Earth II

The effects were handled by the same folks who gave us "Marooned" but with a superior edge in design and technical know how. 2001,s Gary Lockwood (Frank Poole of 2001} is cast as a space rescue pilot.

The space shuttles in this feature bare a striking resemblance to our current shuttle design and the space suits are straight out of the NASA play book as the producers used technical help from major sources to ad realism.

One exciting scene of a race against time shows astronauts chasing down a Chinese nuclear satellite as it re-enters earths atmosphere, this scene incorperated early video image technology to generate a shower of sparks creating a burning effect that looked 3-dimensional and will remind you of the slit scan effects used by Douglas Trumball in 2001.

Intended as a TV pilot for a possible ABC series it is not to be confused with The short lived series Earth II 1993-94 featuring Clancy Brown and Tim Curry.

I was enthralled at a network movie of the week of this quality and have seen it repeated on CBS,s Late show in the early 80,s Catch it if you can on sci-fi channel but good luck finding it on DVD or VHS. This picture is still contemporary in style and is worth a look.

A couple of years before Gene Roddenberry was trying to start new series with his movies "Genesis II" and "Planet Earth" (or is that "movie"?), this superior film with the oddly similar name paved the way. Alas, the road came to a dead-end, as all movies of this kind in the early '70s failed to understand that good story is better than bad sfx. This one is about a space station that has a unique social structure intended to eliminate conflict. The concept was handled in a simplistic way, but it nevertheless had a kind of wistful hopefulness about it that seemed not entirely incredible in 1971.

Like Roddenberry's films, this one fits into a short-lived era of TV sf that seemed suspended between Chesley Bonestell's airbrushed vision of the near future of space colonization, and Ralph McQuarrie's grittier, plumber's-nightmare versions that would soon follow. A bit of "2001" can be seen here and there as well (for example, when the characters walk "up" a wall).

If you liked the kind of austere models and similarly inornate acting (scripts, too) of early '70s sf, you'll like this one. The dilemma faced by the characters is familiar, as is its solution (but please overlook the glaring error involving the sun, the Earth, and the station's rotation). Still, there's a lost sense of "coming real soon now" in modern sf that this film might bring back to your memory. In 1971, it seemed we were _all_ going to fly in space and get to walk up walls. You know what happened next, but you didn't see it coming when this movie was new, so you believed it more then than you would today. See it again, if you get the chance, and ask yourself how we lost interest in going into orbit ourselves.

This was one of the most expensive TV movies of its day. It is heavily indebted to 2001: a Space Odyssey. The action takes place on Earth II which is a space station which orbits Earth and has been designated an independent nation. Its denizens are peace loving and anti-violence but this is thrown into disarray when the Chinese send out a vessel carrying nuclear warheads. For the most part this is a pretty interesting bit of sci-fi, with the Earth II itself making for an interesting setting - I guess the producers thought this too given it was intended for a TV series. The story does get a little too bogged down with the nefarious Chinese vessel though, with the attention of the narrative switching solely onto this for the second half. The set design and model work is the strength here, with the story and dramatics under-cooked. Still, despite its flaws, it still made for a pleasing bit of serious-minded TV sci-fi from the post-2001 days.

This is a very rare made for TV movie with a great story and excellent special effects. The only thing that might be considered wrong about this film is that even though it is supposedly set in the future, this film is now very much dated. This film was made during the height of the Cold War and at a time relations between The U.S., the then Soviet Union and China were not very good. In fact, the U.S. is almost looked at as a pawn in the struggle between the other two super powers. However, this film does provide a good glimpse at the future and how space travel could eventually be routine and the possibilities of global cooperation in outer space.

TV film about a space station.

This should have been so much better than it is. It had the effects budget, it had the great cast, it had the quality writers (who also worked on TV's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea) and even some of the music cues were good - so what happened??

About half way into it all anyone can talk about is a bomb in space.

Such a waste of great talent and effects. Towards the end I was so bored I was looking at my phone half the time. Don't bother with Earth II.