a breathtaking near collision with an asteroid". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction said "The special effects are quite ambitious but clumsily executed, in particular the matte work". Paul Corupe said that often "the overall image on screen that inspires awe: the Martian landscape, the general's high-tech office, and the vastness of the cosmos. The film's budget is certainly up on screen for your entertainment, but it's just spectacle for spectacle's sake". He, too, complains of matte lines, but acknowledges, "the composites are convincing enough for the time the film was made". Corupe described it as the "first big flop in Pal's career. It was a major setback that saw him abandon science fiction filmmaking for five years, including a planned sequel to When Worlds Collide" The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction remarks "A truly awful film, Conquest of Space is probably George Pal's worst production". Academy Award winner Dennis Muren offers a memory of 1955: “[M]y pal Bruce and I hurried into the Hawaii Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard to see a new color movie, Conquest of Space. We were eight years old. ... ‘Reeling’ by on the giant screen, we saw a giant circular space station in orbit one hundred [sic] miles up, seemingly in orbit above me over Hollywood. Wow! And that was just the beginning. Awesome rocket ships of various shapes flew about. ... Finally, the movie ended with a skillful . . . and joyful liftoff from the desolate red surface of Mars. ...” The film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes currently rates the film at 50% ("Rotten"). Possible impact on Kubrick and 2001: A Space Odyssey Approximately ten years following the 1955 release of Conquest of Space, the film director Stanley Kubrick began planning his next film project following his critical and popular hit Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The follow-up would become 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey. While Kubrick planned his space epic, he made a point of viewing virtually all science-fiction movies to understand what the genre had done before, and also to learn what tropes to avoid. Principally, Kubrick was on the lookout for particular and specific images and themes that referenced or reflected the infinity of space—its inherent magic and beauty—in other words, its ability to spark a sense of wonder. Of the myriad early science-fiction productions that Kubrick must have viewed, most were certainly