ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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It saddens me to think that the Russians did such a fine job of producing this intelligent and imaginative movie in the early 1960s while most of Hollywood's science fiction films were far less praiseworthy during that period.

Take a look at the movies from 1960 through 1965 in All Sci-Fi's chronological index for that period and you'll see what I mean.

Chronological Index of movies by release dates

The premise of Planeta Bur is wonderfully ambitious; a three-ship mission to Venus suffers the loss of one ship during the voyage, but this bold endeavor includes the following inspiring elements.

Those magnificent space suits —




— a floating car that epitomizes the "futuristic" designs of Detroit's "dream cars", a decade earlier —





— and a robot who looks like he could kick Gort's ass!



And that surprising ending, which simply screams "sequel" . . . in both Russian and English!

Imagine a sequel which connects the dialogue between the cosmonauts in the movie when they speculate that the Venusians were actually colonists from Mars —

— and the film's climax, which offers this shot as a connection between those same Venusian colonists from Mars —



— along with the well-known Face on Mars! This is a very cool movie.

By the way, look closely at the amazingly symmetrical border around the "face" in the version on the right below.



Even if we're completely wrong to think that the eroded rock is a human face in the left-hand image . . . how can the natural rock formation around it in the right-hand image appear so much like a frame that surrounds a "portrait"?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

This film is also known as "VOYAGE TO A PREHISTORIC PLANET" And can be found here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz2vjciA9_s
In original Russian (With subtitles.)

And here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh2nLzOVHeQ&t=672s

In English.
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[scotpens]

^^ Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet was an Americanized version that changed the storyline somewhat, and added newly shot footage of Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue.

And then there's Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), which consists mostly of English-dubbed Planeta Bur footage and features Mamie Van Doren and a bevy of amphibian, telepathic, seashell-bra-wearing Venus babes!

[Maurice]

[Bud Brewster]

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I was very surprised yesterday when I discovered that even though Planeta Bur (Planet of Storms) was listed in the alphabetical index, the link didn't work and we did NOT have a thread for it.

Curious . . .

We do, of course, have threads for the two Americanized versions mentioned above, located at the links below. My post which recreated a thread for the original Russian film isn't much more than some sincere praise and several nice pictures, but I'm delighted that it resulted in a discussion by you guys.

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)

Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[trekriffic]

That floating car looks suspiciously like “Supercar” from the 50’s puppet cartoon show I watched as a kid.

I remember the Prehistoric Planet reruns too. That robot could carry two cosmonauts across a lava flow until it started to melt at which time it tried to throw off the two men. Guess the Russians didn’t know about Asimov’s laws of robotics.

https://images.app.goo.gl/VYnWoUj31PuDFAyRA

[Bud Brewster]

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The one it reminds me of is the 1954 concept car, the Ford Atmos.




In fact, with a bit of Bud's Phamous Photographic Phiddling I can make the Atmos look even more like the floating car.


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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I'm still impressed (even though nobody else is) with the way the "face" on Mars seems to be surrounded by the eroded remnants of an artificial structure.


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The "upper and lower" ends are both rounded, and the two sides are straight and parallel — allowing, of course, for the deterioration of the right side.

And what caused all the small depressions which radiate outward from it on three of the four sides — but not the fourth side on the right which has deteriorated the most?

I certainly don't think this was ever a "face" (human or otherwise), but it does bear a strange resemblance to the base of a structure which was originally larger.

If it was a huge structure built by an ancient Martian civilization, could an archeological expedition perhaps unearth Martian artifacts in this area?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Let's Create a Sequel!
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~ A Question for the Members: Could an "imaginary sequel" for this movie be made by the Russians back in the 1960s, based on the brief discussion between the characters' concerning a theory that the unseen Venusians were actually colonist who came from Mars?

~ Here's what I came up with.: I love the idea that the Martians fled they're dying planet eon's ago after spending a hundred years terraforming Venus!

They would realize that Mars' lack of a magnet field to protect it from cosmic rays, as well as its low gravity that couldn't hold an atmosphere, meant that the planet would eventually have to be abandoned. They had already taken their highly advanced civilization underground to take advantage of the subterranean water which (according to current theory) still exists today.





But the Martians wanted a better home planet for their civilization, so they made long-range plans for the future. Venus was one of two choices for their new residence.

Please remember that the planet we see in the movie is obviously not the "real" Venus — so we can suspend disbelief by accepting the film's less hostile version of Earth's sister planet.

20,000 years ago the Martians sent probes to Earth and Venus to "window shop" for a new place to live. However, what they found when they surveyed Earth was not to their liking.
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During the Last Glacial Maximum of the Pleistocene Ice Age, ice spread over much of North America and Eurasia.
~ Climate.gov
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But Venus was in much better shape — even though conditions there were declining. The Martians went to work reversing the greenhouse effect — which in fact was caused by the huge, shallow oceans and the high humidity which loaded the atmosphere with water vapor.
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Recent studies from September 2019 concluded that Venus may have had surface water and a habitable condition for around 3 billion years and may have been in this condition until 700 to 750 million years ago.
~ Wikipdia
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For this story, we're suggesting that Venus retained those favorable conditions much longer, and they never actually got as bad as the "real" Venus today. Here's NASA’s models of the planet back in the Good Old Days!


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Venus today is actually kept hot by the high level of carbon dioxide which the rocks produced after Venus heated up so much the water boiled away.

But in our "imaginary sequel" the Martians found various ways to lower the humidity and prevent the runaway greenhouse effect.

What Planeta Bur suggests is that Venus' humidity is starting to rise again, and the planet's envelope of gas is mostly water vapor which is doing what it did to Venus in reality.

However, this thick atmosphere is also hiding the remnants of the Venusian civilization and it's declining population.

The Venusian-Martians chose not to make contact with the Russian cosmonauts, perhaps because they felt threatened by Earth, and they aren't confident they still have the ability to defend themselves.

The sequel(s) I'd like to see would involve the First Contact between the two races, the humans of Earth and the Martians — both the original Martians in underground cities on the Red Planet, and the Martian/Venusian colonist on Venus.

Cool, huh?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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More thoughts about the concept above.

Story wise, the most interesting idea would be to have the original Martians who still live in underground cities on the Red Planet not be in complete agreement with the Venusian/Martian colonists.

The subject of this dispute is what to do about their collective need to abandon both Mars and Venus, because the two planets were becoming increasingly less habitable.

The Venusian/Martian colonists feel that an agreement could be reached with mankind, and agreement which would allow the Venusians to occupy the desert regions of Earth by building huge dome-enclosed cities!





This would give them the habitable environment they needed, without having to drastically change those desert regions — which would disrupt the Earth's weather patterns!

However, the original Martians (the ones still living on Mars) are convinced that the only way to turn Earth into the new home for both them and the Venusian/Martian colonists would be to conquer Earth and force mankind to give up large regions of our planet's most habitable regions for their own use!

Obviously the citizens of Earth wouldn't be too keen on either of these ideas. Hell's bells, we can't even get along with each other, so there's no way the nations of Earth are going to allow several million alien beings to move in and start claiming large portions of our land and start using up our precious natural resources!

So, the Martians from both Mars and Venus have a problem. They have to go somewhere, because the planets they're living on are dying. But the only other planet in the solar system which has a stable ecosystem is Earth.

And it's already jam-packed with humans who have no intention of sharing their home with anybody.

Story-wise, I think the best solution to this problem would be to have the Earthlings, the Martians, and the Venusian/Martian colonists team up and find ways to improve the conditions on Venus and Mars — not to mention the problems mankind has already caused here on Earth with pollution, global warming, the over-fishing of our oceans, etc.

In other words, instead of having three planets populated by intelligent beings who are trying to figure out who could win an interplanetary war, we should have all these smart folks work together and find a way to terraform both Venus and Mars — thus tripling the amount of high-priced real estate in the Solar System!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)