This is yet another of the several sf films of its era that incorporate footage from Soviet movies. As a result, a couple of the more striking visuals--involving some of those wonderful revolutionary communist statues--are due to the claimed ideals of the USSR.
The movie starts out at "Space Institute," a place with a delightfully generic name, and one that all space junkies and sf-movie nerds would like to attend. Basil Rathbone lords over Space Inst., and makes some arrogantly lofty decisions about when and to whom a major discovery will be announced. It's all very Republican, in something of the same way that feel pervaded parts of "Star Trek VI." That's kind of funny, too, since it's also subliminally communist (as a result of all the borrowed shots).
The story is bland, although good enough to enjoy if you like old sf movies. The real fun, though, is in the idea that, not too far in the future, there would be a shining center for space research; that its staff and leaders would be structured something like a mix of a school, a city, and a government; that it would be launching ships to Mars with fanfare, but also with confidence; that it would all be in a world with no bothersome concerns on the side, like terrorists or poverty.
Well, maybe someday still...
The movie starts out at "Space Institute," a place with a delightfully generic name, and one that all space junkies and sf-movie nerds would like to attend. Basil Rathbone lords over Space Inst., and makes some arrogantly lofty decisions about when and to whom a major discovery will be announced. It's all very Republican, in something of the same way that feel pervaded parts of "Star Trek VI." That's kind of funny, too, since it's also subliminally communist (as a result of all the borrowed shots).
The story is bland, although good enough to enjoy if you like old sf movies. The real fun, though, is in the idea that, not too far in the future, there would be a shining center for space research; that its staff and leaders would be structured something like a mix of a school, a city, and a government; that it would be launching ships to Mars with fanfare, but also with confidence; that it would all be in a world with no bothersome concerns on the side, like terrorists or poverty.
Well, maybe someday still...