Customer Reviews

Voyage to the Planets and Beyond (2004)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have to admit, i am practically addicted to this film, but for a variety of reasons, not all of which have to do with the "drama" of the show. Let's start out, on the hard science that backs up the show. For what we know today, from Hubble, the planetary probes, and solar activity, most of what i see in the show, DOES address the reality of space travel. It's a very practical show, because it addresses our technological shortcomings, to REAL interplanetary space travel. Even tho Bush has tried to play this game, that mankind can go to Mars, we can not at the present stage, because of the VERY REASON so often stressed in this film. 1. NEED OF A VERY FAST PROPULSION SYSTEM. We cant make it with our present rockets. Only something like a FUSION Nuclear engine, could give us the boost, to get where we are going FAST. 2. NEED OF SOME KIND OF ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY. Again, they have this sort of "Carnival ride" that allows the living quarters and workout space, to spin, providing the centrifugal gravity of 0.5 G. The space ship itself is a mile long, so that allows things like the SPACE DEBRY shield, and the centrifugal gravity quarters, to operate within the boundries of science. 3. SOLAR ACTIVITY PROTECTION. Again, they have a special invention, that provides the astronauts with something like an artifically produced VAN ALLEN radiation belt, around the inner core of the ship. They even has a space suit like that, which i was totally taken away by, from the pure inventiveness. 4. GAS STATIONS FOR LONGER FLIGHTS Another problem solved, was done via sending out huge HYDROGEN fuel tanks, around Mars and elsewhere, for refueling. Other problems with the scientific limits of the human body were delt with, as well as the problems of the vulnerability of the human body, physically and mentally.

People have critized this movie, because at each planet/solar system encounter, some type of CRISIS happened. WEll, OK, you do need some kind of drama to drive the film. Human interactions between the crew, and the ground crew, are not enough. However, with both a well written musical score giving a dramatic UMPH, good script writing, and total REALITY of depliction, it's easy to buy into the idea, that what you are REALLY watching, isnt a film, but rather a series of TV news reports, mixed with documentary material. That makes the whole thing WORK, tho not in the way a film like "APOLLO 13", or "VOYAGE TO MARS" works. There are not extended "interpersonal" dramas, outside of the normal ones expected, with tragidy strikes. The special effects are SO INCREDIBLE, that they literally filmed part of this movie in ZERO GRAVITY, on one of those parabolic planes, the infamous "VOMIT COMETS", used to train astronauts for the experience of weightlessness. Imagine watching these actors move around in the weightless enviorment, WITHOUT computer animation. ITS SO COOL. Because the awe, and queasiness, and joy, of weightlessness comes across so well, when BBC could have easily done the cheap thing ,and just used wires and blue screens with computer work. Also the scenes on Venus and Mars are beautiful. The encounter with the sun, as a gravity swing shot, was magnificent, because all these REAL FILMS of the sun from the SOHO observatory were used. The same with the VENUSIAN radar mapping of the planet used for that part, and so on and so on. Maybe the only part that sort of made me wonder, was WHY they went to Pluto. ALso, I sort of wondered what was up with the comet encounter. (Not really nessacary, tho it was a great dramatic ending.) If you DO line up each encounter with danger, starting at VENUS, then MARS, then the SOLAR SLING SHOT, then the ASTEROID BELT, then JUPITER's IO, then SATURN's RING, then THE COMET, each encounter that caused danger, is more and more catastrophic, and dangerous, than the last one. Sure, something happens on VENUS, but then again, that's NOTHING compaired with what happens later. So, suspense, and danger, and most of all, ADVENTURE is kept alive. NO, nothing like ancient cultures are found, or talking marians. I mean, DO WE REALLY EXPECT THIS? Much of what we still want to believe about our solar system, is based on our deep wish to know, that LIFE happens all the time. maybe the best thing is that we find out, that its RARE, and should be protected and cherished on our planet. I dont want to give out spoilers, so i better stop here.

In conclusion, i borrowed this film from the library, and i have LITERALLY watched this thing at least 7 times thru. I never NEVER do that with films. But between the actual footage of the planets and the sun, mixed with the reality of the mission, the space ship, and the documentary style, i just love this movie. This is the REAL documentary about Mankind's conquest of our solar system, that i may never see in my lifetime. AND, if our world doesnt get it together, and spend its money on science art and education, instead of braindead entertainment, war machines and pharmeceutical company lobotomies that allow us to complacently accept this boring NON life as "adequet", then we may NEVER get to explore the heavens. More than anything, this is a film that gives us HOPE, in a world that DOES survive, and thru international cooperation, finds the cultural and scientific motivation, to make great stides forward. THis is truly the future i wish my descendants, and not Hell on earth chewing on soilent Green. So, buy this to instill a bit of hope for a good future for humanity. Right now, we sure need to believe in it.

It's truly amazing what this film does. It's dramatic, it's intense, well acted, and incredibly realistic. This is what it really seems like visiting the planets in our solar system would be like. I was absolutely glued to the screen during this awesome space adventure. Once you reach the part where they have landed on Jupiter, you will be completely amazed at how real everything seems. This film just keeps sucking you in further and further. It starts off seeming like a documentary but ends up like a dramatic movie. I always wanted a true realistic outerspace movie to watch. "2001 Space Odyssey" was not it. That just lulled me to sleep. "Voyage to the Planets and Beyond" is an adventure that I look forward to experiencing again and again!

I saw this docudrama on Discovery a couple of weeks ago. I loved it. It's entertaining as well as informative. The special effects are quite good and the "film" is well made. It makes you think that the time when such a journey is possible is not that far. I liked so much that I ordered the DVD. It's on the same level as the Walking with ... series.

I REALLY enjoyed this program. With a degree in astronomy and a focus on planetary studies, I've usually been disappointed by science fiction treatments of the subject. For the most part my disappointment was totally absent with regards to this work.

I think this production is best thought of as the grandchild of Disney's "Science Faction" shorts of the 50's, sans the head-on educational component. It's science fiction with the emphasis on the science side. The hardware design - particularly the main vessel, Pegasus - is very well done and synchs up well with current sensibilities on the subject. The zero-G shots are believable and were all done on the Russian counterpart of The Vomit Comet.

I will grant you that the events are a little more dramatized than I'd have liked. I found the documentary style of The Office to be a bit more acceptable as a documentary presentation. But again, I think it's best to think of this a SCIENCE fiction tale and with that perspective the nature of the drama was fine.

As to the earlier comment about the slights against manned exploration, I just don't buy it. In one instance a robotic probe does what a man was not able to, but in another a robotic probe completely fails. It's a stalemate, in my book. Yes, there are several mishaps in the mission, but consider this. First, the mission is six years long and covers contact with six planetary bodies. That's longer than any manned mission in history by a wide, wide, margin so there's planet of room for events to go believably awry. Second, none of the events are as dramatic as the real life Apollo 13, so you can argue that they've erred on the conservative side.

If you're a fan of hard science fiction and manned exploration, I think you'll really enjoy this. If it were possible to give it a 4.5 start rating, I would have. It's not a perfect work, but darn close.

I grew up with Star Trek, and as much as I love that show, this documentary/drama is a refreshing change. True, it may have had some sore points technically, but it gives a very good insight of just some of the aspects of what it would take to explore our very own solar system.

People think that just because we went to the moon so many times, it was almost routine; but nothing could be farther from the truth. There are those Apollo astronauts who admit to being glad to see the Apollo program coming to an end. They had wondered just how long our luck would hold out!

This show tells us a little of cutting ourselves off from the security of our world, the courage and dedication that such a grand endeavor calls for.

For years, we have been used to seeing humans exploring planets from interplanetary starliners like the Enterprise...but how many of us would take this journey on a relatively primitive ship like Pegasus? Always at the mercy of solar radiation, gravity, meteors, etc?

The main program is based on an interesting idea. It posits a crewed mission to most of the solar system with landings at most of the stops. While this is not technically achievable right now, at least as described in the program, it is based on technology that seems achievable in the near future. The encounters with the planets and other bodies are based upon science as we understand it right now. The facts presented by the program tend to be straightforward and there is little hype in the sense that one usually expects it.

There is some hype. It seems that with every step of the mission some crisis takes places. These are not built up in an overly dramatic fashion and the crises are based upon real and known problems with the particular venue. The atmosphere of Venus is crushing and corrosive; the crisis there involves the suit which succumbs to this environment sooner than expected. There are no nasty surprises waiting for the crew such as little aliens with ray guns or exotic viruses. The crises are foreseeable and generally illustrate a technical point.

It seems as if throughout the entire show, they are building up for a "big discovery" about life. I kept waiting for the revelation, just knowing they were going to find something on Mars, or in the seas of Titan. That it never came was a minor disappointment in a "dramatic" sense but a great joy in the sense that the program refused to take a leap beyond facts as presently understood.

The show was well done but, all in all, not too interesting. I was only going to give it 3 stars until I watched some of the extra features. The "making of" segments were very interesting in that they described how the various extra terrestrial environments were re-created. I found that interesting. Best of all, though, was a half hour program on the actual robotic probes which have been sent by Earth. I have always loved seeing footage from these probes and I enjoy it still. It was nice to see the way these programs were used to build the hypothetical Pegasus program depicted in the feature. This is what gave it the extra star for me.

I've seen a lot of educational movies about space exploration and the like, and this film really takes things to a new level. I really enjoyed the fictional documentary format, especially since they were in able to make it so believable for most of the movie. This is particularly impressive given the very modest budget of the movie.

More importantly, perhaps, the filmmakers did a good job of not dumbing down the content and of being (more or less) scientifically accurate in their depiction of the mission. One reviewer commented that the crew took a lot of risks in the movie that were "unrealistic" in the sense that they were risks that modern astronauts probably would not take. That said, the risks the crew took were not unrealistic in the sense that they were scientific fiction, which helped to greatly preserve the integrity of the film.

Overall, this film is a rare treasure in that it is botn entertaining and highly informative.

I had originally recorded this on DVR and I kept the recording for months, watching it often. I should have spooled it to DVD media, because it was inadvertently deleted from the DVR drive, and I miss it a lot. All the praises of other raters suffice to describe my feelings, I just wanted to let others know this is a MUST WATCH documentary.

OK let me start by saying that no country, or even groups of countries, would spend the trillions of dollars and euros that this mission would cost.
With that out of the way, I must say that the mission is believeable in every aspect except the landing on Venus. I am an engineer who has been involved with the various space programs for 30 years and the technology for this type of mission exists or is close to existing. Again the only technological hurdle is the Venus stuff but everything else, including the nuclear propulsion, rotating structure to provide partial "gravity", recycling of water and waste material, etc are either here now or will be available withing a decade. What is not avaiable is the national will to spend the kind of money a mission like this would require. We could have been back to the moon and to Mars 20 years ago if we had been willing to spend the cash. But imagine funding this type of mission. The hydrogen tankers at "strategic locations" along the trip alone would cost more than the Apollo program, even in today's dollars/euros.
As to this movie - bravo. The special effects were outstanding. You actually believed they were on Mars, Io and even Pluto. Even the Venus landing "looked" good, even if it wasn't very feasible. Everything about this movie was first class and I have enjoyed watching it again and again. Since we'll not visit any of these places with manned craft in most of your lifetimes (except Mars) this is the next best thing. The "planet scapes" of Mars, Venus, Io, Saturn's rings, Pluto and the Comet were just what I would espect to see. Life aboard the ship was as realistic as could be expected and the actors did a great job.
I recommend this to anyone with an interest in spaceflight and anyone else who would just like to be "wowed" by some fantastic scenery.

I started this review halfway into the DVD - but I had by then seen enough to give it a 5 star review (I had just watched the asteroid belt segment - for those who have watched it as well, you know why I was so excited and had to stop to review at that point :-)).

Picture a NASA documentary but add 10 times the adrenaline... It's well acted and credible, and it doesn't downplay the dangers of space travel. It does a very nice work in stirring the next generations in getting the right mindset to go into space exploration.

However this is still science fiction, the closest I have seen to real sci-fi and the closest to heart to its true spirit. This movie is to "2001 - A Space Odyssey" what Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" and "Around to the Moon" are to H. G. Wells' "First Men on the Moon". Verne and this movie dealt with immediately plausible science, whereas Clarke and Wells also delved in alien encounters.

Some naysayers when reviewing the movie mentioned that it was anti-science and anti-manned space exploration. On the contrary, this work will spark the interest of many in resolving the still open issues the astronauts encountered in the movie, from better radiation protection to surgery in space.

One of the giveaways (that I can mention without throwing a spoiler) to this being fiction rather just "science fact", as claimed in the beginning of the movie, is that the mission parameters are just too ambitious. Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Io, Saturn and rings, Pluto and a comet - for a single trip - is just too much.

You just need to think about the detailed review of the Space Shuttle infrastructure every time it goes back to Earth for a single trip just outside Earth, then multiply the stress on the ship and crew by a 100 and then you have what the movie is talking about. To be more realistic, it should have been several episodes with separate missions. Most likely it was what the original script talked about - obviously budgetary constraints weighed in - but I digress.

It makes sense to go to many planets over a single trip in a sci-fi movie if the script objective is to explore all facets of manned planet exploration without the burden to reenact a space program with several crews. Make no mistake: before going on a tour of the solar system with the same crew, humanity will send separate crews for each of the planets.

There are other minor issues but I recommend take into account some "poetic license" that you might allow in any sci-fi movie, and not treat it like a documentary. It is not, so expect minor inconsistencies here and there.