I thought the sets were great

yes the sets were good, a lot went into them.

The overall design is fabulous: colours, costumes, et cetera.

I also appreciated the sets. I don't know which came first, this movie or the sci-fi book covers where the artists would use similar imaging: free form blobs, geometric shapes, gigantic scale, etc.

Back then, nobody could be sure of what the terrain on another planet would be like. Anything was possible. Once the US landed on the Moon and probes landed or circled other worlds and sent ack photographs, the rag was off the bush and we slipped into drab, but realistic, landscapes. Too bad.

These designs remind me of a Walt Disney cartoon production of life on other planets, too.

I'd like to know how they built the spaceship that it looked so good (I don't mean the models when they blasted off) in broad daylight.

When I was little, it was commonly accepted that the Moon was covered with ranges of tall, steep, craggy mountains.

Art Direction & Production Design were top-notch for 1960.

The film only feels a little cheap due to the English dubbing of whatever the language (German? Polish?) was used on the native soundtrack.

most of the interiors were identical to the sets used on the invasion of the Neptune men. I wonder if they just copied all of the designs, or did they just outright by the sets that were used in invasion of the Neptune men.

yep, i also agree - visuals are great. they look far better than today's CGI - artificial and cartoonish without soul.

characters are flat though, as stalin communism was, not had any chance to develop each individual personna made it big minus for this sci fi flick