''Roving Mars'' is a 2006 American

IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating. Graem ...

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

about the development, launch, and operation of the

Mars Exploration Rover NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission was a robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, '' Spirit'' and '' Opportunity'', exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rovers to explore the Martian surface ...

s, ''

Spirit Spirit or spirits may refer to: Liquor and other volatile liquids * Spirits, a.k.a. liquor, distilled alcoholic drinks * Spirit or tincture, an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol * Volatile (especially flammable) liquids, ...

'' and ''

Opportunity Opportunity may refer to: Places * Opportunity, Montana, an unincorporated community, United States * Opportunity, Nebraska, an unincorporated community, United States * Opportunity, Washington, a former census-designated place, United States * ...

''. The film uses few actual photographs from Mars, opting to use computer generated animation based on the photographs and data from the rovers and other Mars probes. The film has been released on

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of s ...

disc by distributor

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

. ''Roving Mars'' has made over

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10 million as of January 25, 2009. ''Roving Mars'' is also the title of a non-fiction book by MER principal investigator

Steve Squyres Steven Weldon Squyres (born January 9, 1956) is an American geologist and planetary scientist. He was the James A. Weeks Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His research area is in planetary sciences, with a ...

about the rover mission.

Music

The musical score for ''Roving Mars'' was composed by

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive ...

. A soundtrack album was released by

Lakeshore Records Lakeshore Entertainment Group, LLC is an American independent film production, finance, and former international sales and distribution company founded in 1994 by Tom Rosenberg and Ted Tannebaum (1933–2002). Lakeshore Entertainment is headquar ...

on June 27, 2006. The album also features the song "

Glósóli "Glósóli" (, Icelandic for "Glowing Sole") is a song by Sigur Rós, released as part of their 2005 album '' Takk...'' Together with "Sæglópur" it was the first single released from the album, available as a download only release on iTunes in ...

" by

Sigur Rós Sigur Rós () is an Icelandic post-rock band from Reykjavík, active since 1994. The band comprises singer and guitarist Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson, bassist Georg Hólm, and keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson. Known for their ethereal sound, fr ...

Reception

''Roving Mars'' received positive reviews from critics.

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reports a 70% rating based on 37 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. Its consensus states that "''Roving Mars'' is a decent thrill ride even when it starts feeling like a commercial plug for NASA's failing space program." ''Entertainment Weekly'' gave the film a B−, stating that "Only a series of pics featuring a set of strange little nodes that look like blueberries planted in a pile of red rocks carry any kind of translatable otherworldly kick." The ''New York Post'' called it a "splendidly photographed 2D IMAX film." The ''Boston Globe'' said "Despite audiences knowing the happy ending from the get-go, irector eorgeButler manages to inject considerable drama." Conversely, the ''Los Angeles Times'' claimed, "Not having a way to capture images of the machines at work means that too much of Butler's film... is disappointingly made up of computer simulations.", while the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' claimed that "There aren't enough pyrotechnics in the paltry 40-minute run time to justify the ticket price."

References

External links

* * *
''Boston Globe'' article about the development of the film
2006 films 2006 documentary films 2006 short films American short documentary films Disney documentary films Documentary films about the space program of the United States Films scored by Philip Glass Films produced by Frank Marshall IMAX short films Mars Exploration Rover mission Mars in film 2000s short documentary films The Kennedy/Marshall Company films Walt Disney Pictures films Disney short films IMAX documentary films Documentary films about outer space Films directed by George Butler (filmmaker) 2000s English-language films 2000s American films {{short-documentary-film-stub