Roving Mars

Rating G Formats DVD Genre documentary Starring Paul Newman, Stephen Squyres, Rob Manning, Charles Elachi, Wayne Lee Directed by George Butler Publisher Buena Vista Home Entertainment External Links Official Roving Mars Website

Roving Mars is a short IMAX film that focuses on the development, launch and operation of two Mars Exploration Rovers, the Spirit and Opportunity. It's actually on its way to becoming one of the most successful; IMAX documentaries ever, currently grossing at.$60 million. If you really feel the need for the IMAX experience, you can still catch it at a few select theaters. On the other hand, if you're too far from the theater, broke or just too lazy to go out, you'll have to settle for the DVD.

If you have seen any IMAX documentary (i.e. Mysteries of the Nile, To The Limit), you will notice that Roving Mars very much follows the standard template. You get your informative narration, scientific rundowns and of course, astounding visuals complemented with an astounding score (provided by Philip Glass this time around). So in a productive case, its expectedly great.

The disappointing thing about the film is its promise to show you actual footage of the rovers on the planet. While we do get imagery in the form of photographs, we do not get to see any sort of video footage. Thus, the landing of the rovers and their trip through the red planet is recreated through the use of CGI. Meanwhile, where Roving Mars succeeds is its in-depth look at NASA's efforts to make this mission a success. We learn about every aspect from the actual designing and engineering involved in building the rovers to the precise timing and tight agenda that needed to be followed. Its rather amazing how the human race will go great lengths in order to conquer the scientific boundaries of inner space and outer space. And Roving Mars is just another testament to this.

To help enhance the short viewing experience (the film runs about 45 minutes), Disney has made sure that purchasers of this DVD will feel that their 30 dollars was money well spent. Included is the "Mars: Past, Present & Future” documentary. Running at 22 minutes, this feature highlights our society's obsession with the planet, the progress we made in our attempts to learn about it and what are our plans to learn a great deal more. It's a nice piece but the true bread and butter is the 1957 "Disneyland" episode entitled "Mars and Beyond." This hour-long special is extremely outdated and chockfull of information that was later corrected or altogether dismissed but it's a fun and nostalgic piece that will definitely spark up some old 5th grade classroom memories.

The actual documentary is a nice piece of eye candy that, thanks to the absence of any sort of real footage of Mars, somewhat lets us down. However, the two hearty extras definitely make up for the loss.