To watch this movie today, you have to be serious aficionado of Science Fiction from the Space Age of the 1960's.
If you're old enough and you were LUCKY, you might have caught it maybe once in your entire Lifetime on the Late-Late-Late Saturday Night Movie...and it was the bastardized, Americanized 'Voyage to the End Of the Universe' And from what I could discern, it was rebroadcast less than 3 times and then disappeared from American ken. I remembered the ship with the three flying saucers flying Swooooosh! through Interstellar space. It had Robots. It had flying saucers. It had Spacesuits. It had a scary derelict rocketship with dead bodies in it. And it had one explosion. Then My mother told me to go to Bed. Aaaaargh!
Literally close to 40 years later, the memory dogged me to get a DVD of the full IKARIE XB1. And it was worth it.
Remember: if you saw it as a Kid, you saw it chopped to fit on the square TV screen. This is a Full widescreen Movie Production. And it's Long.
Caveats: No Monsters...other than the dead Capitalist kind (chuckle!). No Space Battles. No Alien Invasions. No Mad Scientists. And it's B&W.
As other reviewers note-- there are segments where they go to explore a derelict ship, and an incapacitating flyby a 'Dark Star' and cope with temporary madness from Radiation. Kind of a prelude to the old Star Trek.
The rest of the Movie is Life aboard the first Interstellar ship, everything from matchmaking, to a dance party (Which I thought to be endearingly comical, both the music and the dance steps!!!) to the birth of a baby.
There was even a pet Dog onboard! The Departure from the usual run of American Space Movies also included female crew members who clearly had important roles on the ship, and were treated with unfeigned respect by the men when they were consulted for opinions and input.
All in all, the movie spoke to me like an early version of '2001: A space Odyssey'. And even though it was made in Communist Czechoslovakia, beyond the rather pointed social hints in the derelict 'Tornado', there was no heavy handed proletariat propaganda.
On the FX front, for 1963, the sets and setup were very high quality. The Spacesuits and the extra-vehicular saucers wowed me.
Warning: There are probably several versions of this movie out there. One English dubbed version is actually partial. There are sections of the movie where English Subtitles appear and you hear Czech, then in the next scene, they flip back to English. And lastly, by today's hi-octane Hollywood standards, this movie is languid. But by today's standards, hallowed '2001: a Space Odyssey' would be called Boring.
A Different milieu and a Different Cultural perspective. So have a little patience. This one is best for a Sunday Afternoon. Give it a try if you can find it....and yes, it's girlfriend friendly.
If you're old enough and you were LUCKY, you might have caught it maybe once in your entire Lifetime on the Late-Late-Late Saturday Night Movie...and it was the bastardized, Americanized 'Voyage to the End Of the Universe' And from what I could discern, it was rebroadcast less than 3 times and then disappeared from American ken. I remembered the ship with the three flying saucers flying Swooooosh! through Interstellar space. It had Robots. It had flying saucers. It had Spacesuits. It had a scary derelict rocketship with dead bodies in it. And it had one explosion. Then My mother told me to go to Bed. Aaaaargh!
Literally close to 40 years later, the memory dogged me to get a DVD of the full IKARIE XB1. And it was worth it.
Remember: if you saw it as a Kid, you saw it chopped to fit on the square TV screen. This is a Full widescreen Movie Production. And it's Long.
Caveats: No Monsters...other than the dead Capitalist kind (chuckle!). No Space Battles. No Alien Invasions. No Mad Scientists. And it's B&W.
As other reviewers note-- there are segments where they go to explore a derelict ship, and an incapacitating flyby a 'Dark Star' and cope with temporary madness from Radiation. Kind of a prelude to the old Star Trek.
The rest of the Movie is Life aboard the first Interstellar ship, everything from matchmaking, to a dance party (Which I thought to be endearingly comical, both the music and the dance steps!!!) to the birth of a baby.
There was even a pet Dog onboard! The Departure from the usual run of American Space Movies also included female crew members who clearly had important roles on the ship, and were treated with unfeigned respect by the men when they were consulted for opinions and input.
All in all, the movie spoke to me like an early version of '2001: A space Odyssey'. And even though it was made in Communist Czechoslovakia, beyond the rather pointed social hints in the derelict 'Tornado', there was no heavy handed proletariat propaganda.
On the FX front, for 1963, the sets and setup were very high quality. The Spacesuits and the extra-vehicular saucers wowed me.
Warning: There are probably several versions of this movie out there. One English dubbed version is actually partial. There are sections of the movie where English Subtitles appear and you hear Czech, then in the next scene, they flip back to English. And lastly, by today's hi-octane Hollywood standards, this movie is languid. But by today's standards, hallowed '2001: a Space Odyssey' would be called Boring.
A Different milieu and a Different Cultural perspective. So have a little patience. This one is best for a Sunday Afternoon. Give it a try if you can find it....and yes, it's girlfriend friendly.