Ikarie XB-1

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🎙️ EPISODE 442: 04.11.22 And we're back! With a new season (season?) of everyone's favorite show-within-a-show, TRUE RANDOM! This is where I allow a computer to pick from over 100 years of ALL the cinema ever created: one single movie for me to watch and review for you, my loving audience. I'm gonna TRY to get these out each and every Monday — it's RANDomDays, or RAND-Mondays, or... idk still working out the name. Probably should just keep calling it TRUE RANDOM since I made the theme song parody of BLUE VELVET and whatnot. Alright, enough preamble, let's talk about some 1960s Czech sci-fi!

The main thing about this movie is that, although it's pretty freaking boring, it is a treat to watch from a practical filmmaking perspective. The actual plot and pacing is mostly a slog, and featured way more mundane conversations than I would've imagined. (Note: I did watch the sub-titled Czech version, restored circa 2017, and not the dubbed English language version, which was releaed as Voyage to the End of the Universe which was a fairly popular, quasi-cult flick for decades apparently.) Typically, I wouldn't mind the slowed down elements, and perhaps the great language divide (this is the first 🇨🇿 cinema I've reviewed in closing in on 600 movies) and age of the production are partly to blame, but my 2022 brain had issues sticking with it and differentiating the (probably too many) characters.

But, nevertheless, it was still a joy to see all these great shots, which are really quite lovely at times. It also has a killer soundtrack. Here's a smattering of gifs and clips including one of my favorite guy in the film, a sad robot named Patrick who is wandering the halls when he thinks the whole crew has been killed by radiation poisoning.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 441B - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 443 ⫸

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Ikarie XB-1 is a 1963 Czechoslovak science fiction film directed by Jindřich Polák. It is based loosely on the novel The Magellanic Cloud, by Stanisław Lem. The film was released in the United States, edited and dubbed into English, under the title Voyage to the End of the Universe. It was released on July 26, 1963.