''The Mystery of the Third Planet'' (russian: Тайна третьей планеты, ''Tayna tretyey planety''), aka ''The Secret of the Third Planet'' is a 1981
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
traditionally animated feature film
A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...
directed by
Roman Kachanov and produced by the
Soyuzmultfilm
Soyuzmultfilm ( rus, Союзмультфи́льм, p=səˌjʉsmʊlʲtˈfʲilʲm , ''Union Cartoon'') (also known as SMF Animation Studio in English, Formerly known as Soyuzdetmultfilm) is a Russian animation studio based in Moscow. Launched in ...
studio in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
. It is based on a
children's
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person young ...
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
novella "''Alice's Travel''" by Kir Bulychev, from ''
Alisa (Alice) Selezneva'' book series.
The movie is considered a
cult classic
A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...
in Russia and was included in various lists of the best animated films and science fiction films. A shortened
novelization of the film was written by Bulychev himself; a
diafilm and a number of video games were based on ''The Mystery of the Third Planet;'' and
spiritual successor film ''
Alice's Birthday
''Alice's Birthday'' (russian: Де́нь рожде́ния Али́сы, translit. Den' rozhdeniya Alisy), is a 2009 Russian traditionally animated children's science fiction film, directed by Sergey Seryogin and produced by Master-fil ...
'' was released in 2009.
Plot
Captain Zelyony, Professor Seleznyov and his daughter
Alisa Selezneva
Alisa Selezneva or Seleznyova (Russian: Алиса Селезнёва) is the main character of the series of children's science fiction books by Russian writer Kir Bulychev. The first book with Alisa Selezneva was published in 1965, and the ser ...
set out from Earth aboard the Pegas (Pegasus) starship, seeking out new animal species for the Moscow Zoo. Visiting the Moon as a resting point, Seleznyov meets his friend, Gromozeka the alien archaeologist, who advises him to turn to the Planet of Two Captains, a huge museum dedicated to Captains Kim and Buran who went around the whole universe on their ship, the Blue Seagull, for useful information on where the rare animals live. Doctor Verkhovtsev, the director of the museum, is seen visiting the moon as well; however, he avoids Gromozeka.
On the Planet of two Captains, the heroes meet Verkhovtsev and ask him to show them the Captain's diaries for directions to find rare animals. But the doctor behaves suspiciously: he refuses to show them the diaries and starts spying on the expedition.
Visiting the planet Bluk, the heroes make some valuable purchases, and found out about Chatterbirds — a special kind of birds who could imitate human speech and fly in open space. The heroes found out that they went extinct, and the one responsible for their extinction was no one else that Doctor Verkhovtsev. Later, Alisa and Seleznyov spot the Doctor himself on the planet, but an unknown fat alien encounters them and dismisses their claims. A secretive local person, having heard about the heroes' intentions to find a Chatterbird, tells them that he once saved an injured Chatterbird and refused to give it away to the man suspiciously similar to the Doctor. Since he's too afraid to keep the Chatterbird for now, he gives it to the heroes for free. On the way back to the ship, the heroes are ambushed, but manage to defeat their opponents. The fat alien, named Jolly Man U, appears as well; he gifts a diamond-shelled tortoise to the heroes and attempts to get the Chatterbird, but to no avail.
Soon the bird in question starts talking, and it is found out that it belongs to the captain Kim, who apparently went missing. Having listened to the speech of the Chatterbird, the Pegas crew heads for the Medusa system. On the road, the heroes get a SOS signal from the planet Shelezyaka, a planet that is populated only by robots, who recently started malfunctioning. It is then revealed that the robots once helped the Chatterbird as well, and also that the Doctor visited the planet as well and found out about this. All the malfunctioning happened shortly after the Doctor left off: as a revenge, he put diamond dust into the grease that the robots used.
Exploring the three-planet Medusa system, the heroes pass the inhospitable first planet and find mirage-projecting stones at the second planet, who depict the Blue Seagull — a spaceship of Captains Kim and Buran. On the third planet, however, the heroes experience some adventures with the local flora and fauna, and get some clues that the Blue Seagull can be somewhere there. Later, Alisa finds strange mirror-like flowers. After the heroes transport them to the Pegas, they found out that the flowers had been recording everything that was happening in front of them, and upon being picked up, they started deteriorating and depicting what they recorded in reverse. Watching the flowers, the heroes find out that both Verkhovtsev and Jolly Man U were on the planet, and they were cooperating as space pirates. Pretty soon, the tortoise destroys the flowers, and Zelyony finds out that the tortoise actually was a spying device that helped the pirates to track down the heroes. In attempt to fly in a safe place, Pegas falls in a trap. Seleznyov and Zelyony are captured by Verkhovtsev and Jolly Man U, while Alisa manages to escape. She then finds out that Captain Buran also landed on the planet — together with Doctor Verkhovtsev, but, apparently, not the same one who trapped her comrades.
The Blue Seagull appears to have been caught in the same trap that Pegas landed in. It is then revealed that Captain Kim was trapped in his spaceship by pirates, who wanted to get his formula of absolute fuel. However, after the pirates took heroes as hostages and threaten to murder them, Kim, not having the strength to hold in anymore, exits the ship, encounters and disarms the pirates on his own. Pretty soon, Buran and the other Doctor Verkhovtsev arrive and help him, and the pirates get clearly outmatched. With two Verkhovtsevs being at the same place now, one of them exposes the other one as Glot the space pirate (who immediately attempts suicide, but is exposed by Jolly Man U just to be feigning death), reveals that Glot posing as him was the one responsible for all the crimes, and confesses that Glot and Jolly Man U's previous interest in the Captains' diaries made him suspect the heroes back at the museum. Buran also points out that the Chatterbird's previous owner, knowing the bird's lines about the Medusa system, was the one who directed him and the real Verkhovtsev there.
After everything is settled down, the heroes make Jolly Man U open the trap and capture him and Glot. With the commotion around Gromozeka suddenly appearing late to the call to save the day, Jolly Man escapes, but is captured by a local bird of prey and carried away to the nest. In the end, the captains and the Doctor take away from the planet, and the main protagonists are returning to Earth with captured Glot and with the animals they collected.
Creators
International broadcast
Home video and English adaptations
The film was adapted twice for the US market. It was first brought over as a video release in 1987, with dubbed voices. The second time, it was released in the 1990s as part of
Mikhail Baryshnikov's ''
Stories from My Childhood
Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Soviet Latvian-born Russian-American dancer, choreograp ...
'' series. This series consisted of films that were bought by California-based company Films by Jove from
Soyuzmultfilm
Soyuzmultfilm ( rus, Союзмультфи́льм, p=səˌjʉsmʊlʲtˈfʲilʲm , ''Union Cartoon'') (also known as SMF Animation Studio in English, Formerly known as Soyuzdetmultfilm) is a Russian animation studio based in Moscow. Launched in ...
for the international market. Over $1.5 million was spent by this company restoring the prints, adding new music and redubbing the films with American actors. This version of the film was named ''Alice and the Mystery of the Third Planet'' and has been released on VHS as well as on a 1999 DVD collection with several other film
The film has been released on DVD several times (the latest release, which featured rather misleading cover art, was in October 200
. The original Russian version with English subtitles is here
The Films by Jove version of the film has been criticized by some of those who saw the original for adding many extra dialogue lines, shortening the film, and replacing the unique synthesizer music by Alexander Zatsepin.
The original film has been released on several DVD editions in Russia, including a newly restored one by Krupnyy Plan.
Awards
*
1982 in film, 1982 —
USSR State Prize
The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, Gosudarstvennaya premiya SSSR) was the Soviet Union's state honor. It was established on 9 September 1966. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, t ...
Games
* In 2005 an arcade
platform game
A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...
was made by the company
Akella based on the film, called "Alice's Space Adventure".
* An
adventure game was released in the same year called "Alice's Journey", also produced by Akella (but developed by "Step Creative Group").
Shootings
This was the fourth film using
traditional drawn animation directed by
Roman Kachanov, who served as the art director and/or animator on over 30 animated movies. Kachanov's best-known works, (
''The Mitten'',
''Gena the Crocodile'',
''Cheburashka'',
''Shapoklyak'' and others) were shot in
stop motion
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...
(volume) animation.
The characters were designed by Natalya Orlova. Her daughter, the actress Ekaterina Semyonova, said that Alice was based on her, and her father, (the director Tengiz Semyonov), was the prototype for Captain Zelyonyy.
Music for the movie was written by
Aleksandr Zatsepin
Aleksandr Sergeyevich Zatsepin (russian: Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Заце́пин; born 10 March 1926) is a Soviet and Russian composer, known for his soundtracks to movies, notably comedies directed by Leonid Gaidai. People's ...
. According to Zatsepin, original records of music in his record library didn't remain.
The production of this picture took four years.
International release
The animated film was twice released in the USA. The first dubbing, ("Mystery of the Third Planet"), came out on video in 1987. Alice's name was changed to Christine, and overall the translation had little in common with the original. Consequently, this legally-sourced version is often mistaken for a bootlegged edition.
The second version, ("Alice and the Mystery of the Third Planet"), was released in the 1990s by the Films by Jove company. In this version, the translation is much closer to the original, though a large amount of dialogue which was not in the original was also added. In this version, the soundtrack was replaced and about 6 minutes were cut out.
Kirsten Dunst
Kirsten Caroline Dunst (; born April 30, 1982) is an American actress. She made her acting debut in the short ''Oedipus Wrecks'' directed by Woody Allen in the anthology film '' New York Stories'' (1989). She then gained recognition for her ro ...
was the voice of Alice, and
Jim Belushi
James Adam Belushi (; born June 15, 1954) is an American actor. He is best known for the role of Jim on the sitcom ''According to Jim'' (2001–2009). His other television roles include ''Saturday Night Live'' (1983–1985), '' Total Security'' ...
— the Chatterer.
"Alice and the Mystery of the Third Planet" was released in English, Spanish, French, Finnish
and other languages.
See also
*
Guest from the Future
''Visitor from the Future'' (russian: Гостья из будущего, ''Gostya iz budushchego'' lit Guest from the future) is a five-part Soviet children's science fiction television miniseries, made at Gorky Film Studio, first aired in 1985 ...
*
History of Russian animation The history of Russian animation is the visual art form produced by Russian animation makers. As most of Russia's production of animation for cinema and television were created during Soviet times, it may also be referred to some extent as the histo ...
*
List of animated feature films of 1981
A list of animated feature films first released in 1981.
See also
* List of animated television series of 1981
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Animated feature films of 1981
Feature films
1981
Events January
* January 1
** Greece ent ...
*''
Alice's Birthday
''Alice's Birthday'' (russian: Де́нь рожде́ния Али́сы, translit. Den' rozhdeniya Alisy), is a 2009 Russian traditionally animated children's science fiction film, directed by Sergey Seryogin and produced by Master-fil ...
'', a 2009
spiritual successor animated film based on another one of the Alice stories
References
External links
*
**
**
*
* (English adaptation)
VObzor review of the Krupnyy Plan DVD(with screenshots)
''The Mystery of the Third Planet'' at myltik.ru
*
*
*
Games
Official website of ''Alice's Space Adventure''(platform game)
Official website of ''Alice's Journey''(adventure game) (click on first link for English version of official website)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mystery Of The Third Planet, The
Russian and Soviet animated science fiction films
Films by Vladimir Tarasov
Films based on works by Kir Bulychov
Films directed by Roman Abelevich Kachanov
1981 animated films
1981 films
1981 in the Soviet Union
Space adventure films
Space opera films
Space pirates
1980s Russian-language films
Films scored by Aleksandr Zatsepin
Films set in the 22nd century
Films set on fictional planets
Fiction set in the 2180s
Soyuzmultfilm
Films about astronauts