Forced to land on a planet orbiting an 'iron star', the crew of the starship 'Tantra' finds the wreckage of an alien spaceship and of a long-lost human expedition as well as a predatory energy-based alien lifeform. Much of the story was lost on me as I watched a Russian version on-line while attempting to follow the story by reading the script (with limited success) so I can really only comment on the imagery, which is interesting if not highly original. Similar to Mario Bava's 'Planet of the Vampires', the 'Tantra' touches down on a foreboding, fog-shrouded world only to discover the wrecks of both alien and human spaceships, and an invisible, murderous alien presence. The special effects are interesting, and similar to 'Planeta Bur' (1962), resemble 'realistic' images from 1950s' speculative magazines (fictional and 'factual') but are neither as novel nor as effective the contemporaneous Czech sci-fi film 'Ikarie XB-1' (1963) (with which 'Andromeda Nebula' shares a number of tropes). Watching as I did, most of the back-story (which occurs in a futuristic 'socialist' world in which Earth is part of an enlightened galactic alliance) was lost on me but again the images were interesting (a mix of Soviet-style monumental architecture and neoclassical 'future-tropes'). The film is based on a novel by Ivan Yefremov and was originally intended to the first in a film series. Worth watching for the imagery but unless you speak Russian, I'd suggest investing in a DVD, waiting for a subtitled version to show up on-line, or skipping to the 'special effects' sequences.
8 Reviews
Nebulous value
hte-trasme16 July 2014
Warning: Spoilers
This short Soviet science fiction feature takes an unusual approach which is rather daring but in this case not necessarily hugely successful. As viewers, we are thrust quite directly into events and interactions between characters in what appears to be a very different society of Earth in a far distant future, without almost any context or exposition of any kind to tell us what is going on or what we are looking at.
It's an approach that would work successfully many times and become more and more common in the science fiction literature of the years to come. But in the frame of this film of slightly over an hour, it doesn't really have the space to work. Events move fairly quickly, and we don't have time to adsorb why they are important or form any connection to the characters.
Apparently this was intended as the first in a series of films that did not get any further off the ground. Whether that was due to artistic or political failings seems to be debated. The character of Veter (meaning "wind" in Russian) does make a point of refusing a post his society and whatever seems to operate for a government in The Future want him for, and that might have struck a wrong note. Equally, it could have been the neglected plot and character development. The filmmakers may have meant to develop that in future installments, but the lack of it here could not have encouraged many to want those future installments to be make.
A few scenes that do play on what would be emotional moments seem to exist in a vacuum because the emotional background to them hasn't been built. We know a crew is stranded, but little suspense is created when that's about all we know about the situation.
On the plus side, the film does look quite good, with original=looking costumes that are different enough to be accepted as from the far future, and impressive space and alien settings. Sometimes it is charmingly out-there, such as when the conference receives the distant transmission of life-sized dancing women in silhouette.
Overall, it's interesting and commendable for its far-future setting and lack of condescension in jumping headlong into its ambitious setting and plot. But these experiments aren't all necessarily successful ones, and I can't say it was really a wrong decision not to continue the film series.
It's an approach that would work successfully many times and become more and more common in the science fiction literature of the years to come. But in the frame of this film of slightly over an hour, it doesn't really have the space to work. Events move fairly quickly, and we don't have time to adsorb why they are important or form any connection to the characters.
Apparently this was intended as the first in a series of films that did not get any further off the ground. Whether that was due to artistic or political failings seems to be debated. The character of Veter (meaning "wind" in Russian) does make a point of refusing a post his society and whatever seems to operate for a government in The Future want him for, and that might have struck a wrong note. Equally, it could have been the neglected plot and character development. The filmmakers may have meant to develop that in future installments, but the lack of it here could not have encouraged many to want those future installments to be make.
A few scenes that do play on what would be emotional moments seem to exist in a vacuum because the emotional background to them hasn't been built. We know a crew is stranded, but little suspense is created when that's about all we know about the situation.
On the plus side, the film does look quite good, with original=looking costumes that are different enough to be accepted as from the far future, and impressive space and alien settings. Sometimes it is charmingly out-there, such as when the conference receives the distant transmission of life-sized dancing women in silhouette.
Overall, it's interesting and commendable for its far-future setting and lack of condescension in jumping headlong into its ambitious setting and plot. But these experiments aren't all necessarily successful ones, and I can't say it was really a wrong decision not to continue the film series.
Visually striking film with high production values
jennyhor20042 February 2012
Warning: Spoilers
A very visually striking film about the crew of the spaceship the SS Tantra, tasked with a mission to explore and map an unknown sector of space, and the utopian society on Earth that sent out the craft, this was intended to be the first episode of a series of movies about the SS Tantra people's adventures but its public reception was apparently poor so the entire multi-film project was abandoned. The fact that "The Andromeda Nebula" wasn't intended to stand alone explains various anomalies about it: the parallel plots on the spaceship and Earth are very weakly connected and neither is resolved within the film's 77-minute running time; and the characters are very unevenly developed with only one character, Commander Erg Noor of the SS Tantra (Nikolai Kryukov who has third billing in the acting credits), being the most rounded of the lot and one viewers will most readily follow. The film's constant flitting between story-lines based on Earth and on the spaceship can be very confusing and viewers need to be very focused on the relationships among the various characters, in particular the possible love triangle involving Erg Noor, Vida Kong (Vija Artmane) and Dar Veter (Sergei Stolyarov) which perhaps explains why Vida refuses to commit herself to a relationship with Dar Veter, and the infatuation astro-navigator Niza Crete (Tatiana Voloshina) has for Erg Noor, to understand the entire film as it scrolls along.
The SS Tantra is caught in orbit around the Iron Star and its crew intercepts a distress signal coming from a ship on a planet that also orbits the star. Erg Noor commands the ship to land on the planet and he leads a team to investigate. They find an alien spacecraft and also a ship from Earth, both having crash-landed on the planet. While trying to determine the cause of the disaster that befell the ship from Earth, the team is attacked by a mysterious predator that somehow penetrates a man's space-suit and eats him from within so that he simply disappears and his suit crumples up. The team retreats to the main ship but Erg Noor is determined to know the nature of the predator that manifests as a black shape-shifting cloudy mass, sends out electrical sparks and hides from intense light. The commander's stubbornness nearly costs the life of an important crew-member whose chances of surviving the trip back to Earth become remote.
Back on Earth, Vida and Dar Veter become very close while Dar Veter gets involved in various creative projects that include archaeology. The futuristic society on Earth is presented as a happy and healthy outdoor-oriented utopia where the air and environment are clean, the weather is always sunny and young people freely choose the adult mentor they believe will guide them. People wear distinctive costumes partly inspired by ancient Greek clothing and designs, greet each other with unusual and particular gestures, and use large television screens to communicate and entertain one another: there is an early scene in which characters watch a colourful dance performance of a woman replicated in multi-shots put together on a large screen on a wall. There's no need for obvious pro-Communist proselytising because the future society itself is the propaganda.
The ancient Greek influence finds expression in the set and costume design which tends on the whole to minimalism, graceful lines and simple patterns on pale or white backgrounds. In outdoor scenes this influence can be impractical (white clothes get dirty in archaeological digging work) and other scenes in which holiday rituals are celebrated look unintentionally (and hilariously) fascist with people lining up in robes before a giant statue of a hand holding a flame. The interior sets of the SS Tantra emphasise its spaciousness and smooth flowing lines with the futuristic technology hinted at: this is to demonstrate that the crew takes the technology for granted and regards it as a help. (Plus of course minimal sets are easy on the film's budget and the film "ages" more slowly and looks less dated over time.) Significantly the Tantra is not shown in its entirety in the film, avoiding the problem in "Ikarie XB-1″ where the spaceship looked very cheap and cartoonish, and exterior scenes focus on the exploratory vehicles, quite impressive and realistic in looks and design, that Erg Noor's team brings out to travel to the derelict spaceships. The enemy faced by the SS Tantra crew is very strange and creepy, created almost completely by the use of red and black-coloured smoke manipulated in ways to look almost life-like.
Overall the film is of interest mainly to people keen to know how set design can influence the look, style and atmosphere of films and how stylised acting can give the impression of an unfamiliar, even alien society. The film's problems with characterisation and plot stem from its makers' assumptions that it would herald an ongoing series of films in which different characters, presumably all introduced in the first film, would star: the film does finish with a sub-plot cliffhanger near the end. Too many characters with little to do other than look good appear. " Nebula" might have worked better as a TV series of 1-hour episodes like a Soviet "Star Trek" than as a full-length movie. Perhaps its support for Communism was too subtle for government censors at the time and the dilemmas Erg Noor faces were politically incorrect: even spaceship captains, however fictional, should always know where their supreme loyalties lie.
The SS Tantra is caught in orbit around the Iron Star and its crew intercepts a distress signal coming from a ship on a planet that also orbits the star. Erg Noor commands the ship to land on the planet and he leads a team to investigate. They find an alien spacecraft and also a ship from Earth, both having crash-landed on the planet. While trying to determine the cause of the disaster that befell the ship from Earth, the team is attacked by a mysterious predator that somehow penetrates a man's space-suit and eats him from within so that he simply disappears and his suit crumples up. The team retreats to the main ship but Erg Noor is determined to know the nature of the predator that manifests as a black shape-shifting cloudy mass, sends out electrical sparks and hides from intense light. The commander's stubbornness nearly costs the life of an important crew-member whose chances of surviving the trip back to Earth become remote.
Back on Earth, Vida and Dar Veter become very close while Dar Veter gets involved in various creative projects that include archaeology. The futuristic society on Earth is presented as a happy and healthy outdoor-oriented utopia where the air and environment are clean, the weather is always sunny and young people freely choose the adult mentor they believe will guide them. People wear distinctive costumes partly inspired by ancient Greek clothing and designs, greet each other with unusual and particular gestures, and use large television screens to communicate and entertain one another: there is an early scene in which characters watch a colourful dance performance of a woman replicated in multi-shots put together on a large screen on a wall. There's no need for obvious pro-Communist proselytising because the future society itself is the propaganda.
The ancient Greek influence finds expression in the set and costume design which tends on the whole to minimalism, graceful lines and simple patterns on pale or white backgrounds. In outdoor scenes this influence can be impractical (white clothes get dirty in archaeological digging work) and other scenes in which holiday rituals are celebrated look unintentionally (and hilariously) fascist with people lining up in robes before a giant statue of a hand holding a flame. The interior sets of the SS Tantra emphasise its spaciousness and smooth flowing lines with the futuristic technology hinted at: this is to demonstrate that the crew takes the technology for granted and regards it as a help. (Plus of course minimal sets are easy on the film's budget and the film "ages" more slowly and looks less dated over time.) Significantly the Tantra is not shown in its entirety in the film, avoiding the problem in "Ikarie XB-1″ where the spaceship looked very cheap and cartoonish, and exterior scenes focus on the exploratory vehicles, quite impressive and realistic in looks and design, that Erg Noor's team brings out to travel to the derelict spaceships. The enemy faced by the SS Tantra crew is very strange and creepy, created almost completely by the use of red and black-coloured smoke manipulated in ways to look almost life-like.
Overall the film is of interest mainly to people keen to know how set design can influence the look, style and atmosphere of films and how stylised acting can give the impression of an unfamiliar, even alien society. The film's problems with characterisation and plot stem from its makers' assumptions that it would herald an ongoing series of films in which different characters, presumably all introduced in the first film, would star: the film does finish with a sub-plot cliffhanger near the end. Too many characters with little to do other than look good appear. " Nebula" might have worked better as a TV series of 1-hour episodes like a Soviet "Star Trek" than as a full-length movie. Perhaps its support for Communism was too subtle for government censors at the time and the dilemmas Erg Noor faces were politically incorrect: even spaceship captains, however fictional, should always know where their supreme loyalties lie.
Turgid!
spocktom8 May 2022
I went into watching this with an open mind and based upon a recommendation of a friend who compared this film to "2001-A Space Odyssey." I also read a couple of reviews here. Someone mentioned that the costumes were "wonderful," etc. Sorry...to me they looked like bad advertisements for early 60s leisurewear. They were laughable and not a patch on the art direction and costuming of 2001.
The story line was confusing and full of earnest Soviet-style invocations to do well, etc...etc... The effects were sub-par, even for the late 60s. The music was just terrible...awful! I think the composer wanted to inject some themes used in US films like the 50s "The Thing from Another World" and "Forbidden Planet.' It just comes out as a mashed-up mess.
This film is worth watching from the historical viewpoint of trying to understand Soviet films of the period. Good luck getting through it.
The story line was confusing and full of earnest Soviet-style invocations to do well, etc...etc... The effects were sub-par, even for the late 60s. The music was just terrible...awful! I think the composer wanted to inject some themes used in US films like the 50s "The Thing from Another World" and "Forbidden Planet.' It just comes out as a mashed-up mess.
This film is worth watching from the historical viewpoint of trying to understand Soviet films of the period. Good luck getting through it.
Best Soviet Sci-Fi movie ever
Dolphin211 September 2003
This film was considered for some strange reason as not really successful (may be it was politically incorrect for its time) and almost not shown and theatres and TV. I saw it only once in 1990 during "Old Sci-Fi festival" but I have to say it's best Russian I saw. Actually in USSR there were almost didn't filmed sci-fi an thrillers. This film in somewhat very similar to Kubrik's Space Odyssey. Probably it well-made, decorations, dress-ups , scenes build strong (as if for real use) and not from plastic and paper. Also people shown at this movie, their interests, behavior and motivations so different from modern's. All this give you a strong filling of future life. This is true, good old-fashioned Sci-fi. Not Hi-tech westerns like Terminator or hi-tech tales like Star Wars. Also it based on very serious story, considered as one of the keystones of Russian postwar sci-fi. Shortly speaking - Good, old-fashioned, space travel pure sci-fi.
A Serious and Philosophical Sci-Fi Movie
Pal_Virag21 November 2001
Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to see a dubbed or subtitled (in English) version of this Russian film. However, I consider "Tumannost Andromedy" ("The Andromeda Nebula") as one of the best sci-fi flicks dealing with space exploration, regardless. The plot, being very similar to another East European film, the Czech "Ikarie XB1, is about a long-duration spaceflight to a nearby star, Epsilon Tucanea something, like that], in the year 3000.
The spaceship interior, just like in "Ikaria", is very well-designed (there is even a swimming pool in the recreation hall], and once the astronauts land on a dark planet, the film features excellent special effects. The film's ludicrous and bombastic communist ideology should be overlooked, but the story [by A. Yefremov, who was also a planetologist by trade, so he really knew about astronomy and space] is rather intriguing. It is also nice to see the future Earth, where the air and waters are clean, and people live in harmony. (Nowadays, especially when seeing the contemporary cinema, it probably sounds rather corny - unfortunately...)
It seems, however, that this film is only the first of a planned two-part sequence ("Part 1: Prisoners of the Iron Star" [in Russian, of course] is being clearly stated at the beginning of the film), and the second part was never finished - probably because of the film's unfavourable reception. Nevertheless, I have found this film being very unique and atmospheric, even in its unfinished form and with its original language. (In used bookstores, the book ["Andromeda - A Space Age Tale"], upon which the film was based, is widely available.)
The spaceship interior, just like in "Ikaria", is very well-designed (there is even a swimming pool in the recreation hall], and once the astronauts land on a dark planet, the film features excellent special effects. The film's ludicrous and bombastic communist ideology should be overlooked, but the story [by A. Yefremov, who was also a planetologist by trade, so he really knew about astronomy and space] is rather intriguing. It is also nice to see the future Earth, where the air and waters are clean, and people live in harmony. (Nowadays, especially when seeing the contemporary cinema, it probably sounds rather corny - unfortunately...)
It seems, however, that this film is only the first of a planned two-part sequence ("Part 1: Prisoners of the Iron Star" [in Russian, of course] is being clearly stated at the beginning of the film), and the second part was never finished - probably because of the film's unfavourable reception. Nevertheless, I have found this film being very unique and atmospheric, even in its unfinished form and with its original language. (In used bookstores, the book ["Andromeda - A Space Age Tale"], upon which the film was based, is widely available.)
Pay attention on costumes and robots
semic-7833431 January 2018
Andromeda Nebula
Drago_Head_Tilt1 August 2011
Warning: Spoilers
A manned space-flight is trapped by the strong magnetic pull of an "Iron Star". The crew land on the surface and discover other downed spacecraft. They drive a cool land-cruiser, have a robot and encounter a shadow-like entity that can "eat" crew members through their spacesuits, and doesn't like light. Meanwhile Earth of the future is a peaceful Communist utopia that resembles Ancient Greece! Characters discuss the compression of time, and watch satellite images on a huge screen, including a woman dancing in red silhouette against the backdrop of space, 300 years ago!?! The 66 min (jumpy, faded quality) DVD print i saw (it was originally 77) had very badly translated subtitles, so i may be missing something. There's also a romantic subplot. Confusing as this was, i really dug the evocative alien planet scenes (real pulp fiction art come to life), and the entire movie is visually very impressive. I also liked the scene of recreational trampolining aboard the spaceship (in the background), and the odd soundtrack of repetitive organ stabs. With Sergei Stolyarov, Vija Artmane, Nikolai Kryukov and Gennadi Yukhtin. It's based on the 1957 novel by Ivan Efremov (1908-1972), a real-life scientist who developed Taphonomy, a fossilization science in the 1940s. Shot at the Ukrainian Dovzhenko Film Studios, a proposed second part (based on Efremov's follow-up novel The Bull's Hour) was never made.
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