Starring: (as themselves) Frank Drake, Carolyn Porco, John Casani, Lawrence Krauss. Nick Sagen.
Director: Emer Reynolds
Release date: 28th July 2017
The year is 1977 and it is a major year for space exploration. NASA launches two Voyager Space probes, with the hope of exploring four virtually unseen planets; Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus. The first probe was launched from Cape Canaveral four days after the death of Elvis Presley, in August ’77 and the second was launched on the Sept 5th. As part of the probe, it was decided that a thing called ‘The Golden Record’ would be made to send up with it. Basically what is in essence a vinyl record, but made of Gold, the record comprised of 27 pieces of music and a collection of messages in 55 languages plus various images. The hope was that should any alien life find the disc, they would find out what Earth and its inhabitants are all about. Time passed and in 1980 we got the first proper view of Saturn, which is 1 billion km away from the Earth. This documentary follows the Voyager Space journey and shows us footage that has up until recently not been seen by the general public. We follow and hear from the Scientists and Physicists etc that worked so hard to get the Voyager mission to where it is today. We definitely know a lot more about our Universe thanks to the two Voyager probes, which are still up there, travelling through the blackness of Space.
A really amazing documentary, which charts the life of the Voyager Space probe mission, ‘The Farthest’ is an invaluable glimpse into our Universe and the Planets that we all learnt about in school. We see a lot of the images that the probes sent back to Earth and get a first-hand look at what the Scientists saw when they received the images. We also see the devastating effect that the Challenger disaster in Jan 1986 had on the Programme. 7 crew members lost their lives that day and we are shown how this tragic loss affected things at NASA.
If you have any kind of interest in Space and the exploration of it, then you will absolutely love ‘The Farthest’. I think it’s a film that everyone should see at some point in their life, because it shows us just how small we are in the great grand scheme of things. It truly puts things into perspective. Also, it’s not overly complicated like some Space documentaries are. Very simple and it features the real people that were part of this ground-breaking event in Human History. There’s also the fact that Voyager is still out there, flying through Space and ultimately it’s thought that the probe could in theory outlast human life on Earth. It’s kind of amazing that it hasn’t crashed into anything or anything into it, but that’s just another amazing side to it.
If you like movies that will educate as well as entertain then definitely give ‘The Farthest’ a watch. You will come out of it feeling very small in the grand scheme of things and more aware of the world around you. It’s truly amazing how far we have come with Space exploration over the past 40 or so years. A really brilliant and well put together Irish made documentary.
Overall: 7.5/10
