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In our streaming review this week, Will Smith hosts a documentary that provides an understanding of our planet from the vantage of space. A story of our world seen through the eyes of a few individuals who have orbited it.
One Strange Rock
Available on Netflix SA
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Hosted by Mr Hollywood, Will Smith, the documentary One Strange Rock introduces us to some of Nasa’s alumni who have collectively spent more than 1 000 days in space.
Through what they have seen from the International Space Station, we’re able to gain an understanding of how this planet uses intricate and elaborate connections to function the way it does.
I found this approach far more refreshing than the Planet Earth series that is narrated by David Attenborough – its delivery can get a bit tedious despite the incredible imagery.
The footage in One Strange Rock is just as striking and the facts revealed are almost fictional, but all real.
It covers everything from a river in the Amazon that flows above the forest canopy, to our oxygen supply being dependent on microscopic organisms that float in the sea. Also, the oxygen that is generated by the largest rain forest in the world doesn’t actually leave the forest and is consumed by all the living organisms in that biome. Deep-sea free diving is used to illustrate certain points, for instance, taking a breath. It also touches on the cosmic storm that created Earth and how a large-scale extinction event hit this planet and could again.
This is really watchable as you are not bombarded by facts, but they are presented to you in a slow and calming way – even when the facts are scary like the episode on our planet’s position in relation to the sun, an area referred to as the Goldilocks zone. I was bothered by the number of days black astronauts spent in space compared with their white counterparts, but that’s just because I was raised in good old South Africa.
