"Perry Rhodan - Unser Mann im All" is a 90-minute documentary about a successful German science-fiction literature (and audio book) series. It's a truly long-running one as the first edition already came out in 1961. So, this is a bit of a 50th anniversary documentary. There are many interviews in here, some very old interviews from the early years of Perry Rhodan and some recent interviews, mostly with avid Perry Rhodan readers, also from abroad. There are also some very young readers included here, probably to convince us that the series also appeals to the next generation. I cannot really confirm that though. I have never really come across more than the name of Perry Rhodan in my generation (1980s born). There are some references about a Perry Rhodan movie (an Italian which got bad reviews though), a Japanese movie and the famous "Sandmännchen" television series. The film's director André Schäfer has a prolific body of work in terms of German television, but the two writers are the exact opposite, pretty much newbies to writing for television/documentaries. One part of the documentary is about fascist parallels in the Perry Rhodan stories, but this one is gotten rid of pretty quickly again.
I believe this documentary is only suitable for fans of the series. And the good thing for them is that they will probably truly enjoy it. For everybody, else, however, also for science fiction fans in general, this is not really an entertaining 90 minutes as most of the time, they probably have no idea what is going on and what they are talking about. The only thing I really took from this documentary is that it is, despite the English name, a truly German hero and the pronunciation is German as well, even if the first names comes from perry Mason and the second name from an old Japanese monster horror movie. The best thing for me was probably the main theme song sung by a female artist named Tabea Elkarra(?). Really catchy tune. But the rest is not particularly worth watching and it did not get me interested in Perry Rhodan either. Not recommended.
I believe this documentary is only suitable for fans of the series. And the good thing for them is that they will probably truly enjoy it. For everybody, else, however, also for science fiction fans in general, this is not really an entertaining 90 minutes as most of the time, they probably have no idea what is going on and what they are talking about. The only thing I really took from this documentary is that it is, despite the English name, a truly German hero and the pronunciation is German as well, even if the first names comes from perry Mason and the second name from an old Japanese monster horror movie. The best thing for me was probably the main theme song sung by a female artist named Tabea Elkarra(?). Really catchy tune. But the rest is not particularly worth watching and it did not get me interested in Perry Rhodan either. Not recommended.
