Journey to the Far Side of the Sun

There's a sense of awe to the special effects work of animation specialists Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (Thunderbirds Are Go)--the slow, lovingly detailed introduction of a massive spaceship creeping out of dock and struggling against its bulk while trapped on the ground, and the almost balletic spectacle of the ship elegantly floating against an impressive star field or dramatically flying against the rugged landscape. These moments are the highlights of this sober science fiction thriller about the discovery of a planet on the far side of the sun in Earth's orbit. A mission is hastily put together, with British astrophysicist Ian Hendry teamed with hotshot American astronaut Roy Thinnes for the three-week trip, but when they suddenly crash-land the strange creatures that surround them are revealed to be human. Against all rational explanations they're back on Earth, but Thinnes suddenly discovers that everything is a mirror image of his existence: Through the Looking Glass by way of The Twilight Zone. Though it begins as a paranoid spy thriller set in the near future (the opening details an ingenious espionage caper featuring a very special eyepiece), it quickly turns into a serious and oddly unsettling space-race drama with a heady twist. Robert Parrish's direction is unusually aloof, but the film is always intriguing and well acted with gorgeous special effects that may rank second only to Stanley Kubrick's 2001 as the most elegant vision of outer space flight on film. --Sean Axmaker

Product Description
Sci-fi adventure and suspense has never been more exciting or intense as when you Journey to the Far Side of the Sun! One hundred years in the future two astronauts are sent to uncover the secrets of a "duplicate" Earth on the other side of the Sun. When they crash land three weeks earlier than they had planned they must embark on a life-or-death mission to determine whether they have arrived back home or on the strange mirror world. This imaginative space adventure offers a journey few will ever forget!

This science fiction/adventure film was one of the better works in the genre to emerge in the immediate wake of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey -- it was also notable as producer Gerry Anderson's first venture into science fiction involving live actors, as opposed to the marionettes that had previously populated his productions, on television series such as Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds. The problem is that Anderson and his production team didn't sufficiently change their methods, techniques, or approaches to their work -- so that except for the performances by Patrick Wymark, Ian Hendry, and, to a lesser degree Roy Thinnes and George Sewell, none of what we see is terribly fast-moving or animated; and Herbert Lom is all-but-wasted in what amounts to an extended cameo appearance. Audiences were apparently supposed to be absorbed by the elaborate model work and effects -- especially the explosions that come up mid-way through the movie and at the end -- and in theaters these were probably very impressive; but on the small screen, they lose their impact. Additionally, the basic concept of the plot, an ultimately doomed (indeed, planet-altering) effort to explore a newly-discovered world on the far side of the sun, doesn't hold up under the treatment it receives here. The pacing is lethargic, and long stretches are given over to the quasi-psychedelic effects of suspended animation on the two (or four) space travellers involved. Those languid minutes kill the already shaky momentum behind the story, which is a fascinating idea, about two parallel, identical planets orbiting opposite each other around the sun -- what should have been a good sci-fi thriller ends up being more frustrating than anything else, for the opportunities that that missed. (And, apparently, the execution was so low-key, that the plot and content eluded one television production executive working for Turner Broadcasting in the 1980's -- the idea of two opposite, mirror-image Earths, on which everything is reversed, was achieved by "flipping" the film for the second half of the story; but some genius on WTBS, thinking the print had actually been flipped by mistake midway through, ordered it reversed and "corrected," so that those watching this movie in its early WTBS presentations couldn't see the mirror/reversal of the two worlds that unnerved Roy Thinnes's astronaut, and were almost as confused at home as the astronaut was supposed to be on the screen . . . . ). ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide