Line #14 Trivia/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea


1	!!Book Version
2	* ExecutiveMeddling[=/=]WhatCouldHaveBeen: Verne originally wrote Nemo as a Polish nobleman, who lost his family to the Russians. Verne's publisher was wary of portraying the Russians (France's ally at the time) in a negative light, and didn't want to lose sales in Russia, so he persuaded Verne to make Nemo's nationality a mystery [[note]]at least until the sequel novel, ''Literature/TheMysteriousIsland'', where Nemo is revealed to have been an Indian prince who lost his family to the British[[/note]]. Also an example about [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Tropes Are Not Bad]]: Revealing Nemo's BackStory left him only a menace against a single nation, but leaving Nemo's nationality anonymous not only defines him (Nemo means Nobody) but also makes the reader realize that any nation, even the reader's nation, could have committed the alleged crimes against Nemo and his family. Even more, [[AnyoneCanDie it implies that no ship of any nationality was safe for navigation]]. The new backstory also approved to modern readers more interested on racism and cultural diversity and lent Nemo more sympathy, so recent adaptations have pretty much embraced the image of Nemo with a turban and an awesome beard.
3	* FountainOfExpies: Captain Nemo has spawned [[CaptainNemoCopy a notable number of imitators]].
4	* LifeImitatesArt:
5	** In 1880, only ten years after the novel was released, Spanish engineer UsefulNotes/IsaacPeral deployed the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_submarine_Peral first prototype]] of a war submarine with electric propulsion and capability to launch torpedoes, actually performing a successful test attack on a cruiser by night without being noticed. As of the 1890s, the Navy of Verne's homeland, France, had also [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Narval_(Q4) built]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Morse_(Q3) at least]] 4 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Gustave_Z%C3%A9d%C3%A9_(1893) functional]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Gymnote_(Q1) submarines]] with similar electric propulsion, out of which ''Gustave Zédé'' could successfully fight large surface vessels with torpedoes.
6	** In 1898, the inventor of the first functional American submarine, Simon Lake, was caught in a storm, and recalled a moment in ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea'' where the ''Nautilus'' dives a few feet underwater to avoid the storm. He then repeated the technique and survived, and sent Verne's great grandson a telegraph thanking him.
7	** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nautilus_%28SSN-571%29 The world's first nuclear-powered submarine]], which would become the first submarine to transit the North Pole while submerged, also bore the name ''Nautilus''. While it wasn't the first ship in the U.S. Navy to bear the name (it was already a long-standing tradition to name submarines after sea creatures), the choice probably wasn't entirely coincidental.
8	** The book is famous for also inspiring Ernest Shackleton, William Beebe, Robert Ballard and Jacques Cousteau.
9	* ReferencedBy:
10	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' names the third airship acquired by the player ''Nautilus'', and not coincidentally this is the only airship that can double as a submarine.
11	** {{Professional Wrestl\|ing}}er Wrestling/SharkBoy was originally billed as hailing from [[PartsUnknown "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea."]]
12	** ''Series/Watchmen2019'' titles [[Recap/WatchmenS01Ep05 its fifth episode]] "Little Fear of Lightning" after a line in the book, alluding to an InternalReveal that a gambit kept humanity afraid and complacent.
13	--->"If there were no thunder, men would have little fear of lightning."
14	* ScienceMarchesOn:
15	** The chapter ''"Sperm Whales and Baleen Whales"'' has Nemo use the ''Nautilus'' to rescue some baleen whales by slaughtering a pod of sperm whales, that Nemo calls: "cruel, destructive beasts, and they deserve to be exterminated." A couple of chapters later the ''Nautilus'' has its infamous encounter with giant squid: [[{{Irony}} animals that we now know are favourites in the sperm whale's diet. They do not eat other species of whale.]]
16	** The North Pole is placed in the Arctic Ocean. The South Pole is placed in Antarctica, a sheet of ice thousands of feet thick, and most of it on a solid continent. The ''Nautilus'' could have reached the North Pole[[note]]and indeed, the USS Nautilus (America's first nuclear sub and namesake of the vessel in this book) did reach the Pole by travelling under the Arctic Ocean[[/note]], but not the South Pole.
17	** The other Wiki notices that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy#Modern_physiognomy Physiognomy]] (see BeautyEqualsGoodness) fell from favor in the 20th century, but is now being revived once more.
18	** Electricity being presented as an amazing source of energy, these days it's commonplace.
19	** ''Most'' of the high-level taxonomic terms used by Aronnax to describe Nemo's marine-life collection and the species the ''Nautilus'' encounters are obsolete, e.g. we now know that ''humans'' are more closely related to echinoderms than corals are, and that sponges are as distantly akin to all-of-the-above as life can get while remaining an "animal" at all.
20	** Verne's depiction of the "Arabian Tunnel" is predicated on similarities in sea life between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean. Continental drift is now the accepted explanation for this.
21	* TechnologyMarchesOn: Electricity was imbued with almost magical power, and a lot of the technological wonders Verne describes seem downright quaint to modern eyes. Still, credit where credit is due, [[ShownTheirWork he did get the fundamentals of how submarines would work in the future essentially right]].
22	** The ''Nautilus'' was supposed to make 50 knots on Bunsen batteries. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_class_submarine The only modern submarine]] which could approach 50 knots needed 30 000 kW for the main engine. To get 30 000 kW from Bunsen cells their combined size would exceed the ''Nautilus''' entire hull in size by a few orders of magnitude.
23	** Also, an in-universe example of SchizoTech: despite the usual rotating electric motor with brushes being known and used in the 1860s, ''Nautilus''' main engine is an [[http://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/workshop/Handy-Man/How-To-Make-An-Oscillating-Static-Electric-Motor.html oscillating electric motor]] ([[spoiler:"where large electromagnets actuate a system of levers and gears that transmit the power to the propeller shaft"]]) - less efficient and a royal waste of space.
24	** The new technology of the double hull seemed to solve most problems in an age when most vessels were still wooden sailing ships, so Verne become enthusiastic about ''Nautilus''' double hull able to withstand the pressure "in the deepest ocean trench". No double hulled submarine can go below 1300 meters, specialized deep-diving vehicles are small craft with 5-inch thick shells.
25	** The ''Nautilus''' primary armament being a ram was typical of naval thinking at the time: this was right after ''Monitor'' versus ''Virginia'', and it was thought that since ironclads could not hurt each other with cannon fire, the only option would be ramming one another. At this point breech-loading heavy guns were new and untested, nobody had yet worked out how to fire a high-explosive, high-velocity shell without blowing it up, and nobody had fired a self-propelled torpedo in combat. It would not be until World War I that the submarine's role as a torpedo-carrier was cemented.
26	*** [[ItWillNeverCatchOn Rather funnily]], the modern torpedo got patented and tested in 1866, before the book was even written, sunk the first warship in 1878 and got launched from an electric-driven submarine in 1890, when Verne was still active. This was a case of [[RussianReversal art not keeping pace with technological evolution]].
27	** ''Nautilus'' crew diving suits are [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_appearance_of_diving_helmets#The_first_diving_regulators an autonomous version of the heavy helmet of Verne's lifetime]], yet all these had been used only to very shallow depths. To use them hundreds of yards deep with no decompression stops would only make the divers succumb to decompression sickness. Illustrations, including the original's, however, show them as having air tanks rather than tubes that could break.
28	** Arronax deplores the dwindling numbers of oceanic herbivores because without them, certain kelp and algae species become overabundant. However, he couples it with a 19th-century understanding of disease and says it's a problem because yellow fever breeds in stagnant algae; it's now known that it's a viral disease spread by mosquitoes. (That said, there ''are'' such things as toxic algal blooms and they can be disastrous, so he wasn't far off the mark.)
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31	!!Film Version
32	* ChannelHop: Originally a Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox project, Fox studio manager Sid Rogell personally sold the film rights to Creator/WaltDisney, who apparently returned the favor by having some scenes filmed on Fox's backlot. This became HilariousInHindsight when Disney acquired Fox in a March 2019 merger between the two companies.
33	* CreatorCameo: Art designer Harper Goff appears as a priest in San Francisco.
34	* DeletedRole: Although Percy Helton was billed in the opening credits, his role (as a coach driver) was almost entirely eliminated; in the release version, he appears in just two shots and has only one line: "Yes, sir."
35	* DuelingDubs: The film had three Japanese dubs. The first dub premiered in 1987 as part of Creator/FujiTV's "Golden Screen Theater" programming block. The second was produced in 1988 for a VHS release by Pony Canyon. In 2006, a third dub was produced by Disney for a DVD release; it was eventually carried over to the Blu-ray release and Creator/DisneyPlus streaming service.
36	* FakeNationality: Arronax is French, and Paul Lukas is Austrian-Hungarian-born. The same goes for the German Creator/PeterLorre, who plays the Flemish Conseil.
37	* HostilityOnTheSet: In the supplemental material on the DVD mention is made that there was great camaraderie between most of the actors with the exception of Paul Lukas, who held himself aloof seeming to consider himself too sophisticated to mingle. It may have also been that, because of his age, he was having trouble remembering his lines and was embarrassed.
38	* MidDevelopmentGenreShift: Creator/WaltDisney originally considered making this film as an animated feature; the detailed pre-production sketches by artist Harper Goff, as well as Goff's enthusiastic suggestion that it be done as live action feature, convinced him otherwise.
39	* PlayingAgainstType: Creator/PeterLorre as a PluckyComicRelief. And it works.
40	* PropRecycling: Nemo's pipe organ later found service at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion.
41	* ThrowItIn: When filming the scene where Ned and Conseil get in the boat to row away from the cannibals, Creator/KirkDouglas expected the boat to be low in the water. He didn't lower the oars far enough to catch the water, and when he started to row, he fell on his back. Director Richard Fleischer thought the shot was so funny he left it in the film. When Ned starts to row, he clearly tips back, and his legs shoot up in the air.
42	* WagTheDirector: The scene at the beginning of the film where Ned Land strolls up with a beautiful girl on each arm to the lecturing sailor and the ensuing fight was added at the suggestion of Creator/KirkDouglas, who wanted to preserve his image as a macho action lead.
43	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
44	** Creator/GregoryPeck auditioned for Captain Nemo. He would go on to bring another literary [[Film/MobyDick mad sea captain]] to life on-screen two years later. Creator/WaltDisney briefly considered Creator/RalphRichardson.
45	** The first tests for the final battle took place against a beautiful sunset, on a calm sea. The first Giant Squid had stuffed tentacles held up on wires; these grew heavy and hard to control as they took on water, and the bright sunset made the wires painfully obvious. Disney himself was appalled at this first footage, and demanded a reshoot. This, and a fully redesigned giant squid, ''nearly forced the studio out of business'', but proved worthwhile when the film earned a nomination for Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards, and the giant squid scene is still, almost seventy years later, considered one of the greatest scenes in movie history.

Context Trivia / TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea