Innerspace

Innerspace is a 1987 science fiction comedy film directed by Joe Dante and produced by Michael Finnell. Steven Spielberg served as executive producer. The film was inspired by the classic 1966 science fiction film Fantastic Voyage. It stars Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, Meg Ryan, Robert Picardo, and Kevin McCarthy with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. Though not a box office success ($25,893,810 of dosmetic gross revenue), it did win an Oscar, the only film directed by Joe Dante to do so. It was subsequently novelized by Nathan Elliott.

Trivia:

The patients in the doctor’s waiting room with Jack are played by Andrea Martin and Joe Flaherty, Martin Short’s co-stars from “SCTV Channel” (1983).

The computers in the lab display Apple 2 assembly language listing from the ROM monitor.

 

Cameo: [Chuck Jones] as a customer in the seen in the supermarket queue eating carrots. He utters the line regarding buying the aspirin, “At eight hundred dollars a bottle, who’d want to?”

 

The filmmakers used two different shopping malls for the scene where the doctor injects Tuck into Jack’s rear. The opening scenes where the doctor runs in and heads for the elevator were shot in the Northridge Mall in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles (also the epicenter of the ’94 quake). The scene where he reaches the top and rams the syringe into Jack was filmed on the top floor of the Sherman Oaks Galleria, another mall several miles away.

 

Some similarity to the pod in this movie and the one in Explorers (1985), also directed by Joe Dante.

 

After Scrimshaw and Canker are shrunk 50%, there are a few scenes where they are seen with full-size actors. These shots were actually filmed using forced perspective. For the car scene, the rear of the car is actually twice as large as a normal car rear, and was about 20 feet away. During the scene half size hands and double-size heads were used. Using this method, the film-makers didn’t have to worry about compositing two separate shots in post production, so the shots could be completed quicker. Even in the final scene with the suitcase, the case was twice as large, but the hand that closes it was real, closer to the camera in sync with the closing. (It took about 20 takes before it was perfect.)

 

This was the first film commercially released in Dolby Stereo “Spectral Recording” (SR). SR is a vastly improved noise reduction system which replaced Dolby’s original “A-type” noise reduction used for decades in all professional analog recording mediums (including all previous Dolby Stereo movies).

 

Director Cameo: [Joe Dante] as the first employee in the Vectorscope Lab attacked by the techno-terrorists.

 

When they are shrinking Tuck Pendleton, the lab’s instrumentation shows a reading on the screen that is five interlinked hexagons (two top, three bottom). This is the symbol that the “Combined Minature Deterrent Forces”, or CMDF, also used in the movie Fantastic Voyage (1966).

 

During the Cowboy/Putter changeover, Robert Picardo had to do quite a bit of work. After Putter has been changed, we see Lydia asking how he got into the room, etc. The first time Robert goes off screen he’s actually rushing behind camera, tearing off his breakaway clothes and getting into the bath. A make-up assistant is behind a fake wall at the head of the bath, having just changed the Putter Wig to the Cowboy one. Before the Scrimshaw meeting, Picardo’s voice was overdubbed with Short’s. During the meeting, Picardo used his own voice (with a Short-esque lilt), as the filmmakers didn’t think Short “trying? the Cowboy’s voice would be convincing enough to make the scene work.

 

The gas masks worn by Fiona Lewis and her henchmen are US M-17′s.

 

William Schallert was cast as Jack’s doctor as an in-joke since he had played a doctor in The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).

 

The license plate on Mr. Igoe’s car is “SNAPON” this is a reference to Snap-on tools; an automotive mechanic tool that features a snap mechanism for different attachments, similar to his hand.

 

While getting Jack pumped up to jump out of the back of the freezer truck, Tuck chants “nam myoho renge kyo” at him three times – this is the mantra chanted by adherents of Japanese Nichiren Buddhism.

 

Amy Irving was married to Steven Spielberg at the time, and when he showed her the script, she desperately wanted to play the role of Lydia Maxwell.

 

The only film directed by Joe Dante to win an Academy Award.

 

After Gremlins (1984), this movie marked the third collaboration between Joe Dante and Michael Finnell with Steven Spielberg.

 

Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan met on the set of this movie. They were married in 1991.

 

Cameo: [Arthur Kane] Arthur “Killer” Kane, bass player for the infamous New York Dolls makes an appearance as a passenger when the Cowboy us first seen in the airliner.

 

Luca Bercovici was the original actor to play Ingoe and his scenes were shot, but was replaced because the producers felt that he was not an intimidating villain as he was about the same height and body size as Martin Short.

 

The scene where Jack (Martin Short)’s character is tortured with propane is thought to be Robert Picardo’s character of The Cowboy with Rob Bottin’s make up effects. In reality, it is Picardo and it is his real voice during the scene as it played out. They had tried to dub Short as Picardo’s voice of The Cowboy but it did not work and had Picuardo just do the lines himself, according to Director Joe Dante.

 

The lab in the beginning of the film is the polar opposite of that of Victor Scrimshaw’s, Kevin McCarthy’s later on in the film. The lab seen when Dennis Quaid is miniaturized is in fact what a real lab would look like which is basically a poor man’s miniature home made pod. While the one later on seen during the scene where Ingoe (Vernon Wells) is miniaturized and injected into Martin Short is more high tech with all of the latest industrial tools with proper funding.

 

John Hora who had previously worked as Joe Dante’s cinematographer on all of his movies, was cast as Ozzie after Steven Spielberg suggested him to play the absent minded professor. Director Dante and Producer Michael Finnell were very skeptical about that idea and Spielberg insisted that they give him a screen test to just to see and was cast after impressing Dante and Finnell.

 

All of the cells seen outside the pod were in fact made out of Jello according to Peter Kuran, the special effects supervisor.

 

Director Trademark: [Joe Dante] [Regular Cast] Robert Picardo, John Hora, Kevin McCarthy, Wendy Schaal, William Schallert and Henry Gibson all regular actors who have appeared in Joe Dante’s previous and future films. Hora was Dante’s regular Director of Photography for most of his films up to Small Soldiers (1998).

 

The film was shot mostly on sound stages with the exception of one month of location filming in San Fransisco, Marin County and the Galleria Mall.

 

The lab workers seen during the scene where Dennis Quaid is about to be miniaturized were in fact real laboratory workers, as actors would not have been suitable to performing what real lab rats do.

 

Filed under: Science Fiction

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