Synopsis
An advanced spaceship called Delta is created to establish dialogue between intergalactic civilizations. Soon after an alien journalist boards the ship, she and the captain realize the AI that controls the ship can act on its own.
Delta Space Mission
1984 ‘Misiunea spațială Delta’ Directed by Victor Antonescu, Mircea Toia …
Studio
Country
Language
Alternative Titles
Misión Espacial Delta, Vesmírná mise Delta, Fusée Delta
Genres
Popular reviews
More-
Animation Around the World entry #6
Country: Romania
Language: Romanian
Film: Delta Space Mission (1984)We open with the credits playing to a banger of a prog-rock track, with some beautiful painted landscapes following soon after. The animation is a little rough and simplistic, yes, but the backgrounds are truly fantastic. They’re like the best of the book covers of those amazing 70s and 80s sci-fi novels. There’s some great illustrations, also with some expressionism and Impressionism. I’m a really big fan of intricate, organic-looking patterns and there were a TON in here. Lots of twisting vines and tendrils, fluffy fans and open ferns. The creature design is fairly interesting too. Fans of René Laloux, check this one out.
In terms…
-
It's tempting to just interpret this as a series of psychedelic interludes but I was really impressed by the way the action scenes hang together in contrast with, say, a Ralph Bakshi film or something in that vein. It felt like there was real effort being made to execute the various chases and dogfights in a way that has some kind of physical weight on screen, which is pretty much the opposite of what I expect from a movie like this. The computerized super-brain's plight is also legitimately moving. A great movie to watch from the front row of a movie theater.
-
There's never a moment without wild kinetic activity, which honestly makes me feel pummeled and a bit confused within 20 minutes, but wow, what a work of art the painting and animation are.
There are plot contrivances and there are plot contrivances, but establishing an alien dog sidekick that just happens to eat metal for pleasure and having the main conflict be a robot attack really takes the (robo)cake.
-
Like a weird little space dance. Doused in inky colors and technological babble. The animation of “Romania’s first” is certainly rough for ‘84, but the way its jagged edges taper off into space adds to the charm.
Story-wise, you could probably understand most of it without the dialogue. It seems to favor space dog adventures (xoxo Tin) over AI philosophical romance, but who really minds? So glad Deaf Crocodile brought this back to light because I would have never learned about it otherwise.
-
Any time you wander in blind to something that ends up looking like Fantastic Planet done with magic markers and is scored like the second side of Bowie’s Low crossed with the Look Around You theme? That’s a win!
Found myself ignoring the subtitles entirely and just immersing myself in the animation. Like living in forty different prog rock record covers for an hour.
-
“Something does not compute.”
My favorite part was when the Loch Ness Monster saved Tin. Very cool visually, but it did get a little boring.
-
I couldn't tell you in any detail what happened in Delta Space Mission beyond the vaguest outlines of "supercomputer falls in love with a sexy alien reporter and deals with it by sending a bunch of stuff to shoot at/kidnap her."
There are many reasons the plot's hard to follow. Some of it is because it's translated from the Romanian (apparently this was the first Romanian animated film, although the person introducing it at our screening said it was strung together from a bunch of TV episodes, which I haven't confirmed elsewhere, but would also explain some disjointed plotting). Some of it is because the film is resolutely, defiantly averse to giving any of the characters personalities in either writing…
-
This was an amazing blind-buy. If Vinegar Syndrome's partners were to release more obscure animation like this, I would be totally onboard with that. It's a colorful blast of psychedelia, imaginative and fun and mesmerizing. The story is episodic, as it was constructed as a series of shorts that were then melded together but it still works as a feature. The animators and writers do a terrific job of imagining future-tech and alien lifeforms, even better I thought than many mega-budgeted Hollywood films of the period. The soundtrack is one of the best features of the film, a synthesized score that matches the visuals in its vibrancy. I got the distinct feeling that the creators of Aeon Flux just had…
-
“There goes Tin.”
I feel like I just watched the 1980’s version of the Crazy Frog music video. The animation in this is incredible.
Blu-ray
-
Wildly ambitious visual experiments housed in a goofy episodic Star Trek shell. that dissonance is really fun - long stretches of abstract shapes and movement, glued together by some shots of wonky, rotoscoped astronauts pointing at things. it’s evident how much the animators love depicting machinery in motion, without any clear idea of what that machinery is actually doing
action sequences felt particularly Lale Westvind-core. we need to resurrect one of these Soviet block animation studios in order to properly adapt Grip
-
80s animated film from Romania
Light on plot, mostly an excuse to show a lot of bizarre and trippy visuals. Think Yellow Submarine or Wizards. Good to see something different even though there isn't much substance here. -
I don’t know enough about animation to contextualize this one. All I can explain is it is an early-80s, Romanian, animated, sci-fi movie. Like if a prog rock album cover was made into a movie.
I’ve never seen anything like it and it is great.
Would make a great double feature with INTERSTELLA 5555.Deaf Crocodile Blu-ray. I need to listen to the Kat Ellinger audio commentary ASAP.