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I got my hands on a test pressing over the weekend, and am running the Second Run and Filmexport discs one above the other on the same monitor (Scope films are particularly well suited to this kind of treatment).

Both films are clearly sourced from the same materials (during the credit sequence, there's a very very faint tramline down the right-hand side), but it looks very much as though the Second Run transfer is from a more recent scan: it's appreciably sharper and more detailed (at one point, a character relaxes in a dressing gown patterned with thin black and white stripes - the Filmexport disc has moiré shimmer, the Second Run doesn't). It's also been cleaned up - the Filmexport transfer has plenty of white dust spots, which have been almost entirely banished from the Second Run disc. There's also a very slight colour cast on the Filmexport disc, over and above the fact that the subtitles are very pale yellow rather than white (although, to be fair, you probably wouldn't notice it outside a direct comparison situation like this).

The subtitles are broadly similar, but curiously it's the Second Run disc that's truer to the film's Czech roots - a character named Štefa (Second Run) is rendered as 'Stephie' on the Filmexport disc. There are also some subtle differences in translation - when a character talks to his wife about his return years hence and whether they can rekindle their relationship, on the Czech disc he says "You won't like me", but Second Run has it as "You'll no longer desire me", which seems more situationally appropriate.

Basically, the Filmexport DVD was and is pretty good, especially given the age of both film and disc, but the Second Run transfer is appreciably superior on all counts. In other words, exactly as I'd hoped.

Thanks for the info, Michael! Love this film, hence looking forward to seeing it again in a (slightly) better presentation! (I wonder if this had the new scan made in HD - Man from the First Century had, and there the diff. compared to the FEX disc was HUGE (admittedly, that disc was one of the crappiest to come out from FEX, transfer-wise).)

Kim Newman on Twitter:

I've just filmed an introduction to Czech sf classic Ikarie XB-1 for a forthcoming Second Run DVD release.

Blimey, that was quick - Kim was only approached last Sunday! (I was at the same party).

Still, excellent news: he's admirably qualified for this kind of thing.

Michael Brooke's review at MovieMail

"The film is shot in immaculate widescreen black-and-white, and Polak takes advantage of spacious, well-finished sets to experiment with wide-angled lenses, handheld cameras and zooms. You can't help but suspect that the resulting look had a big influence on Kubrick, not just on 2001 but on the War Room scenes in Dr Strangelove... It's an absolute treat, offering all the kitsch pleasures of vintage SF while still bearing up remarkably well to modern scrutiny. Anyone brave enough to check it out will be very glad they did"

Ikarie reviewed at Starburst

Received an e-mail from amazon yesterday, and the release date for this has been bumped once again: it is now coming out september 23. Hopefully.

It's DEFINITELY coming September 23. We just had to delay slightly to accommodate a last-minute extra...

Good to know! I'm eagerly awaiting this. I assume the Kim Newman intro is the last minute extra?

It is indeed.

See our new IKARIE XB 1 teaser trailer here

Scalarama kicks off next week - a whole slew of Ikarie XB 1 screenings lined up across the UK:

Wednesday 4th September 7.30pm Newcastle Star and Shadow www.starandshadow.org.uk
Thursday 5th September 8pm London, Riverside Studios www.riversidestudios.co.uk
Thursday 12th September London, Stratford East Picturehouse 6.30pm www.picturehouses.co.uk
Friday 13th September 8.45pm Leicester, Phoenix Cinema www.phoenix.org.uk
Friday 13th September 8.45pm Derby, QUAD www.derbyquad.co.uk
Saturday 14th September 6.20pm Derby, QUAD www.derbyquad.co.uk
Wednesday 18th September Manchester, Kino at Black Lion Salford (time TBC)
Tuesday 24th September 8.30pm Canterbury, Gulbenkian www.kent.ac.uk/gulbenkian/

Reviewed in today's The Guardian

Full details of the Ikarie XB 1 release now at our website

REMINDER!
Ikarie XB 1 screen tonight as part of Scalarama at Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne at 7.30pm, and tomorrow Thursday 5th September at 8pm at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith.

"A rather wonderful trailblazing sci-fi from 1963...

Reviewed at The Skinny

Lots of interest at the moment in the music of Zdeněk Liška as we approach what would have been his 90th birthday.
Hear the sounds of IKARIE XB 1 here

IKARIE reviewed in the latest Uncut Magazine

Ikarie screens TONIGHT at Phoenix Cinema Leicester at 8.45pm and at QUAD Cinema Derby at 8:50pm. Take your pick!
(Also screens again tomorrow at 6.20pm at QUAD Derby)

"These are the voyages of the starship Icarus – this fascinating, seminal 1963 Czech sci-fi was plundered wholesale by Star Trek, including the philosophical homilies by a verbose captain."

London Evening Standard by Steve Morrissey

... and a fuller review here at MovieSteve

"Ikarie XB 1 emerges as a vital staging post in the development of modern SF cinema, exerting incalculable influence on multiple strands of the genre and worth remembering for its invaluable contribution to so much of what we now take for granted. Polák’s film on DVD is a mesmerising expedition to a forgotten foreign corner of the fantastic, here presented in a near immaculate transfer from Second Run."

A wonderful, expansive review at Horrorview