''Hubble'' (also known as ''Hubble 3D'', ''IMAX: Hubble'', or ''IMAX: Hubble 3D'') is a 2010 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

about

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...

missions to repair and upgrade the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most vers ...

. It is narrated by the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

Content

''Hubble 3D'' is an IMAX and Warner Bros. Pictures production, in cooperation with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The film reunites the 2002 documentary '' Space Station 3D'' film making team, led by producer/director Toni Myers. ''Hubble 3D'' opened at IMAX and IMAX 3D theaters on March 19, 2010. The film takes the viewer past Saturn's aurora, the Helix Nebula in the constellation of Aquarius, the ''

Pillars of Creation ''Pillars of Creation'' is a photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, in the Serpens constellation, some from Earth. These elephant trunks had been discovered by Jo ...

'' in the

Eagle Nebula The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, and as NGC 6611, and also known as the Star Queen Nebula) is a young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens, discovered by Jean-Philippe de Cheseaux in 1745–46. Both the "Eagle" ...

, the

Andromeda Galaxy The Andromeda Galaxy (IPA: ), also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224 and originally the Andromeda Nebula, is a barred spiral galaxy with the diameter of about approximately from Earth and the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way. The gal ...

, and the Butterfly Nebula. The HST has provided data and imagery so detailed that scientists and film technicians have been able to put viewers "inside" the images during two extended CGI fly-throughs. In one sequence, gaseous clouds billow while million-mile-an-hour stellar winds blow through a cloud canyon in the Orion Nebula some 90 trillion miles across. These data-driven animations were created by the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Advanced Visualization Laboratory at the

National Center for Supercomputing Applications The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is a state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale computer infrastructure that advances research, science and engineering based in the United States. NCSA operates as a ...

Filming

Footage seen within the movie was compiled from multiple sources, including IMAX cameras taken into space on Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Missions by the Space Shuttle. This allowed the camera to shoot footage of the satellite close-up and during maintenance. IMAX cameras were taken to the Hubble Space Telescope on

STS-61 STS-61 was the first NASA Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, and the fifth flight of the Space Shuttle ''Endeavour''. The mission launched on 2 December 1993 from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. The mission restored the spacebor ...

(Servicing Mission 1 in December 1993) and on

STS-125 STS-125, or HST-SM4 (Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4), was the fifth and final Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the last solo flight of the Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''. The launch of the Space Shuttle ''Atl ...

(Servicing Mission 4 in May 2009) which carried an IMAX 3D camera. The IMAX 3D camera contained a mile of film, though this allowed for only 8 minutes 30 seconds of footage to be recorded.

Critical reception

The film has received positive reviews. Review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reports that 86% of critics have given the film a positive review, based on 37 reviews, giving the film a positive review. The site's consensus reads "Offering a stunning, expansive viewing experience, ''Hubble 3D'' takes advantage of IMAX and 3-D technology like no other film." Review aggregation website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

reports a score of 79 out of 100 from 13 critical reviews, indicating 'generally favorable reviews.' ''New York Times'' critic

Neil Genzlinger Neil Genzlinger is an American playwright, editor, book reviewer, and theatre and television critic who frequently writes for ''The New York Times''. Family Genzlinger is a grandson of the late '' The Philadelphia Bulletin'' columnist Don Rose. ...

largely concurred, but added "... such ponderous, cliché-heavy narration. Leonardo DiCaprio delivers it, which might lead you to expect something moderately hip; instead it’s that same old leaden drone, which back when space flight was new perhaps conveyed suitable awe but these days just makes you feel as if you’re in a junior-high civics class."

References

External links

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Hubble's Last Visit To Be Relived in 3-D
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hubble 3D 2010 films Documentary films about the space program of the United States Hubble Space Telescope IMAX short films Warner Bros. films 2010 3D films American documentary films 2010 documentary films American 3D films 3D short films Films directed by Toni Myers IMAX documentary films Documentary films about outer space Films scored by Maribeth Solomon Films scored by Micky Erbe 3D documentary films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films