You won't be disappointed!

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

"Ni panda, na na ko!" I offer all the diamonds seen in this movie to the one who tells me what it means. It's the first replica of that alien language spoken by the sick old man of leukemia, for which all the characters are starting to function and the final product is this film. We see stamped cardboard decorations which are not great, space suits of material like garbage bags, the same. The coolest element to see is the beautiful Swedish actress Essy Persson, 26 years old at the time when the film was made (1967). Without the sex appeal of her body, the movie would be totally impossible to watch. That's why 5 stars.

MISSION STARDUST is a 1967 Italian film based on a popular German science fiction novella series, of which I've never heard. It starts with the impression that we're settling in for a heady (if horribly inaccurate) science fiction film and makes a drastic turn into action territory in the second act. The title refers to the space mission launching at the start of the film where a team of astronauts, led by Major Perry Rhodan (Lang Jeffries), is being sent to the moon to harvest rare metals that have been discovered under the surface of the Newcomb crater. What Rhoden and HQ don't know is that a powerful (?) crime boss named Arkin (Pinkas Braun) has an inside man amongst the Stardust crew to report back to him in hopes of hijacking these valuable metals. None of this matters though, as the Stardust is intercepted in lunar orbit and loses contact with Earth as it's forced to land. After touching down, Rhoden and his crew discover the cause behind the interference: an alien craft. They're introduced to Crest (John Karlsen) and Thora (Essy Persson), aliens from the planet Arkon whose ship broke down and they were forced to land on Earth's moon. Crest is unable to repair the ship because he's fallen ill with leukemia, but that's all right because Rhoden informs him of a doctor on Earth who has conveniently enough developed a leukemia serum that can cure him. Can Rhoden and his crew overcome their differences with this alien race long enough to cooperate and save them? Will Arkin eliminate them all and steal the advanced Arkon technology?MISSION STARDUST fails on two very important levels: as science fiction and as an action/adventure film. It's far too stupid to be decent science fiction. It started fun enough with psychedelic colors flying behind the opening titles while we're treated to an upbeat pop tune screeching "Seli" that sets the stage for a zany head-trip of an adventure that never comes. But, as "Seli" fades out and the trippy colors are traded for reality, it becomes a very serious science fiction. Tense faces, countdowns, inherent danger. What will become of the Stardust crew? Then stupid peeks its head around the corner. What're they going to the moon for? A metal has been discovered that's denser than cobalt or lithium! For anyone curious, there are loads of elements denser than cobalt and lithium right here on Earth including such obscure metals as nickel, copper, and lead. OK, so no real thought put into the film. Sort of cheapens the "science" part of science fiction but I can appreciate some stupid fun. I loved the miniature work (and there was plenty of it) in this film, and the Arkonite craft is staffed with a crew of lumbering lurch-bots who look like your average spaceman until you remove their helmet and discover the skinned Furby underneath. Details like this make cheap science fiction fun regardless of the dwindling thought behind the script. I mean, these astronauts are supposed to be pretty savvy dudes, right? So it's nonsensical that they're completely unfazed when their lunar rover disintegrates but then baffled at the site of an enormous UFO moments later. I mean, what did they think happened to the rover? Who did they think was responsible for their emergency landing? The giant alien spaceship should be the least surprising thing going on. One astronaut's response to their invitation to this mysterious spacecraft by way of tube elevator:"Quite an elevator, eh, Perry? And up we go to paradise, or possibly hell!"These astronauts, and everyone else in this movie, are dumb. Except maybe Thora. She's cool. She can't be bothered to waste any more time than necessary with these primitive earthlings. She's so advanced that she barely reacts when Major Rhodan (the movie's hero, remember) forces himself on her. You see, she's so advanced that sexuality doesn't register with her; Rhodan sees this as a challenge and starts trying to make out with her, because the first impression of our species Rhodan believes best to give this race of aliens is that of a dog humping your leg. Regardless, he's not the only idiot here. But he's probably the biggest. When it's discovered that Crest is ill with leukemia (his 10,000-year-old race discovered the cure to all diseases… except this one), the plan becomes to bring the aliens to a Dr. Haggard in Mombasa for the cure. The astronauts then land the alien ship 400 miles away from Haggard's location and plan to, I guess, walk there. Or, they would, if their careful plan to not be spotted hadn't failed immediately and they weren't beset by a patrol from the African Federation Army from the moment they set down in the African desert. So now the entire second half of the film has the astronauts battling a vague African military and eventually Arkin and his team, and the film becomes a shoddy action/adventure. One final example of Rhoden's less-than-stellar leadership ability: the astronauts realize they need a vehicle so, rather than find a reputable salesman, he bargains with a shady dude on the street who initially tries to sell them child sex slaves. It fails miserably, and it only gets dumber from there.There's so much to say about this film, I couldn't possibly do it all here. I could go on about how the astronauts are pretty much interchangeable. They're all bland white dudes without personality or distinguishing features of any sort. I haven't mentioned the lame one-liners that come once the astronauts become action heroes (e.g. "His retros failed on him!" when an African thug is tossed by a gravity ray). There's a bunch. MISSION STARDUST is great conversation fodder if you've got friends similarly interested in bad movies. It's not as exciting as it wants to be but it's a fun failure.

Not bad for a movie made 1967 (keep in mind that this was the same time period as the original Star Trek series, whose first season was 1966). Also since the movie was originally filmed in German you'll have to forgive the dubbing which make it look like one of those bad Chinese Kung Fu movies thats been dubbed into English. Although credited with the screenplay I find it hard to believe that Kurt Vogelmann (who wrote some of the Perry Rhodan books) had much in the way to do with the movie. The plot shares some major details of the first two or three Perry Rhodan books, which were more like short stories than full fledged books but takes a few detours to make it fit into a single movie. If you're a fan of the books this is worth a look.

OK - so it's not the "real" Perry Rhodan we Perry Rhodan fans have come to know and love even in the US. But remember, this movie was made in the mid sixties and SFX were not the greatest for an overseas production at that time.I thought the man playing "Perry" was fairly good. I thought the woman playing Thora looked great! I admit the story was heavily changed. Maybe someday we can have a true Perry Rhodan movie.I'd like to see Mystery Science Theater 3000 take a look at this one, but it appears to be unavailable on either VHS or DVD. Who has the rights to VHS/DVD production?By the Way, it also had a release title here in the US as "SOS From Outer Space".