Roving Mars

What a beautiful documentary! Kudos to the creators. I have been in love with the space program since the early 60's and to view a Mars project in High Definition is a dream come true.

When the original broadcast of the bonus feature "Mars and Beyond" was aired on ABC in 1957, Sputnik was the first man made satellite. Televisions were black and white, had 12 possible channels, and no solid state components. Yet there it was, a vision of a Mars landing vehicle almost identical to what became the Apollo lunar lander when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon.

In this same 1957 Disney feature, we learn why space exploration is important - "over population and the consumption of Earth's limited resources" make expansion beyond our planet a necessity.

As a lesson in our capacity to imagine and create, and as a lesson in our ability to ignore unpleasant facts, this Disney show is a must see.

Roving Mars itself is an enjoyable documentary. Ponder a bit on what humans are capable of. Find reason to be optimistic that we can solve incredible challenges if we put our minds to it.

I bought this documentary thinking I was going to see images and footage of Mars from the two rovers during their explorations...however...99% of this documentary is COMPUTER ANIMATION! So very little of this "documentary" is actual images and footage from the rovers I can only say one thing. This documentary is PATHETIC! It runs slightly less than 40 minutes! If you followed the stories of Spirit and Opportunity in the news...then you've already seen more rover images from that source than what you will see in this documentary. AN EXTREMELY HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT! Don't waste your money.

Well designed documentary on two Mars rovers (Spirit and Opportunity.) We get just enough information and visuals to feel that we are there and part of the project. We are informed of the purpose. The crew looks tad polyandry.

Unlike movies that should concentrate on the story line with visuals coming in as a secondary attribute this documentary benefits form the Blu-ray treatment. One plus is the narration by Paul Newman.

Do not forget to look at the extras on the DVD.

First of all I was disappointed not by the fact that there was very little scientific information like one of the reviewers but by the fact that there is almost no actual Mars footage! My guess is 60 percent is about the troubles of building the rovers, and then perhaps 35 percent is CG images of the rover landing on Mars, coming up to a rock, etc, and maybe only 5 minutes of this film (if that) actually contains any actual footage of the planet itself -- the real reason I wanted to watch this film! The movie that I would love to see is one without any narrator, but with just images capturing the sublime grandeur of space (in this case Mars) paired of with some kind of subtle music by someone like Brian Eno.

That said, the CG images were nicely done, and some of the scenes of them building the rovers were interesting. My final advice, rent it first (I did) before you decide if you really want to buy it. I'm going to save my money for something else.