Doppelganger

The fourth movie of my marathon is a british classic, some say cult, movie from 1969.  Produced by Gerry Anderson (the guy behind Thunderbirds), and better known perhaps by it's american release name, Journey to the Other Side of the Sun.

Now, the cool thing about these old movies is the lack of CGI, here you have exploding scale models, big sets, and alternate uses for DIY material...

Plot

When the Sun Probe, an unmanned vessel, detects a new planet in our solar system, a joint venture between NASA and Eurosec send out a vessel to investigate.
This vessel, the Phoenix, makes the six week journey past the sun and to the new world, but meets with an accident upon arriving at their destination.  The pilot, Ross, survives relatively unscathed, but the scientist Kane, sustains heavy injuries he will later succumb to.

The planet turns out to be a perfect mirror of Earth, down to the smallest details, but everything is in reverse as if seeing in a mirror.  Ross wants to collect the Phoenix from orbit to definitly prove this, after convincing the mission administrator Webb.

Opinion

Albiet nearly 40 years old, this movie is actually better then some of the stuff they turn out in recent times.
I kind of like the old style of special effects (and material of it was later re-used in the UFO supermarionation series), it has a certain charm to it.

While perhaps not the greatest way of telling the story, with the dialogues at times being, well, klunky, it had a great concept back then and stunning props.

Rating: 6.5 / 10