Educational Media Reviews Online

Space travel has given us a new perspective on ourselves and the planet on which we live. Planetary leads with astronauts describing their feelings of awe. Humans appear as one part of a web covering the planet, a single, living system where we are embedded in nature not opposed to it. Their experiences are the stepping-off point for biologists, philosophers, activists, artists, and others to talk about their whole-earth experiences and how these experiences led them to a perspective shift they say can help us develop a new and less damaging view of ourselves and our planet. Planetary uses striking aerial and close-up cinematography of nature and our fabricated environment with locales from New York to Las Vegas, Japan, forests, deserts, and more. We see roaring waves, calving glaciers, zooming stars, and pulsing microorganisms at all scales and speeds. The film contrasts the view that "the universe was made for us" with "the earth is one system, and we're all part of that system." Alienation from the natural world and each other are cited as the root cause of environmental crisis and unhealthy consumerism. The film's tagline is "Reconnect to something bigger." It then turns to solutions, such as meditation, mindfulness, consciousness of our connection to the earth and the universe, understanding of indigenous thought, culture and philosophy, and to "Open[ing] the human heart to the awe of existence." The droning, dreamy, meditative musical soundtrack invites us to slow down and pay attention. This film resembles Koyaanisqatsi, the 1982 film about "life out of balance," in viewpoint and style. The message is that we are connected to and are a part of the Earth and all life on it, and that our survival depends on adopting this view.

There are two discs in Planetary. Disc 1 has an 84-minute version with stereo and 5.1 surround audio options, a 52-minute version, the short film Overview, an Earth Day trailer, and a theatrical release trailer. Disc 2 contains the 43-minute educational version, a 72-page educational edition teaching guide in PDF, and a 12-page booklet with cast biographies. All versions have the same theme and substantially identical film footage. A brief, accompanying printed booklet has cast biographies. The subtitles are a little hard to read, with their narrow font and some words run together.