Stargaze - Hubble's View of the Universe

This display of the Hubble space telescope's work is changing the way people feel and think. Everyone I have watched this display with expressed some form of changed emotions from joy, to loneliness, to despair. As for the young, the question becomes one of why we cannot go there. Thus, the quest for knowledge of the universe continues. I am a science teacher and regard this disc as a must have.

If you have any interest in what "is out there" in outer space this is a film you can not miss. When we watched it we watched it twice in a row. This film is truely breathtaking. Watch it without the sound at least once so you can comment on the pictures.

i was surprized that no commentory or subtitle to tell me what i am watching. may be it was my mistake that i didnt pay attention to the describtion of the disc content. but be careful.. it is exactly as the title says.. just a stargaze with some music :(

The fisrt scene already warms the soul. The music is awesome. They could not have chosen anything better. I think some people will look at these pictures of galaxies and stardust and go - oh, that's nice and forget about it once they switch of the TV, but others, like me will just sit in awe as you see the most spectacular visions of our universe. It really puts us humans and this little planet we live on in perspective. Who knows how many civilizations are in those pictures if we could only have zoomed in even more. A great DVD with the most beautiful music. Get it!

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This program presents images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) from 1990 to 1998. All images are accompanied by New Age music.

Before I say anything else, the images presented in this program are magnificent, awe-inspiring, and jaw-dropping. They should be seen by every Earthling so everybody can experience the extraordinary beauty of the universe.

The main menu for this program is as follows:

1. Play
2. Chapters (or Scenes)
3. Special Features
4. Credits (for all images and music presented in this program)
5. Previews (of other programs)

When I got this program, I simply put this disc into my DVD player and chose "Play" from the main menu. What I got was images accompanied by New Age music and nothing else. Personally, I liked the music that I found to be very calming and serene but I had no idea what I was looking at. I reasoned that there must be something I had to activate to explain the images I was seeing.

After being perplexed for a few minutes and wandering around the main menu, I eventually chose "Special Features" from the main menu.

The Special Features had the following selections:

1. audio (available in English, French, German, and Spanish)
2. subtitles (also available in the above languages)
3. language (also available in the above languages)
4. screen saver
5. web DVD

I knew that I wanted the "English language" so I selected it. I also wanted "English subtitles" that I eventually found out were termed "English nomenclature" in this menu. (I was initially confused by the term "nomenclature" because this word means "a system of naming" not "subtitles".) Choosing these, you get the naming of images accompanied by music. This was certainly better than just images and music alone but I still found that this was not enough to get full enjoyment from this program.

This time I selected "audio" from the special features menu. From this I chose "English narration." I also selected "English narration" from the subtitles section. With these selections you get music and narration that explains the images and the words of the narrator are printed under each image. I watched the entire program with "English narration" for both audio and subtitle selections. It was only after I watched the entire program like this that I realized that there may have been a better option for me: keep the "English narration" in the audio but have instead the "English nomenclature" for the subtitles. (With "English narration" subtitles, too many words appear on the screen. I found this to be distracting.)

The reason I explained all the above is that it is easy to see why I think that there should have been a note that explained the options available with respect to audio and subtitles. Instead you have to experiment. Some people may find this frustrating and time-consuming. (In fact, I'm still not sure if other options are available!)

For those who don't like New Age music, there is no way of turning the music off. However, if the narration is turned on, then the music becomes quiet background music.

The fantastic images in this program can be divided into three parts:

(1) This covers chapters or scenes (1 to 3) and lasts about 15.5 minutes. Here we are told everything about the HST. Oddly, there is not one image of the HST in this part. The images instead are deep space images that we're told nothing about.

(2) Covers chapters (4 to 9) and lasts about 32.5 minutes. This is where the mesmerizing images are explained. Here there are visuals of deep space that include nebulae, distant galaxies, galactic clusters, and other exotic objects. These are static images but the camera keeps moving across them giving the illusion of movement.

(3) Covers chapter 10 and lasts about 8.25 minutes. Here, we are shown time-lapse photography of the Solar System's outer planets, namely Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and even Pluto. The images were from the HST and were meticulously put together into a time-lapse sequence for each of the planets mentioned.

The end credits roll and that's the end of the program. Right? Wrong! There is no mention of this anywhere (why??) but we then get a sequential presentation (that lasts for about 4.75 minutes) of nine astronomical paintings of some real galactic images that were shown in the main program. The title of each painting is shown briefly at the bottom of each painting. The paintings were created by Marilynn Flynn who is, and the viewer is not told this, a great space artist.

Finally, I should mention the screen saver selections (that can be accessed through the "Special Features" of the main menu). Here we get a display of most of the images seen in the main program as well as paintings by the above artist. Oddly, some images of the HST are shown. (Recall that there were no images of the HST in the main program.) The images appear sequentially with their titles appearing briefly at the bottom of each image. It is possible to pause an image but you can't go back to a previous image.

In conclusion, barring some of the problems hinted at above, this is an incredible visual, audio, and educational delight, demonstrating just an infinitesimally small number of cosmic wonders that are in our vast universe!!

**** 1/2

(1998; 1 hr; widescreen; 10 chapters)

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