This Fantastic World
Film adaptations of works by famous science fiction writers
Episodes
A certain alien or "Guest" from an unknown planet comes to Earth, where he meets a schoolboy Alyosha. In the course of communication, the characters get into various fantastic plots, taken in this issue from the following works: Jules Verne "From the Cannon to the Moon", H.G. Wells "The Man Who Could Work Miracles", Stanislaw Lem "Journey Fourteen".
The guest and Alyosha continue their research: they find themselves in the refuge of the gods of Ancient Greece, who turned out to be a team of aliens who studied people (the film adaptation of the story "Hello, Parnassus!" by Valentin Berestov), in medieval England ("The Yankees in King Arthur's Court" - based on the book by Mark Twain), to civilization at the bottom of the ocean ("Maracotta Abyss" by Arthur Conan Doyle) and finally to the skies to a scientist in a flying tent (the story "The Winner of the Impossible" by Evgeny Veltistov).
The almanac uses plots from the following works: Alexander Belyaev "Ariel", Alexander Grin "The Shining World", Arkady and Boris Strugatsky "The Kid".
The guest returns after six years of absence. He communicates with Alyosha and his grandmother through the TV. He reports that he has established contact with other worlds. The schoolboy is delighted with this, but the alien reminds him of the problems that can arise in this case. For example, he visualizes excerpts from science fiction works: "Aelita" by Alexei Tolstoy, "The Snow Maiden" by Kir Bulychev and "I Testify" by Eric Russell.
The Guest has a Double, his evil alter ego, which exists autonomously on Earth. They meet in the Soyuz Hotel. The double offers the Guest a certain plan of existence without interference for each other — in different time dimensions. As arguments for his position, he shows the alien a story from Ray Bradbury's story "On the Wanderings of the Eternals and on the Earth": people of the distant future "pull out" from the past the geniuses of their field who are dying and extend their lives for a while so that they have time to write their last painting, novel, etc. The guest refuses, and the Double disappears. The second plot in the issue is taken from the story "The Choice" by Kir Bulychev: the alien refuses to return to his own and stays with his beloved earthling.
The following works were staged in the issue: Ivan Efremov's "Shadow of the Past" is an interesting idea about the possibility of the existence of natural "cameras" capable of capturing ancient life on Earth under certain conditions. Raymond Jones "Noise Level" - a young promising scientist is summoned and provided with a superbly equipped laboratory (as he said: "this is how I always imagined Paradise") and then shows footage where someone invented an anti-gravity machine, but the inventor crashed along with the machine during its tests. The scientist is offered to do work to restore the car.
The crew of an Earth spaceship finds themselves in a distant galaxy on a planet that is very similar to their home world. Astronauts are thinking about how to transmit information about their find to Earth. At the same time, they watch cassettes with recordings. One of them shows a plot from Arthur Porges' short story "A Valuable Commodity" (the crew of a spaceship is faced with a dilemma - to kill an extremely expensive inhabitant of the galaxy or to make contact with him). On the other, there is an adaptation of Oleg Lukyanov's story "The Principle of Uncertainty".
The guest co-host is Yeremey Parnov. The following works were staged in the issue: - Ray Bradbury "I Sing About the Mechanical Body" is a fantastic melodrama about an electronic grandmother; - Ilya Varshavsky "There are no alarming symptoms" – a hundred-year-old scientist was rejuvenated. And at the same time, to increase performance, they cleaned the memory, removing all the unnecessary and negative from it. A human turned out to be a living robot.
Novella "Smile". The film is based on the works of Ray Bradbury.
People living in the future have comfortable cars, obedient robots, beautiful houses. Only books are missing in these houses. Books are declared enemies to be destroyed... The issue was created on the basis of the following works: Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451°" and E. Ludwig's "The Little Criminal", connected by a similar initial situation: in order to facilitate the control of the country, people are forbidden to read, information can only be obtained from unprinted mass propaganda media and by ear from the boss. But among people, including at the very top, there is always a "black sheep".
Air Force colonel, former astronaut Greg Darwin, is visited by his old friend, Johnny. After talking, Greg reveals to Johnny a secret from his past. While serving in space intelligence, Darwin, along with another astronaut, Dick, was sent on a secret mission to a planet that had experienced a devastating nuclear war. On the instructions of the command, Greg and Dick had to find the remaining weapons on a depopulated planet, which had no analogues on Earth yet... Fragments of the stories by R. Sheckley "The Riot of the Rescue Boat" and R. Bradbury "Rust" are staged.
The issue is dedicated to the relationship between robots and humans. The following works have been filmed: Alexander Belyaev "Open Sesame!!": the story of how a thief disguised as a robot servant robbed a venerable aristocrat with the elegance of Arsène Lupin. Isaac Asimov "Liar!": a story about a robot that could read minds and turned out to be the most human among people. Fredrik Chilander "The Trial": about how the multiplied robots, which have almost replaced humans, clear their living space: "set up", arrange a formal trial and execute the last people.
A gloomy and hungry world after a nuclear war. The new authorities, who manage the distribution of miserable food rations to the survivors, prey on a half-mad old man, the last and too talkative witness to a prosperous pre-war life.
Based on the stories by Kir Bulychev "Summer Morning", "The Ability to Throw the Ball". An ordinary person may not be ready for the appearance of artificial unusual abilities.
An adaptation of fragments of Robert Sheckley's short story "Ghost V". Two friends founded a company to clean up planets. As long as they cleaned the planets of garbage, everything was going well. But one day they were asked to clear the new planet of ghosts... Tell me what two not very lucky specialists in improving the natural environment can do if all the worst childhood fears come to life on the planet where they have gone. And not just come to life, but also kill.
A young scientist Matt writes a dissertation on the topic "The Psychodynamics of Witchcraft" and tries to prove that the phenomena described in the historical witch trials cannot exist. But one day he meets a young village girl Ebi, who has very specific supernatural abilities (telekinesis, teleportation, telepathy), which at first manifest themselves not quite consciously and impulsively. James studies the phenomenon, teaches the girl to use her abilities more controllably, and does it on his own scientific head. Since the girl fell in love with him and is not going to let go, and he himself turned out to be not indifferent to her, although he is afraid of her and seems to have no intention of marrying anyone. This is where the clash of feelings, reason and excitement of the scientist begins with the spontaneity of the "sorceress", who is fully aware of her power.
