The original shows what can be done with good writing, attention to detail and reasonable special effects. Too bad those things are in short supply theses days. Too many hacks today think that all you need is a big CGI budget and lens flares.
Agreed.
Plays have been put on for thousands of years and all historic reports say they were very entertaining with zero special effects, or minimal ones.
The movie highlights some interesting trends current at the time. Anxiety over the atomic bomb created for the first time a popular distrust of science. The head scientist, a man with a goatee and an indefinite foreign accent, is willing to sacrifice the lives of station’s crew for pure science, believing that such knowledge is the higher good. He also naively believes that a form of higher life must be inherently reasonable, if not benevolent. He sabotages the safety of the Arctic station to protect the alien, and eventually pays for that with his own life. This is meant as a commentary against both the dangers of unrestricted scientific research, and the wisdom of allowing intellectuals authority over how we protect ourselves against foreign threats.