Spaceflight IC-1: An Adventure in Space

Low-rent at every conceivable level, this overheated British space opera has a turgid script, laughable "special effects", ham acting--except by lead Bill Williams, a reliable American character actor who usually plays a good guy but here does a good turn as the ship's tyrannical captain--flat and dull photography and isn't worth spending your time on. The story of a crew being sent on a 25-year journey to a habitable planet because Earth is on its last legs had possibilities, but hack director Bernard Knowles shoots everything in the most boring, unimaginative ways possible, without anything even remotely resembling thought, flair, or any kind of style whatsoever. Even low-budget veterans like Edward L. Cahn or Sam Newfield would have given some pizazz to this suffocatingly dull, plodding cheapo. Don't bother with it.

I've seen this kind of thing before - science fiction movies made by people who seem to really be kicking and screaming against the genre. It's like they are saying, "those fans like heads in jars? Fine, let's give them heads in jars." If anything the premise seems to be a weird excuse to hang a soap opera on. The space ship is implausibly large inside, the black and white cinematography is bland. The actors, surprisingly, seem fine in roles which are pretty aimlessly written. BUT, there are two things I can get behind in this movie. It does have the virtue of brevity, clocking in at just over an hour. And it's always nice to see an American villain for a change.

I stumbled upon this movie and unfortunately missed the beginning, however it was quite easy to catch up on the basic plot. What first intrigued me was that the info button showed this as one star, yet the little bit of dialogue I had heard seemed pretty intelligent (a grouchy meal time exchange is happening when a lovely character who looks uncannily like Natasha Richardson comes in and cheerfully says "good morning" and another character replies, "how does she know it's morning, or even good"...also another actress looks very much like Felicity Jones). I have no faith in the ratings done by these cable services--I once saw Citizen Kane rated 2 stars (it's since been updated to 4) and Deadpool, 4 stars, and the 3 Godfathers described as "...three outlaws on the lamb..." Yikes. ...so I dove in. I notice many of the scathing reviews here are from at least 4 or more years ago, pre-Trump. One of the things I noticed immediately about this movie is how perfectly timely it is. We have had the hottest recent years on record, the EPA is being stripped, auto emission regulations reversed, he's bringing coal back (yeah, right), and climate scientists are saying that without CO2 emission reductions, we're on track to be at 900 parts per million for CO2 by 2100 (in context, pre-industrial revolution, about 200 years ago, CO2 was 280 ppm). We are on track to recreate the early Eocene Epoch. A baby born today will be 83 in 2100 and by the time his or her grandchild is 83, it's possible life on earth will pretty much resemble the dystopian vision portrayed in so many science fiction works. And thus we land in the world of Spacecraft IC-1, where a group of people are carefully chosen to go to an Earth-2 colony and populate it with a healthy, as perfect as possible genetic line. Meanwhile, back on messy old earth, the population is oppressed by what sounds like a nefarious dictator class and a strict code known as RULE, "the Reformed United League Executive council". This apparently was supposed to take place in 2015 (something I probably missed at the beginning)--fast forward to 2017, and instead of trying to fix this beautiful, perfect planet full of trees, rivers, mountains, waterfalls, butterflies, and rainbows (thanks Bill Maher), we have pledged NASA 20 billion dollars to send men to Mars. Billionaire hobbyists are busy spending their spare change on elaborate bomb shelters in New Zealand and manned Mars missions, because what do you do with all that money--certainly not help your fellow man on Earth. One of the main criticisms of this movie is how cheap it looks--in other words, it doesn't have a glossy, futuristic look. Please remember that this was made in 1965, 4 years before man landed on the moon. Under the circumstances, I think the film's vision is just fine. In fact, I admire that they put the characters in ordinary clothing and didn't try to cook up some crazy futuristic look. It kind of reminded me of the simple look of a Twilight Zone episode. Keep in mind, if you re-watch the original Star Trek, it looks pretty cheap and cheesy too by modern standards. The other part of the movie's plot that I thought was pretty well done was that of mutiny. Really, mutiny is timeless and what happens aboard Spacecraft IC-1 isn't so very different than what happened on the Bounty. Overall, of course the special effects are very outdated by today's standards, but if you overlook this, the story is complex and intriguing, the acting is decent, and the dialogue is quite well-written. Give it a chance.

The premise of the story is good but the execution is just awful - sets, acting, script. It comes across like a TV soap opera and quite low tech given the time when it was made. I could see this as a series given they were only 1 year into the mission. Except for the people in hibernation event that leads to the death of Mead, the remaining plot points could used in a western.

Interesting, the guy with head in the glass had such a minor role. He was not allowed to talk to Earth -- why? In most sci fi movies these characters are the go to experts or the evil one but the majority of the action was not in the operation room.

It was devoid of the usual meteor shower or other external threat found in many movies and focused on the personal conflicts.

Spaceflight IC-1 (1965)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Sometimes if you don't have the correct budget for your screenplay then it's best to just put the project on hold until you can raise more money. This British science-fiction has a pretty good story but sadly very little to nothing is done with it. Earth is pretty much on its dying legs when a group of people are sent in a spaceship to find another planet. The only catch is that it's going to take twenty-five years to get there and within the first year the crew grow tired of the rather mean captain so a mutiny takes place. Okay, this story might have worked had it been written better but there's also the problem with the sets. These sets aren't quite on the same level as PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE but not for a single second do you really feel like you're in outer space and the lack of anything technical on this ship tells you that this journey wasn't going to last very long. Also, you have to wonder why these people were picked to go find this new planet and especially since they're all rather boring. The screenplay has a good idea but sadly the writers do very little with it. The majority of the time the people are just sitting around being asked whose side they're on, if they'd take part in a mutiny and whether or not the ship should be turned around. None of this is all that entertaining and it doesn't help that the performances are on the weak side. SPACEFLIGHT IC-1 could certainly be remade and I think the basic story is interesting enough to where a talented director and writer could do something more with it. Pay attention to the first funeral sequence where the words spoken are the lyrics from The Byrds' "Turn, Turn, Turn." How this happened and what the story to this is something I'd like to hear more about.