When it comes to space exploration, the science fiction of the mid-20th century was a bit overly enthusiastic. According to the science fiction novels and films of the classic era, the 1990s and 2000s were supposed to be a time when we had established colonies on the Moon, visited many planets in the solar system, and even founded colonies there as well, making space travel an everyday occurrence. Some overly ambitious and far-fetched novels and films even had us reaching other stars by then.
The fact that we were able to land on the Moon in 1969, just 66 years after the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903, reinforced this belief. The seemingly exponential progress of technology, especially space technology, led people to be excited about the 2000s and to dream of space travel.
Particularly, for those of us who were children in the 1980s, there was a special excitement because we would be able to see the 2000s. As a devoted science fiction enthusiast, I was eagerly anticipating the year 2000, believing that I would witness that futuristic 21st century and the incredible developments I had seen in books and movies.
Unfortunately, the seemingly exponential progress in space technology during the 1950s and 1960s suddenly slowed down. Almost all of science fiction’s predictions about space travel and space colonies turned out to be somewhat unfulfilled. As humanity, we didn’t advance that far.
Still, science fiction appears to have hit the mark on a few occasions. For example, the landings of SpaceX’s reusable rockets on drone ships at sea. In the 1959 Soviet science fiction film Nebo Zovyot (The Sky Beckons or The Heavens Beckon), also known as The Sky Calls, the rocket carrying cosmonauts returning from space lands on a platform at sea, just like SpaceX rockets do. The resemblance is truly remarkable!
Nebo Zovyot [The Sky Beckons]
Nebo Zovyot (The Sky Beckons or The Heavens Beckon), also known as The Sky Calls, is a 1959 Soviet science fiction film produced by Aleksandr Kozyr and Mikhail Karyukov, filmed at the Dovzhenko Film Studios.
Set against the backdrop of the early space race, the movie showcases the Soviet Union’s ambitions in space exploration. The story revolves around a Soviet expedition preparing for the world’s first mission to Mars. Their spaceship, Homeland (Russian: Родина, “Rodina”), is constructed at a space station, where the crew awaits the signal to begin their historic journey.
However, complications arise when an American spaceship, Typhoon, arrives at the station with mechanical issues. The Americans, Robert Clark and Erwin Verst, secretly harboring the same goal of reaching Mars, hastily launch their mission in an attempt to beat the Soviets, but soon find themselves in peril, heading off course.
In a display of bravery and international camaraderie, the Homeland, crewed by cosmonauts Dr. Eugene Kornev and engineer Andrey Gordienko, alters its course to rescue the Typhoon’s crew. The rescue was successful, but it left the Soviets with insufficient fuel to reach Mars. Stranded, they make an emergency landing on the asteroid Icarus, close to Mars.
An uncrewed rocket sent to resupply them fails, leading to a daring rescue mission by another ship, Meteor, with a cosmonaut embarking on a potentially suicidal journey to save his comrades.
One of the American astronauts, Verst, awakens to find a fifth man on the asteroid Icarus: the Soviet cosmonaut Gregory Somov. He had piloted another uncrewed refueling rocket to reach the Icarus. However, because the rocket was not designed for crewed missions, Somov was exposed to lethal cosmic radiation and succumbed to it. He simply dies because of the foolishness of the Americans.
The remaining four manage to blast off and return to the Soviet Union, where they are greeted as heroes.
The film, with its beautiful matte paintings and impressive special effects for the time, is more than just a sci-fi adventure. Released at a time when the Soviet Union was vying with the United States for supremacy in space, The Sky Calls reflects the cultural and political climate of the era. It promotes themes of international cooperation, bravery, and, of course, those ever-present socialist values of self-sacrifice and teamwork – because what would a Soviet film be without a good dose of collectivist heroism?
The film’s story does not explicitly state the years in which it takes place.
You can watch the full movie of The Sky Beckons on YouTube (video below), with English subtitles! Check out the scene at 1:09:21, where the rocket returns from its mission and lands on a barge at sea.
I watched the entire film. On the positive side, it’s somewhat realistic and falls under the “hard science fiction” genre, especially when compared to the “space westerns” of the time, which were full of strange aliens, with heroes pulling out their laser guns at every opportunity and shooting randomly, acting more like adventurous cowboys than real astronauts. The film doesn’t treat the audience as ignorant and assumes they have at least some level of knowledge-such as assuming the viewer knows who Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is.
The film, made in 1959-almost two years before Yuri Gagarin went to space-predicts future space stations and even space tourism via these stations.
On the negative side, the parts of the film that serve as political propaganda are truly childish and laughable. Additionally, there is no character development at all. The pacing of the film is extremely fast; events happen suddenly without any explanation as to why.
There’s no explanation for how a spacecraft trying to reach Mars could go off course and head towards the Sun. Did they set off when Mars and Earth were on opposite sides of the Sun? That would be ridiculous, especially since there’s a conversation in the film about the launch window. Also, you can’t “accidentally” head toward the Sun; in fact, the Sun is the most difficult place to reach in the solar system (requiring the most energy).
The absurdity of the meteor shower scene (where meteors are dense enough to pose a threat) is truly laughable. It repeats a cliché mistake made in many sci-fi films (for example, Star Wars). In the Asteroid Belt of the Solar System, which is between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, the average distance between objects is a massive 600,000 miles (about 965,000 km). That’s more than 2.5 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. So no, it wouldn’t be dangerous to fly through an asteroid belt or, as the film calls it, a “meteor shower,” whatever.
Unfortunately, some very simple scientific errors that could have easily been avoided cast a shadow over the film. They could have easily avoided these mistakes since they add nothing to the plot. For example, while waiting to be rescued on the asteroid they landed on, they observe Mars (which is impossibly, excessively close to them), and they talk about seeing the canals of Mars (although we don’t see them, lol). But by 1959, we already knew very well that there were no canals on Mars. As early as 1909, French astronomer Eugène Antoniadi used a powerful telescope at the Meudon Observatory and observed Mars during a close opposition. His observations showed that the “canals” were not actual structures but rather optical illusions or misinterpretations of the Martian surface.
They also completely misrepresent the distance between Earth and Mars. There’s a line that goes, “It’s insulting. We’ve traveled a million kilometers and we stopped right in the gate.” But when Earth and Mars are closest, the distance between them is 34.8 million miles or about 56 million km. Maybe this was lost in translation, I’m not sure. But I don’t think so – everything happens too quickly; a journey that should take months is over in a short time. It feels like everything happens within just a few thousand kilometers, not even a million kilometers.
Despite all these scientifically inaccurate points and childish political propaganda, you can’t help but smile by the time the film ends. It’s a classic that should be watched to better understand an era.
Battle Beyond the Sun: The Americanized version of “The Sky Beckons”
In 1962, Nebo Zovyot, “The Sky Beckons” found new life in American theaters under the title Battle Beyond the Sun. This English-dubbed and re-edited version was the brainchild of legendary producer Roger Corman, who saw potential in the 1959 Soviet original. To make the film more palatable to U.S. audiences during the height of the Cold War, Corman enlisted a young Francis Ford Coppola, then a film school student, to “Americanize” the narrative. The result was a uniquely transformed movie that reflects both the era’s political tensions and the beginnings of Coppola’s storied career.
The result was a heavily re-edited, English-dubbed version that retained the space race theme but altered many of the film’s original elements to better align with American sensibilities during that tense period.
In both the Soviet original and the Americanized version, the story centers around a space race, with two rival nations vying to be the first to land on Mars. However, while Nebo Zovyot, “The Sky Beckons” directly depicted the competition between the USSR and the United States, Battle Beyond the Sun replaced these real-world superpowers with fictional future countries named North Hemis and South Hemis. This shift not only served to mask the film’s Soviet origins but also allowed the narrative to fit more comfortably within the context of American Cold War propaganda.
Further distancing the film from its Soviet roots, Battle Beyond the Sun went so far as to alter the names of both the characters and the actors who portrayed them. Soviet stars Aleksandr Shvorin and Ivan Pereverzev were transformed into “Andy Stewart” and “Edd Perry,” while directors Mikhail Karyukov and Aleksandr Kozyr were credited as “Maurice Kaplin” and “Arthur Corwin” – and even demoted to Assistant Director status in the process. These changes, along with the fictionalization of the competing nations, helped obscure the film’s true origins from American audiences.
The identity of the film’s credited director, “Thomas Colchart,” remains a mystery. Some sources suggest it might be a pseudonym for Karyukov, Kozyr, Coppola, or possibly an American dubbing director. Regardless of who actually helmed the final version, Battle Beyond the Sun stands as a fascinating cultural artifact. It reflects not only the cinematic practices of the time but also the broader political climate, where even science fiction was repurposed to serve the ideological battles of the Cold War.
You can also watch Battle Beyond the Sun, the full movie, below:
I watched this version as well. Unlike The Sky Beckons, this film provides information right at the beginning about when the events take place: the events in the film start on November 7, 1997, and we learn that a nuclear war occurred before this date. But why is this information given to us? It feels a bit pointless, as the events in the film have nothing to do with it, and the war is never mentioned again.
Interestingly, the USSR and the United States are on the same side, known as the “North Hemis.” In the original film, the United States is “North Hemis” (the “bad guys” of the film), while the USSR is “South Hemis.”
Another difference is that in The Sky Beckons, when ground control learns that the Soviets are going to Mars, they order the astronauts to set off immediately and reach Mars before them, even though they are not adequately prepared. Astronaut Erwin Verst strongly objects to this decision but is powerless against the strict orders. In Battle Beyond the Sun, the situation is reversed: ground control says they are not prepared and can’t go to Mars, but Captain Torrance (Erwin Verst, who is called Captain Torrance in this film) insists that they must reach Mars before the Southern Hemis, and he is the one who decides to embark on the journey.
Additionally, this version includes some strange alien creatures that were not in the original. Unlike in The Sky Beckons, where the astronaut who comes to the aid of the stranded astronauts on the asteroid dies due to radiation because he traveled in a rocket designed to be unmanned, in Battle Beyond the Sun, he is killed by these creatures. This is a rather silly and unnecessary addition.
Sources
- Nebo Zovyot on Wikipedia
- Battle Beyond the Sun on Wikipedia
