Cheap First Spaceship on Venus (DVD) (Kurt Maetzig, Hugo Grimaldi) Price
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In a utopian future of universal peace and brotherhood--1985 to be specific--a mysterious artifact found in Siberia is discovered to be a message from Venus. While the recording is studied, an international team of scientists is rocketed off to make contact with the mysterious planet. It takes the film some time to get going (worldwide harmony makes for a beautiful future but pallid drama when everyone gets along so nicely), but things begin to cook once they land on the misty wasteland of Venus. Swarms of metal bugs hop from glassy mutant trees and bubbling black mud oozes after our astronaut heroes, but no Venusians can be found amidst the geodesic architecture and buzzing power plants. What they discover instead is a terrifying conspiracy wrapped in an anti-war parable. Based on a novel by Polish science fiction legend Stanislaw Lem (whose work also inspired Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris), this German science fiction adventure is a visual treat, from the sleek, grand, silver spaceship and a funky purple Venus landscape of alien ruins and crystalline bubbles. Decently (if prosaically) dubbed and trimmed down to a brisk 78 minutes, it's an entertaining triumph of psychedelic art direction and desolate alien weirdness presented in all its brightly colored, widescreen glory. --Sean Axmaker
| CATEGORY: | DVD |
| DIRECTOR: | Kurt Maetzig, Hugo Grimaldi |
| THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE: | 31 October, 1962 |
| MANUFACTURER: | Image Entertainment |
| MPAA RATING: | NR (Not Rated) |
| FEATURES: | Color, Widescreen |
| TYPE: | Science Fiction |
| MEDIA: | DVD |
| # OF MEDIA: | 1 |
| UPC: | 014381870923 |
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Customer Reviews of First Spaceship on Venus
Gorgeous Image DVD makes me lust for the original cut As evidenced by the extremely mixed reviews here, this East German/Polish co-production (filmed in 1959, released here in 1962) seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it affair. Personally, I'm in the lovers' camp, although if you've never seen First Spaceship on Venus you deserve some fair warning. According to IMDb, the East German version of this runs 130 minutes, the Polish (?) version 93. If either figure is reliable there's anywhere from 15 to 52 minutes missing from the 78-minute U.S. version, so there are definitely continuity problems. The English script is somewhat muddled and seems to repeat or contradict itself at times, several subplots have obviously been trimmed or junked entirely, and the English dubbing is particularly bad, with virtually no attempt to match dialogue with people's mouth movements. Also somewhat distracting is the heavy use of stock music cues (particularly the familiar Universal "Wolf Man" theme), although a few almost dissonant passages sound like they might be snippets of the original score. Between the heavy editing, rewriting, and dubbing it's really impossible to evaluate the original screenplay, but even with only the skeleton of SF legend Stanislaw Lem's original novel that's left, it's still more conceptually challenging than the average 1950s space opera (compare the roughly contemporary War of the Satellites, Missile to the Moon, or even a "classic" such as This Island Earth). In brief, a Venus mission is launched to determine the source of an ominous message encoded into a metallic spool unearthed by archaeologists. As noted by others, there are a number of ideas that presage later, more famous SF productions, including Star Trek (the racially and sexually diverse flight crew and Moon base personnel), 2001: A Space Odyssey (the robot chess game; the EVA repair mission; the buried artifact that's actually a communications device), and Star Wars (the 'cute' R2D2-like robot), as well as a few bits more typical of cheap 50s sci-fi (the meteor shower, the shipboard romance). If you can bear with the roughness of the script and dialogue you will be rewarded with some very creative and generally superior (for the time) production design, optical and sound effects, and miniature/model work. The Earth laboratories, Moon base, and spaceship all look cool enough, and that artifact makes some crazy sounds, but when they get to Venus, things really kick into gear. There are strange sponge-like trees, lots of swirling smoke and fog, and wispy neon-colored gelatinous clouds flying around. The astronauts discover some high-tech Venusian "ruins," are attacked by black-and-red lava-like blob creatures, and ultimately discover the extinct Venusians' forbidding secret. The absence of big Hollywood bucks does show at times (the metal "bugs" are laughably cheesy, even for 1959), but First Spaceship on Venus makes up in imagination what it lacks in budget, much like Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires. If you dig the general atmosphere of that movie, this is probably up your alley as well. If you can't get past the problems with the script and dubbing, or are expecting slick modern special effects, this is probably not your cup of tea. If only someone could release the German version, competently dubbed or subtitled, FSOV would probably be ranked right up there with the Golden Age "classics"-Forbidden Planet, Destination Moon, Rocketship X-M, etc. As it is, "serious" SF fans will probably be intrigued, if not completely satisfied, while the casual viewer may find it rough sledding.
Fortunately for fans of FSOV, Wade Williams and Image have unearthed a virtually pristine print for this DVD transfer. It's letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the color saturation, color balance, black level, sharpness, and shadow/highlight detail are generally excellent. (There is a little blocking-up in the shadows at times.) Physical damage is limited to some very light speckling/blemishing, that does get a bit heavier around a couple of reel changes, and the occasional damaged frame. After years of watching cropped, faded, dupey TV prints it's a revelation to actually see the whole frame, and especially in such terrific shape. Until someone lays their hands on the original European cut this is probably as good as this film will ever look. (Be sure to avoid the awful full-frame Diamond DVD edition that's paired with Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet; and I haven't seen the Platinum DVD but it's a safe bet it's just as bad if not worse than Diamond's.) The trailer for FSOV is matted to about 1.85:1 and doesn't look nearly as nice as the feature, suffering from mediocre color, scratching, and a soft, dupey look. Five trailers for other Wade Williams/Image releases are also included. A can't-miss buy for admirers of this underappreciated Eastern European gem.
You get what you pay for
NOT as described by Amazon or the jacket - not the 130 minute original but the 78 minute dubbed version shown in the UK. The same poor quality picture (resolution 720 x 480) and sound as the 2000 release but much cheaper.
Based on Lem's 1951 first novel The Astronauts the theme is pacifist - compare with the also 1959 "On the Beach".
The fuzzy images on the DVD do not do justice to the excellent camerawork and (for the time) special effects.
At this price worth getting to compare with US films of the period.
Finally, a widescreen version
I bet I've watched this movie 20 times over the last 10 years between my old VHS copy and later Diamond Entertainment DVD version. I can't explain why, but I love this movie. It's the perfect lay in bed and doze-off-to movie. My recommendation: skip the Diamond fullscreen DVD version (which doesn't have any better quality than VHS tape) and go for the Image version. The only advantage the Diamond DVD has is that it's a double feature with "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet", an almost decent dozer. I won't go into the plot or details since other reviews have. I can only say that this is an entirely enjoyable movie for classic sci-fi fans.