Summary of the Film
Some engineers irrigating the Gobi desert find a spool made of the material unknown on the Earth and linked to the previous explosion in Tunguska. The engineers take the spool as evidence of the explosion. They believe that it comes from the alien world, namely from Mars, and is a flight recorder. Scientists try to communicate with Mars but fail. They send some crew to Mars. On their journey, they discover that the spool had a message about the Earth’s destruction, which gives the crewmembers momentum to proceed with their tour to Mars. After landing on Mars, the crewmembers find small recording devices that look like small insects. During the further exploration of the planet, they discover a huge crater in a place that looks like it had hosted a city before. The crewmembers find out that the planet had experienced a catastrophic explosion. The explosion had left only shadowy human-like inhabitants of the Planet Venus that were completely burnt on the walls of the buildings that remained.
Then they discover that the machines of the aliens still work, including the machine radiating the energy towards the Earth to cause its destruction. Accidentally, one of the scientists triggers the radiation in the direction of the Earth. The scientists try to disarm the machine with little success. One of the scientists sends the communication officer, Talua, into the command center of the planet, but his suit punctures. Brinkman, an American astronaut, goes to rescue Talua, but Talua succeeds in reversing the radiations. It causes disorientation of the planet’s gravitational pulls throwing Brinkman out of space and marooning Talua and Tchen Yu. The rest of the crewmembers survive and return to the Earth to warn people against nuclear weapons.
States of the Film
The states of the film present themselves during the discovery of the spool, the flight to Venus, and the decisions of the crewmembers taken on the surface of Venus. The ideological state of the movie implies that the world needs to unite in fighting space and nuclear weapons. The above parts of the movie point to nuclear weapons and space weapons used by some countries, which is dangerous to the Earth. It has already caused major catastrophes and may cause even more in the future. The film takes a close reference to America against Japan and Soviet Union.
Nationalism in the Film
In the film, nationalism is rather vivid during the flight to the planet Venus. The crewmembers engage in a game of chess. In the game, Solytk keeps winning, and Hawling keeps losing. In order for Hawling to win the game, Solytk has to adjust the circuits of the Omega. The winning of the game aims at showing that some nations are more superior than others. The winning of a Soviet against an American shows that the Soviet Union is more powerful than America. The whole film is about the commitment of Soviet Union to science and its noble quest for stars contrasting it with that of America, which is to place weapons in the orbit and claim that the atmosphere is their property. In the haste to beat America, the Soviet Union had suffered terrible accidents in the space. Brinkman also tries to regain romantic favor from Sumiko. Brinkman is an American while Sumiko is Japanese. Sumiko rejects Brinkman’s advances because of the memories of the death of her husband in a lunar mission. It happened during the Hiroshima attack, her childlessness is also the result of this attack. The Hiroshima attack was blamed on America. Despite all this, the scientists unite under the soviet principals showing the commitment to the Soviet Union and dispraising the barbarism of America.