When Worlds Collide Predicted More Than Just The Apocalypse

George Pal's sci-fi spectacle When Worlds Collide, released 75 years ago today, chronicles humanity’s efforts to evacuate at least some members of the species from Earth before a wayward star crashes into it. A seminal sci-fi film of the '50s and a template for the modern disaster movie, the DNA of When Worlds Collide can still be seen in films like 2012 and Greenland. And in its portrayal of an affluent magnate who wants to decide who gets to leave Earth on the spaceship he's bankrolling, the eerie parallels to certain modern figures are more than relevant.

Although not the first disaster movie ever produced (the genre harkens back to the earliest days of cinema), nor even the first about a celestial body obliterating Earth, When Worlds Collide was one of a slew of major Hollywood productions made in the aftermath of World War II and the use of the atomic bomb, when previously unimagined vistas of worldwide destruction were casting a long shadow over everyday life. It also coincided with the burgeoning escalation of the space race, and our growing ability to peer into the cosmos and detect whatever nightmares might be lurking out there.

Pal, a showman as much as a producer, hired journeyman cinematographer-turned-director Rudolph Maté to helm the film, which was based on a novel by Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie. When Worlds Collide stars Richard Derr as Dave Randall, a pilot who secretly couriers photographs and calculations from a South African astronomer to American scientist Cole Hendron (Larry Keating). Hendron, his daughter Joyce (Barbara Rush), and their team analyze the data and confirm the worst: a rogue star named Bellus will pass through our solar system in eight months and smash head-on into the Earth, destroying it.

The only chance for survival is a small planet, named Zyra, that’s accompanying Bellus (as with so many movies of this kind, it’s best not to get hung up on the science) and may be able to support human life. Dr. Hendron spearheads the construction of a space “ark” to transport a relatively small group of humans to Zyra, and for funding he turns to Sydney Stanton (John Hoyt), a wealthy, misanthropic business magnate. As Zyra and Bellus draw closer, triggering cataclysmic weather and geological disruptions on Earth, the question becomes whether the ark can get off the ground in time — and what its passengers will find on Zyra.

Although Pal wanted to make When Worlds Collide as epic as possible, budgetary restrictions forced him to scale back his vision — although the film’s images of mass destruction were still enough to earn it an honorary Oscar for special effects. The scenes of tidal waves, tsunamis, and earthquakes sweeping the globe, as well as the climactic launch of the ark, certainly pale in comparison to what modern VFX artists can do, but they’ve been echoed through the years in films like The Day After Tomorrow, Meteor, Armageddon, and the aforementioned 2012 and Greenland, the latter two of which also delve into the subject of saving elements of humanity.

It’s that last aspect that still has relevance today. The humans who get to board the ark in When Worlds Collide are mostly chosen by lottery, while survivors are selected in 2012 and Greenland through a mix of “qualifications” (meaning skills that will be needed to rebuild civilization), lotteries, and plain old ticket sales, with the rich in 2012 offered spots on one of nine arks for $1 billion apiece.

The unpleasant industrialist who funds the space ark in When Worlds Collide wants to select the winners of Earth’s final sweepstakes himself, although he gives up rather easily when rebuffed. Would, say, Elon Musk, who’s been public about his desire to colonize Mars, surrender his financial leverage that easily? Should conditions on Earth eventually become so grim that leaving for another world seems like the only way for human civilization to continue, will Musk and other oligarchs choose who lives and dies?

It’s an unsettling prospect that When Worlds Collide only lightly touches upon. But just as the film was a prototype for how modern disaster movies would visualize the apocalypse, it also predicted the unnerving possibility that human survival may ultimately depend on the largesse of the billionaires who hold our lives in their greedy hands.

When Worlds Collide is available to rent on Prime Video.