Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets
Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets
| 09 November 2004 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
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  • Reviews
    Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.
    Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.
    StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
    KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
    tankace Space Odyssey is, unfortunately, largely forgotten from the variety of documentaries whose were shown during the early 2000' and they try to use CGI to make the show more attractive to the public. The majority were nevertheless quite ugly to watch ,due to the technology of the time. To put it in simple words that CGI back then were quit expensive for a TV documentary budget. There is where this lost gem makes the difference, it doesn't try to show the space travel as epic as it is possible, rather realistic enough so the watcher to fill that the crew truly travels in our solar system. Although the effects here and there are a bit dated,they have aged well and the acting is pretty good to. So go and give it a watch ,it really deserves more love than it usually gets.
    drystyx This movie is an attempt to give a realistic portrayal of an extravagant space voyage. Instead of the usual small shuttle, we have a very large station.It may have been a good idea. But no one will ever know, unless it gets another edit. This is because the production value is probably the worst ever.I'm reminded of my days in a studio for free public access, and speaking with the technicians there. The common joke was "sound people don't know what the Hell they're doing." And here is a prime example.The director painstakingly tries for realism, and he gives a realistic look, but the cost is too great. You can't understand a word that is spoken in this poor sound environment. True, that's how NASA sounds on the TV set, but that's why few people bother to watch real live NASA space coverage, because it is impossible to know what people are saying.And anyone who avers that he or she does understand the dialog is a liar. Fact.I watched the show, but still have no idea what was ever going on. None of the actors could enunciate, and that is suspicious. Either they were poorly selected, or the sound crew was the worst ever. Since none of the actors were intelligible, that makes the sound crew look almost certainly to be the guilty party.The attempt for realism gave it an atmosphere of reality. This is what the director obviously intended, and the director was successful.Too bad you need a scorecard to follow along with what is happening. It is a poorly produced movie.
    TxMike When I first requested this DVD from my public library I thought it was going to be a legitimate documentary. Having been a space fan since the Sputnik went up when I was a young boy, I've never lost my interest. And, living near Space Center USA doesn't hurt.However, this is a BBC production, a fictional story with a British cast, mostly veterans of various TV shows. Some of them are faking American or Russian or French accents and do so credibly much of the time. They take time to make it realistic as they can, but still many of the laws of Physics and the fundamentals of deep space travel are violated, but not so badly as to make it distracting.The story is set some time in the near future when a team of space travelers leave Earth to explore the solar system. The first destination is a landing on Venus, but only a very short one because of the heat and the suit's limited ability to protect. Then off to Mars, Jupiter via a pass through the Sun's outer atmosphere, Saturn, Pluto, and finally back to Earth. With large tanks of Hydrogen fuel pre-placed along the route so they could refuel. A total trip of 6 years and 50 days. That was the plan, anyway.The film is done as a documentary, as if a camera crew were following the real explorers (impossible) and present at mission control. When a crisis arises, we see Mission Control staff telling the "documantary" cameraman to get out of the way. All in all an entertaining 2 hours, for anyone who enjoys space travel adventures done in a realistic style. A few times I even was able to put aside that it was all fiction.SPOILERS. Radiation near the sun causes one traveler to become very sick. He holds out until Saturn, and he is "buried" wrapped in foil and cast out to drift among the rocks of the ring for eternity. They have a close near miss several times, at least once on each planet or moon, as unexpected events arise. The last stop was an asteroid which begins to throw out boulders as they are exploring it, doing some damage to the spacecrafts, but they survive to return to Earth.
    DUCK_of_DEATH Jeez, It's been nearly 40 years since we landed on the moon, even so, the people who made this "documentary" still managed to forget that other planets are a *long* way off--so long that light takes time to travel between here and there. It takes light (and radio communications) 1.5 seconds just to get from the Moon to the Earth, 2 minutes from Venus, 4 minutes from Mars, 36 from Jupiter, and a whopping 72 minutes from Saturn. Yet Mission Control was watching and managing everything in real-time. Wrong, wrong, wrong! The whole premise for this flick was flawed, didn't anyone take physics in high school? How could the science advisor's have made such a huge mistake??!!! Waste of good special effects budget. Better luck next time, BBC.