Rating: 
Summary: You get what you pay for
Review: NOT as described by Amazon or the jacket - not the 130 minute original but the 78 minute dubbed version shown in the UK. The same poor quality picture (resolution 720 x 480) and sound as the 2000 release but much cheaper.
Based on Lem's 1951 first novel The Astronauts the theme is pacifist - compare with the also 1959 "On the Beach".
The fuzzy images on the DVD do not do justice to the excellent camerawork and (for the time) special effects.
At this price worth getting to compare with US films of the period.
Rating: 
Summary: Who needs camp?
Review: Ok, I can see how some reviewers here can make the case for some kind of seriousness in this film. But all I'll say is, if you love Roger Corman goofy, funny sci-fi done for what looks like seriousness, then this is one of the best. I've watched it a few times and still laugh out loud. Like when they sink their spaceship to keep from getting smashed by a big fake pterodactyl creature, and then they drag the ship across the bottom of an aquarium, I mean like in your living room. Really funny. And it's dubbed to boot. ONe thing though, buy the other version that's a double feature with Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. A HOT double feature. Hey I'm serious here. This is one funny movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Make Mine Venus!
Review: Polish science fiction novelist Stanislaw Lem (born 1922) must take pride in the fact that his "Solaris" (1962) has now been twice filmed, first by Andrei Tarkovsky (1972) and more recently - also less effectively - by an American director whose name escapes me (2003); yet as early as 1960 Lem's first science fiction novel, "The Astronauts" (1952), had already appeared in an adaptation for the silver screen, directed by an East German, Kurt Maetzig. "First Spaceship on Venus" issued, in fact, from a Polish and East German collaboration, with contributions, in the ensemble of players, from three or four "third world" nations. Viewers will recognize Japanese actress Yoko Tani as the sole female crewmember of the space research vessel "Cosmostrator," the titular "First Spaceship" on earth's putative "twin," Venus. This is a mostly superb film, quite magical in its expressionistic special effects. Enticingly for audiences, almost half of the action takes place on Venus amidst sets that do justice to Lem's insistence that alien life will be incomprehensible to humanity. The story, briefly, is this: in 1985 excavations "to irrigate the Gobi Desert" discover extraterrestrial artifacts, one of which, a glassy "spool," contains the last message sent home from a spaceship engaged in reconnoitering the earth. The narration links this fictional incident to the actual 1908 Tunguska meteor impact. The "spool" has sustained damage and yields only a fraction of its contents, but from this bit scientists determine that the visitors originated on Venus, whereupon the "World Space Agency" determines to mount an expedition there. An international crew take command of the "Cosmostrator." The "Cosmostrator" itself demands some attention as one of the most unusual of silver-screen spaceships of the 1950s and 60s: its central silvery cylinder, housing the crew, is surrounded by four similarly hued cylinders of nearly equal dimension housing the engines; the sum of it is a kind of powerful elegance. But the real interest lies in the Venusian scenario itself. Maetzig gives us a shadowy, smoke-and-gas- shrouded landscape full of weird, half-obliterated shapes. One sequence shows the astronauts moving in their "ground cars" through what appears to be a street of melted skyscrapers; there are also huge underground spaces and indecipherable geodesic spheres and cones. The explorers gradually deduce that, on the verge of dousing the earth with radiation preparatory to invading and occupying it, the Venusians destroyed themselves in a fratricidal atomic war. We see the permanently etched shadows of the victims on a blasted wall. In an extremely alien episode, a lake of organic muck chases the terrestrials up the spiral ramp of a half-fused tower, only to retreat mysteriously before catching them fatally at the summit. The visuals elude adequate verbal description. If anyone knew the work of the 1950s and 60s science fiction illustrator Richard Powers, who did paperback covers in a semi-abstract style full of glassy-metallic quasi-biological and quasi-mechanical shapes, that might serve as a good reference. (Samples of Powers' work can be found on-line, should anyone care to go looking.) At the film's finale, in the prototypical Lem-gambit, the Venusians' automated defenses reverse the planet's gravity-field, hurling the "Cosmostrator" back into space, minus two or three unlucky casualties. Despite the Soviet-era utopian bravura, the mission has accomplished but little - the explorers are, in effect, defeated. Between the human and the non-human no genuine communication seems possible, especially where one party has insulated itself behind layers of electronics and automation and is long since a collective suicide. (This story of non-communication comes quite close to the plot of "Solaris," superficial differences notwithstanding - Tarkovsky must surely have known Maetzig's film; he would of course have been familiar with Lem's work beyond "Solaris.") One senses that this English version, with a dubbed soundtrack for American distribution, probably leaves a good many scenes on the cutting-room floor; neither can one tell much about the acting, which, in any case, is of less interest than the strangely realized other world. There is an amusing tracked robot named Omega. The source-print seems well preserved and the format is wide-screen. (A video-tape from a different producer derived from a faded print and cut the image down to television-screen dimensions.) On the strength of the scenic design, this movie should recommend itself to genre aficionados. Anyone who has never seen it is in for a treat.
Rating:
Summary: From the pen of Stanislaw Lem (SOLARIS)
Review: Sure this film has its problems...its just that its highlights lift it far enuff above them that this film is still enjoyable. Made in 1958, and released in 1959 (1962 in USA) this movie is remarkable for its forward thinking cast & crew, production design, and effects, which are only a notch below todays multi-billion dollar (and sometimes STILL fake-looking) CGI effects....as for the slow pace and "philosophising"-this is a European film, and they tend to avoid car crashes, car chases, explosions, laserblasts, and babes in g-strings if they are not important to the story...commenting on the human condition is a norm in these films, but this may put those with ADD to sleep...
Rating:
Summary: Pretty amazing sci-fi for it's time
Review: The plot is hard to follow. It took me several viewings before everything fell into place but the art direction and special effects are excellent for the time when the picture was made. The characters are all likeable and some of the special effects will have you wondering, "How did they do that?" It's especially impressive considering it was made in East Germany in 1959.
Rating: 
Summary: For only 6 bucks what the heck...
Review: The prints for both movies are in rough shape, but I personally found the movies entertaining and watchable nonetheless.
I bought this DVD primarily for "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet" (which, as a previous viewer pointed out, used footage from the Russian "Planeta Burg") which I hadn't seen since the mid 70s. Despite the obvious flaws and rough condition of the print, it's still a great movie, and I'm glad it was offered even in this budget form.
I think a far more interesting DVD compilation would have been to pair up "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet" with "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" (which also employed the same "Planeta Burg" footage), or better yet, offer all 3 movies, the original "Planeta Burg", "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet" and "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" on the same disc ,
rather than the choice of "First Spaceship on Venus".
"First Spaceship" it still an entertaining movie, despite its poor quality, but for hard-core enthusiasts it is already available elsewhere on another disc in the widescreen format, so apparently it's already received a 5 star treatment. But for casual viewers the Diamond print may suit just fine.
Rating:
Summary: great film treated badly
Review: This is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi films. Produced in GERMANY in 1959. Ahead of it's time on many levels. An INTERNATIONAL crew on board a spaceship, seven years before Star Trek in '66. Outstanding special effects, much more ambitious than anything else being produced at the time. Compare this with "Rocketship X-M" done the same year. I'd pay good money to see the original film letterboxed and subtitled. Unfortunately, the version distibuted in the U.S. is poorly dubbed and the soundtrack is made up of bad stock music, some you might recognize from old terry-toon cartoons. (shudder) On the plus side, it has great visual concepts, unique art direction and fantasic sets. The spaceship Kosmostrator, is a beautiful ship design, looking as functional and futuristic now, as it did then. Lemme tell ya kids, this film played GREAT in the theatre, and it's still one of my favorites.
Rating: 
Summary: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT BUY THIS TURKEY!!!
Review: This picture is so god awful it was actually painful to watch! Even Mystery Science Theatre 3000 couldn't save this turkey! Mike and the robots would gladly have gone out the nearest airlock if they had to watch this one! This half-Japanese, half god knows who (Norway? Finland? Antarctica?!), production is a real gobbler-fest! Cutsy Japanese-style sci-fi robots can't save it. Weird Venusean landscapes can't save it. Over-philosophizing like Captain Jean Luc Picard on acid can't save it. It makes "Plan 9 From Outer Space" look like "Citizen Kane"! Save yourself! Flee! Flee!
Rating:
Summary: A good film that suffers in translation
Review: You need to be a true SF fan to enjoy this film but it is worth a look. It is dubbed and made in a part of the world were plot and dialog are more important than destruction of cities. It is European SF, and unlike American SF, no one country can afford a space program. The cast then is multinational and includes a female doctor choosen for her brains, not her legs (show me that in an SF movie then or now). The effects show good use of money and talent. The editing and dubbing do cost the film so take the time to watch, not just view, this one.
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