Space Trip
Entry updated 20 October 2025. Tagged: Film.
Polish animated short film (1961, original title Wycieczka w Kosmos). Studio Miniatur Filmowych. Directed by Krzysztof Dębowski. 10 minutes. Colour.
This was the first of a pair of short animated versions of Stanisław Lem's Ijon Tichy tales, the other being The Trap (1962; original title Pulapka; vt Bezludna Planeta), also directed by Dębowski and discussed below. Space Trip draws upon "Podróż Dwudziesta Trzecia" ["The Twenty-Third Voyage"] from Lem's Sezam i inne opowiadania (coll 1954); trans in The Star Diaries (coll 1976). Both shorts have sound effects but no dialogue.
In Space Trip, a middle-aged man, presumably Ijon Tichy, inflates a Rocket ship then crawls inside – it is little bigger than himself – and launches into the sky. An accident lighting his stove has him crashlanding on another planet: the locals – yellow, vaguely seal-like beings with rectangular heads (see Life on Other Worlds) – prove friendly and there is much bowing. They regularly climb into machines which turn them to dust, which can be transmitted by pipe to a similar device (usually some distance away), where – by cranking a handle – the alien (or a copy thereof – see Identity) emerges (see Matter Transmission). At a wedding ceremony the man helpfully turns one such handle, but slips and turns it a second time, creating two identical grooms (see Matter Duplication). These rivals fight and die; the bride turns her attention to the man, who tries to escape by using one of the machines, with the end result being two versions of the man and ten of the bride. A chase ensues: one man finds his rocket and departs, while the other is used to create nine further clones, one for each bride.
In The Trap the arrival of the same man, but now in the Spaceship equivalent of a camper van (see Transportation), is observed by small red spherical Aliens whose moustaches act as limbs. They rush to their museum where examples of the Solar System's inhabitants are displayed (through which we learn Space Trip was set on Uranus – see Outer Planets), with a gap on that for Earth. When the man leaves to do some landscape painting the aliens enter his ship to investigate and, noticing a poster of a young lady, use it as the model for a skin suit: they crawl inside and attempt seduction, presumably intending to trap Tichy and put him in their museum. Putting on formal clothes, he offers them a drink; but, unused to alcohol (see Drugs), they behave oddly and vanish into a hole in the ground. Bemused, the man departs.
Space Trip is the better of the two shorts, with a more interesting story, slightly superior Humour and some nice backgrounds for Tichy's journey through space; though the aliens have their merits, The Trap loses impetus fairly quickly. [SP]
links
- Internet Movie Database
- Internet Movie Database – Bezludna planeta (The Trap)
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