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Spaceship Earth Movie Review

Spaceship Earth is a 2020 documentary film directed by Matt Wolf. It’s a flawed movie about an obscure, but fascinating historical event.

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“It was quite corporate.

I even wore nail polish“

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In the early nineties, a bunch of scientists with the help of some extremely wealthy businessmen launched the project known as Biosphere 2. This was the first and only attempt to replicate Earth’s entire biosphere with all ecosystems in an enclosed, very limited space setting. The idea behind it was to see if humans would someday be capable of leaving Earth. The problem was the execution that didn’t go as planned and the negative publicity that the crew and the entire project received.

In terms of themes and subject matter, this is a lot. The movie unfortunately only scratches the surface of the many intriguing aspects to this obscure project. Yes, it sheds necessary light into this lesser known experiment that really needs to be known as well as appreciated, but the direction from Matt Wolf is way too problematic for the movie to work properly. It ended up being just okay without ever delving deeper into its themes.

What frustrated me was the lack of science in the film’s focus. I was particularly interested in the science behind this project, but sadly I did not get that in this documentary. But that led to a great exploration of the psychology behind the experiment and the various problems that living in a limited space can create  to a person’s psyche. That part of the movie was the best one by far and the third act was particularly strong.

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The first act in Spaceship Earth was the weakest as it was overly romanticized and laudatory in congratulating the Biosphere 2 people. The rest of the movie was a definite improvement, but that first act was needlessly prolonged and repetitive. The archival footage, on the other hand, is another major asset to this picture as seeing the early 90s authentic photos and even videos made the movie a beautiful, fascinating time capsule. I just wish it was less vague and directionless in its direction.

Spaceship Earth sheds light on a little known, but fascinating real-life project named Biosphere 2. Although it rarely deals with the science behind this experiment, the movie delves deeper into the psychology behind it in that very good second half. The archival footage here is also quite authentic. The problem is that the first half was overly romanticized and laudatory and the direction from Matt Wolf is quite problematic.

My Rating – 3.5