Voyage of Time is a glorious, odd trip through the Universe

Filmmaker Terrence Malick is a polarizing figure. Some find his emphasis on philosophical themes compelling, but even his Wikipedia entry notes that others "consider it pretentious and gratuitous." Still, it's hard not to get excited when you hear that a director of his stature has made a science-focused film about the history of the Universe. In IMAX. With Brad Pitt as narrator.

Or two films. Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience is the shorter piece, focusing on the timeline of the Universe and life on Earth. The longer version (Voyage of Time: Life's Journey) has Cate Blanchett doing the narration and focuses more on humanity's place within the cosmos. We recently got a chance to see the IMAX version, and we came away with mixed feelings. While the science is solid and the visuals are absolutely stunning, the narration leaves us a little underwhelmed.

Life, the Universe, and everything

The movie starts with images of a small child exploring her town, and the narration parallels this, with the first words being "dear child." But from there, it dives into computer simulations of the Big Bang, followed by one of the dark matter filaments that drew in matter and helped the first galaxies to form. You can have a look at one of these animations, but even a good-sized monitor doesn't do the IMAX experience justice.

I have the benefit of having talked to the scientist behind the dark matter simulations in the past, so it was easy to recognize what is being shown. Most other adults, however, wouldn't be as fortunate, and the narration doesn't provide any explanation at all. The "dear child" of the narration would undoubtedly be left with no shortage of questions about what they were looking at. This is a film meant to evoke, not explain.

We talked to one of the film's science advisors, physicist Lee Smolin, and he suggested that the movie's website will have some educational material that explains a lot of the imagery. I couldn't find the film's website at the time the review was written, so it's hard to judge that.

In any case, Voyage of Time moves on to the formation of Earth and its presence in a lifeless state. And here's when the film really starts to shine. Stand-ins for pre-life Earth, like Hawaii, Lake Meade, and Iceland, make for stunning visuals, especially when they're captured in IMAX with the technical skill displayed here. Computer animation is used sparingly; most of the film is real-world imagery, and it's truly dazzling.

But again, the narration doesn't live up to the imagery. Rather than asking how the Earth came to be, Pitt intones, "How was it made, the good you love?" Later, for reasons I didn't understand, he describes a moment as "Every atom, every particle, blazing." After a bit of time and a change of scene, his next words were, incongruously, "mosses appear." Things are frequently anthropomorphized, and questions about the internal mental states of extinct animals are raised.

A story of complexity

As someone who's immersed in finding explanations for science, the idea of simply putting up images of our Universe's history without bothering to explain them seemed jarring. Of course, I'm also the sort who has yelled at his TV set when a PBS special talks about the actions of genes without bothering to tell me which genes they are. So maybe Voyage of Time just isn't for me.

Then who is the film's intended audience? That became apparent when talking with Smolin, who advised the filmmakers on cosmology. For him, Voyage of Time is both a story and an opportunity.

"The most important thing we know about the Universe is that it is a story; it is ever-changing," Dr. Smolin told Ars. "It's a story by which it's complexifying, becoming more complex, more structured, more asymmetrical, more particular. Life is part of that story of ever-growing structure and complexity, and that’s the most important thing [Voyage of Time] evokes to me. It presents our existence in the Universe as an aspect of a story."

Smolin argued that this sense of being involved in a story can help personalize what's otherwise abstract science for you. "Sometimes you can walk out in nature on a camping trip, or on an airplane trip, look out over the planet, and feel a sense of connection to the Universe," he said. "You can feel a sense that this is our Universe, and I belong here. And I hope that people who go to see this film will experience that sense of connection. It’s our Universe, and it’s precious, and our existence in it is precious."

So, whether you're likely to enjoy this experience or not may depend on whether you're more likely to have Smolin's perspective or mine. In either case, you won't be disappointed by the visuals.

This post originated on Ars Technica