Space odssesy
09/11/04 22:58 Filed in: Media
The BBC's new, much talked about series. What is it
and is it worth watching, my initial impressions.
I've not seen all of part 1 yet, I just caught the
last twenty minutes of this lavish new production, so
this is just (another!) initial impressions bit! As
ever there are more thoughts to come.
As I expected, it's joint production. BBC and discovery channel are the makers. I guess now days to get these sort of high production values the BBC has to go find partners, which is a shame, but not really what this entry is about!
My first thoughts are, what exactly am I watching? Is it a drama or a documentary, well a bit of both.
The premiss is this, if we had continued on from the Applo moon landings at the same pace, by this time we would be in a posison to make a manned 'grand tour' of the sola system. Space Odyssey written in the style of a documentary covering this mission. Hence we do have lots of interviews with the mission control staff, which I guess is a clever way of handling all the exposition needed in this sort of thing. They have gone to long lengths to ensure the science is good. The bits that I did see did have some drama to them, but all of the drama came from the setting. The is no real character's at all. Yes we have actors, but they are just talking heads. Sure they have different accent's, ways of talking, but they are just a foreground to the huge backdrop of our sola system.
Maybe I'm missing the point. This is after all trying to make a serious attempt to show what we could have achieved and get some science across as well. It's not a soap opera (thank heavens!)
As for this huge backdrop, the most of the CG work of the planets and the ship (I assume the ship is CG) is very good, but there where some doggy looking scenes with the landers taking off. The live action work made on the planets surfaces (so far I've only seen the Mars bits), makes good use of the Chilean desert with a bit of post processing. The on board scenes where filmed in a 'vomit comet', so the zero-g is authentic.
So initial impression, visually very good, mostly accurate science, but a bit dry. As I said more thoughts when I've seen all of part 1.
As I expected, it's joint production. BBC and discovery channel are the makers. I guess now days to get these sort of high production values the BBC has to go find partners, which is a shame, but not really what this entry is about!
My first thoughts are, what exactly am I watching? Is it a drama or a documentary, well a bit of both.
The premiss is this, if we had continued on from the Applo moon landings at the same pace, by this time we would be in a posison to make a manned 'grand tour' of the sola system. Space Odyssey written in the style of a documentary covering this mission. Hence we do have lots of interviews with the mission control staff, which I guess is a clever way of handling all the exposition needed in this sort of thing. They have gone to long lengths to ensure the science is good. The bits that I did see did have some drama to them, but all of the drama came from the setting. The is no real character's at all. Yes we have actors, but they are just talking heads. Sure they have different accent's, ways of talking, but they are just a foreground to the huge backdrop of our sola system.
Maybe I'm missing the point. This is after all trying to make a serious attempt to show what we could have achieved and get some science across as well. It's not a soap opera (thank heavens!)
As for this huge backdrop, the most of the CG work of the planets and the ship (I assume the ship is CG) is very good, but there where some doggy looking scenes with the landers taking off. The live action work made on the planets surfaces (so far I've only seen the Mars bits), makes good use of the Chilean desert with a bit of post processing. The on board scenes where filmed in a 'vomit comet', so the zero-g is authentic.
So initial impression, visually very good, mostly accurate science, but a bit dry. As I said more thoughts when I've seen all of part 1.
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