Captain Nemo disappears into the whirlpool but reappears with his submarine at the end of The Mysterious Island, giving his blessing to the survivors of a balloon crash who have managed to create an island utopia. He says, “You have changed [the island] by your efforts and it is truly yours.”
The character types that one sees in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea appear in Verne’s other novels. In Journey to the Center of the Earth, for instance, readers encounter a scientist similar to both Nemo and Aronnax, and an active adventurer similar to Ned Land. This grouping of character types and the image of the fantastic journey are common elements in much of Verne’s fiction.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea has spawned two motion pictures. A Walt Disney production of the novel appeared in 1954, starring James Mason, Kirk Douglas, and Peter Lorre. It is an entertaining film and strives valiantly to portray the wondrous vision of Nemo’s undersea world. A second feature, Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, starring Robert Ryan and Chuck Connors, was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1970.
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