Wanderers (2014 film)
| Wanderers | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Erik Wernquist |
| Produced by | Erik Wernquist |
| Written by | Carl Sagan |
| Based on | Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space |
| Starring | Anna Nerman Camilla Hammarström Hanna Mellin |
| Narrated by | Carl Sagan |
| Music by | Cristian Sandquist[1] |
| Edited by | Erik Wernquist |
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Release dates
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Running time
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4 minutes |
| Country | Sweden |
| Language | English |
Wanderers is a 2014 Swedish science fiction short film directed by digital artist and animator Erik Wernquist.[2] The film's visuals are digital recreations of actual locations in the Solar System, presented along with a narration by astronomer Carl Sagan, reading from his 1994 book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.[3][4]
Plot
The film begins with a group of nomads around 10,000 BC, travelling through the Middle East on Earth. The film cuts to a large spacecraft leaving Earth's orbit, likely set to colonize a far-off planet. We see astronauts journeying to the planet Jupiter and its moon Europa, and to the rings of Saturn, as well as around its moon Enceladus. An elevator system is seen to be connected to the planet Mars, and explorers on the Victoria crater on the planet's surface await approaching dirigibles. Human colonies are shown on the surface of Saturn's moon Iapetus. A hollowed-out asteroid is depicted, pressurized and filled with breathable air, with man-made lakes and seas rotating around an artificial sun.
On Saturn's moon Titan, humans are seen flying around with specialized flight gear, made possible by Titan's relatively low levels of gravity. Explorers are seen BASE jumping off cliffs on Miranda, the smallest moon orbiting the planet Uranus. On Saturn, human-made airships are shown in the distant clouds, overlooked by the planet's colossal rings. On one of the ships, a female explorer gazes out into the distance, wearing an insulated jacket, a fur hood, and a protective mask. As the clouds of Saturn cast reflections on her helmet, which conceals her mouth, she smiles in wonder. Carl Sagan's narration concludes as he states:
Maybe it's a little early. Maybe the time is not quite yet. But those are the worlds, promising untold opportunities, beckon silently. They orbit the sun, waiting.[5]
Development
Wanderers is based off the visions of its director, Erik Wernquist, regarding humanity's future explorations of outer space. The film's visuals, animated by Wernquist, are digital recreations of real places in the solar system; though speculative, the human technology depicted in the film derives from pre-existing scientific concepts and ideas.[6][2] The film's backgrounds are built from map data and/or from photographs taken by NASA.[4][7] The visuals are inspired by the works of science fiction writers Arthur C. Clarke and Kim Stanley Robinson, as well as illustrator Chesley Bonestell.[6]
With the permission of Ann Druyan, the wife of astronomer Carl Sagan, Wernquist added excerpts of Sagan's narration of his book Pale Blue Dot throughout the film.[6]
Release and reception
The film was released on the video-sharing website Vimeo on October 11, 2014, and was officially uploaded to YouTube on August 4, 2015.
The short film has received extremely positive reviews since its release. Leonard David, a columnist on Space.com, called it a "marvelous production".[3] Amy Shira Teitel of the website Nerdist said the film was "brilliantly realistic" and that it "might even be better than Interstellar."[2] Dante D'Orazio of The Verge wrote that the film was a "stunningly beautiful journey across our solar system", and that while it "doesn't have a traditional story, the visuals and score (paired with Sagan's words) will make you, too, dream of the day when we become a multi-planetary species."[4]
References
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