Planeta bur

Not bad, not incredible like "Forbidden Planet" and not as colourful and tragic as "This Island Earth" and it is certainly not "Solaris". But we must give 60s Eastern bloc science fiction its due. None of it is bad. All of it respects the intelligence of the viewers and each manages to create effective atmospheres. The music and background sound were good. The robot and the "supercar" are dated but very good for the time. Naming the robot "John" is a bit of a dig at the West (one could just as easily see Westerners naming a robot Ivan or Igor). The robot is given a Western name while the crew are all self actualized socialist men except for the woman cosmonaut who is given the traditional role of minding the mothership and lamenting over the fate of the men who are off exploring the planet. If that and the song are the social commentary then it could have been much worse.

The russian language version is rare, but well worth seeing. If you're really curious, you can see the American version which was retitled "Voyage to the prehistoric planet" and released in 1966. Back in the early 1960s, when this film was made, the Soviets had focused thier space program on Venus. In fact, they were the first to send probes into the atmosphere, land successfully, and return pictures from the surface. It's no wonder they were inspired to produce an extravagant adventure, based on the promise of thier exploration. The story is basic and straight forward, about an expedition to the planet Venus, but the science is flawed. They encounter oceans, flooding rains, and animal life. When this film was produced, we were just beginning to discover the truth about Venus. A surface temperature at the melting point of lead. A poisinous atmospere, with crushing pressure hundreds of times as heavy as ours. No water, or oxygen, and sulfuric acid in the clouds. If you're lucky enough to run across this film, forget all that, suspend you disbelief, and enjoy this rare classic gem.

This is the first real Russian science fiction movie. I appreciated that it includes almost no ideological trash from the cold war, despite the time of its creation. The crew even includes one English speaking person, Mr. Kern. Mr. Kern is not as perfect as other members of the crew, but he is still a positive figure. What I liked was that this is real SF, and no mainstream movie with "magic" elements: there is space flight, there is an intelligent robot, there are fights with (quite funny) dinosaurs and pterodactyles, there are Venusians aliens and there is speculation about one solar race living on various planets but with common roots. It has all a SF fan can wish. (Except for time travelling and cyberpunk).

I saw this in my childhood and took years to track it down again since I saw it under one of its two confusing Roger Corman english-language re-edits [Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet with Basil Rathbone added, and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, with mermaids scenes directed by Peter Bogdonavich.] Finally able to track down the original Russian version recently, I was able to fully appreciate the ambitious scope and production values. The forest is truly primeval in its detailed beauty, Robot John both heroic and sad in his dedication, and the ending poetic and lyrical. Non-U.S. science fiction films are doubly exotic, and this one is classic fare.

It doesn't compare with modern day films at all, but then one shouldn't try to, should one? Gee they all (and probably "we too") took themselves so seriously those days!!

I'm confused by one previous commentator who said the film was in black and white. Maybe her TV was, but the film as I saw it last night certainly was in colour (well, 1960s colour, anyway).

One quote from the film certainly is worth commenting. That's where they are speculating that there may have been creatures who crashed their spaceship a long time ago and then turned feral. The character comments that they would have had "no culture". Well, that's the Eastern European way, isn't it? Culture is so important; but what they can't seem to perceive, so useless. As author Stephen Coonts said of the Russians: "They can all write poetry but not a single one of them can change a light bulb" (well something like that, anyway).

But putting that to one side, yes a most interesting and well-made film of its time. The singing absolutely blew me away. Not the quality of the singing, I mean the fact that they had singing at all in what otherwise seems to me such a "serious" movie!