To the Stars by Hard Ways

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🎙️ EPISODE 638: 01.24.23 This is mostly a slog — comically bogged down by extraneous banter and subplots that don't go anywhere — but when the cool/funny/interesting parts hit, it's worth it. There are at least half a dozen versions floating around there with dubbed voiceover and over sixty minutes of cuts, but I digested the entire 2.5-hour original dialogue Soviet cut. For better or for worse. As a film, this is not very good. Aside from the pacing issues, there are logic gaps and copious dead-ends (one of the main characters just disappears and we never hear from again). The joy is in the DIY production and FX, stark landscape stand-ins for interplanetary worlds and WTF unintentional humor sprinkled here and there (a black cat is constantly stealing an octopus-like alien's chewing gum, for example). Some other highlights include said octopus-like alien sharing a toast with the space crew before being returned to his home water planet...

... a teleporting humanoid clone who leaves a body-shaped hole in whatever structure she's passing through...


...Glasha the robot maid...


And my favorite scene in the whole movie: when they get to the dying planet Dessa and are greeted by the muted fanfare of a dozen Tusken Raider-looking folks in gas masks playing some welcome music over old-timey phonographs...


If the movie had been more of the above (and maybe an hour shorter?) it would have been an A+. But, as it is, it's an above-average curiosity with an awesome soundtrack and a few wonderful moments.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 637 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 639 ⫸

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To the Stars by Hard Ways (also known as Per Aspera Ad Astra, and Russian: Через тернии к звёздам, + USA screen names - Through the Thorns to the Stars; and Humanoid Woman) is a 1981 Soviet science fiction film directed by Richard Viktorov and based on a novel by Kir Bulychov. It was released on August 28, 1981.