“This ship gives me a feeling of death.”
It is the year 2163 and the space ship Ikarie XB-1 is on a mission to investigate the mysterious “Green Planet”. On board is a crew of forty multinational colonists. Of course none of them are Black so they seem to have missed a couple countries. The trip is estimated to take 28 months at near light speed, fifteen years in Earth time. There’s a lot of character development and they try to show a snapshot of life in the year 2163. It tends to slow down the movie. The film is told in flashback when a deranged crew member runs amok.
After many months of travel they come upon a ship suspended in space. It appears to be a derelict. Two crew members are sent over in one of their “flying sauces” to investigate the ship. They find that everyone on board is dead. It is unknown how they died. The ship is called “The Tornado”. They determine that there are radioactive weapons on the ship. The crewmen are ordered to evacuate. A nuclear warhead on board detonates and the ship with the two crewmen explodes.
The crew begins to experience some strange things. After two crew members have completed some work on the outside of the ship one of them falls asleep while walking down a hallway. Next the rest of the crew starts succumbing to an overwhelming fatigue. A sleeping sickness. There appears to be a radioactive barrier that is affecting the people on the ship. Everyone falls asleep. After about sixty hours everyone starts to wake up. Except the two men that had been outside the ship have developed radiation poisoning. One of them was Michael. Michael is now deranged and is a danger to the rest of the crew. They need to stop him before he endangers everyone on the ship.
“Voyage to the End of the Universe” is the American edited and dubbed version of the Czechoslovakian science fiction film “Ikarie XB-1”. Released in 1963 the film was directed by Jindrich Polak. The American version was released in 1964. Numerous changes were made by AIP for the American version. Almost ten minutes were cut, most of it character development. Names were Americanized and the planet went from a “White Planet” to a “Green Planet”. The biggest change was in the ending.
It’s not surprising that Eastern Bloc countries had better science fiction movies during the 60’s. Many of the “firsts” accomplished in the 50’s and early 60’s were done by Soviet scientists. One thing I’ve learned about science fiction movies is that if you are going to have a robot that walks, you really should give it knees. Most of the movie is about everyday life on a space ship. Adjusting to life in space, dealing with unknown hazards, and the mental breakdown that can occur in crew members in space. I found the movie to be a little slow. Not one of my favorites but it is a little different from the usual science fiction story of the era. The ship resembles more an ocean going cruise ship than an interplanetary space ship. Also there is some subtle cold war propaganda. The American editing and dubbing couldn’t take all of it out.
**MAJOR SPOILERS: As for the ending, the Czech version ends with the clouds parting showing a densely populated industrialized planet. The planet revolves around the star Alpha Centauri. The ending for the American version shows footage of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. Supposedly a gimmicky twist-type ending indicating that the colonists are actually Aliens and the green planet is actually Earth. Some feel that this ending takes away from the original movie. Whether that’s true or not I don’t know but this minor change that only lasts a few seconds does alter the entire movie. **