Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context YMMV / Them

Go To

1* FairForItsDay:
2** For the most part, in its depiction of the younger Dr. Medford, the film was positively enlightened. She's a competent professional who ably assists in dealing with the film's giant mutant ants, including going down with the male (non-scientist) heroes into a gassed colony to make sure the inhabitants are all dead. She does scream once, justifiably when she abruptly and unexpectedly comes face to face with one of the creatures. But beyond that moment she also never falls into the DamselInDistress category. And while she and Bob flirt, the movie doesn't actually pair them up.
3** Particularly impressive is the fact that Dr. Medford asserts her authority as an expert (specifically, the only expert in the area who is sufficiently physically fit to enter the ant's nest) to override Bob's attempt to get her to StayInTheKitchen, and even barks orders to the men at one point. This sort of behavior is often used to turn a female character into a HateSink even today, but she is portrayed as entirely justified and in the right to do so, and remains a sympathetic character.
4* GutPunch: [[spoiler: Ben Peterson's death in the final battle is quite unexpected, and really sells that AnyoneCanDie against those ants]].
5* OnceOriginalNowCommon: The film's giant ants were the first large animals and monsters that were portrayed using mechanics. They were created by Dick Smith who built at least two fully functional ants which used gears and motors (with technicians puppeteering the ant's limbs) alongside some smaller models for "swarm" scenes. A decade later ''Film/MaryPoppins'' would utilize the first "true" animatronics within a film, but the creation of full-size animatronics and puppets for large creatures (a la ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' or ''Film/JurassicPark'') all started here.
6* OneSceneWonder:
7** Creator/FessParker as the pilot-witness. When Creator/WaltDisney saw his performance, it landed him his role as Series/{{Davy Crockett|1954}}.
8** Sandy Drescher has minimal screen time as the little girl who kicks off the plot, and only speaks one word in the whole film. But she makes an impression that makes one forget her screen time is so small.
9* {{Padding}}: Ben and Bob spend the latter part of the second act interviewing various witnesses and taking quite some time to get simple information on where the ants could be. While the scenes with Mrs Lodge do establish tension and urgency to find her children, the other witnesses take a while to get to the point.
10* RetroactiveRecognition: A young Creator/LeonardNimoy has an uncredited part as a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant in the communications room. Interestingly enough, this was shortly after Nimoy’s enlistment in the Army ended.
11* SpecialEffectsFailure:
12** Compared to today's slick CGI, the ants look dated, but the giant models were impressive for their time, albeit slow-moving. One reason most of the following giant-thing movies were so bad is that pretty much all of them used clumsy super-imposed images to serve as the monster.
13** The ants were constructed with eyes that were intended to swirl around in red and blue soap, creating a psychedelic effect within the eyes. But the effect was non-existent once the film switched to black and white. Instead, it caused the eyes to expose a disk inside the component, making the ants appear to have pupils.
14* TearJerker:
15** When the little girl goes hysterical, you can't help but realize the poor kid is probably remembering her family being slaughtered right in front of her. Heartbreaking.
16** The death of Ed Blackburn too, since we spend so much time with him at the beginning, it's sad to see him go as the SacrificialLamb to tip Ben off.
17** And then there's the wife of Thomas Lodge, who sounds broken after learning of his death and their two sons' disappearance.
18** [[spoiler: [[FriendToAllChildren Petersen's]] [[HeroicSacrifice death]], even if he did save the boys in the process.]]
19* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The film was one of the first to use giant monsters as an allegory for nuclear war, and it reflects the post World War II anxieties about what radiation could cause. It's said that the ants only mutated relatively recently, after the initial atomic bomb tests, placing the story squarely in the early 50s. Ben and Bob are likewise shown being involved in military actions, operating weapons easily and knowing the correct procedures; this is because they would have been the right age to have served in World War II the previous decade and it would be taken as a given that they would have the proper training already.
20* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: ''Twentieth Century'' magazine accused Warner Bros of using the film to suggest that the ants were an allegory for communists and had to be exterminated.
21* TheWoobie: Mrs Lodge in the third act, who loses her husband and spends some time experiencing the worst kind of concerns - that her two sons are missing and might be dead. [[spoiler: Thankfully they're reunited]].

Top