Odisea en el espacio

Space Odyssey is, unfortunately, largely forgotten from the variety of documentaries whose were shown during the early 2000' and they try to use CGI to make the show more attractive to the public. The majority were nevertheless quite ugly to watch ,due to the technology of the time. To put it in simple words that CGI back then were quit expensive for a TV documentary budget. There is where this lost gem makes the difference, it doesn't try to show the space travel as epic as it is possible, rather realistic enough so the watcher to fill that the crew truly travels in our solar system. Although the effects here and there are a bit dated,they have aged well and the acting is pretty good to. So go and give it a watch ,it really deserves more love than it usually gets.

i strongly recommend it to anybody who likes good plots, good actors (even if not well known)(often, it's just better that way), science and/or science fiction presented in an intelligent way on the (small) screen, good special effects even if they did not have billions of dollars to produce it...

much better than any war in the stars...

there was only one comment which was not necessary: talking about the comet, the commentator says that LIFE was maybe brought on earth through a comet... that's fun, there must be always a chance for a magic way, huh?! That's what's great about LIFE, can come anywhere, no need of extern force

i was part of the cast of Space Odyssey, playing FIDO in mission control. i just want to say that none of us actors, specially those in mission control who had to react to a green screen most of the time, had any idea how amazing it would turn out to be. i knew it was going to be good, if only for the sheer camaraderie and professionalism that the production team at Impossible Pictures provided for everyone involved. but when we all saw it for the first time at the screening at the Curzon Mayfair, well, i for one felt very proud. I was so glad that none of us looked like we were in Star Trek. Joe Aherne, the screenwriter and director, is the most amazing man to work for. He pretty much gets a good team together and then just trusts them implicitly to freely do what they do best. I'm really lucky to have been part of this show. Who knew something this epic and complicated to understand would turn out to be so enticing to watch. and my god it's a beautiful universe out there.

Duck_of_Death needs to watch this film again, as his major criticism is completely baseless. The film never once forgot about the time delay, and it was mentioned explicitly in a couple of places. The crew were never shown having conversations with mission control that didn't obey the time delay rules.

One thing I did think was a bit far-fetched was the amount of risk involved - would a crew land on a planet on which pressure suits would only last two hours? I doubt it. Would a manned space ship go into a star's corona? I doubt it. Would humans land on a moon that was being bombarded with huge amounts of radiation? I doubt it. Also, the ship seemed overly sturdy. Would a ship designed like that risk atmospheric flight to slow it down? I doubt it. Would it survive being hit by comet debris? I doubt it. I think in both cases the stresses on the structure would be too much. But all-in-all, the unlikely scenarios were compensated by some nicely done special effects, good editing and production, and some good acting, especially by the actors portraying the ship's commander and the Russian cosmonaut.

My main criticism is quite simply that it isn't long enough or detailed enough. I would have loved to see more of everything: the building of the vessel, the engineering, the training, the first lift to orbit, preparations for departure, Venus Orbital Injection, everything. I would have liked to see more of the first leg, Venus to Earth, instead of zipping there like a n°10 corporation bus. In fact, I would have liked to see a series on the scale of Earth Story made of this, with a full hour dedicated to every planet and maybe another to the loop around the Sun. As it was, I was left hungry. On the other hand, I do understand budgets and viewers' attention-spans.

Re the science: Let's be fair about the speed-of-light time-lag: they did mention at the beginning that there was a lag in conversations, but they let this evaporate once they reached the outer planets. Some kind of conversation had to be presented to the viewers, and we have to assume that the lag was edited out for the sake of palatability; so no complaints there. But zero for noisy spaceships. The only film in which spaceships make no noise was Kubrick's 2001, and even then he copped out by using the noise of the crew breathing in their helmets - which *was* pretty effective. I wish the makers of Space Odyssey had realized just how eerie the sight of vast rocket-motors blasting in absolute silence might be but alas, Pegasus lets out much the same roar as every other cardboard spaceship in every other cardboard SciFi film.

But the rest of the science was excellent. No complaints there, in fact praise for bringing out the radiation problems as well as they did. I just hope that having done this film won't discourage the BBC from making a really detailed version, but I suppose that's not for next week or next year either...