The greatest movie ever made..!

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

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.

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.

1997: after a catastrophic atomic war, the Earth has divided into two rival nations, the North Hemis and the South Hemis, both sides locked in a battle to be the first to land on Mars.Battle Beyond the Sun started life as a state-sponsored Russian sci-fi movie called Nebo Zovyat— a breath-taking, prophetic vision of the Soviet Union's journey into space; in the disrespectful hands of opportunistic producer Roger Corman and a young and eager-to-please Francis Ford Coppola, what was once awe-inspiring becomes laughable, the pair badly dubbing and drastically re-editing the original two hour epic to a mere 64-minutes of clumsy space melodrama (albeit it with impressive effects), 'enhanced' by silly inserts of space monsters that look suspiciously like genitalia.It's dull going as the two nations race to the 'Red Planet' only to fail with the finishing line in sight, and the feel-good moral of the tale—that rival nations must co-operate if they want to achieve truly great things—does little to compensate for the sheer shoddiness of the whole cut-and-paste approach and the frustrating fact that the wonders of Mars remain unseen.

I have just posted a synopsis for this film and noted the major differences between the original Soviet production and the American release.Although reported to be over 2 hours long my fully subtitled version is only 67 minutes.I suspect that the a lot of the Soviet propaganda supposed to be in the film was removed before the subtitled version came out.If anyone wants more details of the differences between the two films don't hesitate to contact me. Also if anyone has a longer subtitled version of the original film I would also love to know how to source it