peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2022 12 29 GoodNightOppy

Good Night Oppy (2022)

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A leading contender for the coming doco Oscar, the internet tells me. I wanted more science and less anthropomorphism. Little information about what was actually discovered is conveyed; all we got is that there is some evidence that neutral-pH water was present on Mars a long time ago. I could've done with more background on Steve Squyres and details of the engineering, what sensors were carried, etc. I came away with no clue what Perseverance is looking for. Overall this was a poor packaging of what is fascinating raw material; it asked a lot less of its audience than Carl Sagan did in Cosmos forty years ago. And the soundtrack is not cracker.

Wikipedia has some details of the science, the rover engineering and an overview of the larger, ongoing program. Ben Kenigsberg managed to look past the excess personification.