reproducing instrumental music, such as wind-up music boxes and, later, player pianos. Acoustic analog recording is achieved by a microphone diaphragm that can detect and sense the changes in atmospheric pressure caused by acoustic sound waves and record them as a mechanical representation of the sound waves on a medium such as a phonograph record (in which a stylus cuts grooves on a record). In magnetic tape recording, the sound waves vibrate the microphone diaphragm and are converted into a varying electric current, which is then converted to a varying magnetic field by an electromagnet, which makes a representation of the sound as magnetized areas on a plastic tape with a magnetic coating on it. Analog sound reproduction is the reverse process, with a bigger loudspeaker diaphragm causing changes to atmospheric pressure to form acoustic sound waves. Oscillations may also be recorded directly from devices such as an electric guitar pickup or a synthesizer, without the use of acoustics in the recording process, other than the need for musicians to hear how well they are playing during recording sessions via headphones. Digital recording and reproduction converts the analog sound signal picked up by the microphone to a digital form by the process of digitization. This lets the audio data be stored and transmitted by a wider variety of media. Digital recording stores audio as a series of binary numbers (zeros and ones) representing samples of the amplitude of the audio signal at equal time intervals, at a sample rate high enough to convey all sounds capable of being heard. Digital recordings are considered higher quality than analog recordings not necessarily because they have higher fidelity (wider frequency response or dynamic range), but because the digital format can prevent much loss of quality found in analog recording due to noise and electromagnetic interference in playback and mechanical deterioration or damage to the storage medium. Whereas successive copies of an analog recording tend to degrade in quality, as more noise is added, a digital audio recording can be reproduced endlessly with no degradation in sound quality. A digital audio signal must be reconverted to analog form during playback before it is amplified and connected to a loudspeaker to produce sound.
Thank you for that explanation. The movie came out in 1959, yet by 1957, "Max Mathews of Bell Labs recorded the first computer-generated music, a 17-second piece called "The Silver Scale" composed by his co-worker Newman Guttman" (From Wikipedia). Optical video recording technology, using a transparent disc, (laser disc) was invented by David Paul Gregg and James Russell in 1963 (and patented in 1970 and 1990). Compact discs are "an evolution of LaserDisc technology, where a focused laser beam is used that enables the high information density required for high-quality digital audio signals. Prototypes were developed by Philips and Sony independently in the late 1970s. In 1979, Sony and Philips set up a joint task force of engineers to design a new digital audio disc. After a year of experimentation and discussion, the Red Book CD-DA standard was published in 1980." (Wikipedia) I wonder if the "rings" were another sci-fi "invention" that later "birthed" compact discs, much like cell phones today were sci-fi "inventions" first seen in Star Trek. I remember reading somewhere that engineers thought Star Trek's communicators were so cool that they wanted to build a real one... and they did. 😺
I did look over David Duncan's script & it appears to be an original rough draft. That script did mention a later war in 4053 A.D. in the Talking Ring scene but seems to be omitted in the final film. Duncan's script also mentions in the 1966 pre-attack scene an ambulance passing George, and the bomb blast rerouting the Thames River - I don't recall seeing those things in the film. (There was a TOHO movie from 1962 called "The Last War" that has a volcano form in H-Bomb devastated Tokyo.) The Soviets were found to have stashed away World War II fighter planes and military gear in caves, so it is plausible that the 1966 war continued with conventional weapons to some degree after the nuclear exchange. There may have been biological weapons that weren't destroyed in the nuclear exchange that were used later and "Filled the air with deadly germs". The British descendants of the 1966 war survivors probably noted that the Soviets were no longer attacking them 326 years later and declared that the war is over. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and other communist nations were referred to as "The East" and the non-communist nations were referred to as "The West". I wonder if the monorail train in the 1966 scene was one that was sold in the Disneyland toy store? There could have been later wars, between "Tribes" of the British descendants that would account for the fallen tower and other destroyed buildings.
1:19My name is of no consequence. The important thing you should know is that I am the last who remembers how each of us, man and woman, made his own decision. Some chose to take refuge in the great caverns and find a new way of life far below the earth's surface. The rest of us decided to take our chances in the sunlight, small as those chances might be.
The talking rings are voiced by actor Paul Frees, he did many movie and cartoon voices, Rocky and Bullwinkle's Boris Badenov, Disney's Ludwig Von Drake, they dubbed his voice for Humphrey Bogart's last movie due to Bogie's throat cancer.
''The war between the East and West which is in its 326th year, has at last come to an end''. ''The atmosphere has become so polluted with deadly germs, that it can no longer be breathed.'' I can never get out of my mind of what and how a war could last for 3 centuries! I look back at the beginning of WWIII in 1966 and I cannot see how it could have continued THAT long! I mean the Atomic Satellites virtually did over 95% of the death and destruction in the first attacks. And with the geological structure ruptured because of the blasts and molten rock rising to the surface to finish the job certainly was the 5%. World War III: 1966 - 2289.
I'm pretty sure that nuclear weapons weren't the only things to make the war last that long. The governments at the time would've also used conventional warfare as well for territorial expansionism too.
Well Tyler you did see the power of the atomic satellites. I mean they were strong enough to cause a geological surge, but then again that was probably in a specific place. However seeing as they were satellites that the possibility of the atmosphere being evaporated was more than likely. Still god knows what tech was available at the time of the start of WWIII, however the possiblity of chemical weapons being used as well are very great.
Gaylord Cohen Hey there! I like that rendition of the build up, I have my own take on the story. Mine was based on how the nuclear weapons test program practiced with orbital camera platforms that were intended for a peaceful purpose and how the Russians believed its capability of carrying Thermonuclear or Hydrogen warheads were too great (Atomic Satellites) and used it against the western democracies. I think I will use this Fanfiction site and type it all out for you to have a look at. I think you will find it as interesting as the one I read from your link. :3
Falkor The Luck Dragon™ Thanks 4 the reply! Can't wait to see what "theory" YOU might have to offer to this FASCINATING discussion on how the "strange new world" of 802,701 AD REALLY came into being! Okay...take care! ;-)
This film scared me off in my childhood …Morloks … I did watched this movie under the table of my parents and later at night in my nightmares.With other use words- I do love this movie !!!😝😝✌️🚀🚀🥁🥁🎥🎞🎬
I really wish they did more with this scene, I would like to have heard what some of the other rings had to say. There's a major information gap between humanity being a war weary but otherwise independent to a blissfully ignorant slave race. I also wonder if the Morlocks really were the people who took refuge beneath the surface. They weren't really that deep below and if they had technology on par with the talking rings, I'd imagine they'd be at least living in vaults like in fallout. For all we know, there's a technologically advanced human race loving a mile or so underground and no one would no it. Overall, it would have been interesting if H.G. Wells had expanded this story, shown how else the world could have changed. Only what was once London was shown here, the rest of the planet could have been entirely different.
+aHaryBilYrdBall Welles's novel is a socialist dystopia that posits a class struggle that has effectively been extended by hundreds of thousands of years. The Morlocks are the brutalized remnants of the producer class (industrial workers), the Eloi the clueless, disorganized, and effete remnants of the aristocratic one. Both have devolved such that the original class conflict has been forgotten, but has long since been locked in place until the actions of the Time Traveler disrupt it -- at least locally.
Yeah so true I wish like I read in the other comments that they would include a deleted scene from the other talking rings to here what was recorded on the other rings to learn what was left out of our missing past for those people
My take on this is that several civilisations came and went during our time traveler's journey from the 1960s to the year 802701. Those talking rings could have been a product from that last civilisation he saw when the rock wore away around him....or an earlier era.
judging by the pipes and ladder remains I think the morlocks at one point WERE living in some state of the art underground complex, but much like Rome to US something happened in their subterranean fortress that resulted in it's collapse, my guess is they eventually mutated into what we saw from generations of breeding in a highly radioactive environment, perhaps the bunker wasn't completely airtight, maybe it was nuclear powered and it melted down at some point, maybe the giant underground world simply outbred it's capacity to sustain itself in a post nuclear enviornment.
