It’s time for a film that mixed in the themes of sci-fi with temptation and the importance of willpower. You may think that you don’t need any willpower in space because you’ll just be with your friends but what if you run into aliens? The characters didn’t think about that and so unfortunately you’ve got yourself a very weak group right here. All they do is hold each other back which is definitely not good since negative peer pressure isn’t exactly helping things. The film has an interesting idea and reminds me of Star Trek a lot. That being said, I didn’t think it succeeded nearly as well as it could have thanks to the characters not being so good. That really makes a big difference in the end.

The film starts off by introducing us to the main crew as they are heading into space to check out the 7th planet. Unfortunately they all black out at the same time. When they wake up, a whole lot of time has passed but hey they have made it to their destination. Instead of a dead planet though, they’re on a pretty nice one that even has houses and stuff. It’s all really weird but they start investigating. The weirdest thing? Girls from their past have started to show up. It’s hard to say how they arrived in space before them but the researchers are pretty hyped. Can they keep their head focused on the task at hand though?

Okay so naturally this is already looking bad for the scientists but it gets worse. Early on they are able to figure out that obviously the girls are not real. Some kind of entity is using their memories to get to them and make sure they either don’t leave the planet or that they take it with them. This should make the whole thing fail right off the bat but instead they are just so happy to see these ladies around that they ignore their senses the whole time. Talk about acting crazy right? It’s a really bad look for them but also I didn’t like that the entity doesn’t have much of a plan for a while there.

Towards the very and I mean very end of the movie the villain finally starts some sabotage attempts and everything but it’s way too little too late. Taking them all out early on would have been super easy. The film has a nice twist ending at least but for the most part you’re just wondering what the point of all this is. If you have as much power as the entity and it clearly had a ton, then you should just take the humans out. They all should be getting bumped off with how weak willed they are. Turn this into the first space based horror film as the girls separate the guys and then take them down.

Yes I know there have been other space based horror films but none quite like this. It would really be about the characters being unable to confront their past and fears so they are easily overpowered. Then just have one or two characters who don’t fall into the trap and actually stand by their guns. That would definitely be the best way to handle this. This gets worse when you realize that the entity actually has creatures and stuff at the ready but doesn’t bring them out until later on. I know the main plan was to take control of the human bodies and use them but why not do that right from the start?

The entity clearly has enough power to easily knock everyone out while they were on the spaceship and they were apparently knocked out for a very long time. If you can do that from long range then you can probably do that from short range as well right? So just do it again and keep doing it as long as you need to in order to take over the body. Now it’s possible there is some restriction that the film mentions about his needing to be right next to the victim or to be in contact for this to work. I don’t think so but throwing that out there in case I’ve forgotten something but even then, knocking them out first makes the most sense.

Ah well, while the film may not be super exciting or action packed, I still enjoyed the writing. It has that old school dialogue that I always tend to enjoy and of course the pacing is solid. It’s fast and goes by real quickly. You definitely aren’t wasting any time here and even if I didn’t think the film was all that good, I like the vibes. The idea of going to a planet where you have to literally face off against your memories is interesting. I think a better film could easily do wonders with this kind of premise. Unfortunately it just ended up being wasted here. So you can watch it to think about the premise or skip it, it’s really on the fence.

Overall, Journey to the Seventh Planet is not the most exciting film. It would have been nice if the characters could have had a bit more agency here and not just fallen for their desires the whole time. After a ton of in fighting and everything they eventually get their act together but it took too long and by all rights they should have been dead by then. So I’m definitely massively skeptical about the whole thing. I was entertained at least but yeah this could have been more dynamic. Have the girls start bumping the guys off or something to increase the drama like I mentioned earlier. Now that would have been interesting. Instead you are just reminded how the average guy in these old films was super desperate and seeing a girl was enough to shake him to the core. They are definitely not ready for deep space and any tough alien would immediately be taking them down for the count. They were literally not built for this.

Overall 5/10