Journey to the Far Side of the Sun

This lesser known film starring Roy Thinnes (From TV's Invaders) is actually what I consider a lost gem. It was made at a time where the story was more important that the special effects (though the effect are fairly good for its time). A scientist theorizes that there is another world in Earth's Orbit directly behind the sun. Since the sun always blocks it from us we can never see it from Earth. Roy Thinnes is selected to go on a mission to get to this world. I don't want to tell the rest of the plot because it will give the rest of the movie away. Let's just say there are some real surprises. The movie is British and has that good British flavor of acting that was in such TV series like The Avengers.

Contrary to other reviews here, I would say that this film is vastly over rated given its current IMDb score. When I read the IMDb description, I could imagine so many interesting ways such a plot concept could unfold, and I was excited to watch this film. But the plot adoption is very, very thin and just straight out disappointing. A good amount of time is spend on the characters, but it never gets to any kind of depth or reveals any kind of relation to the plot at all. There seems to be little point in showing us most things they do actually. I am not even sure if there is a point anywhere in this film at all. It is very obvious that the film tries to mimic the tranquil space/tech scenes of 2001 that came out just months before it, but it completely misses the point of how and why those scenes are used. In Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, mundane and completely irrelevant scenes are dragged out to the point where concentration and interest vanishes completely. Half way through the film, I was very close to switching it off or go watch something else due to boredom. Even a lot of the effects are quite obviously copied from 2001, but also very poorly so. Even if you skip the obvious 2001 comparison, the effects are still rather unimpressive even for their time. There are films from the 50s with more convincing miniature model scenes for instance. The soundtrack is nothing worth writing about either. If I had watched it as a child, I could probably have ignored its many short comings and liked it due to the sci-fi setting of the film. As an adult I find it hard to recommend it though. There are some interesting props and beautiful 60s fashion, but that is about the only good thing I have to say besides the awesome plot idea (that is very poorly executed).

I'm also a SF buff, among other genres, and I especially like those films from 60's and 70's with their "ideas over effects" premise that produced so many intelligent and likable stories put on screen. In a nutshell I completely agree with scott-886's review of this movie. I heard of this film, and being what I previously mentioned, a 60's and 70's SF buff, with a penchant for SF stories with touch of the "Twilight Zone", I expected a lot, and my expectations were heightened with reviews ranking the effects of this movie "second best" to Kubrick's "2001 Space Odyssey". What a fraud. "Journey to the far side of the sun", was ordinary, convoluted, half baked, silly looking film, with laughable amateur special effects (and remember I love films from that era and despise CGI), and it can be fully compared more to 60's SF disasters such as "Marooned", which "Journey" very much reminded me of. The idea behind it all is not that bad, but building the plot on a story of a twin planet to Earth, on which the same world is inverted, asked for a master like Kubrick to direct. Needles to say Robert Parish is nothing like that, so he delivered boring and silly movie, that looked and felt like a matinée TV series of those days. Not worth wasting your time on, even if you are an absolute fan of the genre.

Doppelganger, or Journey to the Far Side of the Sun as I'm certain it's more commonly known as, starts at 'Eurosec European Space Exploration Complex Portugal' where the boss Jason Webb (Patrick Wymark) reveals to the United Nations & American ambassadors that 'Sun Porbe 1' has discovered the existence of another planet on the far side of the sun on the exact same counter-orbit as Earth. Webb ask's the various nations to fund a manned mission to the planet to which the American representative refuses. Refuses until that is Webb reveals that his security team Lisa Hartmann (Loni von Friedl) & Mark Neuman (George Sewell) have discovered a Russian spy Dr. Hassler (Herbert Lom) leaking information, he soon changes his tune on the condition that an American astronaut is on the mission. Eurosec prepares for the mission, American Colonel Glenn Ross (Roy Thinnes) & his wife Sharon (Lynn Loring) arrive. Finally things are ready for take-off, Ross is joined by English astrophysicist John Kane (Ian Hendry) who face a three week trip to reach the newly discovered planet, coming out of their sleep they approach the planet & crash-land on it only to discover that it's Earth, or it appears to be an exact duplicate of Earth at first... Directed by Robert Parrish Doppelganger is an OK 60's Sci-Fi film that is a bit different if nothing else. The script by Thunderbirds (1964 - 1966) creators husband & wife Gerry & Sylvia Anderson along with Donald James uses every opportunity to stick in lots of Thunderbird inspired models of futuristic buildings, spacecraft & future technology & their about as convincing as those seen in an average Thunderbirds episode. Also the idea that an exact opposite of Earth exists is preposterous in the extreme, there are so many flaws with the idea it's untrue the biggest being why if EVERYTHING is reversed why don't the people on this new planet speak backwards, they write backwards so why not speak as well? Because we, the viewer that is, couldn't understand them that's why. Nothing is done with the idea either, it takes over an hour of screen time to actually get to this planet & all that happens is Ross manages to convince Webb to let him go back home, yawn. Quite literary nothing else significant happens. Doppelganger is far too slow & simply not enough happened to maintain my interest between the Thunderbird model shots which look very out of place & awkward spliced into the live-action footage with the actors. The production design on Doppelganger is horribly dated, the colour schemes just check that shade of wallpaper out, the clothes with a hideous bright day-glo orange all-in-one dress & matching boots, the technology with supposedly futuristic computers that use magnetic tapes that spin around & the cars which look like their made from silver tin foil. The special effects are anything but & as a whole Doppelganger is a little bland. The acting is average & I never really cared for anyone that much. On the positive side it's different, it provides a reasonable amount of entertainment & is perfectly watchable in a silly undemanding sort of way. Doppelganger is OK but nothing spectacular, it will pass 100 odd minutes without too much trouble but won't grip or captivate many people & the whole premise is so stupid & flawed it never quite recovers, what was wrong with sending them to a planet with loads of monsters & aliens on it? Average, don't bust a gut to see it.

I seem to remember another movie about a planet on the other side of the sun! Let's see if anyone can help me in knowing the name of this movie! The movie had a astronaut or astronauts going to this other planet! Only one of them lives if it was more than one astronaut that I do know! The planet was called Terra by the ones who lived on it! The astronaut gets into trouble when he tries to contact Cape Kennedy. The reason for this is that the entire planet is being ruled by Communist government! I do know that he makes friends on Terra and he finds out that Terra is a exact replica of Earth in every way by land and water mass! Can anyone tell me the name of this movie? Please help me if anyone can!

Gerry Anderson's first live-action foray in the way of a major motion picture that benefits from incredible model FX work and,a great Barry Gray music score. The reel-to-reel analog computers, in the far-off year "2069" (I guess Anderson really wanted a safe date of a 100 years later!) are a hoot to see as are the guru-jacket fashions, but one could easily accuse 2001 of the same violations, but no one could have foreseen some things as they turn out. This film was the springboard for the series UFO the following year, and in fact not only had the same FX people, and producers but many of the cast were regulars in that show. It always comes off like an "alternate history" future more than anything else-the "Apollo-like" rocket used in the lift-off, it always seems like this is really another planet than earth. Given the "alternate earth" plot, one would assume that was the feeling they wanted. We end up with an ending that posits more questions than answers. That because the "other earth" exists every movement, event and thing said is duplicated as it's happening on both worlds. Because of that given, and the sun in between, the two versions of the same person (in this case Glenn Ross, astronaut) can never meet. A complete accident discovered the planet in the first place when it would have most likely stayed a secret forever. Filmed mostly in Portugal with FX work in England, it's a must-own for any Gerry Anderson fan. I have the Image bare bones DVD from a few years ago now out of print, but one hopes Universal will re-release it with, perhaps extras and even a Gerry Anderson commentary.

This is a very dull film with poorly developed characters, subplots that go nowhere, and barely tolerable acting. It comes across as a poorly conceived rip-off of "2001." The only thing making it worthwhile are the sets and costumes and visual effects. But even that wasn't enough to keep me from nodding off. I would like to get the soundtrack, especially the music during the space flight sequence, for nights when I have trouble falling asleep.

This is a really really bad movie. However It's good to laugh at the horrible ideas and "special" effects. The plot centers around an EU space agency that discovers a 10th planet that orbits directly opposite the Earth. They send a maned mission (they have been to Mars and have yet to discover this planet? Is anybody stupid enough to fall for this?) to the planet and can you believe it, it's the mirror image of the planet they came from. Most everything is predictable from that point. Honestly from the title of the movie you can guess just about everything. The only surprising thing here is a maned space program run by Eurpoeans :) There really can be no excuse for the plot concept or execution. So it's good for a laugh or maybe if you are in an altered state of consciousness.

Interesting premise; interestingly worked out; the strongest feature of this film is the emotional tension of the astronaut who knows a truth, but is unable to convey it to others. Overlook the weaknesses and just enjoy the movie, but be prepared for a certain level of suspense.

Being the sci-fi fan that I am, I was always curious about this film. So I was excited to see Journey to the Far Side of the Sun finally get released on an affordable DVD (the previous print had been fetching $100 on eBay - I'm sure those people wish they had their money back - but more about that in a second). Anyway, the premise of this film (just like Twilight Zone's "The Parallel") is that there is an undiscovered planet resembling Earth on the "other side of the sun". This planet is of course exactly like ours except that it's inverted. This basically means their letters are reversed and people drive on the wrong side of the road. Sound intriguing? Well that's basically all there is to this film. The first hour or so is dedicated to the preparations for the journey to this other planet. It's just tedious scenes of switches being pressed, banal dialog, etc. There's no point to it whatsoever. Gerry Anderson managed to find the most boring British actors in the history of cinema to play most of the roles. I mean they are so dull I'm surprised the crew was able to stay awake to finish the film. Anyway, once the crew FINALLY lands on the planet (after an interminable sequence of the astronauts sitting and literally sleeping in the cockpit), Roy Thinnes notices the copy is all backwards on a bottle of cologne and hops back on another ship to tell people about what he has discovered. Oops he never gets to do it as he crash lands and dies. The end! Oh wait, there's a bonus scene of one of the space executives hurling himself into a mirror in his wheelchair at the end. I guess he wanted out of this film too. I'm really surprised a film like this could get made even back in the 60s. Rent if you must. DO NOT BUY.