This is a fantastic documentary. I don't see how anyone can "not be amazed" by the imagery captured by this spacecraft. For those of us who grew up long before there were any planetary missions, having a man-made craft spend 13+ years zipping around Saturn, taking bizarre and amazing pictures of its moons and rings (as well as the planet itself), still feels like it ought to be pure Science Fiction. And, anyone who is isn't amazed must simply be spoiled by the current technology, to a point where they have been lulled into believing that this is somehow "easy", instead of the engineering marvel that it actually is.
I saw someone complain in an Amazon review that this contains too many animations. I would disagree with that assertion, and consider the animations to be an important/useful complimentary tool in telling the story. However, whereas someone familiar with space mission photography, will have no problem distinguishing the "real" mission imagery, from the animations, I fear that some viewers may not be able to always discern the difference. Especially when some segments are actually a combination of both Cassini imagery and animated material. In fact, sadly, I fear that some folks might actually assume that some of the amazing ring imagery is "not real", thereby causing them to not fully appreciate just how amazing this mission was, from an "imagery engineering" perspective. (One has to remember that at this distance from the sun, the available light is 1/100th of what we receive on earth, so ANY imagery at that lighting level is already a "minor miracle".)
Put simply, I found all of this documentary to be amazing, and found myself replaying some of the sequences of "ring, and shepherd moon" interactions, multiple times, because they were so fascinating. My sole complaint is that the film makers did not graphically tag some of the material to distinguish between mission photography vs. animation (or augmented imagery), simply so that some viewers would be able to fully appreciate the magic of the "real" imagery. But that's not anything that would cause me to consider this as anything less than a 10 star rating.
I saw someone complain in an Amazon review that this contains too many animations. I would disagree with that assertion, and consider the animations to be an important/useful complimentary tool in telling the story. However, whereas someone familiar with space mission photography, will have no problem distinguishing the "real" mission imagery, from the animations, I fear that some viewers may not be able to always discern the difference. Especially when some segments are actually a combination of both Cassini imagery and animated material. In fact, sadly, I fear that some folks might actually assume that some of the amazing ring imagery is "not real", thereby causing them to not fully appreciate just how amazing this mission was, from an "imagery engineering" perspective. (One has to remember that at this distance from the sun, the available light is 1/100th of what we receive on earth, so ANY imagery at that lighting level is already a "minor miracle".)
Put simply, I found all of this documentary to be amazing, and found myself replaying some of the sequences of "ring, and shepherd moon" interactions, multiple times, because they were so fascinating. My sole complaint is that the film makers did not graphically tag some of the material to distinguish between mission photography vs. animation (or augmented imagery), simply so that some viewers would be able to fully appreciate the magic of the "real" imagery. But that's not anything that would cause me to consider this as anything less than a 10 star rating.
