Galapagos (IMAX)

Rating:
Summary: Muy corta
Review: Es muy corta para observar todas las maravillas de las islas encantadas, es solo un grano de arena lo que editaron.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful images, but tacky, misleading storyline
Review: I agree with the other reviewers that this should be entitled 'Underwater life around the Galapagos'. The movie spends far too much time underwater instead of focusing on the magnificent scenery and wildlife on land. Why can't the IMAX producers simply let the gorgeous images of wildlife speak for themselves instead of dreaming up a tacky storyline about a beautiful marine biologist and her oh so dangerous explorations? At one point she rappels down into a cave and worries about the possibility that the rocks above her will collapse. I was in the Galapagos last month and visited the same cave (on the island of Santa Cruz) - what they don't tell you is that there are stairs into the cave from the other end! The naturalist guides we spoke with in the Galapagos regard the IMAX movie as a joke, all the sadder because members of the IMAX team died making the film.

Rating:
Summary: Why don't film-makers show love for this format??
Review: I was anxious to get in and see this movie.

For the record: I LOVE 3-D Imax. I literally get excited at the thought of heading in there with the glasses and settling back for an immersive experience. I will see anything shown in this format, and the premium price I pay for the tickets seems perfectly reasonable, given the fantastic environment (and i am NOT rich).

Over the past few years I have seen just about every 3-D Imax movie that has made the rounds into San Francisco's Metreon. And hands down, the best film yet made in 3-D Imax is "Into the Deep". Oh man. It is beautiful. Long, lingering, pondering shots. Just running the camera, letting the viewer's mind and senses adjust to the new realities brought by each change of scene. Alien vistas brought to you in an unhurried way, allowing your mind to run free in the 3-D space in front of your eyes, choosing which creatures to watch and how deeply to focus... Virtually unstructured, accompanied by a soothing female voice-over, the film takes you through a series of vignettes, each focusing on the intimate realities of specific life-forms. It's magic and amazing.

"Galapagos" itself is a heartfelt, environmental documentary... which should have been make in 2-D!! The 3-D aspects of it seem "thrown in" not part of the ride. It's written like a TV documentary. Why?? I can watch those at home. The voice-over script seems to drive the whole film: the film-makers apparently have a point to make about evolution. C'mon! We've only got 45 minutes here. The point of a 3-D Imax movie is the immersion, not the plot. I can get great plots already on VHS (and plenty of Kenneth Branagh too).

3-D Imax is a treat for the senses. A simple dissolve from one scene to another plays deep tricks on you brain's sense of depth perception and space. In the hands of an artist, this can be great (like the foreground/background mass transitions in "T-REX: Back to the Cretaceous", a visually excellent piece). But the makers of "Galapagos" seem to be in over their heads. Trasitions that must have looked fine in the storyboards did not translate at all well.

Basically I am left feeling like I paid ten bucks for something I could have watched on the Discovery Channel for free.

PLEASE FILM-MAKERS!!! If you read this... please make 3-D Imax movies that respect the medium and propel it forward. Quick edits and boilerplate pans and trucks from the 2-D Imax cannon just don't make it worthwhile without some 3-D "sculpting" of your transitions and shot set-ups.

Rating:
Summary: Stunning, but stunningly disappointing....
Review: If for you the remarkable things about the galapagos include the iguanas, tortoises, and finches, you will be disappointed in this program. After a cursory glance at the earth- and air-borne species, the camera goes underwater and examines fish. The imagery is lovely, but we are NOT seeing those creatures which have made the galapagos famous! A fairer title would have been "OCEAN ENVIRONMENTS AROUND THE GALAPAGOS AREA."

No quibbles with the glory of the presented creatures, but we had been expecting much more about what makes these islands unique!

Rating:
Summary: Mehhh...
Review: The Galapagos Islands are located off the coast of Ecuador and is the site that Charles Darwin visited in 1835, viewing some of the marine life from a glass bottom boat. His observations on these islands formed the basis for his eventual theory of evolution. Now, all these years later, a marine biologist from the Smithsonian Institute, Dr. Carole Baldwin, makes the same trip. Darwin would have been amazed at all the technological equipment she has, and even more amazed if he could have viewed it as I did, in startling three dimension.

We saw it on a screen that was 80 feet high, and the three dimensional effect was so intense that I kept trying to reach out and touch the rocks and small birds that always appeared in the foreground. It was distracting at first, so distracting that I was more impressed with the technique than with what was actually going on in the film. But within a few minutes I was right there with the scientists, literally inside the picture as they climbed the rock mountains and descended into the ocean's deep in a submersible boat that seemed to come straight out of science fiction, not real science.

I was fascinated throughout the 40-minute film as the camera went where humans have never been before, filming sea lions, iguanas, giant tortoises, birds and lizards and using a special device to capture live sea creatures from the bottom of the sea. I felt I was climbing the lava rock mountain, descending into caves, and feeling the brush of foliage against my face. And the whole time I kept wondering how it was done, and enjoying the fact that I live at a time in history that a voyage to Galapagos can be enjoyed so much because of modern technology.

I did some research on the web later and discovered that during the filming a cameraman and a pilot died when their lightweight plane crashed on a volcano, and realize the dangers that it took to make this film. Then I went to the official website and found more details about the technical aspects as well as some excellent photographs. Recommended. See it if you can.

Rating:
Summary: Startling in 3-dimension. See it if you can.
Review: The Galapagos Islands are located off the coast of Ecuador and is the site that Charles Darwin visited in 1835, viewing some of the marine life from a glass bottom boat. His observations on these islands formed the basis for his eventual theory of evolution. Now, all these years later, a marine biologist from the Smithsonian Institute, Dr. Carole Baldwin, makes the same trip. Darwin would have been amazed at all the technological equipment she has, and even more amazed if he could have viewed it as I did, in startling three dimension.

We saw it on a screen that was 80 feet high, and the three dimensional effect was so intense that I kept trying to reach out and touch the rocks and small birds that always appeared in the foreground. It was distracting at first, so distracting that I was more impressed with the technique than with what was actually going on in the film. But within a few minutes I was right there with the scientists, literally inside the picture as they climbed the rock mountains and descended into the ocean's deep in a submersible boat that seemed to come straight out of science fiction, not real science.

I was fascinated throughout the 40-minute film as the camera went where humans have never been before, filming sea lions, iguanas, giant tortoises, birds and lizards and using a special device to capture live sea creatures from the bottom of the sea. I felt I was climbing the lava rock mountain, descending into caves, and feeling the brush of foliage against my face. And the whole time I kept wondering how it was done, and enjoying the fact that I live at a time in history that a voyage to Galapagos can be enjoyed so much because of modern technology.

I did some research on the web later and discovered that during the filming a cameraman and a pilot died when their lightweight plane crashed on a volcano, and realize the dangers that it took to make this film. Then I went to the official website and found more details about the technical aspects as well as some excellent photographs. Recommended. See it if you can.

Rating:
Summary: waste of money
Review: The title is misleading - it is not about Galapagos Islands, as I expected but mainly shows boring underwater pictues. I do not recommend buying this DVD. It the same waste of money that I suffered buying IMAX Antarctica.

Rating:
Summary: Larger Than Life
Review: This 3-D IMAX film at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History offers the Galapagos islands as thrill ride, but that's OK, it really is a thrill. The rollercoaster tours of the stark, rocky island scenery from the air and from below the waterline are breathtaking but expectable in a big-screen 3-D movie. What makes the film unique are the surface-level extreme closeups of the islands' strange wildlife - a far more intimate view of these creatures than you could get by going there to see them for yourself. The film is plotless but not long, and with the superb camera work and Branagh's smooth narration you are happy to just let it all unfold.

Rating:
Summary: Larger Than Life
Review: This 3-D IMAX film at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History offers the Galapagos islands as thrill ride, but that's OK, it really is a thrill. The rollercoaster tours of the stark, rocky island scenery from the air and from below the waterline are breathtaking but expectable in a big-screen 3-D movie. What makes the film unique are the surface-level extreme closeups of the islands' strange wildlife - a far more intimate view of these creatures than you could get by going there to see them for yourself. The film is plotless but not long, and with the superb camera work and Branagh's smooth narration you are happy to just let it all unfold.