As a kid I had no sense that Innerspace was not successful. It was the latest Spielberg produced movie so I wanted to see it. I didn’t know what innerspace was and I can acknowledge I didn’t really know it was about going inside the human body until I watched it. I did know Martin Short from Three Amigos but it was likely my first time seeing Dennis Quaid.
So this was a movie in heavy rotation in my life. I even remember watching it in a hotel room before it was on video, but I definitely saw it in theaters.
Now on 4K UHD, the body scenes are the highlight. Now it really feels like you’re shrunken into Short’s blood stream. The real world scenes have that ‘80s film look. In the dark of Short’s body, Quaid’s cockpit has some nice 4K shadows.
Shrinkage, the behind-the-scenes documentary Arrow put together, seems to be the first full behind the scenes look at the film. It’s funny that director Joe Dante talks about needing to make it a comedy, because I took it seriously as a kid but I get it now. Alternate casting possibilities include some big names, but the boldest is when Dante refused to cast Kate Capshaw with Spielberg producing. The 2002 commentary goes into some of this, but Dante definitely goes into more detail about recasting the Vernon Wells part and such now.
23 minutes of home video footage on the set include a lot of Short doing impressions and improvising between takes. It also focuses on a lot of below the line crew members. Kevin McCarthy did his whole truck speech again between takes.
ILM home video takes us inside the VFX studio with the giant womb. You can spot other ILM models in the shop.
Drew McWeeney gives a new commentary and he is in fan mode for this. he gives good context with Short’s recent TV work in Only Murders in the Building and where Quaid and Meg Ryan were in 1987. He’s very well researched on the script development and practical effects, focusing mostly on the latter.