"Operation Ganymed" or "Helden, verloren im Staub der Sterne" is a West German film that is mostly in German and was made back in 1977, so it will have its 40th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Rainer Erler and it is one of his most known works. This is certainly also the case because the cast is outstanding for a film from that time. You can't really do much better than have Frank, Laser, Prochnow, Friedrichsen and Gärtner in your film. I will not say a whole lot about the plot other than that this is entirely science fiction with occasional thriller and drama moments. It is about an expedition to the planet Jupiter, but it's not about this one being successful or unsuccessful as we find that out early in the film already. It is all about what happens when the crew actually manages to return back to Earth years after everybody realized they had actually dies up in space.
I personally thought from reading the title that this was some medical-themed thriller involving scandal and politics, but it has nothing to do with that and Ganymed stands for something entirely different. I like some of the actors in the cast and I think they are pretty talented, but it's a bit of a problem that they are in astronaut uniform for a large part of the film here and that stands a way in terms of showing us all their range. So does the script. I may be a bit biased as SciFi has always been one of my least favorite genres, but I thought the initially good idea here does not do too much in the end because there is not enough love to detail. The film runs for 120 minutes (although there are shorter versions out there) and it dragged quite a lot. Certainly a wasted opportunity. The actors and premise are much better than the actual outcome here. Only worth for the biggest fans of space-themed films. I give it a thumbs-down.
I personally thought from reading the title that this was some medical-themed thriller involving scandal and politics, but it has nothing to do with that and Ganymed stands for something entirely different. I like some of the actors in the cast and I think they are pretty talented, but it's a bit of a problem that they are in astronaut uniform for a large part of the film here and that stands a way in terms of showing us all their range. So does the script. I may be a bit biased as SciFi has always been one of my least favorite genres, but I thought the initially good idea here does not do too much in the end because there is not enough love to detail. The film runs for 120 minutes (although there are shorter versions out there) and it dragged quite a lot. Certainly a wasted opportunity. The actors and premise are much better than the actual outcome here. Only worth for the biggest fans of space-themed films. I give it a thumbs-down.