Hey! This is a surprise! I'd made some comments about this film on one of the Space: 1999 boards. Glad to see we can discuss it on its own.
This bit hasn't been here long. And can anyone explain the ending of the film? Does the Dove crash at Eurosec killing everyone (that german woman, and UFOs Lts Ford and Maxwell) and not Webb, and then he's trying to convice the nurse it all happened..... and then tries to kill himself? Or something? Is that it? I'm very confused.....
That's kind of what I got out of it, too. Seems a bit unbelievable that EVERYONE would get killed in that explosive chain reaction at Eurosec, though, but that seems to be what Webb was getting at. I'm not sure if he actually TRIED to kill himself, or if, in a half-delusional state, he was trying to reach his other (alternate) self through the mirror. In any event, he seems to have died, and with him the last shred of evidence about there being twin Earths.
Which is really contrived, if you ask me. It really drives home the question "What was the point of the whole film?"
I wonder if James Cameron saw this film...the initial crash on Alternate Earth resembles the dropship crash in 'Aliens,' and both films share a fiery explosion that launches debris (including a clanging pipe) toward the camera. (In 'Doppleganger,' it's during the Eurosec destruction. In 'Aliens,' it's at the end of the dropship crash, when the dropship hits the atmosphere processor.) Nice pyrotechnics, though, in both films. I've always liked little extra touches like the clanging pipe that make massive explosions seem "up close and personal."
There was a shot of a building going underground......maybe that was the control room Webb and the others were in. I think the main Eurosec building was blown to bits though - I think thats the one that that barrel lands on.....
Apparently on some prints of the film Ross' line about 'There are definitely two planets' can be heard, as Webb focusses on the mirror, and thats what causes him to push himself towards it.... I'm not sure what to make of it.
I love the clangign pipe, as well as that rocket falling and exploding....... but why wasn't it covered over already?
Anyhow, its a great film. If pointless in parts.... 
And wouldn't Poulson know? He wasn't at the Eurosec building at the end, neither was the George Sewell guy.
Quick! Call someone from Technical...we've got a couple holes in the plot that need patching up!
A couple? This movie's riddled with holes! And the ending is very obscure. In fact, the one reason to watch the thing at all is for the scenes with Ed Bishop in them. He just sort of shines as the American, doesn't he? (No, I'm not in the least bit biased!) *grin*
According to Bishop, in a recent magazine article I read, he wasn't originally cast for the role, but was brought in because the actor originally cast was too close in appearance and voice to the actor playing the EUROSEC guy.
One thing that doesn't ring quite true is George Sewell's security officer character killing the traitorous scientist played by Herbert Lom. Its hard to imagine NASA having someone killed for stealing civillian rocket plans.
Well, it was the Cold War when they made it, and it was the existence of the new planet that Lom was killed over. It still didn't make a lot of sense though, like a bunch of other things, like the fact that if Mars has no mirror then how can we travel to it as where does the mirror go to??
The reversal of things seems very arbitrary. We have things like labels and internal organs reversed. Yet the driver's seat in the Ross's car is on the left side, as per English practice. Shouldn't it have been reversed? Then again maybe it was and he was too out of it to notice. For that matter shouldn't the Ross of the inverted world have been opposite handed to the Ross from "our" world ie right handed instead of left handed?
Its interesting that Ross is portrayed as having smacked Lisa around. Rather odd behaviour for the hero of the piece!
I remember seeing the movie originally. Later seeings, it seemed like they reversed the negatives for the mirror Earth scenes to make it look normal, and that the astronaut was off his rocker. Thankfully, in the last seeing (which I have taped into my library), the negatives are correct, showing the reversed lettering as if it was normal, and the astronaut in an "alien" world.
I wonder how good the equipment on the spaceship was if it couldn't tell that "htraE" was inhabited. The only way they prolonged the mystery was crashing in some alien landscape in Mongolia, but once the Mongolian SAR guy identifies himself to Ross, the astronaut begins to wonder if he really did fly to an alien planet. Once he's healing from his wounds, he begins to feel sure of what he did... that he didn't turn around.
But what's weirder is that CESORUE didn't have him write out a statement in his own defence before the inquisition, and complain to him that he wrote his statement backwards! Or that he didn't happen to read equipment labels and notice the problem.
They could at least have scripted it that he had vision problems for a few days and the doctors told him that he'd be able to read fine once his eyes cleared up.
This movie is not the only one to have a story set on the idea of a twin planet of Earth hidden from us behind the Sun. There's also "The Stranger" (1974, starring Glenn Corbett, Sharon Acker and Cameron Mitchell), and the Japanese monster movie "Gamera vs. Guiron".
The Stranger also postulates a roughly equivalent human civilization, with what appears to be a significant variance that dates back at least to the time of the Second World War, if not further.
Gamera vs Guiron postulated a totally alien civilization that was technically more advanced, but apparently fairly devoid of current population.
The movie of which this thread discusses assumes an absolutely identical civilization, right down to the exact crew being launched to a planet spotted using the exact same espionage. Hyperstrings, anyone? (see the Star Trek TNG novel "Dark Mirror")
>>Gamera vs Guiron postulated a totally alien civilization that was technically more advanced, but apparently fairly devoid of current population.
A totally alien civilisation..."without wars, and traffic accidents, and I've been believing it up to this day."
What's with the traffic accidents!?!
I'll shave your head!
Let's watch the kids go to their fate.
They'll disappear without a trace.
It will be days before they're found.
Cornjob will be blamed.
The idea of an opposite orbit counterpart to Earth was also used by Marvel Comics, which had a Counter Earth with considerable similarities to the "real" Marvel Earth, and in John Norman's Gor books, Gor being a primitive planet where women are mostly slaves.
I used to think for many years that this was produced after UFO, but it was filmed a year before our favorite SHADO operatives got their jobs.
Interesting seeing UFO, Doctor Who, and Invaders actors in the same movie.
The scenes of Ross's memories of the crash after he's given a truth serum are shown twice, virtually scene by scene, with the same music. Unneccessary padding.
It was intriguing, though, that he remembers hitting his wife, but then he replaces her image with that pretty security woman.
I first saw this when I was about 10 years old, maybe in 1971 on tv, and the scenes of the Mongolian S&R, and the creepy music freaked me out, as well as Cane's dashing into the mirror at the end.
I checked my dvd store for this, even though I have it on VHS, and was disappointed to see no special features on it at all, so I didn't rent it.
quote:This movie is not the only one to have a story set on the idea of a twin planet of Earth hidden from us behind the Sun. There's also The Stranger (1974, starring Glenn Corbett, Sharon Acker and Cameron Mitchell), and the Japanese monster movie Gamera vs. Guiron.
The main problem is that the writers seem to think that Earth orbits the Sun in a perfect circle. It doesn't, the orbit is elliptical. Meaning that, if a double of Earth existed in our orbit, we would be able to see it. Not to mention the effects of this double Earth would have on the orbits of the other planets, such as Mars and Venus.
Why would just Earth have such a double. Why not the aforementioned other planets as well.
In the end, the guy is killed and the whole matter is just forgotten!? I find it hard to believe that the brain trusts on Earth (both of them) would not send follow up missions to investigate this further.