The Day After Tomorrow

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Does anyone remember this movie? I recall that it had lots of Space:1999 type hardware, and the commander of the starship was played by 1999's
Nick Tate (Captain Alan Carter, of "Eagle One" fame). The film was about the relativistic effects of near-c interstellar flight, and did pretty well, even to the effects of viewing a supernova at point-blank range. At the end, rather than contesting the gravitational attraction of a black hole and being torn apart, they dive into the event horizon and do a wormhole bit, coming out in a strange new universe.

For a fifteen year old in the mid seventies this was heady stuff--relativity,
sort-of plausible astronomy, AND a total lack of aliens, humanoid or otherwise. These people were going out there to EXPLORE, and considering the content of most SF these days, that is pretty refreshing.

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I've just been informed by an Italian friend the THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW was title INTO INFINITY when released in Europe.

[ChesleyFan]

I've never seen it, but now I think I might have to search it out. Thanks for bringing it up.

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Did some surfing and came up with a little history on this "forgotten" film;

Gerry Anderson (Producer of Space:1999) did this one during a hiatus from filming S:1999 for an NBC series of scientific specials. Many of the costumes and props were "borrowed" from S:1999, and some production crew types actually thought it WAS a S:1999 film! This explains the very
"Ultra-Probe" look of the starship 'Altares' (an intentional mis-spelling of Antares, I presume, but won't presume to speculate on WHY they felt the need to do that...Personally, I think 'Antares' would be a great name for a starship...).

The plot, however, was very un-S:1999, with lots of relativistic effects and (if I recall correctly) some nicely-phrased explanations of time-dilation and red shift/blue shift effects of travel at REALLY high speeds. There's a neat sequence where the ship has to out-run a supernova's blast (of course, the engines break down at this point...it IS an after-school special, after all!) and I think some a few real-world stats creep in about the rarity of Novae and Supernovae.

I would love to see this again...anyone know where I can get it on DVD or (horror!) VHS?

[SeanF]

...Personally, I think 'Antares' would be a great name for a starship...

Antares was the name of the ship that Charlie destroyed in the old Star Trek episode "Charlie X."

[tracer]

I think I remember seeing this movie as an ABC After School Special when I was in the 5th grade! (The timing is about right -- I was in the 5th grade from Sept. 1975 to June 1976, and this movie has a release date in 1976.)

Just to make sure I'm remembering the same movie: Did this feature a spaceship that looked like a giant penlight flashlight with solar panel wings sticking out, an engine that made lots of noise but still looked like the "penlight" merely got switched on, a bleeping red warning light that blinked the word "RADIOACTIVE" every time the engine turned on, and a cast of actors that gritted their teeth and did their best to pretend like they were getting forced back into their seats by tremendous acceleration?

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That sounds about right. Hey, I didn't say it was perfect!

BTW, I found a copy of this one on VHS for sale on Ebay, so hopefully soon I'll be able to watch and see if I was remembering correctly when I said there was good science in it.