Ikarie XB-1 (1963) - Jindřich Polák

In the year 2163 the starship Ikarie XB-1 (Ikarus XB-1) is sent to the mysterious "White Planet" orbiting the star Alpha Centauri. Travelling at near-light speed, the journey takes around 28 months for the astronauts, although the effects of relativity mean that 15 years will have elapsed on Earth by the time they reach their destination. During the flight the 40-strong multinational crew must adjust to life in space, as well as dealing with various hazards they encounter, including a derelict 20th century spaceship armed with nuclear weapons, a deadly radioactive "dark star" and the mental breakdown of one of the crew, who threatens to destroy the spacecraft.

Stanisław Lem (Polish pronunciation: [staˈɲiswaf ˈlɛm] ( listen); 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 45 million copies.[2][3] From 1950s to 2000s he published many books, both science fiction and philosophical/futurological. He is best known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world.[4]
His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humanity's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books.
Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns.

Plot summary

The novel is set in the thirty-second century, in a communistic Utopian future. Humanity has colonized all of the Solar System, and is now making its first attempt at interstellar travel.
Aboard a vessel called Gaia, 227 men and women leave the Earth for the Alpha Centauri system.
After almost eight years of travel, they find signs of organic life on a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, possibly originating on another planet within the Centauri system.

One of the planets orbiting Alpha Centauri turns out to be inhabited by an advanced civilization.
The expedition meets a lifeless human ship of "Atlants", which turns out to be an old artificial war satellite of the USA and its NATO allies, carrying still active biological weapons and nuclear warheads, which had accidentally left Earth orbit and got lost in space during the Cold War era.

Censorship and criticisms

When the novel was first published, parts of it were censored by the Communist authorities. Lem famously denounced[citation needed] the censored version, calling it too optimistic about Communism. At the time, this was a bold sign that demonstrated Lem's confidence that his singular status as a Polish author of international renown would protect him from state repression. A complete version was published in the 1990s after the fall of Communism.

Ikarie XB-1 was a hit at the 1963 Trieste Science Fiction Film Festival[1] and it is now widely regarded as one of the best Eastern Bloc science fiction films of the era, boasting impressive production design, above-average special effects, a strong ensemble cast and an intelligent screenplay (although much of the subtlety of the original is lost in the English-language version).

While it shows some influence from earlier American ventures such as Forbidden Planet (1956), the film was also influential in its own right — critics have noted a number of similarities between Ikarie XB-1 and Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and it is believed to have been one of the many 'space' genre films that Kubrick screened while researching 2001.[2]

Like several other high-quality Eastern Bloc sci-fi films of the era — e.g. the Soviet film Planeta Bur (Planet of Storms), aka Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet — Ikarie XB-1 is best known internationally through an edited and English-dubbed version which was given a limited theatrical release in the USA in 1964 by American International Pictures. The AIP version also occasionally screened on television in the USA and other countries at various times over the ensuing years but, apart from its screening at Trieste, the original Czech version was rarely seen in the West until its release on DVD in 2005.

AIP made numerous alterations for the English-language version of the film, which it retitled Voyage to the End of the Universe. Almost ten minutes of footage was cut, the names of the cast and staff in the opening credits were Anglicized, and the ship's destination was renamed "The Green Planet". However, the biggest change was AIP's recut of the closing scene, which created an entirely different ending from the original(...)