Product Details

• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English, German, Greek
• Subtitles: German, English, Danish, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish, French, Russian
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Spv U.S.
• DVD Release Date: September 27, 2005
• Run Time: 133 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0009HL7GU
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #41,937 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

From the Actor
About The Music: The two German musicians, Axel Kornmesser and Markus Löffler, first encountered each other in 1997. After some common work in different groups the talented singer Axel and the many-sided artist Markus decided to start a new project as a composer duo in 2002. They called it movetwo and began to write various pop songs with lyrics in both German and English. It was an exiting process as Axel was influenced by rock and funky music while Markus prefers jazz and soul and within the melting pot they created their own popular style. In 2004 Axel and Markus were approached to participate to the European Space Agency's Hubble movie, Hubble - 15 Years of Discovery. The collaboration was a success and movetwo started moving into a new musical field and is ready to compose amazing film soundtracks.

About the Actor
On April 24th, 2005 the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope will have been in orbit around the Earth for 15 years. In many ways Hubble is the most successful scientific project in the World, and this event is not likely to go unnoticed. The European Space Agency, ESA, has decided to celebrate this anniversary with the production of a Hubble 15th Anniversary movie called Hubble - 15 Years Of Discovery. The movie covers all aspects of the Hubble Space Telescope project: a journey through the history, the trouble and the scientific successes of Hubble.

This portrait of one of the biggest scientific projects of all time contains large amounts of previously unpublished footage in uncompromised quality. With the beautiful backdrop of Hubble’s visual image treasures running as a red line through the movie, the light and dreaming style tells the most interesting stories about our fascinating Universe and about the change of vision that Hubble has brought us. The movie is accompanied by custom-made music that is second to none in quality and aesthetic expression. Special features include a plasma screen saver, the O.S.T. CD, educational material, technical notation, photo gallery etc.

About The Music: The two German musicians, Axel Kornmesser and Markus Löffler, first encountered each other in 1997. After some common work in different groups the talented singer Axel and the many-sided artist Markus decided to start a new project as a composer duo in 2002. They called it movetwo and began to write various pop songs with lyrics in both German and English. It was an exiting process as Axel was influenced by rock and funky music while Markus prefers jazz and soul and within the melting pot they created their own popular style. In 2004 Axel and Markus were approached to participate to the European Space Agency's Hubble movie, Hubble - 15 Years of Discovery. The collaboration was a success and movetwo started moving into a new musical field and is ready to compose amazing film soundtracks.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sadly this is mostly just a puff piece, April 10, 2007

By	Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

I was more than a little disappointed with this considering the fact that the Hubble telescope is one of humankind's most spectacular technological and scientific achievements. Instead of giving the viewer specific detail about what Hubble has achieved we get instead a kind of generalized, gee whiz hype about what a wonderful instrument it is. More--much more--information about how it was built and how it works and what its features are and what it has discovered and taught us could have been including in the narrative.

In fact, the narrative is dumbed down to an annoying degree. For example we are told that Hubble has discovered the most distant object ever seen, but we are not told how distant that object is. It's as though the narrative were written for people who just want to trip out on the images without being burdened with any specific knowledge.

Also annoying is the way the magnificent photos of the heavens are just displayed on the screen usually too quickly for any real contemplation and without detailed information about what is being shown or why it was photographed in the first place. ESA and NASA should have hired somebody knowledgeable to write an image-coordinated script for this that would inform and really entertain, and they should also have hired a professional to read the script, somebody with more enthusiasm and skill than Bob Fosbury displays. The images need to be explained so that we can understand what we are seeing. The clouds and nebulae, the points of light, the halos and the shapes are not self-explanatory. And when the images have been augmented or enhanced in some way, that needs to be explained as well. Some side by side contrasts between what is seen in the visual spectrum and, say, the infrared would be nice. Distances should be revealed.

There are two discs, one a DVD video, and another a CD audio which plays the soundtrack. There is a booklet full of statements like, "The planets of our Solar System have captured the imagination and interest of scientists and thinkers from the earliest times." Or, "Stars are social objects. They like to hang out together in star clusters or as large islands of stars..." This sort of empty expression or anthropomorphic nonsense is typical of what is heard on the video. It's as though the entire production was aimed at children. Actually what I think happened is the production was designed by a committee of ESA and NASA political types who just wanted to massage the public and were afraid that too many facts and numbers and ideas would simply turn them off.

It pains me to have to say this, because I love astronomy and cosmology, but shame on you ESA and NASA!

37 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Hubble: 15 Years of Discovery...133 Minutes of Boredom, April 20, 2006

By	Fredric Pierce (Huntington Beach, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I thought that since this DVD was produced by the ESA that it would be a thorough presentation of the development and observations of the great Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble is certainly one of the greatest scientific instruments ever constructed, but this film does nothing to communicate that splendor. The film is over 2 hours of Bob Fosbury talking, rather few Hubble images flying across the screen, and a very pretentious, overblown electronic soundtrack. I was especially disappointed in the paucity of Hubble images. The telescope has been working hard for 15 years, there must be a huge library of significant images to show, but we only see a handful. Very unimpressive. The only interesting images were a few Hubble generated "movies" of nebulae actually changing over many separate observations - cosmic timelapse photography. Almost none of the images are shown statically, so you can get a good look at them. Most are actually skewed and distorted as they slide across and away from the viewer, like home video scene transitions - very frustrating. There are a lot of very simplistic, rather crude computer animations of the telescope that really add nothing to the film. Fosbury is not a very animated, interesting speaker. His presentation is dull, dull and dull. He actually has his hands in his pants pockets through one static monologue.

The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most expensive, complex and most important unmanned spacecraft yet constructed. I expected a more detailed and professionally produced film publication from one of the major partners. Don't waste your money on this one.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hubble: 15 Years of Discovery has fascinating information, April 28, 2006

By	Jess (CA) - See all my reviews

I was very pleased with information in this movie and how it was presented. The animations and images were fascinating. My kids and I watched it together, and we all learned a lot about both the Hubble and the history of the universe. The narration was a bit dry at times, but the soundtrack livened things up and added a lot to the film.