 211 - FIRST SPACESHIP ON VENUS
Genre: late-’50s/early-’60s East European Sci-Fi (1960,
Color)
Don’s Synopsis: In the way off, once and futuristic world of 1985, it is discovered that the comet/asteroid that hit Siberia in 1908 was really a spaceship from Venus, and that this spaceship left behind a recording in the strange, electronic-sounding Venusian
language.
So a cool-looking, though rather impractical, spaceship called the Cosmostrator with a multi-national crew is
prepped for a launch to Venus to investigate. Also along on the ride is a robot
named Omega – part R2D2, part Nomad, and part Twiki – that is there mainly to play chess and
gain a heart. After the “A” and “M” letter-wearing ground crew waves them off, the spaceship crew puts on their full-body space pajamas (complete with ear-warmers) and take off for Venus.
While on the trip, the Venusian recording from 1908 is translated and
it’s discovered that the Venusians were planning an invasion of the Earth!
But the invasion never happened, so either something interfered with the
Venusians’ plans or
Venus is a planet full of some major procrastinators. The spaceship gets to Venus and one of the astronauts takes off with the robot
Omega in a “crawlercopter” to scout out a landing site.
Instead of a good landing site, though, he finds a lot of spider-like crib-mobiles that somehow are an
alien library for the now dead race of Venusians. The Cosmostrator lands, and some of the other members of the crew investigate
a giant
Venusian golf ball (or is it actually a ride called Spaceship
Venus?) as well as some surreal-looking alien machines that are still running.
But a blob-like black gunk attacks the astronauts after one guy kicks a rock,
and they only can get away when one of them shoot a laser gun at the gunk.
Unfortunately, the shot sets off an alien machine chain reaction,
so a couple of the astronauts
go out and succeed in reversing the reaction. But the reverse effect launches the Cosmostrator back into space
via anti-gravity and the spaceship returns to Earth, leaving three of the astronauts
behind on Venus.
Don’s Review: After suffering through a number of lame
movies in the previous few episodes, it was a surprise to see a halfway decent
sci-fi film in this experiment.
This movie is an East Germany / Polish production that was released in the U.S. edited down a bit and with a re-dubbed
English soundtrack (including a more
Forbidden Planet like musical soundtrack) that is arguably
one of the best sci-fi movies of the late ’50s / early ’60s.
The riffing by Joel and the ’Bots was decent, with Servo and his newly installed sarcasm chip standing out (although I think Crow
actually stands out even more because he has most of the best lines)
and the host segments are okay, but not very memorable. So a decent movie and decent riffing equals a decent episode in my book.
Don’s Rating: 
Related Links:
(1) Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review (Episode Review)
(2) DVD
Savant (Movie Review)
(3) Bad Movie Report (Movie Review)
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