Brothers Samuel and Sebastian Melville want to marry their niece Helena Campbell off to the hilariously awful scientist Aristobulus Ursicles.

Verne has fabricated the ancient Scottish legend of the Green Ray, a flash of green light that sometimes appears just as the sun is passing the horizon at sea when the sky is clear, and the viewer is enabled to see closely into his own heart and read the hearts of others.

The rays are regularly sighted by airplane pilots because they often can see the true horizon in mid flight, more often when flying west because the sun's relative motion is slightly slower.

Verne's book is discussed at length in the film as a "fairytale love story" whose protagonists are consumed in their search for the rare meteorological phenomenon.

Believed to give a heightened perception to those who view it, one of the characters further explains that "when you see the green ray you can read your own feelings and others too".