Tale of a space mission to explore a new planet discovered in Earth's orbit around the Sun, only on the exact opposite side.
Interesting film of a standard sci-fi trope, probably the most successful of them. Definitely the Andersons' attempt to move out of the children's market and into more adult fare. This culminated in TV series like UFO and Space:1999, the former of which shared many of the same cast and sets as this film. Quite a bleak ending, especially given this was released the same year man landed on the Moon, but quite memorable. Certainly it sticks with one more than the psychobabble of 2001. At least I think so; maybe the ending here was just an excuse to blow stuff up.
Certainly there were reshoots and deleted subplots that make it seem like an incomplete film; Derosa is prominently credited, but his character is only briefly introduced and then disappears. The same could be said about Sheybal's near-cameo as the psychiatrist.