Strange New Worlds: Signals – A Space Adventure
On the cusp of the new millennium, bringing with it the hope of a new era, searching for signs of intelligent life in the outer solar system the spaceship Ikaros is lost near Jupiter after encountering a meteor storm, the Space Security Centre unable to track its orbit or determine whether it has been destroyed, making a rescue mission unlikely to succeed.
Regardless, the Laika is despatched, though concerns are expressed about the crew, some newly assigned and lacking experience, some thought too old for the mission, and with Pawel’s lover Krystyna having been aboard the Ikaros he may be too personally involved to perform effectively, Veikko approaching his command with resignation rather than optimism.
Forming part of Eureka’s new four film box set Strange New Worlds, Signals – A Space Adventure (Signale – Ein Weltraumabenteuer) is presented from a new 6K scan of the original 70mm camera negative, directed by Gottfried Kolditz and based on Carlos Rasch’s 1961 novel Asteroidenjäger (Asteroid Hunter), produced by the East German studio DEFA and released in 1970, taking a more relaxed approach to space travel than The Silent Star, an established fact of modern future life.
The disaster of the Ikaros a frenzy of disjointed shots captured by a tumbling camera, trying to express what the limited effects cannot, the modelwork is exemplary in terms of design and execution, perhaps unable to match the visuals of 2001: A Space Odyssey but certainly influenced by it in the approach to zero gravity, the shape of the sets and the costumes of the crew once they depart from the strange beach party games of Earth, while the animated expository sequence may have been inspired by Woody Woodpecker’s similar cameo in Destination Moon.
With aspects of Solaris in the questioning of purpose, the seeking of reasons and answers in a cold universe, when signals are detected in a range that cannot penetrate the atmosphere, presumably intended only for space travellers, Veikko (Piotr Pawlowski) says any advanced species should be peaceful by default, a rational man who earlier stated that as computers cannot take responsibility only humans can make decisions, Signals feeling simultaneously of the early sixties and the science fiction of a later era, adrift in space yet ahead of its time.
Strange New Worlds: Science Fiction at DEFA also includes The Silent Star (Der schweigende Stern), Eolomea, In the Dust of the Stars (Im Staub der Sterne), animated shorts The Robot and Janna and the Little Star, commentaries, archive interviews, newsreels and featurettes, a video essay and new interviews with science fiction scholar Mark Bould and Soviet cinema expert Claire Knight.
Strange New Worlds: Science Fiction at DEFA is available on Blu-ray from Eureka now
