Cosmic Voyage (IMAX)

Cosmic Voyage (IMAX)
by Bayley Silleck

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DVD Reviews of Cosmic Voyage (IMAX)

DVD Review: Short but sweet introduction to the scale of the universe
Summary: 4 Stars

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.

Description of Cosmic Voyage (IMAX)