Space Station 3D

"Space Station," an IMAX 3-D film is a first-rate vehicle heralding the success of Lockheed Martin, NASA and the space industries and astronauts and cosmonauts of many nations. I'm not particularly interested in space exploration - we have enough challenges on terra firma - but this short film is awesome. Especially in 3-D.

I'd love to know how they maneuvered the notoriously bulky and complex IMAX cameras around the International Space Station. The film is at once intimate (isn't everything up there?) and yet broad in its grandeur.

If someone had been waiting outside the theater as we emerged with petitions demanding more money for the space program I would have added my signature.

This film is for everyone!

I'm sort of a fan of wide-screen processes and visual spectacle. And, lately, I've been disappointed. Up until "Space Station 3D," the two most spectacular visual experiences I've had in my life were "This Is Cinerama" (in the early fifties) and "2001: A Space Odyssey" (on its first run, in New York.)

I've seen "2001" several times since, hoping to capture the same thrill I did on its first run, but the visual spectacle was just not there in 35mm prints. Last year I saw a 70mm print of it at the Coolidge in Boston, and was very disappointed--I don't know what was wrong, but the focus was not good, and the deep, pitch-black, back-velvet sky I remembered in the original was washed out.

I've seen many IMAX films, many of them quite good--"Everest" being one of the best--but there is usually too much material in it that is just blown-up 35mm.

Oh, and I saw "Kiss Me, Kate" and "Miss Sadie Thompson" in lovingly restored 3D at a revival in Palo Alto, and while it was a blast, basically the 3D felt just as gimmicky as you'd expect.

OK. Space Station 3D is sharp, clear, all IMAX. The three-dimensional effect is totally convincing and natural. Like "2001," you can look AROUND at the things YOU are interested in instead of what the camera happens to be pointed at. I've never before had such a compelling sensation of "actually being there." Oddly enough, some of the most intense moments for me was not the scenes in space, but the scenes where astronauts and cosmonauts are simply walking around the Baikonur complex.

This film recaptured for me the sense of "being in space" that I had the first time I saw "2001."

This is just one sensational film and is well worth going out of your way to see. It delivers fully on the IMAX promise in every way.

(And I suggest that everyone make a point of seeing real IMAX while we can, as I have an uncomfortable feeling that IMAX is in the process of sinking into the mire of enhanced 35mm blowups).

I saw Cinerama in the early fifties, "2001" in the late sixties... I've had to wait over three decades to see something as spectacular. Go see it while you can. If 35 mm blowups and video "cinema" take over, it may be another three decades before we get anything like this again.

I saw this at the IMAX, and wow! What a trip! It is like I really went into space... The 3-D was done very well, and not overdone, just perfect. The content was really good, and much excellent footage. If you want to see an IMAX, do see this!

Trippy and near exquisite three dimensional (they give out goggles if you happen to see this in IMAX format which is the best format to view) look at actual footage of outside (in space) and inside the space shuttle orbiting the earth. The kids will really enjoy this one and for all the overall ehancement from the 3D makes this an insightful experience as well as a visual one. Some good music too. A-

So you wanna spend umpteen million bucks and go visit the space station? Why not just spend eight bucks and go see this movie? That way you get the weightlessness without the nausea (unless you're sitting too close to the screen).

For people expecting an action picture, I think Space Station will seem slow and dry. But for science and astronomy geeks who want to see what's up there, this movie is pretty cool. After thirty minutes, planet earth seems foreign, and the space station seems familiar! It seems so narrow and long, like a school hallway lined with scientific equipment.

Tom Cruise was a good choice of narrator, because of, yeah, star appeal, but also because his voice telegraphs his childlike sense of wonder. To me, there was also a sense of danger, similar to the danger of being on a submarine. You're travelling through a truly hostile environment, and always just a thin shell away from disaster.

For the general public, I'd give it a seven. But for space geeks, it's atleast a nine. Now I can't wait for "Apollo 13" to come to Imax.