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Battle Beyond the Sun
Nebo Zovyot / The Sky is Calling
USA/USSR 1962
produced by Roger Corman for Filmgroup, AIP/Mosfilm
directed by Thomas Colchart (= Francis Ford Coppola), Mikhail Karzhukov, Aleksands Kozyr
starring Ivan Pereverzev, Aleksandr Shvorin, Konstantin Bartashevich, Larisa Borisenko, V.Chernyak, Viktor Dobrovolsky, S.Filmimonov, Taisiya Litvinenko, L.Lobov, Alla Popova, Marina Samojlova, Gurgen Tonunts
written by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the film Nebo Zoyvot written by Mikhail Karzukov, Yevgeni Pomeshchikov, Aleksei Sazanov, music by Lex Baxter, Ronald Stein, special effects by G.Lukashov, Y.Schwech, Al Locatelli
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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After a big nuclear war, earth is divided into North Hemi and South
Hemi, ad both part want to succeed in going to Mars first, and as it is,
it seems that South Hemi is closer to reaching the goal, as they are
already preparing to shoot a manned rocketship to the red planet from
their spacestation - when the space station gives abode to an allegedly
damaged North Hemi-spaceship - the crew of which has actually only gone
there to spy around a bit and then use the station's privileged position
in space to launch the first North Hemi Mars expedition. Unfortunately
theough, once airborne, the North Hemi ship doesn't make it to Mars and
has to make an emergency landing on some barren asteroid. The South Hemi
folks however are nice enough to abandon their Mars mission for a rescue
attempt - which leaves the South Hemi ship stranded on the asteroid as
well. The South Hemi spacestation then sends a fuel rocket to the asteroid
to save both the South and the North Hemi crew ... but the fuel rocket's
captain is killed by the asteroid's local monsters when delivering the
much needed fuel. When both the South and the North Hemi astronauts return
to earth on the same ship, they are celebrated as heroes, because while
none of them might have reached Mars, they have laid the foundation for
world peace ... Battle Beyond the Sun started its live
in 1960 as an epic space opera from the Soviet Union called Nebo Zovyot
- but then Roger Corman and AIP got their hands on it, cut the film down
to approcimately half - and lost most of the plots character motivations
and pacifist undercurrents in the process -, added a few non-sensical
monsters and sold the whole thing as a special effects spectacle - and
it's true, Battle Beyond the Sun does feature some pretty nice
effects for the early 1960's, and sometimes it even comes across as a
pretty intelligent movie, but most of the time, it just seems chopped and
a tad shallow, and especially the monster-scenes are almost ridiculous in
the context (even if the monsters look rather inspired) - and somehow, it
leaves the audience with the desire to see the whole thing in its
originally intended version ...
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Thanks for watching !!!
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Robots and rats,
demons and potholes, cuddly toys and shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill Your Bones to is all of that.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to -
a collection of short stories and mini-plays ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle,
all thought up by the twisted mind of screenwriter and film reviewer Michael Haberfelner.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
Out now from Amazon!!! |
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