55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kuran does it again!, January 23, 2001
Trinity and Beyond, Peter Kuran's first atomic bomb documentary, was a marvel to behold. Atomic Journeys is a worthy followup that is special in its own right.
Let's be straightforward: Kuran could have cobbled a film together out of material left on the cutting room floor from Trinity, but instead he came up with a central concept and followed it up not only with beautifully restored archieval footage, but on-site filming and interviews with the people involved in the nuclear testing. This film is a great stand-alone, and shouldn't be written off either as a cheap follow-up or a "lesser" film. It is different than Trinity, but many of the aspects of Trinity that made it such a great film are also present here.
Atomic Journeys is kind of like a nuclear "On the Road," traveling from place to place in the US like nuke-tourists, staring at off-road historical markers that designate where different explosions took place. William Shatner's narration is perfect: his voice has a bass tone that compliments the steady rumble of the test-explosions.
DVD dirt -
The DVD version is actually a "collector's edition," and features many great special features. In addition to a killer 5.1 track, there is an insightful director's commentary as well as several short snippets from on-site shooting with Verne the Nuclear Tour Guide. There are detailed maps for the travel-minded viewer, but the real gems of this disc (besides the movie, of course!) are several short films produced in other countries about nuclear testing, including a Soviet "Civil Defense" movie about building canals with nuclear weapons, a British film honoring a ship they used in a nuclear test, and a French film of nuclear testing in the Sahara desert.
I can recommend this DVD to anyone who enjoyed "Trinity," the historically-minded, the fan of nuclear movies, and anyone looking for an unintentionally humorous (in a dark way) look at America's proud nuclear tradition.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A RARE look at our Nuclear History !!!, November 20, 2003
Being someone who has worked with the Dept. of Energy ( D.O.E ), toured some of the rarest nuclear weapons sites, been a broadcast engineer/hobbist for 10 Years, and am creating my own special documentary about all things nuclear after 9 years of research; I have found Peter Kuran's work ABSOUTELY PERFECT in every detail, ESPECIALLY in his Film transfers to DVD. He has had access to some of the most recently declassified original films from the DOE archives. Most documentary's simply re-hash some of the same footage I've seen over and over again, but not Peter's. If you're interested in our nuclear history, I've seen all and would recommend ALL of the documentary's by www.vce.com.
In a side note, for the person looking for the expermental bunker.......It's called the GREENBRIER HOTEL. You can see some of it's history at: Http://www.greenbrier.com/docs/history.html
I hope that's what your looking for.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Relive "Duck & Cover" in living color., September 2, 2005
A documentary that uses previously classified B&W and color footage and powerful symphonic music to fully express the forbidding destructive power of nuclear weapons, Welcome To Ground Zero is the second of four DVD's (that I'm aware of) dedicated to exposing the visual truth behind the testing of nuclear weapons from the mid-1940's through their banishment in the 1970's. Ground Zero concentrates on below ground nuclear tests, and the sight of entire islands rising 25 feet or more into the air and falling back to their foundations in a godlike thud can be quite sobering. This is not an anti-nuclear diatribe, nor is it pro nuclear power. Rather, it simply observes and describes what took place in the infancy of our nuclear life, leaving you to determine which end of the scale this branch of science rests: outrageously dangerous or benignly beneficial. Well worth the price of admission - and one way to prove to your friends how useless "Duck & Cover" would have been in a real nuclear blast.
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