Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Edward Reid I was disappointed. With all the pictures sent back by the rovers even before the movie had to cut and run, the film devotes only a couple of minutes to these. The landing doesn't even occur until the halfway point (20 minutes), and the first pictures from the rovers at 26 minutes. Meanwhile, more of the limited (40 minutes) time is devoted to talking heads than to anything else. There are CGI fly-overs of Mars when there could have been actual photos.The interviews, CGI flyovers, and simulations of the rovers are very good stuff -- accurate and informative -- and would have been excellent in a 2- or 3-hour film. The problem is the emphasis, which needed to be "what we saw on Mars". Forty minutes didn't give time for all the rest. This is the rare documentary which would have been much better expanded. Keep all the good stuff, add even more about the difficulties of getting to Mars (there's brief mentions of past failures, and these are fascinating stories of their own), and add a lot more about the scientific goals and successes, and a great deal more photographs sent back from the rovers, and a lot more explanations of what is seen in these photos. It's as though the makers assumed viewers were only interested in the people behind the mission, and not the mission itself.Then there's the emphasis on water, life, and preparation for manned visits. This does not accurately represent the mission. While water and life detection was part of it, the mission was a lot more. And the idea of manned visits to Mars is a pipe dream, driven by emotions and politics, not science. The film makers would have served us better by emphasizing the excitement in the exploration by proxy, rather than viewing it as merely a preparation for manned flight.The film does prove, once again, that Philip Glass can write astoundingly good film music.There's a huge need to convey the enormous excitement in the actual unmanned missions, to Mars and to the other planets. This documentary chose instead to keep the blinders on, emphasizing what's believed to be already exciting to humans.Note that I only saw this on a home screen, not IMAX. I'm sure some parts would have been much more impressive on IMAX. But that's all the more reason to upend the emphases. Who wants to go into an IMAX theater, for only 40 minutes, and watch talking heads?

Michael O'Keefe On January 4, 2004 Sean O'Keefe, Director of NASA, announced the "Spirit" had landed. Three years earlier the scientists and researchers at NASA Jet Prepulsion were assigned to build two identical robotic rovers to send to Mars and feed data back to Earth. The two rovers were named "Spirit" and "Opportunity", which were successful in presenting a brand new view of what Mars is really like...and actually proving at one time there was water on the mysterious planet. This 40 minute documentary is directed and narrated by George Butler. Shot in IMAX and with life-like animation, ROVING MARS answers decades old curiosity about the soil and terrain of Earth's closest planetary neighbor. You just wish you had a longer glimpse. A wonderful tool for classrooms.

alan_v35 This incredible, true science story was made and released on Imax, but I saw it on DVD. It is straightforward and, while interesting, it has limited entertainment value for those with little interest in the Mars Rover project. It is short and I felt that more could have been included and an effort could have been made to use more of a 'storytelling' approach. As well, writer/director/narrator George Butler could have used celebrities or strong personalities among the mission team, to create more interest. his choice, however, was to create a simple documentary, which is fine for space race fans, but of limited interest to others.The feature tells the story of NASA's Mars Rover mission, which saw the construction of two incredibly complex robotic vehicles (The total technology involved in the rovers exceeds the brain capacity of any one person - best useless fact of the film) named 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity' and sent them to the surface of Mars, where they landed successfully in the summer of 2003. There is extensive footage of the surface of Mars, where both carefully accurate CGI and actual Rover footage, is used to give the viewer a nice visit to another world. Amazingly, the planned mission of 90 days has now gone on for over four years and continues to this day. They don't tell you that in the film. I became curious and looked it up for you guys.This documentary is an excellent choice for educators and for those with an interest in the space program. Many others, who are less academically curious will not enjoy it and should steer clear. If it is your cup of tea, then check out the special features, as well. They share a lot more interesting information.This work was first posted on realmoviereview.com

drsfiddle I was fortunate enough to see the first public premier of this IMAX movie given to Lockheed-Martin Employees. The public reception was warm but not overwhelming. The images of Mars and the Rocket Launch were magnificent and the animated segments were indistinguishable from the filmed segments, very accurately using the photographs sent by the Rovers to create the landscapes. One note about a sequence that made many in the theater groan - THERE IS NO SOUND IN SPACE!!!!! Much of the movie consisted of often young enthusiastic engineers telling us how impossible the task was and (indirectly) how brilliant they must be. I do not belittle the accomplishment, it is awesome to be sure, but this standard Mantra we get with every film depicting a technological accomplishment is getting repetitious. On the other hand, I understand the wall NASA is up against every day to get and keep funding for these very important programs, so any salesmanship is forgiven. It is also, I suppose, important for the general layman to understand why these programs are so difficult to pull off so they can truly appreciate the success. I was impressed by the humor and humbleness that the engineers displayed in the face of test failures. This is an interesting, and at times, visually striking documentary, definitely worth seeing. Take the kids, they'll be wide eyed as the public gets its first truly satisfying look at the red planet.