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English and Spanish subtitles. Ikarie XB-1 is a 1963 Czechoslovak science fiction film directed by Jindřich Polák. It was also edited and dubbed into English for release in the USA, where it is known by its alternate title Voyage to the End of the Universe. Ikarie XB-1 was a hit at the 1963 Trieste Science Fiction Film Festival and it is now widely regarded as one of the best Eastern Bloc science fiction films of the era, boasting impressive production design, above-average special effects, a strong ensemble cast and an intelligent screenplay (although much of the subtlety of the original is lost in the English-language version). While it shows some influence from earlier American ventures such as Forbidden Planet, the film was also influential in its own right—critics have noted a number of similarities between Ikarie XB-1 and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and it is believed to have been one of the many 'space' genre films that Kubrick screened while researching 2001.
