Sunshine,
and he expressed no small amount of wonderment at humankind’s instinct for
exploration and sort of beautifully arrogant propensity for believing that that
which it can scarcely see with the naked eye it can visit, explore and
eventually harness and control. A visually stunning short-form documentary that
garnered justly excellent reviews during its original presentation on IMAX
screens last year, Roving Mars is a testament
to just that sort of impulse and intuition. While definitely possessing a bit
of the sort of compulsory awe present in the best forms of propaganda, the
movie is a perfect gift for science and space enthusiasts, as well as history
or general non-fiction film fans looking for a unique new experience.
which two robots — feted as Spirit and
sent to explore the red planet. Roving
Mars opens with the development of the machines by a team of dedicated scientists,
and chronicles the project through to the stunning images of Mars sent back
from the unmanned explorers. For something whose final outcome is never really
in doubt, a lot of time and effort — if not necessarily parallel exacting detail
— is spent chatting up the Mars Rover mission as a near-impossible challenge. Head
scientist Steve Squyres and others give long odds for its success without really delving into the trial-and-error process that led to certain key calculations and conclusions.
Directed by veteran, award-winning documentarian George Butler (1977’s Pumping Iron, 2000’s The Endurance), Roving Mars won the 2007 Visual Effects Society Award for
Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project, and this is where the movie really succeeds. Though definitely ceding some of its original majesty in this reduced-to-scale form, Butler and his colleagues do a nice job of blending actual landscape footage and speculative CGI work, providing for some stunning vistas that might be glimpsed by future generations but no one living on Earth today.
televisions, and a full screen option as well, Roving Mars comes with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio
track, complementary French and Spanish audio tracks, and French and Spanish
subtitles to boot. Its video transfer is clean and clear, with crisp, vibrant
colors and no problems whatsoever with edge enhancement. As far as supplemental
material, a 53-minute 1957 animated television special entitled Mars and Beyond — hosted by Walt Disney himself, and part of the Walt Disney Treasures Tommorowland set — offers a fantastic look
into the scientific knowledge about space from that era. Also included is the forward-looking, 25-minute Mars: Past, Present & Future, a new
feature developed especially for this release that includes personal
reflections on Mars from the filmmakers, JPL Rover team members and students
from the “Imagine Mars” program. The most interesting parts of this featurette take a look at the very real possibilities of eventual manned flights to Mars. Handy proof-of-purchase title tabs, meanwhile, allow for participation in the Disney Movie
Rewards program. B- (Movie) B (Disc)