Tony's Review of 20.000 Legues Under the Sea

Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is one of the foundational works of science fiction. First published in 1870, it still reads with an eerie kind of prescience. The story follows Professor Aronnax, his servant Conseil, and harpooner Ned Land as they are pulled into the strange, isolated world of Captain Nemo aboard the submarine Nautilus. What unfolds is a blend of scientific wonder, moral ambiguity, and deep melancholy.

The novel is structured as a travelogue of sorts. The characters journey not just across oceans but into a man’s fractured psyche. Nemo, both genius and exile, has turned his back on the surface world and built a kingdom below. He is not a villain, not entirely, but something harder to categorize. He is wounded, brilliant, and obsessed with both discovery and revenge. The sea becomes more than setting. It becomes the emotional and philosophical landscape of the book.

Verne’s writing leans heavy into detail, especially in descriptions of marine biology and underwater geography. For some readers, this can slow the pace. There are long passages cataloging sea creatures, shipwrecks, and submerged ruins. But those moments, if patient with them, build immersion. They help make the Nautilus feel lived-in, and the ocean truly vast.

The central tension isn’t just survival, but understanding. The crew of the Nautilus wrestles with questions of freedom, knowledge, and what happens when a man turns his brilliance inward and shuts the world out. Nemo is both host and captor. His motives remain murky. His morality bends. And yet he never loses sympathy entirely.

The 1954 Disney adaptation simplifies much of this. While visually impressive for its time and still iconic in many ways, the film leans more toward adventure and spectacle. It retains the basic premise, giant squid, harpoon battles, the enigmatic Nemo—but trims back the philosophical weight. James Mason’s Nemo comes close to the book's version in tone, but the film ultimately makes him more dramatic than tragic. The emotional complexity of Verne’s narrative is reduced for pacing and clarity, which works cinematically but changes the message. They would go on and revisit this in ways in the 1980's with The Black Hole.

Verne’s Nautilus is not just a ship. It is an idea—self-reliance, rejection of empire, mastery of the natural world, and the price of all three. The book’s ending leaves questions unanswered and the fate of its most compelling character open. That choice feels right. Some mysteries, like the deep ocean, are not meant to be fully explained.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a product of its time but reaches beyond it. It is a science fiction novel that blends wonder with dread. It asks how far we can go into the unknown before we lose ourselves. Not every part of the journey moves quickly, but the whole leaves a lasting pressure like the ocean bearing down, quiet and immense.