Reviews

This is not what I would call a documentary film per se that is organically woven into a single interesting narrative. Rather, in a small time available, they literally squeezed in footage of every single launch of Saturns I and IB's with summary narrative describing each particular flight in a fashion that tears up a single narrative. As a result the narrative that is otherwise nice and informative (describing the general design, contributions of Wernher von Braun, JFK's visit to NASA) is ruined by these dry, factual, and at times details that are too specific for a 40-minute film.

The documentary does feature interviews of people who managed the projects which gives a good background to what was happening but the annoying black screen title card introductions to each ruin these too. Some of the choices of music were also pretty bad. It has a very good professional narrator which is probably the only plus for this film along with some rare footage that you normally wouldn't see anywhere else.

Other than that, it is quite an unprofessionally made documentary with bad editing and script. Still, for what it is it gives plenty of information and footage and certainly worth a look for any space fan as one can hardly find any other films about the early Saturns.

As a child I read in a popular science magazine about the discovery of dinosaur tracks alongside with human footprints and ancient civilisations that evidently possessed knowledge far more advanced then the evolution theorists can allow it to be. In school I was taught we were evolved apes and questioning that was a crime. Today, the western society is moving towards that Orwellian society that has no place for God, where science is made a new world religion claiming that not only it possesses the truth but that it is the Truth, which is extremely disturbing. They ignore the fact that science is a method of observation and study of the world around us and when put next to the ability to create Life, conquer death and give definitive answers as to the origins of the universe it shrinks to no more than a child's knowledge of quantum physics, only in infinitely larger proportions.

It's a shameful fact that science does not only turn a blind eye on discoveries that don't fit officially taught theories, but can actually silence scientists and ruin their carriers for simply trying to make their discoveries open to scientific community and public. Not only that but Darwin's myths of evolution (and here I stand for the truth wherever it may lead, regardless of one's religious or anti-religious convictions) has been made the only answer to our origins by the "enlightened" man. It is very peculiar how human attitude towards a Creator determines the scientific "facts" that are made to fit that attitude. When Darwin proposed his theory, which is still no more than a hypothesis, at the time when sceptics and atheists alike were attacking religious beliefs from all sides, it was sold as the only possible explanation of the origins of man. At the same time fake "facts" where manufactured by the same sceptics to disprove the historicity of Christianity, to demonstrate that it is no more than a resurrected myth based on other old myths. Today, some 150 years later unsuspecting general public is casually fed these lies as "facts" along with ridicule and mockery of religious beliefs. Curiously, a theory, a myth has been turned into a reality and historical facts connected with Christianity tuned into a myth. Truly, an Orwellian society where lie is truth and truth is lie.

This documentary starts with archaeological discoveries that do not fit Darwin's theory but then switches and focuses on the ruins of ancient civilisations which provide some indirect evidence as to their level of knowledge and the time period of their existence, thus challenging the theory that our knowledge has gradually evolved. But I wish they concentrated more on the archaeological discoveries, on rebuking Darwin's theory where it clearly tries to manipulate facts to fit into its postulates. Still it presents some very important facts and must be seen by anyone who cares about the health state of their intellect.

The second film in the Footprints of God series is dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus. Unless your an expert in the ancient Biblical history and a frequent traveller to those places or a Christian Biblical tour guide in Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Italy, Greece, Jordan and Syria at the same time, the series is definitely not to be missed. They say the Holy Land is the fifth Bible. It is definitely true in that so many places described in the Bible, unless they were completely destroyed by wars and time, are there to tell us their stories of life, customs, traditions and events of the time. They help to get the much needed dose of reality of those events that happened in the course of several thousand years of history, especially in this age of scepticism or plainly a blind refusal to accept the historicity of Christianity. If you'll never see some of the places, use it as a great travel and history source, and if you're going to see some of them - as a travel guide of the places not to be missed. And not just a travel guide, it will help you understand the deep meaning of the events connected to these places.

And that's what Steve Ray does. Mary is often overlooked and ignored and even reduced to simply a speechless tool in the story of Salvation by most of the non-traditional (Protestant) Christian denominations that appeared no more than 500 years ago. But her role is not that of simply a birth-giver. Her "yes" to God was key to all that happened later, as was her life after the Annunciation. Christians have always venerated saints and Mary as a very special saint. They also venerated the sacred places where most important events happened, they built churches over those places, thus preserving the memory for future generations. Christianity is not a religion of the Book that "fell from the skies", completely detached from this world, people and places. It is deeply rooted in history and without its history it is in danger of turning into a myth - exactly what the sceptics and atheists are desperately trying to make it to be.

Of course, there is so much to tell about Mary's life and her role in Salvation - both historically and theologically, and one hour of this documentary is barely enough just to cover the main points, albeit briefly. But it does the job very well, combining history and faith in one organic story-telling, and can certainly be used as a starting point to familiarise yourself with what it is that Catholics actually believe, as opposed to what you may think they believe. If you are not a traditional Christian: Catholic, Orthodox or Oriental, things that you hear may sound quite daunting and not entirely clear but information is all widely available in books and online. I would recommend this to anyone - whether you are a sceptic, a protestant or a traditional Christian.

The film is Brian Flemming's personal nightmarish search for answers, who as a disgruntled boy never came to terms with his personal problems caused by his Protestant teachings, never bothered to check what they were teaching. So the best way for him to deal with his problems was to deny everything including the existence of historical Jesus.

He claims that if the Church was wrong about the sun revolving around the earth it was wrong about the historicity of Jesus Christ. Catholic Church deals only with questions of faith and morals and never claimed to be a scientific institution, although Catholics have always been at the front end of scientific discoveries throughout the two thousand year history. First universities were opened by the Church back in 11 -12 centuries. The entire human race believed the sun revolved around the earth. In fact 1 in 4 Americans today believe the same according to a survey.

He tries to demonstrate that Christianity has not invented anything new and the ideas of a saviour and other parallels with Christianity are found in ancient myths like the cults of Mithra, Osiris and Dionysus. These pagan gods belong, of course, to various ancient civilisations - Roman, Egyptian and Greek. Parallels with Osiris and Dionysus are so generic that they can be found in almost any religion. As for Mithra there isn't a single written source in existence from that cult. What survives are ambiguous stone inscriptions that historians still in disagreement about as to their meaning. He conveniently picks the Roman Mithra that has the most "parallels" with Christianity. This cult was followed by the Roman soldiers in 1-4 centuries AD. Yes, AD. That's AFTER the beginning of Christianity. The only written sources that survive of the Roman Mithra cult (a relative of Persian Mitra) are Christian sources that can hardly be turned against the writers who wrote them!

He fails to see that Judaism is an ancient religion (if not the most ancient) and Christianity is the organic continuation of it. Judeo-Chritianity span almost four thousand years from Abraham, and in fact go back to Noah (24th century BC). The beliefs of this religion predate even those earliest surviving sources of Persian cults of Mitra by at least several hundred years. Animal sacrifice, bread and wine offerings, a Saviour, Heaven and Hell and many other concepts have always been part of this ancient religion. Longing for their promised Saviour by the Jews go back to the origins of that religion as evidenced in their books. In fact all pagan societies outside of Jewish of that era were so deeply cruel, immoral and perverted that nearly all of them were longing for some kind of a divine saviour, naturally coming up with various stories and man-made prophecies which would eventually turn into cults. Jews even resisted their religion throughout their entire ancient history. Besides, Judaism throughout its entire existence, was in constant contact with other civilisations (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Roman, etc.), and an exchange of religious beliefs was an ordinary matter. Jews were always adopting various pagan cults. Similary, ancient accounts of the Great Flood and the Ark filled with animals can be found outside of Jewish tradition in ancient Greek, Hindu, Mesopotamian cults.

Another point is, if one thing is similar to another does it mean they are identical? A human is similar to a monkey. Does it mean a human is a monkey? And if similarities exist in attributes that belong to humans or the facts of lives of one person and another are similar, does it mean one of them never existed? Likewise, attributes that belong to gods would be similar as what we lack in our human nature we would attribute to gods, even the invented ones.

Using the same false logic we can "prove" that Napoleon never existed. It's all a sun myth, because of similarities. In Paris there is a column with Napoleon's statue with the inscription: "Neapolio, Imp. Aug.". Splitting of the name gives us "Ne", Greek particle of affirmation, and "Apolio", and we get "True Apollo". So Napoleon was god Apollo. Both Apollo and Napoleon were born on a Mediterranean island (Delos and Corsica). Apollo had three sisters and two wives (one - the earth, the other - the moon) and Napoleon had three sisters and two wives. Apollo was a sun god of light; the sun passes 12 signs of the zodiac and Napoleon was effectively a dictator for 12 years (1802 to 1814). Napoleon had 12 Marshals like the 12 signs of zodiac. The sun is strongest in the south and weakest in the north and Napoleon was defeated in Russia. So he is simply a sun myth just like Jesus of Nazareth.

Mr. Flemming interviews Bible Christians to see what they know about the spread of Christianity. And, behold, they don't. What can one expect from the form of Christianity that have no foundation in history? His claims that since Apostle Paul didn't write about the life of Christ Christ, therefore, He never existed, that The Passion of the Christ film is evidence that Christians are blood thirty - these are ridiculous beyond belief. Just as his understanding of the denial of the Holy Spirit being an unforgivable sin is completely wrong and just hilarious. But he never bothers to check his "facts". And by his logic, because there is a gap between the years of the life of Jesus and the Gospels written... Jesus never existed. If someone writes a biography of someone who lived 40 years before does that prove he never existed?

This is a truly sad story of a man who never looked anywhere else of what Christianity is all about and is still going blind - just as he was in his teenage years. The film should have been more appropriate called "My Mind That Wasn't There".

When I first watched the movie and read the Lord of the Rings books, I instinctively new there were truths in this book (and so in the film) that were deeply Christian. Good and Evil, sacrifice that was an important part of the story, immortality, degradation of a person due to over-attachment to material things, God-the-Creator and the Evil Spirit that tries to corrupt all beings of the Middle-Earth with his servants who do his bidding. But having watched this program I was stunned how much the Lord of the Rings is actually deeply rooted in Catholicism, in the Truths that were revealed to us by God and through His Church, however allegorical these are in movie.

The Good and Evil in the film are not what the relativism-obsessed (or possessed?) modern society make them to be: a subjective opinions that depend entirely on the general public consensus on the subject or, on the individual level, on what you and I perceive good or evil to be. No, in Tolkien's universe these are objective realities of Good and Evil that exist, just as they are in Church's teaching, the God's view, exist regardless of the prevailing public opinions of the given time.

There is an amazing reenactment of the conversation between J.R.R. Tolkien and and C.S. Lewis on the existence of God and myths as well as a few important short monologues by both in this program. I loved the bits of artwork in the film as well, depicting the Lord of the Rings universe. Somehow they ring more true, mysterious and beautiful than in the movie.

I thoroughly enjoy listening to Joseph Pearce. His detailed and logical approach in telling the story, whether it's a biography or an analysis of a book is very clear and right to the point. There are a few of talks by Joseph Pearce on same subject on YouTube that give even more details about allegories to the Catholic Faith in the Lord of the Rings. One is given at Christendom College, another is called Courage given at the University of Saint Mary which also talks about C.S. Lewis, and a few others. He also made a similar film on The Hobbit about Catholic themes in the books and a series on William Shakespeare's Catholicism in his works. All are highly recommended for anyone who want to get a better understanding of the works of these authors and how their world views were reflected in their works.

This documentary, as stated in the promo video, is one of a kind and it does not disappoint. In this day and age when secularism, relativism and neo-paganism attack the Catholic Church from all sides, a catholic convert from Bible Christianity Steve Ray does an excellent job of bringing to screen those places and events that are deeply rooted in the human and Church history. Breathtaking bird-eye views, clear and interesting story-telling makes it an interesting watch from start to the end. Steve's idea to make it a travel-log documentary, a brief course on apologetics and a historical overview focused on symbolism of the Biblical events is unique and really works together well.

This very first episode of the ten part series "The Footprints of God" (last two episodes are to be made in 2017 and 2018/2019) is devoted entirely to Peter, the apostle. Steve Ray goes to all known places where Peter lived, worked, walked with Christ - in Israel and his burial place in Rome. He links the biblical words and events with the actual places revealing their significance. It is a trustworthy source of information as the film has endorsement from ecclesiastical authorities: Nihil Obstat seal by a Censor Librorum and Imprimatur by Bishop Carl F. Mengeling.

So what's so special about Peter? Well, Peter's authority is the main line of attack on the Catholic Church from inside all other Christian denominations that at their inception rebelled against the Church and Peter's authority. And I do mean ALL of them, without exception. It is precisely the authority of Rome where Peter's seat is that they rebelled against in the first place. Luther, Calvin and Henry XIII - founders of Protestantism and Anglicanism, Photius and Cerularios - authors of the Great Schism of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and many others before them and after, and their followers even to this day - they all refused to follow Peter's authority, effectively God's authority, and through their influence, power, lies and persuasion dragged huge numbers with them into the abyss of their heresies and schisms.

Now, Simon, whom Christ gave a new name Peter (from the Greek "Petros", in turn from Aramaic "Keifa" meaning Rock) was a simple fisherman, whom Christ made the head of the twelve Apostles and who later became the first Bishop of Rome, the Pope. He was the one Christ gave the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven (meaning the power to rule Christ's flock on Earth) and he is the rock on which Christ has build His Church, meaning that Peter, in all of his successors, will defend and protect the authenticity of the Catholic Faith until the end of times. Why did He pick Peter? Steve Answers that question: he was a strong, rough and uneducated man but of great faith and of a big and a humble heart. I would add to Steve's words quoting St. John Chrysostom from memory, an early father of the Church (IV c. A.D.), that Christ picked Peter, an uneducated and rough man instead of a learned and arrogant scholar, so that after Peter's betrayal, followed by his repentance and profound contrition, and once made the head of the Church, he will be as forgiving of the faults of others as Christ was of his faults and being already once humbled by Christ, would never rise above all others in the Church, but be a servant of all just like Christ was (one of Pope's titles, by the way).

Even more interestingly, if we look at the parallels in a wider Biblical sense to the Protestant refusal to follow God's authority delegated to Peter, they are doing the Devil (yes, that horny one that managed to persuade almost everyone he doesn't exist) a huge favour and effectively his most important job for him. It was the Devil (a.k.a. Satan, Lucifer), one of the most powerful and certainly the most beautiful of all archangels in Heaven who rebelled against God's authority. "I will not serve" he said to God and other angels and through lies, deception and persuasion managed to drag with him a third of all angels into the abyss of what then became Hell. That was before the creation of Adam and Eve, by the way, and today it is still his utmost desire and goal - to turn away as many people from God as possible. (He hates us, humans, by the way, even more than he hates God, so don't expect any nice treatment if you get there).

The above information on Protestants and the Devil is not in the film, of course, but will hopefully give some background and perspective to the story about this great and humble man, Peter the fisherman, so well told by Steve Ray. I would highly recommend this film, and the whole series in fact, to anyone who wants to get their facts right about the faith and Church history, and to any Christians who believe in "the Bible alone" and have no understanding of the deep and profound historicity of the Faith.

A partly dramatised documentary this film is made of four 55-minute episodes. It does have an educational value as it gives some good background info on many things: people, spacecraft, technology, science.

What makes this movie stand out is it goes all they way back to the pioneers of space flight: Tsyolkovsky and then Hermann Oberth (although it fails to mention Goddard). Also, it covers pretty much every flight from the first R-7 test flight to the launch of Sputnik, through to the flights of Gagarin, Titov, and all other subsequent early soviet space flights. It depicts in quite interesting details the flight of Voskhod 2 and Leonov's historic spacewalk. It is also quite well balanced in telling presenting facts about the space race than most of Russian documentaries on the subject.

The film uses some archive footage, but mostly lots of low quality computer graphics. Particularly horrible was Leonov's almost cartoon-like first spacewalk and that of Apollo 11 moonwalk. There is an iconic archive footage of Leonov's spacewalk and Neil's footage on the Moon and they never show those.

In many ways it copies a typical American Discovery channel style of documentary with drawn schematics, on-screen biographies and ridiculously sensationalist voice, which gives an impression it is aimed at retarded audience. To add to that, the narrator's voice in this one was hoarse and terrible.

In general, it is much better made and more accurate in terms of facts a documentary about the Russian, mostly manned, space exploration history than, for instance, the Russian series "Our Space" (2011), which came out at the same time. This one is a good refresher of those historic events, especially of the early space flight. Worth a look.

I don't know of any other show that deals specifically with faith conversions. So here you meet people from all sorts of backgrounds sharing their most intimate experiences, thoughts and knowledge in their journeys of faith.

The show focuses mainly on protestants who converted to the Catholic Faith. Although there is an occasional atheist and agnostic or revert to Catholicism, it is mainly protestants that the host, Marcus Grodi, a former Protestant minister himself, brings to the show.

Stories of protestant conversions isn't exactly my cup of tea as I grew up in the traditional Christianity environment - Orthodox - where Protestantism is widely considered a kind of an oddity and sectarianism, and it would be interesting to see more people from traditional religions. But this is hardly the fault of the show as the Christian environment in the US is largely Protestant.

I'm sure people who are church hopping or have doubts about their own protestant faith or want to here about the Catholic Church and its Christian faith first hand will find this show extremely informative and interesting.

I've seen quite a lot of episodes which are freely available on YouTube and particularly enjoyed, to name but a few, the shows with former baptist fundamentalist and now a catholic apologist Steve Ray, former Episcopalian Dr. Thomas Howard, former atheists Dr. Holly Ordway and Jennifer Fulwiler.

And if you are, because of the widespread misconceptions, wondering just what on earth can possibly bring someone to the Catholic Church, and not just the ordinary folk but university and medical doctors, convinced Protestant pastors, outspoken atheists, here they speak for themselves.

I love discovering good movies that seem to have been ignored or forgotten. This is one of them. The film is based on a sci-fi novel by Strugatsky brothers called Space Mowgli and is quite faithful to the book. The only difference I believe there is with the book is that the planet about to be colonised is meant for humans from Earth and not for a dying alien civilisation from another planet that humans are helping as in the book, but that has no effect on the story.

This film is made for television in the cold war era and its budget is quite limited. Yet, I think they've done a marvellous job. Most of the sets are quite good and done thoughtfully. The spacesuits, the inside of the ship, the landscape of the alien planet with some really nice shots, the androids - all is there. Although only a small part of the ship is shown from the outside and the wreckage of an old ship is very unconvincing.

I liked the acting and the directing, and the dialogues were adapted in a somewhat clearer way than the Russian production for TV of the same novel called Malysh which also lacked any set designs to speak of. The sound and music were also very good. But watch it mostly for the story, it's interesting. The little boy is a good actor as well. The film can be found with English subtitles over the internet.

The mini-series was originally released on one of Russia's leading TV channels on 11 April 2011 - the eve of the 50-th anniversary of the first manned space flight by Yury Gagarin back in 12 April 1961. Clearly, it was meant to be a celebration feast for all space lovers and Russian patriots. I'm being a bit sarcastic here and here's why. Each episode starts with a declaration by the host: "...we were, we are and we'll stay first in space. This is our space!", hence the title: Our Space. Oh, dear. Not exactly honourable a statement. The movie keeps these propagandist overtones throughout. It may as well have been made during the cold war era.

It first glance it has all the right ingredients: archive footage, interviews with cosmonauts and designers, dramatisation of important conversations, commentary by the host. But oh boy, was it painful to watch. Mainly for the acting, the narrative and badly edited archive footage. Often they pick the wrong footage for the event described. When talking about the fatal accident of Grissom, White and Chaffee they show engines ignition of Saturn V, followed by an explosion of Atlas-Agena vehicle on launch pad (in reality the astronauts were sitting on top of a Saturn 1B rocket and there was no engine ignition, let alone explosion of the entire rocket). In dramatised parts they consistently use wrong spacesuits for soviet cosmonauts. In Gagarin's flight - a high altitude jet pilot helmet, for Voskhod 2 flight - more modern Soyuz spacesuits. Instead of Soyuz launch they show Vostok and vice versa, instead of spacewalk on Mir station - Gemini spacewalk, on-board footage from ISS instead of Mir. Terrible sloppiness. The dramatisation is average at best - so badly written. The narrative is very sensationalist and overly dramatic in places where it doesn't need to be. And I don't even want to go into details of the narrative as there's just too much to mention. The way the whole film is assembled and edited adds to the agony of watching it.

I was quite interested in watching Episode 6 as it deals exclusively with the Moon race. A confusing presentation of "facts" with lots of empty rhetoric. I wrote a separate review of that episode. Anyway, you won't lose anything not watching it. I don't think this movie is available with English subtitles anyway and it's probably not meant to be - would be embarrassing to show something like this on world-wide documentary channels.

Robot development has reached the point when androids will have practically full human qualities - which means the good with the bad. And that poses a major problem: do we then accept their "human" flaws, since we want androids to be like humans in every way or do we stop just short of it and let them be robots, nice all around?

The story centres around a talented designer who creates unique robots, not just utilitarian but what the industry refers to as the "free robots" - a kind that is illegal for being unsafe around humans and even dangerous. At the same time, they are fun, creative, independent, and ultimately... more human.

It is a brilliant philosophical drama that has all the elements of a great movie. And this is a Spanish (Catalonian) production - Hollywood doesn't make movies like this any more. It certainly was a breath of fresh air for a sci-fi fan like me. No, it probably cannot beat "I, Robot" in being a massive budget action-packed spectacle (however flawed it may be) and what's more importantly - based on Asimov's book with a great story, but it is a solid-all-around movie with great CGI, not overdone for its own sake as it often happens, but of great quality and precisely where it's needed, solid acting, a bit of a love triangle, nicely shot and directed, and with a great double-surprise climax and ending - nice one and a rather sad one (without giving away too much).

Couple of points off for not being particularly visually captivating and the story not so excitingly told as it could have been, but overall - a really great job. Highly recommended.

With this film it just goes to show that no matter how much money they spend on smashing cars, massive sets, extras and CGI (which is not that good, by the way) you still get a story created and told by someone with intelligence no more than that of a 12-year old. To add to that are the stunts that defy the laws of physics, stupid dances by the android, infantile dialogues, fake acting, some absolutely ridiculous conversations of the robot with mosquitoes, laughable fights and giant worms, pyramids and other fighting structures made up of robots turning this in the end into a complete grotesque made-by-amateurs-in-a-garage joke, no matter how expensive it was.

I realise there are huge cultural differences in what is perceived a good film and I'm happy to ignore those to get to the bare bones of it, but there certainly exists a universal appreciation by all human beings of what is good and original, and if you also strip the film of all that is western in the way the movies are created including the stolen ideas from western sci-fi film (The Matrix, several robot films), all the cars and technology, as well as of the purely Indian thing here - the dancing-singing numbers - one is left with nothing more than a pile of rubbish.

The only good thing about this film is actually those dancing and singing clips that have nothing to do with the story. Visually and choreographically very beautifully done (excluding the songs, that is). Maybe Indian film-makers should stick to those Bollywood ways of making movies that I'm sure some of them are deserving every praise in their own right and not embarrass themselves any more.

P.S. Some Indian fans called it the Indian I, Robot. And so it is. The only question is: is this all they are capable of producing?

This is the second US bootleg video release of 1995 of the very popular and brilliant cartoon The Mystery of the Third Planet made in 1981 (see IMDb entry for the original) about Alice's adventures in space based on the sci-fi series by a Russian writer Kir Bulychev. This version was released as part of the series called Stories from My Childhood.

This re-edited dubbed version has a very close translation to the original but with a new narrative by Alice added that was not in the original film. James Belushi and Kirsten Dunst did the dubbing. The beginning of the story in Earth's space port was cut out and so were the original credits so the film is 8 minutes shorter than the original. The worst thing, though, is that the brilliant music that this cartoon is very much remembered for and the original sound were all removed. Some of the names were also altered (professor Seleznyov became professor Newton and pilot Zelyony became pilot Jones. The plot, however, stayed the same and the dialogues are nearly identical to the original - much closer than the Mystery of the third planet (dollar store version) of 1987 - the first bootleg dubbed English version.

This version is available on YouTube (http://youtu.be/3lEoewc7Yns). The video quality, however, is poor.

5 stars for this version, 9 for the original.

This film is the second part of the two-part saga spanning over three and a half hours combined (the first - Dark Planet came out in the same year). One has to watch both films back to back as they are one continuous story; the first one stopping in the middle of the narration with no closure whatsoever.

It is based on a very popular dystopian sci-fi novel Prisoners of Power by Strugatsky brothers written in 1969 and published in English numerous times and depicts a post-nuclear war totalitarian society on another planet, where a young lone adventurer in space from Earth crash lands his ship and embarks on an adventurous and dangerous journey to free the people of the planet from their misery, himself belonging to a much more advanced and highly moral human society of the distant future which by then defeated disease and inequality with each human possessing incredible physical powers.

Now onto this screen adaptation. The casting went horribly wrong in the selection of the main character - the young man from Earth - looking like the tanned curly blond boy from erotic flick The Blue Lagoon from the 80's with pretty bad acting, and one of other main characters looking completely like Gary Oldman's character Zorg in The Fifth Element; the script was terribly written with bad dialogues and jerky story-telling. The story is at times confusing and poses questions along the way, which is very distracting. Although the director did an overall okay job, he's not very original and his visualisation of the film is an endless list of stolen ideas from the popular western movies: cars from Total Recall and Mad Max, bat-mobiles, kung-fu style fights with fantastic jumps taken straight from The Matrix. To add to that is the endless shouting by actors in a very "russian" style that most of the time don't make sense and is a pure overacting.

On the positive side the film is high budget with massive sets in the alien city, battles outside the city and fantastic gardens reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings; very good CGI and sound. And, of course, it's based on a solid and entertaining story, with a surprise ending of the saga leaves one with a feeling that the time spent watching it wasn't wasted. It's certainly worth taking a look, if only for the great story and special effects. Recommended.

This was the first US bootleg video release of 1987 of the very popular and brilliant cartoon The Mystery of the Third Planet made in 1981 (see IMDb entry for it) about Alice's adventures in space based on the sci-fi series by a Russian writer Kir Bulychev. This release had the full original footage, music and sound effects but with significantly changed English dialogues, and no credits shown for the original Russian cartoon creators or script writers - just the American dubbing credits. Some of the character names were also changed: professor Seleznyov became professor Adam Steel, his daughter Alice - became Christen, although pilot Zelyony (Green in Russian) stayed as pilot Green, and so did the names of the two glorious captains Kim and Buran. A narrator's voice was added with a narrative that does not exist in the original, which is not of concern as it sticks to the story and helps to understand what's happening. In the video the title shown is actually "Stories from a Land Far, Far, Away: Mystery of the Third Planet". It is often referred to as "the dollar store version".

The main story line of the search for rare animals for the zoo involving space pirates and the two famous captains is not changed, however there are some significant changes in some of the story details. Like the whole episode with the birthday cake in the beginning, Alice wanting to go see a football match on the first planet they land on, drink of the six-armed friend of professor Steel, and so on. As the original footage was untouched they had to stick close to the original, but in some places the changed dialogues defeat the original intentions of the artists and of what's happening in the scene - a bit like in some other bootlegged Soviet sci-fi that were massacred by Amerasian bootleg movies producers, this one however not to the same extent.

Overall, the story stays fairly close to the original and is certainly very much watchable, especially if one prefers fully dubbed movies to subtitles. Is does, however, in my view, lacks many of the funny moments in dialogues, and a certain feel of romanticism of space travel that these dropped dialogues create, replaced with some more of a dry tone ones. This version is available on YouTube (http://youtu.be/NWTPMCD3SeQ). The video quality, however, is poor as it was recorded from a VHS source.

6 stars for this version and 9 for the original.

A cult soviet classic that is cherished by lots of people, especially those who grew up with it. Although made in 1981 it still looks excellent. It's by far the best sci-fi cartoon out of the Soviet Union that has everything in it: exciting adventures, space travel, strange creatures, space pirates, suspense, excellent animation, great music and a brilliant story.

The story is based on one of the books by Kir Bulychev, a sci-fi writer, who wrote a whole series about Alice's adventures. Some of them were translated into English. And because it's based on book and a script that is written by the same writer the story is solid, so that even adults find it interesting. There are common characters in all of these stories and the central one is Alice, a little girl whose father, professor Seleznev, is a biologist working for a zoo. And since it's 22-d century and many distant star systems have been explored and space travel became very common, the zoo is filled with space animals from other planets and so Alice gets to fly with her father once in a while to explore unknown worlds - this time in search for rare animals. Another common characters across the books are space pirates that are always up to something bad and Alice, being a curious girl, always getting into some sort of dangerous adventure. Kids of the future are very advanced intellectually and physically, and so Alice is already doing some scientific research in some of the stories. I guess that's one of the things that draw kids to these stories.

A few words about the English versions of the film and where to find them. Original Russian version with English subtitles that are not particularly well translated and of poor video quality is available on YouTube http://youtu.be/cTxIp_pMOk4. There is also a dubbed English bootleg US version called Mystery of the third planet (dollar store version) 1987, which retained the full video and music but with some significantly altered dialogues and added narrative which are not original - it is still watchable. http://youtu.be/NWTPMCD3SeQ. I have a review of that. There is also a third version of the cartoon called Alice and the Mystery of The Third Planet (1995), another US bootleg dubbed version. This one had the original music and sound all removed, 8 minutes cut out from the beginning of the film and a new narrative added. The dialogues, however, are nearly identical to the original, which is the only good thing about this version. It's also available on YouTube http://youtu.be/3lEoewc7Yns. This is also watchable but I wouldn't recommend any of the two bootleg versions. I'm hoping to get a new subtitled English translation on YouTube soon in HD quality so check back soon.