Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

dromasca My movie memory has the strange habit of sticking often to the movies seen many years ago the place and circumstances in which I saw the movie. I was about ten years old when I first saw the 'Storms Planet'. The year was about 1963, in my native Romania. The recent re-viewing of the Soviet film that was originally called 'Planet Bur' has also brought me a journey in time by watching this film about a space trip. It may have been one of the first science fiction films I've ever seen, if not the first, from a long series that continues until today, because the passion for the genre born in those years has not diminished, but on the contrary . It was probably also one of the first Soviet films that I saw, a singular and quite special film even in the scene of the Soviet cinema of those years.In fact, there was a race in parallel to the space exploration race between the two great superpowers - the Soviet Union and the United States - representing the two political systems that were involved in the Cold War complex system of relations that included armed diplomacy and a balance of nuclear terror. Cinematography as a popular art form with the largest distribution among the general public tried to mirror this competition.As far as we know, 'The Storm Planet' was the only film of fiction directed by Klushantsev. The scientific orientation of the team he worked with is evident in the attention paid to the scientific elements in relation to the lean and conventional structure of intrigue and narrative. If the image of spacecraft does not impress us compared to the effects created on the computer we are used to today, the scenes of imponderability or the naturalistic description of the contact between people and the monsters that inhabit the planet are executed with precision. Even in the perspective of today, after hundreds of science fiction films watched in half a century, some scenes remain for me expressive. Others are less successful, for example, the dinosaur silhouettes with which Klushantsev and his colleagues have populated the planet seem to be taken from the illustrations in a school manual. The intrigue itself does not offer too much reason to comment, it's as complex as an episode of the 'Star Trek' television series that would appear a few years later. Cosmonauts are surprisingly independent, and after one of the three spaceships of the mission is destroyed by a meteorite they decide on their own, with Soviet abnegation, to continue the mission. The two exploring teams are lost momentarily and will look for each other to face the dangers. The only woman in the crew will also have to make a crucial life and death decision. Heroism and devotion to space.Surprising (in good) is the rather small amount of propaganda in a movie that was also intended to respond to similar American films. In a single moment of the film,we are served with a thank-you speech for the Soviet peoples' support. There is also a non-Soviet character, researcher Kern, who has a little of the 'capitalist' ideas but is still a positive character. We are told that he is funded by an independent group of researchers. The concept of an international mission was not born yet, but we are on the right track. The Americans would reciprocate with the presence of Commander Chekhov on the command deck of the first Star Trek mission. Kern is also the manipulator of the John robot, which is pretty well done as a cinematic vision, and one of the first robots in the history of the film capable not only of intelligence and a spirit of sacrifice but also of a sense of humor. The film is less good in what concerns the costumes worn during the orbital voyage, the style of the elegant space uniforms has not yet come.The film's scientific aspects also include some weaknesses. The choice of the planet Venus as a target of exploration reflects the state of scientific knowledge existing in the early 60's. The atmospheric conditions on Venus (as well as Mars otherwise) were little known and both the Soviets and the Americans sent automatic probes to both planets. Subsequent data (largely provided by the Soviet probes) would show that the atmosphere of Venus is composed of poisonous gases, temperatures and atmospheric pressure are extremely high, and life as imagined in the film is virtually impossible. In one field, the authors stumbled precisely - the storms. Otherwise, the opening of the space helmet on the surface of the planet as it happens in one of the scenes would immediately kill the astronauts. Overall it's a piece of nostalgia worth viewing or re-viewing.

silver_gunes During a period when the space race was in full swing, the concept of science fiction was experiencing a transition from the 50's themes concerning flying saucers with monstrous occupants to more realistic themes about human exploration of space. Planeta bur, while borrowing many traditional elements from the SF golden age period (monsters, eccentric locations) also contained many new innovations that made it seem in the very middle of such a transition. Design of the space suits, the robot and the hover-car were far ahead of the time. The spaceships interior sets and the gadgets used by cosmonauts were highly detailed and well crafted too. There were also some philosophical themes about the expansion of life in universe. I was surprised by the dialog about the ancient astronauts, scripts on Egyptian pyramids and the idea that the religious gods may be a perception of the visitors from space by the primitive life forms, and that was a few years before the best- selling "Chariots of the gods" by Erich von Daniken came. It was also nice to see some elements borrowed from Asimov's "i, robot", for instance the odd behavior of robot john was clearly inspired by a short story where a robot was experiencing drunkenness and babbling nonsense (the short story's name was "runaround"). There were inspirations from the "three laws of robotics" of Asimov as well.The film is not perfect and has a few weaknesses especially in the middle part where the pacing of events gets a little incoherent. Some interesting scenes are so quickly passed on that they cannot leave any effect on the viewer. The creatures, especially the hopping t-rex's were nothing but funny and distracting from the plot. Putting those weaknesses aside, the film has a good entertainment value and i recommend this film to anyone interested in the evolution of the science fiction genre.

a666333 Not bad, not incredible like "Forbidden Planet" and not as colourful and tragic as "This Island Earth" and it is certainly not "Solaris". But we must give 60s Eastern bloc science fiction its due. None of it is bad. All of it respects the intelligence of the viewers and each manages to create effective atmospheres. The music and background sound were good. The robot and the "supercar" are dated but very good for the time. Naming the robot "John" is a bit of a dig at the West (one could just as easily see Westerners naming a robot Ivan or Igor). The robot is given a Western name while the crew are all self actualized socialist men except for the woman cosmonaut who is given the traditional role of minding the mothership and lamenting over the fate of the men who are off exploring the planet. If that and the song are the social commentary then it could have been much worse.

wombat_1 It doesn't compare with modern day films at all, but then one shouldn't try to, should one? Gee they all (and probably "we too") took themselves so seriously those days!!I'm confused by one previous commentator who said the film was in black and white. Maybe her TV was, but the film as I saw it last night certainly was in colour (well, 1960s colour, anyway).One quote from the film certainly is worth commenting. That's where they are speculating that there may have been creatures who crashed their spaceship a long time ago and then turned feral. The character comments that they would have had "no culture". Well, that's the Eastern European way, isn't it? Culture is so important; but what they can't seem to perceive, so useless. As author Stephen Coonts said of the Russians: "They can all write poetry but not a single one of them can change a light bulb" (well something like that, anyway).But putting that to one side, yes a most interesting and well-made film of its time. The singing absolutely blew me away. Not the quality of the singing, I mean the fact that they had singing at all in what otherwise seems to me such a "serious" movie!