To me, this movie is perfection.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

A lot of the other reviews here express a lot of hope for the Russian- language version of this film, an English-dubbed version re-edited by Roger Corman not having apparently been very good. Roger Corman did ruin some good things in his time, but in this case I think having watched the Russian-language version that what he had to work with wasn't much good in the first place. First off, this film definitely has a state-sponsored message to get across. There were many Soviet films that were just there for art and entertainment, and there were message-delivering films that still managed to do it in some style. This is neither. We have here an imagined version of how the space race will go, with friendly, reasonable cooperative Soviets getting spurned by opportunistic, business-minded Americans more concerned with winning than with safety. Eventually the Americans are won over to the Soviet way, and we end with an exhortation to the younger generation to continue the conquest of space. This is interesting as a historical curio, though, and that's it. The acting is wooden. Some impressive space visuals don't make up for the fact that there is almost no plot to keep events moving across the short running time, and the characters are so flay that they are almost undifferentiated. It's basically a feature-length promo for the Soviet space program, and it's definitely filmed that way.

Battle Beyond the Sun was a sci-fi adventure that was created by Roger Corman's American International Pictures when they edited a Soviet sci-fi film into something friendly to the American drive-in. Seemingly, the Russian original was quite sober and serious-minded, while it referenced the cold war and portrayed the Soviets as fair-minded and reasonable and the Americans as underhand idiots. AIP figured that this very un-American message wouldn't translate into dollars, so they re-wrote it changing the super-powers into fictional states known as the North Hemis and the South Hemis. They also removed much of the more serious material and added some alien monsters to liven things up. What remains is that the two competing states are in a space race to be the first to land on Mars. I can't comment on the original version as I have never seen it but this version isn't too good. The story seems – perhaps unsurprisingly given its genesis – a bit muddled. It's not really helped by the fact that given this is a story about a journey to Mars; they don't actually ever get there!But perhaps the thing that stands out the most about this one is the fact that this cut was helmed by Francis Ford Coppola (under the pseudonym Thomas Colchart). In fairness, there are no signs of Coppola's massive talent here. This was clearly very much a work experience gig for him. The best aspects of the whole thing come from things from the production values of the original movie. There is decent model and set design here. But on the whole, it's a pretty lacking film.

As everyone already knows, Roger Corman got his hands on an ambitious Russian space opera and had a then unknown Francis Ford Coppola drastically re-edit it into a 64 minute piece of pure schlock complete with poor dubbing, cornball narration, and, most notoriously, a couple of cheesy looking monsters that hilariously resemble male and female genitalia. The sequence with these two ridiculous creatures kicks the picture over the delightfully campy goal post as these obscene things engage in a pathetic fight for a whopping two minutes. As for the rest, the special effects are quite good and convincing for their time, the sets are likewise impressive, the space rescue story manages to generate real suspense and excitement, and there are moments of striking visual splendor that neatly predate "2001: A Space Odyssey." Moreover, the central premise about two great nations fiercely competing against each other over which one will reach Mars first nicely captures the tension of the Cold War era. A fun cheapie quickie take on a foreign sci-fi feature.

I'm giving this movie a 5/5 because it's impossible to judge as it exists today.NEBO ZOYOT is the proper name for a pioneering 1959 movie made in the Soviet Union as an official state-sponsored arts project under the direction of Mikhail Karzhukov & Aleksandr Kozyr. By all accounts it was a breathtaking, visually intimidating project dominated by special effects work the likes of which had not been seen before. Roughly telling the story of a Russian space crew sent to find out the fate of an earlier mission to intercept an alien probe on collision with earth, the movie combined DR. STRANGELOVE anticipating interior sets, functional looking science fiction props & space wear, and miniature model effects that make the George Pal & Captain Video oriented Americanized science fiction of the day look like laughable kitsch. Even the trend-setting science fiction work of Italian director Antonio Margheriti looks klunky and flimsy alongside of what is left of the movie.There are reports of the original film running over 2 hours, a grand celebration of the forward thinking ideals of Soviet Russia where technology, human ingenuity, and tightly controlled communist propaganda promised a brave new world. Fortunately or not, Roger Corman anticipated the fall of the Eastern Bloc, managed to catch a screening of the film, and was talented enough to realize that nothing of it's like had ever been seen in the west before. Corman wasn't necessarily a "good" filmmaker but he had an eye for talent and bought the North American distribution rights for the film, determined to wow audiences with a science fiction spectacle the likes had never been seen.Bringing in a young director/editor of promise named Francis Coppola, Corman oversaw a "redefinition" of NEBO ZOVYOT into a standardized American-ish Sci Fi potboiler about an astronaut crew sent into space to do battle with various space monsters. Corman had Coppola jettison half of the film's somewhat ponderous setup depicting the preparation & departure of the alien probe from it's home world -- one of the most visually striking sequences ever filmed -- opting instead for "new" inserted footage depicting the space monsters doing battle on the hull of our heroic space ship.Sigh ... the result is more than a bit of a mess that manages to water down the impact of the original material, complete with an illogical story arc that is mostly explained in voice-over narration & awkwardly dubbed English dialog concocted from whole cloth and edited in to fit the on screen action (more or less). The monsters are absurd: One looks like a giant disembodied vulva bedecked with a row of razor sharp teeth, and the looped footage of space suit wearing astronauts standing around -- apparently under the influence of 1g gravity -- does little but elicit snickers of laughter from viewers who get enough pure oxygen every day. Somehow he made this movie look stupid.Yet there are segments where the original Russian made vision shines through: The opening launch sequences have a kind of majesty to them that Gerry Anderson would never be able to quite achieve with his THUNDERBIRDS creations, the interiors of the space ships all look spot on real enough for Mercury program era technology, and the Russian segments of the film have a texture to them that is mesmerizing ... And make the inserted Coppola-made footage seem all the more absurd. Today it seems hard to understand why Mr. Corman would have advocated trying to fix what ain't broke in such a hamfisted manner, but that's 1962 for you, and fortunately the visual power of the surviving Russian segments worked to cement the film with a fervent cult following that allowed even some of it to survive for forty-five years.Hopefully with a 50th anniversary of the original film soon coming a restoration effort can be made to show the film with only it's original Russian segments & appropriate language subtitles, like has recently been done with FIRST SPACESHIP ON VENUS and Pavel Klushantsev's PLANETA BUR, both of which have turned up on excellent DVDs that show the movies without Mr. Corman's interference. Retromedia shows the film under it's Americanized title BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN on a double movie DVD with the Italian space operetta STAR PILOT, and while contemporary audiences may not "get" the funky 60s approach to science fiction I cannot recommend it highly enough.5/10