First Teletubbies on Venus

Whaaaat?

Watch the current episode of Tales from The Other Side and you'll know what I'm talking about ;)

Actually, the title of our current movie (hosted by HYBRID - his very first show!) is the 1960 film First Spaceship on Venus (released in the U.S. in 1962).

In spite of HYBRID's opinion of this movie (and really, as an alien HE is the expert), I found the movie to be fairly enjoyable and very similar in plot to Mission to Mars.

The basic plot is that a stone has been found in the Gobi Desert which obviously is not of Earth origin. Upon closer investigation, it is discovered the stone actually functions as a recorded document containing information from Venus. Having translated a little bit of the message, the scientists of Earth first try to contact Venus using radio signals and when this fails a team of the very best from the global scientific community decide to go straight to the source in their newly-built spaceship - the Cosmo Strata.

On the way there, they translate the rest of the document and discover that Venus was planning on destroying the Earth with a nuclear weapon. Now they have to decide: Do we continue with our mission? Or turn back to Earth?

The special effects used in this movie, while not up to par with 21st Century CGI or even George Lucas' bluescreen FX, are still pretty impressive; especially considering the time period. The film was shot in vivid technicolor instead of the typical B&W used in most low-budget films, and if you can find a good print it's actually quite beautiful.

From a socially conscious aspect, this movie is fairly groundbreaking. 4 years before Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, First Spaceship on Venus presents us with an international crew made up of men and women (well, actually only one woman unless Omega the robot is female as well), a man of African origin, an Asian and an Indian (as in "a man from India") along with the other caucasian characters from America, Russia and France.

So check it out. Click this link to watch our edited version hosted by HYBRID, or if you prefer the original, uncut movie, look for it in the cheapo DVD department at WAL-MART. You can also download it or watch it online for free at www.archive.org