Search - The Red Stuff - The True Story of the Russian Race for Space on DVD

Far from the "True Story"

Laurenc SVITOK | Bratislava Slovakia | 02/23/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I was quite looking forward to this material (VHS)expecting some consolidated story of the early soviet manned programms. Date of release -2003- evoked the hope of seeing rare footages because the story is quite well known - not only never secret propaganda films from triumphal welcome of cosmonauts by top rank party leaders. I am heavily disapointed. The "story" is a compilation of several inteviews with first soviet cosmonauts revealing nothing new, not even K.Feoktistov's dislike of Comunist Party and G.Titov's not being happy not getting the first Vostok seat. The footages used are not always related to Vostok, using Soyuz footage when speaking of Vostok is really for beginners only. Author's added commentary on last moments of V.Komarov (screaming, accusing ...) is based on fairy tale, interestingly, here he did not bother to ask the interviewed cosmonauts.

The bonus part of the tape, The Starman, the life story of Y.Gagarin, is at least a content story using original footages from Vostok programm. On the other hand, majority of interviewed people remained nameless, you see somebody speak but you do not know who it is.

If you want to know the true story of the soviet early manned space program read better some books, you find a lot of excellent ones in Amazon. This compilation is far from it ..."

NO Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova WHY????

Craig A. SAUNDERS | woodbridge, va | 02/23/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Interestly the DVD surprised me with the ommission of Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova the first women in space there was no mention of her except in passing WHY?,it would been nice to see the film footage of her in training and in space,to add a further insult they mentioned the first dog in space with film footage but not her???.Other that that this DVD has put a piece of puzzle together about the Russian Space program that was hidden from the west and also the Russian public.,I would have like to see more interviews with some of the other Cosmonauts and find out what happened to some of the one's that washed out of the program .The interviews are candid and they talk about some of the problem with the program .The added bonus is a documentary about Yuri Gargain that is worth the price of this DVD..I give 4 stars because of the ommision of Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova.I hope the producers go back and update this DVD."