Spaceship Earth

A truly missed opportunity, dealing with an interesting topic of a band of idealists, visionaries, hippies, in what is basically a cult-like setting, the show never develops into a coherent narrative that reveals much of interest. It kind of weaves, bends and meanders all over the place and, in the end, the viewer is left wondering about their individual motivation, why exactly they have failed, the dynamics of their relationships, the crux of the outcome or anything really besides the most superficial. A truly missed opportunity.

Tucson, Arizona is my hometown and in all honesty, I have seen Biosphere 2 only once. It is a magnificent structure that makes you wonder what compelled eight people to try and make a life in this small and enclosed space. While there are plenty of controversies about the legitimacy of the project and the band of individuals who constructed this experiment, it's pretty clear that a great many people (especially those on this review page) have very little idea about the idea of allegory.

I'll start with the structure of the documentary, which for all intents and purposes is fine. They probably could have trimmed off 15-20 minutes of the buildup to the Biosphere 2 but it was fascinating to see the mindset of the people that conceived this idea. While the defamatory buzz word of "cult" is always tossed around, usually critics are forgetting that a cult's main job is to take money from its participants and grow. Hmmm.... I wonder what religious organizations do that? Try all of them.

Anyway, my only gripe is they didn't focus enough on the inner turmoil of the crew once it starting hitting the fan. While this would have added a bit more doom and gloom to the film, I think a less rose colored lens would have helped. It's clear they didn't have enough scientific help on the project, and it was also clear they were not transparent about the countermeasures in place with the back-up systems. But I also think people jumped on the negative too quickly. This was an experiment that was the first of its kind, and one has to understand that not everything is going to go perfectly. News media, especially the local Tucson news which had a rather conservative bent at the time, were all too willing to mock the idea of "hippies" with the capital to make this happen.

Ultimately, one of the former crew members summed it up perfectly. Capitalism has monetized any potential science associated to the project, and it remains a strange tourist destination in a dusty small town. It's the monument of steel and glass in an area that is largely old houses and mobile homes. It was a shock to see perpetual liar and scum bag Steve Brannon in this mess, clearly illustrating that his terrible talking points and smug superiority was not a recent development.

This story does illustrate one thing that I wish people would take more seriously. Each person does have an affect on our own biosphere. Whether we think we are insignificant or not, we cannot buy into the capitalist doublespeak that business and "Wall Street" minds can solve the ills of society and our planet. They have no long term goals, no personal responsibility to other human beings and no soul. Go ahead and give me a down vote for that if you like...you know it is true.

There was a great scene at the end of the movie Silent Running that illustrated the conundrum of our current humanity. The space ship was being called back and the corporatists that destroyed the planet felt the right thing to do was simply continue destroying, even if it was the last piece of beauty left from our great planet. We need to continue to maintain our planet, for we are not going to some other planet any time soon. And frankly, blowing up the ship is not a viable option.

Welcome to the fantastic future of 1991 as the human petri dish project BIOSPHERE 2 is underway! What looks like a kooky SciFi piece of last century fiction, turns out to be a bizarre true life experiment, sequestering idealistic science nerds in their self-sustaining eco bubble.

Rife with cult overtones and extraordinary characters, "Spaceship Earth" documents a group of giddy dreamers as they pave the way for future planet colonizations by creating their own pressure cooker mini earth. What could go wrong?

Well, much does indeed go wrong, but unfortunately, nothing of the sensational variety. There is no physical rebellion. There are no monsters spawned. There are no lives lost. Yet it is damn fascinating: the spectre of a tight army of red uniformed humans scurrying about their self made ant hill aquarium, whilst the world literally looked on.

There is a "Truman Show" aspect at play here, as organizer, impresario, Grand Poobah and owner of a wacky combover, John P. Allen (aka Johnny Dolphin) dictates the inner proceedings from an outside control room. That is, until there is a power struggle featuring, wait for it, Steve Bannon. Yep, you can't make this stuff up.

Strangely the BIOSPHERE 2 phenomena, which at the time was a world wide sensation that predicted genius nutbars like Elon Musk, is relatively forgotten.

That mistake has now been remedied. Enjoy.

• hipCRANK

Greetings again from the darkness. Most all of us built a terrarium for science class when we were in junior high. Did you ever fantasize about living in it? Well that's basically what happened in 1991 when 8 scientists were sealed up in Biosphere 2, a giant terrarium built in Oracle, Arizona. Their mission was to live a self-sustained existence for two years, and this was done in the name of scientific research that might one day lead to humans living in space. It was known as Biosphere 2 since they considered Earth to be number one, and filmmaker Matt Wolf kicks off the documentary with actual news clips from that day in 1991 when the door was shut behind the eight biospherians.

After running those initial clips, Mr. Wolf immediately takes us back 25 years prior, and introduces us to The Synergists - a group of resourceful, very smart, free-thinkers who assembled in San Francisco under the charismatic leadership of John Allen. At first, it's a little confusing why we are watching these old 'home movies' from what appears to be a commune, and listening to these people, now 50 years older, talking about the good old days. Of course, the backstory of these folks with nicknames like Johnny Dolphin, Flash, Salty, and Firefly turns out to be the foundation of Biosphere 2 ... but not before they form Synergia Ranch in 1969 New Mexico, and then build a ship in Oakland from scrap metal in 1974. Their ship was named Heraclitus, after the Greek philosopher, and their inspiration was derived from writers Buckminster Fuller ("Spaceship Earth"), Rene Damaul ("Mount Analogue"), and William S Burroughs.

It's understandable if your thoughts drift towards 'cult' or 'commune', but as one of them states, they were "a corporation, not a commune." With international interests in a hotel, an art gallery, and a theatrical group, amongst other enterprises, they were able to sustain their creative pursuits ... unlike the many hippies of the era numbed by drug use. Inspired by the 1972 movie SILENT RUNNING, Mr. Allen and their in-house architect Phil Hawes began working on the idea of a self-contained space colony. By 1986, design work for Biosphere 2 had begun and Ft Worth oil billionaire Ed Bass was bankrolling the project. It was a massive undertaking both from planning and construction, plus the training and selection of biospherians began in 1990.

Given today's 'social distancing' due to COVID-19, it's a bit ironic that we are looking back at a 28 year ago small group isolation in a self-contained environment. Filmmaker Wolf doesn't shy away from the science world skeptics who, with a smidge of jealousy labeled the venture "trendy ecological entertainment." Whatever you call it, this was an international event and drew interest from all walks of life, right up until 1993 when the biospherians walked out of the dome. In another sign of remarkable symmetry to today's world, in 1994 Mr. Bass fired most of the original group, and put Steve Bannon (yes THE Steve Bannon) in charge of Biosphere 2. It might not surprise you that most of the scientific data and research soon disappeared.

Wolf takes us 25 years after the mission to catch up with Mr. Allen and other Synergists. The Synergia Ranch still exists and John Allen remains as energetic and idealistic as he was in the 1960's. Biosphere 2 is now open to the public and being managed by the University of Arizona, and we still aren't sure whether a pre-fab paradise will work in space. Wolf's film is filled with interesting tidbits from 3 different eras, and though the early days are quite entertaining, it seems entirely too much time is devoted to the time prior to the Biosphere. And because of that, many of our questions remain unanswered as to whether the two years advanced research, or whether the effort was nothing more than a glorified publicity stunt. Either way, capturing this in documentary form allows the 1991 Biosphere 2 project to be explained to future generations ... some we hope will be as innovative, and dream as big as the Synergists.

I remember this in the news when I was a kid and thought it was intriguing, but I only vaguely remember the controversy. I didn't understand the problems with what they did (it was an experiment after all, not a dare or a bet) and still don't. At the end, they had a better idea of what was needed before they began. That's what you get from an experiment, generally.

It started slow but it picked up nicely. I wish there could have been interviews with all eight of the Biospherians and maybe a little more about what they learned, but this documentary is about the people behind the experiment, not the experiment itself. And that's OK. Not what I was hoping for but I was pleased with what I got. I'm glad they showed that these people weren't part of what most people would consider a commune. I would have enjoyed having been part of a group like that, especially once they left San Francisco. It would have been absolutely fascinating.

Totally worth a watch.