Product Details

• Actors: Stephen Hawking, Eugene Babaev, Jeff Rawle, Gregory Benford, Frank Langella
• Producers: Laura Sobel
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Pbs Paramount
• DVD Release Date: September 7, 2004
• Run Time: 360 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0002I839K
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #196,312 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Stephen Hawking's Universe" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 3 stars for information content, 1 star for replay-ability, October 14, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Stephen Hawking's Universe (DVD)

Let me start out by saying that I read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and really enjoyed it. But, then what a sad disappointment this series turned out to be. One could turn off the picture and just listen to the audio and get about as much interesting information. I realize that Dr. Sagan raised the bar pretty high but the makers of this documentary didn't even seem to care. Watch video sequences repeated over and over - sometimes not even relating to the narration that drones on in the background. Squint hard to see what is going on in the darkly lit sets as the camera super-slow pans into something that is supposed to be significant...but really isn't. I watched the entire series just waiting for a sequence that would capture my imagination. It never happened. As for replay-ability? I defy anyone who have made it through the entire series to watch it again. Dr. Hawking deserves better.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good Narration, Shame About the Visuals, June 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Stephen Hawking's Universe (Set) (VHS Tape)

This video series covers all the basic ideas of cosmology in an interesting and easy to understand manner, with a strong historical focus. The narration, describing this, is very interesting and well thought out. However, the visual aspect is appalling. Most of it consists of out of fucus shots of things that have nothing to do with the program, irrelvant images of star fields, shots of people walking around, shots of empty rooms and other irrelevances. When people are interviewed, they are often shown in very dim surroundings, making their faces hard to see. All in all, the visual elements are just hopeless and add nothing to the video. Towards the end, I didn't even bother looking at the screen but just listened to the audio. I lost nothing by doing this. All in all, Professor Hawking might as well have written another book.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lack of Visual Aids, May 10, 2001

By 

"metamorphmuses" (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stephen Hawking's Universe (DVD)

Stephen Hawking's Universe covers all the important points in Cosmology, but when one buys a video documentary on the subject, one expects more than just lucid explanations by talking heads (or even a head that uses a computer to talk). I was disappointed that for all the good work put into the making of SHU, the visual component was so poor; why not just make it into an audio book instead? Most of the time, throughout the entire series, the same set of bland, information-free starfield images and lame optical tricks (we're not even talking cheap computer animation!) accompany narration of (relatively) deep, conceptual scientific ideas. The rare instances in which camera footage is included -- say, to show a scene at an earth-based telescope -- quench the viewer's thirst for visual aid only long enough to underscore the series' basic dearth of such resources. Better luck next time, Stephen.