Russell said Chayefsky "didn't like the color of the paint on the isolation tank. Then it went on to other things. He didn't like the lighting, then he didn't like the machinery, then he thought I was making the actors appear drunk in a scene where they were written to be slightly tipsy in a bar... There was a lot of embarrassing dialogue, and there was a hell of a lot more in the original script than there is now; it was a verbose script."