Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962)

Touches You

Simply Perfect

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Absolutely Fantastic

Colorful but dull science fiction tale of an astronaut, John Agar, leading a team of explorers to Uranus, where a brain-like creature fights them by making their thoughts reality, which, as you may guess, involves them thinking about sultry ladies of their past. There's an interesting idea for a film buried here somewhere, but this is strictly children's sci-fi fare. Nothing great or even anything I'd even call good, but there were enough camp elements to keep me entertained.

I am giving this movie a generous 8 out of 10 simply because it really seems to be a forerunner of the ideology that formed Star Trek. It starts out with an optimistic view of humanity unified and at peace. War is behind us, and the focus has become the peaceful exploration of space. It originally presents ideas and scenarios that Star Trek later seems to copy. The similarities between this plot and the "Shore Leave" episode from Star Trek are more than coincidental in my view. The alien here seems to be even more complex though. It loses points when the alien intelligence and the plot seem to get muddled. Rather than a consistently evil enemy, this alien more often than not seems to be as much a powerful benefactor as anything, and their rush toward destruction seems counter to the original premise of a peaceful humanity.

This slow moving mess has stilted dialogue, bad acting, and some of the most incomprehensible motivations ever. First of all, what an embarrassment is John Agar. He was thought to be the next Cary Grant at one time, but good looks didn't do it for him. He spent most of his time doing these cheesy horror/science fiction movies. In this one he plays a man with a reputation for jumping anything with skirts. While these guys find themselves on a kind of isolated patch on Uranus, they guess that there is some kind of force that they must deal with. What do they do? The thing reads their imaginations and apparently the whole crew has the hormones of an eighth grader. They are constantly accosted by these babes and fall for their charms any time the force that is acting on them desires. There is also this endless exploration of the little bit of heaven they are on and they never seem to get anywhere. There is a German guy named Karl who gets his arm frozen (though thaws out), falls in a kind of ammonia quicksand, and is eaten by some unfriendly maw. He is stupid and impulsive but never changes. There is this ridiculous voice that keeps telling us that these people are stupid and he will eventually kill them. He is apparently studying them so he can go to earth later and take over. How these guys could tie their shoes let along travel through space is beyond me. There are some decent special effects and a nice use of sound, but the story just doesn't make it.

Filmed in 1962 this movie was clearly ahead of its time. Essentially, the United Nations is in control of the Earth and space exploration has gone all the way to Saturn. So it's up to the spaceship "Explorer 12" to scout out Uranus. Five men undertake the journey and land in a lush forest which isn't supposed to be there. Not only that, but several beautiful women are there as well. Realizing that their minds are being read they come to the conclusion that there is an alien presence on this planet and because of certain events they become hostile to it. Now, even though I personally like science-fiction films of this era, I think it's only fair to state that this film is very campy and the special effects are clearly not up to today's standards. Likewise, the acting was second-rate and the dialogue left much to be desired. But if a person has a little imagination I think they might enjoy it, all things considered.