Space Station: IMAX

Space Station 3D is my favorite IMAX movie ever! I saw it at the aquarium's IMAX 3D theater. It was great! The opening credits are very cool in 3D. It feels like they are forming in front of you and moving back. The narrator starts out showing you the real ISS. Then it moves to a very cool simulation of how to use a jet pack that will save you if you get away from the station that astronauts are using. Then we see a very loud (thanks, IMAX corp.) rocket launch that sends the station's first module, Zarya, into orbit. Then we see the shuttle Discovery conect the Unity Node to Zarya with help from the shuttle crew. Then, the narrator talks about recycling air and water in space. The Zvesda module, that contains the technology to recycle these resorces in space, gets conected. Now the first crew is ready to come up. The crew includes two Russians and an American as comander. The comander has a while to get used to being away from his wife, yet he is very proud. The crew goes on the shuttle, (that we see launch) and they go to the station. Most of the scenes after that are about living in space. We get to see astronauts shave, eat, drink and sleep in space. We also get to see two laboratories get attached to the station and the narrator also talks about how the Space Station can come in use in the future in the end. All in all, I recommend it as the best IMAX film EVER!!

I saw this film twice in the IMAX theatre at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. It's absolutely phenomenal. The narration, camera work, direction and editing are very impressive. Some launch scenes will leave you scrambling for cover they are so real! Some shots of Earth from the Space Station are breathtaking. At times I felt as if I were there outside the Space Station looking down toward Earth. I strongly recommend it!

"Space Station", IMAX's latest space video, is Tom Hanks loving tribute to the ISS now in orbit. Don't look here for controversy about the program, or to a debate about whether it should have been built in the first place. Instead, it is a visually spectacular tribute both to the astronauts (who did much of the filming) and to the multi-billion dollar, multi-national project itself. There is nothing in here that would upset the NASA PR machine.

Having said this, it is a film to sit back and enjoy the awesome footage taken both from the inside and from the outside of the station. The visual quality of the film looks good even on a small television and must have been awesome on the big IMAX screens. One especially memorable scene was when they placed a camera (too) close to the Russian Proton rocket that launched the first station component. The flame, roar and flying debris (some of which nearly destroyed the $40,000 IMAX camera) attest to the power of that large rocket. Interior shots of the station show the large amount of internal space, far more than the little small spacecraft that we sent into orbit and on the moon, and the sheer joy of floating around weightless.

A good supplemental film described how they made the film, including interviews with a former NASA astronaut who participated in the filming.

Overall, though it is more a NASA-sponsored PR piece than a penetrating look at the station program, the visual spectacle make it a must buy for any space fan