To the Stars by Hard Ways (1981)

Per Aspera Ad Astra (Russian: Через тернии к звёздам, USA screen name - Through the Thorns to the Stars; Humanoid Woman) is a 1981 Soviet film directed by Richard Viktorov based on a novel by Kir Bulychov.

On December 27, 2001, a new restored version directed by Nikolai Viktorov, the son of the original film's director, was released as the 20th anniversary edition. The film featured revised special effects by the Paradox company and an all-new soundtrack in Dolby Digital; however, the film length was cut by twenty-five minutes to speed up the dynamics of the plot, but also some episodes with Soviet ideological context were also cut.

A heavily-edited (missing almost an hour of footage), English-dubbed version of the film (under the title Humanoid Woman) was featured on an early episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Synopsis

In the 23rd century a reconnaissance starship discovers a dead alien spaceship of unknown origin in deep space. The crew are found to be humanoid bodies, made by an advanced cloning process. One humanoid woman appears to be alive but has memory loss and is brought back to Earth. Scientist Sergei Lebedev settles her in his own house and names her Niya.

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