Ikarie XB 1 (1963)

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1. 

   HVM

   @jlfitz:
   
   "Advertising for a bastardized American version of Jindřich Polák´s Ikarie XB1 called Voyage to the End of the Universe. Not only all Czech names in the credits were americanized (Jindřich Polák is credited as Jack Pollock, Dana Medřická as Dana Meredith, Radovan Lukavský as Rodney Lucas, František Smolik as Francis Smolen etc.), but the film was dramatically recut, with totally different ending and many shifts in its meaning."
   
   http://goo.gl/5YQPzg 7 years 11 months ago
2. 

   Siskoid

   It's 1963 and the Czechoslovak New Wave pulls off a procedural space thriller titled Ikarie XB 1. It may perhaps have been screened by Kubrick when preparing for 2001 and I can believe it. The model work is very good. The stark black and white design could have transferred to sci-fi films on through Star Wars. The ship even incidentally has roundels like the TARDIS born that same year. In Czech hands, this trip to Alpha Centauri, not unlike American astronaut adventure from the 50s, becomes a much more internal story. It wants to be a look at the future of space travel, and so imagines how it might really be done and what effects long relativistic voyages would have on the crew (a half-female crew, many travelling as couples, no tokenism here). Consequently, it's not much on plot. (Loosely based on a Stanislaw Lem novel, it shares that DNA with Solaris.) There's certainly a mystery at work when the crew encounters things it can't understand, but it's a small (if important) part of the story. I've read the American dub (Voyage to the End of the Universe) changes the ending to include more of a twist, one the original film hints at (so it works with minimal changes to the dialog). I suppose Ikarie makes the same point, but is more subtle, or perhaps I should say POETIC about it. Given how influential this might be, I'm surprised it's not referenced more often (or not surprised since it's a foreign film). 2 months 1 week ago
3. 

   Ebbywebby

   The ending is wide open. Is it too late to hope for a sequel? 1 year 2 months ago

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