I guess I'm not capable of looking past the flaws in sci-fi B-movies. I don't have a ton of experience with them, but based on my limited time watching B-movies, I struggle to ignore the awful production value. To the Stars by Hard Ways is a Russian film about an alien clone that is discovered in space, lacking memories of what she is there to do. The plot moves extraordinarily slow, and is even segmented out into 2 chunks that are totally different from one another. At first she is on Earth learning to assimilate into life here, and then for the second half she sneaks aboard a spaceship to complete the mission she was originally sent to Earth in order to accomplish. I think both movies could have been watchable, but there was no strong reason to jam them both together into one story. I felt the movie lacked focus, and that definitely hurt it, particularly when they are trying to make a point by drawing an analogy between events in this film and things going on in the USSR at the time.
My biggest struggle with To the Stars by Hard Ways, aside from the slow pacing, were the effects. There are a lot of sci-fi things going on in this movie, but it was extremely hard to track what exactly was occurring when the visual effects were rendered so poorly. I understand if you are making a film on a limited budget, but then you have to write around that budget so that you can find ways to convey what is happening without always showing it. I was confused more than once, and I was trying hard to figure out what they were showing me. There are also some odd extra layers to the story in To the Stars by Hard Ways that did nothing to add to the plot of the film. For instance, I couldn't figure out why we cared about an overly-sensitive octopus creature, that is picky about how he is treated. They even stop the entire plot of the film for a few minutes when the octopus reaches his home planet. I got next to nothing out of To the Stars by Hard Ways, aside from confusion. I feel like, even though it is free to watch on Youtube, it's still not worth anyone taking the time.
My biggest struggle with To the Stars by Hard Ways, aside from the slow pacing, were the effects. There are a lot of sci-fi things going on in this movie, but it was extremely hard to track what exactly was occurring when the visual effects were rendered so poorly. I understand if you are making a film on a limited budget, but then you have to write around that budget so that you can find ways to convey what is happening without always showing it. I was confused more than once, and I was trying hard to figure out what they were showing me. There are also some odd extra layers to the story in To the Stars by Hard Ways that did nothing to add to the plot of the film. For instance, I couldn't figure out why we cared about an overly-sensitive octopus creature, that is picky about how he is treated. They even stop the entire plot of the film for a few minutes when the octopus reaches his home planet. I got next to nothing out of To the Stars by Hard Ways, aside from confusion. I feel like, even though it is free to watch on Youtube, it's still not worth anyone taking the time.