Review: A Beautiful Planet - 3D

This week we went to see A Beautiful Planet in 3D at IMAX Melbourne.

To kick off the show it was introduced by a real live Nasa Astronaut! After completing many space missions covering a total of 55 days in space Marsha Ivins, shared with us that the footage we were about to see was not animated, it was all exactly what an astronaut sees in space. At times I had to remind myself of this note as the images look like they could truly be that of someone's imagination.

A Beautiful Planet is only a 45 minute film, but it feels longer as you see so many brilliant images of earth. Cut between scenes are snippets of life for the astronauts living on the space station, how they exercise, sleep, and even grow lettuce. The moments with the astronaut walking OUTSIDE the space station made me hold my breath as I just imagined him falling off and floating off into space, never to be seen again.

It's a great film to see with your friends who might be climate change sceptics. Take them to see it, let them see Earth from far far away where the brown baron lands are extreme, where land has sunk in vast places from people taking underground water for just a few decades.

There is a section where you learn what it would be like on Mars, and with the 3D glasses in full effect, I actually felt a little like I was on a ride at the show. The effects are just extraordinary.


Outside the cinema there is a giant blackboard encouraging people to share the things that they think are beautiful on the planet.

This is very much a documentary, smaller kids might find it a little too documentary like but Miss 7 enjoyed the entire show. If I had any complaints about this film it would be the heavy focus on USA, it's clear that the people making this film are American, while other countries are shown, it is just a tiny glimpse of the top of Australia and not a great deal of Asia. But you do get to see things you could never imagine, like the difference between North and South Korea in perhaps the image that best describes two countries who are physically so close, but in every other way, so far away.

This is certainly a film worth seeing on the big screen and in 3D, no matter how good your TV is at home, it will never give you the feeling you get when watching it on an imax laser screen.

Add it to the list of things to check out these school holidays.







We were guests for the opening night of A Beautiful Planet in Melbourne, photographer Lisa Frieling was there to take photos, including both the images in this post.