Production
The entomologist Ken Middleham who shot the insect sequences for Phase IV also shot the insect sequences for the documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle. Both feature extensive use of close-up photography of actual insects.
According to the book Future Tense, "Bass originally filmed a spectacular, surreal montage lasting four minutes, showing what life would be like in the 'new' Earth, but this was cut by the distributor." The montage was supposed to suggest that the two surviving characters were altered by the ants creating the next step in evolution for humanity and insects. Shots from the original montage sequence appear in the theatrical trailer, which was likely prepared before cuts were made to the film.
In June 2012, a few faded prints of the original ending sequence were found in the Saul Bass Collection at the Academy Film Archive, and this excerpt screened to the public in Los Angeles at the Cinefamily cinematheque following a showing of the theatrical version. The montage ending, along with a brand new 35mm print of the released version premiered on December 1, 2012 in Austin, Texas at the Alamo Drafthouse as a part of a full day of films by Saul Bass. The alternate ending had been included in preview versions (c. 1973-4) of the film, according to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences representatives on site. The original film elements for the montage were located in Paramount's holdings, then digitally scanned and color-timed for presentation.
The novelization of playwright/screenwriter Mayo Simon's screenplay, written by Barry N. Malzberg, gives a hint of the final version by Bass as it uses the uncut version of Simon's script.
Read more about this topic: Phase IV
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“The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)