Review of Cosmic Voyage (IMAX) (2002)

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What does the universe look like at the scale of atoms, or that of galaxy superclusters? What did the early universe look like, and how did it evolve into the cosmos we know today? What other life may have evolved and be wondering about our universe as we do?

These are deep questions, and no short film can possibly do them all complete justice. Instead, in its 35 minutes, Cosmic Voyage flies through a summary of what we know--just enough to whet your appetite for more.

Starting in Galileo's Venice, with familiar everyday scales of time and space, the IMAX film employs a common technique: expanding our perspective by successive factors of 10, until the screen encompasses the largest structures scientists know of today, and our own Earth is utterly lost in the deep expanse. A similar voyage takes us from the waterways of the Netherlands down into the nucleus of the atom, where (somewhat paradoxically) our knowledge comes from some of the largest experiments in the world.

The simulation of the early universe and the numerous galactic collisions is especially awe-inspiring. Usually, documentaries of this sort employ artists to bring the words of astrophysics journals to life; Cosmic Voyage was the first movie to make use of scientific computing and cosmic simulations on such a large scale. The sequence was computed under the direction of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), which also had an early hand in popularizing the World Wide Web. The result is an accurate and breathtaking depiction of how the oldest and largest parts of cosmic architecture took shape.

The temptation with any such documentary is to compare it to Cosmos, the PBS documentary hosted by Carl Sagan that ran in 1980. But the comparison is unfair. Sagan had 13 hour-long episodes, with a sweep at once broader and deeper than anything since. With only 5 percent of the length, Cosmis Voyage can't expect to duplicate that sweep, and to its credit, it doesn't try. It just stuns you with its imagery and inspires you to find out more, and it does so without straying from scientific accuracy. Provided you keep in mind the length and scope of the film, you won't be disappointed.

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I have used this DVD for the past several years in my science classes. After introducing my students to the metric system, and doing labs to reinforce this new concept, I show COSMIC VOYAGE as a culmination to the metric system, and as an introduction to the Astronomy Unit. The metric system is based on Powers of Ten. The scene that starts in Venice and expands outward into space by powers of ten is effective for my students. Conversely, to watch a water droplet and decrease by powers of ten is also important for students to see. After watching this, my students are jazzed and can't wait to learn about the universe. At the end of the school year, many cite COSMIC VOYAGE as one of their favorite DVD's and the Astronomy Unit as one of their favorite units.

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In this incredible journey the viewer travels from the outer reaches of space down into the nucleus of a carbon atom. Cosmic Voyage is able to explain, in layman's terms, the theory of how the universe began the "Big Bang" and how the entire mass of the universe could have been compressed into a space the size of a tennis ball. Parallel worlds? Life on other planets? Cosmic Voyage answers all these questions. Teachers will rate this film five stars and a must have for the classroom.

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I've bought several Imax DVDs over the last year, and I've found all of them impressive. This one is no different in the impression department, but I felt that the overall tone of the video was directed much more towards education than the previous videos. The text or the narration (performed wonderfully by Morgan Freeman) sounds like it was written for one of those old videos we were forced to watch in science class as kids. While I always found those videos to be so poorly produced they became boring this film has such amazing video that you become engrossed in the movie, even with the educational tone. I would have given it 4 stars because of the educational feel, but after thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided that it still deserved 5. If you have children, I doubt you could find a better movie to inspire them with science. If I were a science teacher today, I'd start the term with this video to motivate students who might otherwise shy away from sceince.

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This DVD version of the IMAX film, "Cosmic Voyage," will dazzle the eyes with it's incrediable pictures of outer space, micro sized atoms, and digital photography. Morgan Freeman narrates with his lovely, deep voice and keeps the film's slow pace at a more interesting flow. The music is also enchanting and helps it be a smoother ride. I never saw this at the IMAX theatre, but at school on a projecter about 10x smaller than the IMAX. But, nevertheless, it still captivated me and took me far, far away. Cosmic Voyage doesn't delve deep into Astronomical findings or anything excitingly new, but it does give us information that we see everyday and puts a spotlight on itmaking our world ever more visible than we imagined.