Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea the book from the initial concept is a portrait of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish national hero, leader of the uprising against Russia in 1794, with an inscription in Latin: "Finis Poloniae!" ("The end of Poland!"). Margaret Drabble argues that "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" anticipated the ecology movement and shaped the French avant-garde. Theodore L. Thomas in 1961 said that "there is not a single bit of valid speculation" in the novel and that "none of its predictions has come true". He described the depictions of the diving gear, scenes, and the "Nautilus" as "pretty bad, behind the times
The Fabulous World of Jules Verne in possession of powerful technologies, and other ideas—Zeman also opted to include themes and elements of other Verne novels. For example, the undersea sequences include references to "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", and the aircraft "Albatross" from "Robur the Conqueror" also makes an appearance. Another Verne novel, "The Mysterious Island", may also have supplied some details. The film also pays tribute to the style of the pioneering early filmmaker Georges Méliès. Zeman likely saw Méliès's work at the Czech National Film Archive in Prague, where hand-colored prints were available of "The Impossible Voyage" (1904), "The Witch" (1906), and "The