''Spaceship Earth'' is a 2020 American

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

directed by Matt Wolf about the 1991 experiment that saw eight individuals spend two years quarantined inside of a self-engineered replica of Earth's ecosystem, dubbed

Biosphere 2 University of Arizona Biosphere 2 is an American Earth system science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona. Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and i ...

. The film premiered at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

on January 26, 2020, and was released in the United States on May 8, 2020, by

Neon Neon is a chemical element; it has symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is the second noble gas in the periodic table. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with approximately two-thirds the density of ...

Premise

Using archived footage and present-day interviews, the film follows the large dome that featured a replica of earth's ecosystem called

, constructed in the

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

desert. Trying to see if it is possible to establish human existence on other planets, eight "biospherians" go to live inside the

vivarium A vivarium (; or vivariums) is an area, usually enclosed, for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research. Water-based vivaria may have open tops providing they are not connected to other water bodies. An animal enclosur ...

, where they face ecological issues and accusations of cult-mentalities.

Reception

On review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critics consensus reads: "''Spaceship Earth'' achieves liftoff as an engaging behind-the-scenes record of an audacious experiment -- and settles into orbit as poignant proof of the power of a shared dream."

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

assigned the film an average weighted score of 73 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". John DeFore of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' wrote: "Using both present-tense interviews and footage from the time, Wolf shows how things nearly fell apart. But he also captures the seriousness of purpose behind what some saw as a giant publicity stunt — and convinces us that this was a one-of-a-kind way to learn some of the things humanity will need to know as this world changes and others are considered for habitation." Kate Knibbs, in ''

Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

'', wrote that director Matt Wolf's "soft-focus emphasis on the bonhomie of the Synergians" was unexpectedly touching. The review calls the film a credulous portrayal while having an incomplete narrative, omitting incidents of interpersonal drama and gliding over what transpired following the first round of the experiment.

Steve Bannon Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist for the first seven months of president Donald Trump's first ...

, who took over Biosphere 2 in 1993, only appears in the final 15 minutes of the film despite causing the resignation of the original Biospherians and filing criminal charges against Abigail Alling and Mark Van Thillo after they broke into the enclosure to warn the second group about him.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 11394188
Spaceship Earth
at

2020s English-language films 2020 documentary films 2020 films Films directed by Matt Wolf English-language documentary films Neon (company) films Impact Partners films