Station spatiale

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.

"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 didn't even know that they had actually built this space station. I thought it was still in the planning stages. How did they manage to get all these huge pieces up in the upper atmosphere without it hitting the media in a big way? And all these international astronauts getting to go up! Here I thought I followed science news pretty well -- guess that shows me both a) that I don't and b) how the news media can get focused on a few big stories and black everything else out. I'm glad they made a movie about it so that we could find out.

You really could see what the space station looks like inside and out and what the earth looks like from space. It almost felt like being there, without the substantial disadvantage of having to go up there in a rocket and without getting motion sick and all. Plus you get to see a lot of different astronauts and the training areas.

Hearing Tom Cruise narrate was fun. His expressive voice really perked the thing up, so it wasn't ever in danger of being dry. I'm glad he's taking an interest in the space program. The space program could sure use his help.

I've never been to an IMAX before, so a lot of this was new to me.

The 3D goggles were kind of uncomfortable, but basically they worked pretty well, even over glasses -- though I did have some struggles with them, like when some of my hair got trapped down over my nose and trying to get the things over the clips in my hair that stick out. Maybe women with long hair should wear a bathing cap for this.

When things flew at you, it really did look like they were going to hit you.

Our theater let us go up and see the projection room afterwards, which was well worth the trip. It looks almost as complicated as the space station. The poor guy in there was running around after various reels of film like crazy.

Narrated by Tom Cruise, this is a fine documentary on the building and flying of the space station. Long takes of zero gravity work. Coverage of the Russian launches. It is a well put together piece in I-Max in space come on!

This film is billed as the closest most of us will ever come to being in space. Given the IMAX 3D technology (which works near perfectly 80% of the time) you do come pretty close.

The cinematography is brilliant and the 40 years experience of the IMAX film production really show - expect most of the filming is done by astronauts, which make it even more amazing. Filmed on location quite literally 'all over the world' (though identifiable parts are the Kennedy Space Center in the US, 'Star City' in the CIS and *somewhere* over West Africa), this is about an international film as you are going to get.

There are many totally unique sequences in this film: the opening one is a very good computer simulation of a space-walk mishap in which an astronaut becomes unattached from the Space Station. Later on they do this for real to test the emergency back-pack unit.

The sound is, as one would expect from IMAX, excellent. The sub-base adds amazing realism to the launch sequences and docking maneuvers - you can really feel the 'thumps.'

The scenery, especially of earth is breath-taking and very well framed. Also, there are some more human moments: such as the watering of onions that spouted in storage, the birthday party (was it? Or a crew change-over?) and the 'other' scene of stowing provisions (I'll not spoil the humor on this one) that could have probably only been filmed in free-fall by people actually living there.

This film exposes the contrast between the CIS & USA space programs: in the former, the equipment is chunky, reliable and functions at minus 20 C; in the later neat, tidy and delicate (the Shuttles seem to need a near perfect day to launch by comparison). Yet the two do indeed work very well together in orbit, as do the truly international crews: USA, Canadian, Russian, Italian and Japanese all work alongside each other on the missions and the filming. This 'one-ness' is stressed by both the editing and voice-overs given by the astronauts. It is perhaps un-surprising then that the odd environmental point is made about looking after the planet. As a film, this is short: under an hour. This is probably long enough: you can hold your breath only so many times before passing out. The minor detractor is Tom Cruise's narration: at times it is just a little too intense and grates after a while (though this is highly personal: I ignored it and looked at the pictures).

This film is great publicity for NASA and goes someway to silencing the neigh-sayers of the ISS / space exploration projects.