favorite favorite

1962 - Origionally released as Planeta Bur in The Soviet Union.



1965 - Re-Released in The United States as Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, with dubbed footage and heavily edited. Most of the cast credits are faked in order to conceal the fact that the movie is Russian. Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue were added into the film after the Soviet completion of Planeta Bur.



1967-68 - Re-Re-Released in the United States as Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women. Additional footage was added, mainly all footage regarding the pre-historic women in the film. Basil Rathbones and Faith Domergues footage was removed, and Peter Bogdanovich *Derek Thomas" did the opening narration of the movie. Also, the origional ending of the movie was removed in place of adding the pre-historic women.



All films shot in Pathe Color, essentially a color screen over a black and white film.



It took three tries to make this film. Three directors. Three visions. Three screen plays. An editors nightmare. For a low-grade soviet film, one has to wonder why they went to all the trouble to remake this film twice within 4 years of it's origional Soviet release. After seeing the final product, I can honestly say I have no idea what that reason was.



Never seeing Planeta Bur, the origional version of the film, but having seen both Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, only one things comes to mind, and that's the main differences in the films. The 1965 version of this film tried to take some raw crappy footage of a soviet film and make a movie out of it by adding a classy, and somewhat good ending. Actually the ending is better than the entire film, not only because it means the movie is over, but because it actually makes you think and wonder about what would happen next if the film were good enough to merrit a sequel. The 1967 version however exists with only one reason coming to mind. Tit's n' Ass. They re-edited the film in 1965 because they wanted to improve it. They re-re-edited the film in 1967 because they wanted a drive-in film that showed a lot of skin and could help them re-coup what had to have been a heavy loss a few years earlier. Can't blame them for that. But what they can be blamed for is releasing the same film three times over 5 years to a global audience and expecting that a different result would occur. It's that same line of thinking that has kept The United States in Iraq for four years because of George W. But....I digress. What it all basically comes down to is you can watch any version of this film and still get the basic plot down, and still feel as if you've been robbed of an hour of your life. If you want the good ending, go with the 1965 version. If you want lots of skin, tits and ass, watch the 1967 version. If you speak Russian, watch the 1962 version. It's really that simple.



Keeping in mind that as a viewer of the film, it's at times hard to know which part of the film is shot when, and by who, you have to marvel at the special effects. Since most of the film was shot years before Star Trek, and with the final special effects added when Star Trek waas in it's first season, for the time this film blows Star Treks effects out of the water. Not that TOS had really great special effects, even for it's time. But Sci-Fi in the 1960's had no outlet, so any budget for special effects was usually small. This film made the most of there budget, throwing what had to be all of it into the sets of the film. You'd never confuse them with something NASA would create, but they come close enough for a B-Film in the psychedelic 60s. The films effects give a classic sci-fi nut like me enough reason to sit through the film three times. However, I warn you that ALL of the films budget was thrown into the effects, it had to be. Because it sure wasn't spent on acting. The acting is really bad. Miersable. Horrible. I could go through a thesaurus for hours and come up with new words to describe bad, but I'd never find enough of them to do this film justice. Just know for a fact, this film doesn't have actors. It has people in it who happen to be talking. I'm immune to bad acting, plus I have the special effects to carry me through the first 20 or so minutes of the film. If you don't like cheesie effects, can't stand bad acting, and suffer migranes easily then you definetally should skip any version of this film you might find in your local dollar store.



You might want to keep in mind, in regards to the acting, that this film was origionally shot in russian. Then dubbed 3 years later in english. Then re-dubbed 2 years later in english again. So at times you have at least 2 actors doing the same person. Based on the stone-cold acting by the origional Russian actors, even if you watched this film in the origional russian, I doubt the lips being in sync with the actors would help the viewing experience. Thus ends my rant on the acting, or lack thereof.



My next gripe is the pathe color the film is shot in. If the acting doesn't cause migranes or epilepsy, the pathe color definetally will. For those of you who don't know what Pathe is, it's basically shooting a film in black and white, then running a color screen over it. Thus giving it the look of color, when it's really evident in watching that the film is still in black and white. Basically, all you get is black, white, and a little green. Not cool at all, and at times it can really hurt the eyes if you are watching it on the computer, instead of tv.



TV...that reminds me....I first experienced this film years ago when I saw it on sale for a dollar. The DVD was billed as a double feature. It contained both the 65 and 67 version of the film. The titles were different, the scenes on the box were different, so I thought I was getting a bargain by getting a dollar dvd with two movies on it. Boy was I wrong. It's the same damn film, only with almost naked chicks on one version for a few minutes. Man, even with only a dollar spent I still felt ripped off. Buyer beware, yet again. They could have at least put Planta Bur on it as a special feature.



Well... I've ranted enough about the movie's distribution problems, I guess. Though a lot more could and should be said. But you can go to wikipedia for that. Now....to the film itself.



The first 20 minutes or so are spent in gettng to venus. That reminds me of a joke...There once was a man from Venus...who had a really big..... Ahh never-mind. These are not those men. They do have big ships however. Really big ships. The effects are great, as I stated before. Once they get to Venus, you get to see a man-sized Venus-Fly-Trap...yes you do! You also get to see a dinosaur! To bad it doesn't eat the cosmonauts and end the film right there, but we are not that lucky. We only get to see it for a second and it's gone. Oh well, it was neat while it lasted. Once again the effects upstage the film. The effects.... that's all there is to talk about. After 30 minutes into the film there still is no plot. We have the traveling to venus, the men get there, and um they walk around a lot. That's it.



At about the 30 minute mark we get to see the robot. It has neat claws. Unfortunetally it is standing under a water fall and walking on a lot of rocks. Not a good combination for a man made out of tin. I can hear him now....if I only had a heart, a brain, and the nerve I wouldn't be in this crappy film getting all rusty. Oh well. The robot vanishes as quickly as he appeared. Just like the dinosaur. It would have been fun if one of the cosmonauts had pushed the robot over and watched as he tried to get up. But no, even that doesn't happen. Man, do I really hate this film! I don't care which version it is. A chance like that for a comedic moment and they pass it up completely. YUCK YUCK YUCK!!!!!



If the reason you are really watching this film is for the women in hot pants, I suggest you fast forward through the first 34 minutes of the film and get right your point....ahem, the point. That's when they first appear. All blond. All wearing pants so tight you can see um....well you can see a lot. They don't speak with there mouths, but then again, what women do? Like the astronauts the women walk around a lot and don't do anything but show off there hot bodies. Then, in there really tight pants they walkl into the ocean. Wet T-shirt contest anyone? Now's the time! Honestly, you can get more from internet porn, but if you want to see 60's Star Trek rejects swimming around the ocean in really tight outfits, well....then you have this movie. Either way, if you are a teenage male you'll be able to get your hourly fix. Though, you may want to skip the all you can eat sea-food scene. A woman can do a lot of things with her mouth, but eating raw fish and oysters is not something that should not be filmed.



The next few scenes could have been left out. They involved a robot taking orders via wireless to revive a man by playing with his helmet. An Outer Limites reject flying around attacking the cosmo's car. An invisible ray-gun killing big-bird. The cosmos walking around under-water because the air's not safe anymore. Then we get to another good scene.



What's better than 4 women walking around in clam shells and hot pants? 8 women doing the same thing, but carrying a rubber monster between there legs! Woo-Haw! If it wasn't for the women, this version of the film would be.....well a lot better. They are fun to look at, but what plot is in this film is quickly interupted by the herky-jerky edits involving the newly shot quirky women. The editing is really lousy, though not as bad as the dead rubber bird. I guess the 1967 budget was used up by hiring the models to walk around and stare at bird statues. Those producers just can't tell what they want. Spending all there budget in one place, and letting the rest of the film go to hell. One has to wonder if that one place was the models, or several bottles of jack daniels. Either way, the film suffers for it. But hey, once again, 50 minutes into the film and the women haven't said a word. Gotta love the silent but deadly types. And they do have really big clams, which don't hide a lot when they are under-water. Mmmmmmm clams.



Those clams sure are dangerous though. It turns out that the women have a mental power to cause volcanic eruptions.....I guess that can be read two ways, and both would be true. But in the literal sense the women can think about making a big fire, an ash cloud, and lots of lava appear and it will happen. I'm not really sure what the point is, since the men they want to kill are several miles away. But again, since these women are from Venus, maybe they don't have much experience with earth men. The fire fire fire fire chants are definetally annoying, and if the men could actually hear them it might drive them insane. Again, since the men are miles away, it has no effect. It just doesn't seem that anything the women do to hurt the men actually has any effect whatsoever. It exists simple to annoy the viewer, and it does that in droves.



All in all, the fact that there are three versions of this movie, and parts of all three movies appear in this movie make the film unwatchable. The women are a nice touch, but I can see more skin just by turning on the tv. Having different actors do the voices of the characters at different times makes the movie incredibly hard to follow. The herky jerky style of editing, going from a shot filmed in 1962, to a shot filmed in 67, to a shot filmed in 65 shouldn't be much of a distraction since they wwere all filmed with the same equipment. However, since all three eras are telling different stories it makes the story nonsensical and very, very, very hard to follow.



It all comes down to this. In the origional version of the movie the women on Venus were never seen. That was the whole point of the film. When you film a movie with that being the whole point, you can't change the story. When you try, you'll fail. They tried in 1965 and failed. They tried again in 1967 and failed.



The ending of the story is supposed to be akin to The Planet of the Apes. The whole movie leads up to that one moment. With the 67 version you get that moment in minute 20. It makes the entire point of watching the last hour pointless.



All that's left are the women. The whole point of the 1967 movie is the women in hot pants. If that's enough reason to sit through a movie for one hour and twenty minutes, then by all means watch this film. If you want to save yourself some time, watch the 1965 version and get the origional ending which at least leaves you somewhat satisfied. Not much, but somewhat.



All in all, this film gets a 5 of the cheese-o-meter for the opening special effects. Also, some of the monsters are not bad. At least the ones shot in the origional verson of the film. The 1967 monsters are the worst I've ever seen in my life. Torgo included. When it comes to the rest of the movie, nothing is good. It all just sucks. There is one scene in particular at the 70 minute mark that makes you think the movie has started over again from scratch. That would truly be a horror. A total nightmare.



A 0 out of 10 for an over-all rating. The 1965 version gets a 1 out of 10 for the ending. The 1967 version gets a 0 because it just completely sucks. Slightly better than Manos, but because of the re-re-editing it's on par with Manos for being one of the crappiest films of all time.

- May 20, 20073 Strikes And YOU ARE OUT!