Operation Ganymede

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Movie
Original title Operation Ganymede
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1977
length 118 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Rainer Erler
script Rainer Erler
music Eugene Thomass
camera Wolfgang Grasshoff
cut Hilwa from Boro
occupation

Operation Ganymed is a German dystopian science fiction film by Rainer Erler from 1977. The film was produced by Pentagramma on behalf of ZDF . It was first broadcast on television on December 11, 1977. Operation Ganymede was shown in theaters under the title Heroes - Lost in the Star Dust from May 30, 1980.

action

In 1991, the surviving astronauts return to Earth on a multi-year international UN "peace mission" only to find that no one is responding to their radio signals.

Your spaceship Ganymed II was one of three spaceships that belonged to the Jupiter mission. Two of the spaceships burned up during a faulty swing-by maneuver in Jupiter's atmosphere and the remaining ship lost part of its crew during a descent to a crater lake on Jupiter's moon Ganymede that was not authorized by the commander . Nevertheless, the crew managed to discover primitive life on Ganymede and to take samples from it.

The last survivors, three Americans, one Western European and one Russian, are approaching orbit around the earth after more than 1500 days in space. The crew are trying to re-establish contact with their mission control, which was torn down more than two and a half years ago. This is due to the fact that the UNO officially declared the mission to have failed several years earlier and therefore no one expected survivors, which the remaining crew does not suspect at first.

When the efforts to establish contact continue to fail and the energy and oxygen reserves are almost exhausted, Commander Mac decides to make an emergency landing by artificially detonating the control capsule (the main part of the spaceship remains in orbit). Although the successful splashdown with the landing capsule in the ocean, but the rescue boat is washed up on a deserted coast, behind which is a desert-like lunar landscape is. With only their emergency rations and almost no drinking water, the astronauts set out to search for inhabited areas. Their hard-hitting march finally leads them to a deserted town, where they can deduce from maps and newspapers that they are on the west coast of Baja California . In addition, the other four astronauts find out that Don actually dragged samples from the crater lake in his supposed "pharmacy bag", whereupon they mistreat him. Ultimately, they decide to continue to the road to San Diego , which turns out to be silted up and apparently abandoned. When they find an airplane wreck that has also been left behind, the suspicion grows in Oss that humanity may have been decimated by a nuclear war and that they are migrating in the direction of the radioactive fallout.

The American Doug, overwhelmed by the recent years of being together and the many negative experiences during the mission and since the landing, tormented by the heat and lack of water, goes crazy and kills the Russian Oss because he believes in his madness that only the Russians could have started the nuclear war. Doug is then shot dead by Commander Mac. The latter, already on the verge of his strength, fired the last remaining flare the following night as a desperate signal of hope; The next morning he accidentally stumbles across the exobiologist Don, who, a bit away from the camp, is tormented in his sleep by visions of nuclear war, and drags him back to the plane wreck, where Steve had remained with the last water supplies, meanwhile from hunger to cannibal and to himself passed away from the bodies of those previously killed. When Mac and Don return, he flees from fear and shame and is found dead by them in the desert the next morning. Mac and Don continue to drag themselves through the desert until Mac dies of exhaustion. The last scene of the film shows the last survivor of the entire mission, Don, already marked by dehydration and delusions, as he stumbles with the last of his strength into the foothills of a Mexican slum; Whether his perception is still intact remains unclear, he apparently left the crater sea samples that had been dragged along for so long somewhere in the desert.

Others

At the beginning of the film you can see original pictures of UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim in the UN General Assembly , which are supposed to represent a minute of silence for the astronauts who were believed to be dead. In addition, several original recordings from various space missions and victory parades have been cut into the film.

Rainer Erler's film is not to be seen primarily as a “space opera”, but as a representation of group dynamics in a situation that is extremely stressful for everyone involved. It is noticeable that in the end the physically and mentally weakest, but also the most mentally flexible participant of the mission survives, while all the others who previously acted more or less strictly according to the regulations or training program were not up to the "unplanned" situations earlier than him .

criticism

"Science fiction film that strips space travel and its heroes of their glory and tries to encourage them to look at technical progress more critically."

- Lexicon of international film

"... The production is not only told in an exciting, well-played and satisfying manner, but also stimulates reflection."

- Film observer , quoted from Hahn / Jansen, p. 666.

"Rainer Erler proves that action films made in Germany can definitely be seen."

- Playboy , quoted from Hahn / Jansen, p. 666.

“Operation Ganymede is no less about Vietnam than about Jupiter's moons. Operation Ganymede is a film about the old game of power, aggression and manipulation - and about the reversal of scientific projects to a propaganda instrument. "

- Johannes Grenzfurthner on ORF FM4

Awards

1978 Best Science Fiction Film of the Year at the Trieste SF Film Festival

DVD release

  • Operation Ganymede . KNM Home Entertainment 2005

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Operation Ganymede. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 22, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ^ Johannes Grenzfurthner on ORF FM4

Web links