Hubble 3D
Movie Details
- Genre: Documentary
- Release Date: 2010-03-19 Limited
- Running Time: 45 min.
- Director: Toni Myers
- Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, K. Megan McArthur, Scott D. Altman, Michael J. Massimino, Michael T. Good, John M. Grunsfeld, Gregory C. Johnson, Andrew J. Feustel
- Producer: Judy Carroll
- Writer: Toni Myers
- Distributor: IMAX/Warner Bros. Pictures
- Official Site: Hubble 3D Official Site
NASA's famous space telescope was carried by shuttle into Earth's orbit 20 years ago next month, and within weeks of that launch it was discovered that this huge and hugely expensive bastard had a flawed optical system--Hubble was a real lemon. If there's one thing that Space Station 3D producer/director Toni Myers's new IMAX doc about the Hubble achieves, it's making audiences feel like insignificant specks in the universe, as when "zooming in" to the tiny, newly forming galaxies hiding in the gaseous clouds of each star in Orion's Belt. More futility may be found in the film's primary agenda, a first-person snapshot of 2009's final rescue mission, in which seven astronauts risked their necks to manually fix the telescope, making it the most dangerous job in tech-support history. Even at 43 minutes short, with earnest but marketable narration by Leonardo DiCaprio and one amusing zero-gravity taco preparation scene, Hubble 3D's perilous endeavors are about as thrilling to watch as plumbers snaking a drain... in spacesuits! If you want an eye-popping cosmic epic, rent Star Trek. If you want interactivity, take the kids to the planetarium.
Aaron Hillis