''Our Heavenly Bodies'' (german: Wunder der Schöpfung, literally: ''Wonder of the Creation'') is a 1925 German

educational film An educational film is a film or movie whose primary purpose is to educate. Educational films have been used in classrooms as an alternative to other teaching methods. History Determining which videos should count as the first educational fil ...

written by Hanns Walter Kornblum and Ernst Krieger which attempts to represent everything known about the

cosmos The cosmos (, ) is another name for the Universe. Using the word ''cosmos'' implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity. The cosmos, and understandings of the reasons for its existence and significance, are studied in ...

at the time. It covers the origin and mechanics of the

Solar System The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...

, gravitation, the

stars A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

, and the nature of galaxies. The film is a prime example of the early German "Kulturfilm", which are regarded as predecessors of the modern film documentary. It features a large variety of special effects and animations, as well as fantastical depictions of travel around the Solar System and to the stars. Prints were color-tinted and color-toned for effect. The film has been reconstructed in 2008 by

Munich Film Archive The Munich Film Archive, in the Munich Stadtmuseum, is one of eight film museums in Germany. It has no showrooms and is limited to screening the films in a single cinema with 165 seats, as well as collecting, archiving, and restoring film copies. ...

using material from the

National Audiovisual Institute (Finland) National Audiovisual Institute ( fi, Kansallinen audiovisuaalinen instituutti; sv, Nationella audiovisuella institutet or ') is a governmental bureau under the Finnish Ministry of Education responsible for supervising the distribution of audiovisu ...

in Helsinki and the

Deutsche Kinemathek Die Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen is a major German film archive located in Berlin. History The Deutsche Kinemathek opened in 1963. Until the opening of a permanent display in the Museum of Film and Television Berlin (Mu ...

in Berlin. The current rights holder is the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation.

Acts

1) On the Road to Truth (german: Auf dem Weg zur Wahrheit)
A history of

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...

. 2) The Night Sky (german: Der nächtliche Himmel)

The Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

: its motion and faces, its tides, lunar eclipses; the fixed stars, Berlin-Babelsberg Observatory,

constellations A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the earliest constellation ...

, the

North Star Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated α Ursae Minoris ( Latinized to ''Alpha Ursae Minoris'') and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an apparent magnitude tha ...

comets A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

meteors A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as mi ...

and falling stars. 3) The Star of Day (german: Das Gestirn des Tages)
Sunspots,

auroras An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of br ...

, solar eclipse, solar prominences, night, day and

meridian Meridian or a meridian line (from Latin ''meridies'' via Old French ''meridiane'', meaning “midday”) may refer to Science * Meridian (astronomy), imaginary circle in a plane perpendicular to the planes of the celestial equator and horizon * ...

s, heating of the equator vs. poles, earthly

seasons A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

. 4) A Flight to the Moon (german: Ein Flug zum Mond)
Introduces a "fantasty ship" pulled by "huge electrical energies", calls it a "space ship". Depicts its launch, discusses the nature of the vacuum of space, the idea of a Moon-day, the Earth as seen from the Moon. 5) The Sun's Children (german: Der Sonne Kinder)
Continues the imaginary journey to Mercury (mentions that it's thought that Mercury always presents the same face to the Sun),

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

, its seasons and polar caps, the observed canals. Depicts an imaginary landing, and people bouncing around in reduced gravity.

Asteroids An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

. A depiction of '' Gulliver's Travels'' in Lilliput illustrates

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

's size. The moons of Jupiter. Depicts a person labouring to crawl on the surface of Jupiter, and giants residing on Jupiter. Saturn's rings as "numberless small bodies", depicts the rings as seen from Saturn, and Saturn's moons;

Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus ( Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars), grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter) and father of ...

; Neptune, its discovery, and its one big moon. 6) At the Gates of Infinity (german: An den Toren der Unendlichkeit)
Explains that there is no up or down in space, and attempts to show people in zero gravity; discusses nebulas. The travellers use a flat view screen to look back on Earth, where they witness historical events. As the ship proceeds to travel faster than light, the travellers view the same historical events in reverse. The ship then proceeds much faster than light to visit binary stars —

Algol ALGOL (; short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the ...

globular cluster A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars. Globular clusters are bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of membe ...

. The fantasy comes to an end as they leave the last star of the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. ...

. (In 1924 it was controversial whether the Milky Way comprised the universe or not. Hubble shows that the Universe goes beyond the Milky Way) 7) Becoming and Waning in Outer Space (german: Werden und Vergehen im Weltenraum)
Discusses the relative movements of stars; that the shape of

is a matter of perspective; a mass of gas taking a spiral disk shape, wherein knots form to become planets — in their youth as gas, forming a solid kernel — formation of (terrestrial) planets; erosion of surface of Earth, prehistoric creatures. Speculates on the future of the Earth — shows people freezing, then a very extended depiction of the world burning up upon being hit by another heavenly body.

Further Credits

Scientific review: * Professor Dr. Guthnick * Professor Dr. Kopff * Professor Dr. Ludendorff * Professor Dr. Solger Constructions: * Gustav Hennig *

Hans Minzloff Hans Minzloff (1890–1962) was a German art director.Gemünden p.171 Selected filmography * '' Our Heavenly Bodies'' (1925) * '' Struggle for the Soil'' (1925) * ''Carnival Magic'' (1927) * '' The Insurmountable'' (1928) * '' The Circus Princes ...

Walter Reimann Walter Reimann (2 June 1887 – 8 November 1936) was a German painter and art director. He was an Expressionist and member of the group of artists associated with Zurich magazine, Der Sturm. He worked on the production design of a number of film ...

* Karl Stahl-Urach

Film Reconstruction

* Stefan Drössler * Christian Ketels * Gerhard Ullmann "Thanks to" * Antti Alanen * Annette Groschke * Juha Kindberg * Konrad und Wolfgang Kornblum * Eva Orbanz * Jon Wengström

Reception and legacy

The film is described as being "overwhelming", a "wild success" at the time, in contrast with the Ufa's later, better known production

Metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big ci ...

. Scenes of the film are often described as forerunners of space science-fiction films, especially Stanley Kubrick's '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''. The spirit and content of the film more closely parallels that of Carl Sagan's TV series '' Cosmos: A Personal Voyage''.

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, tt0228425 1925 films German documentary films Documentary films about outer space Astronomy education works Films about the Solar System Earth in film Moon in film Venus in film Mars in film Jupiter in film Saturn in film Neptune in film Space adventure films Fiction about interstellar travel German silent feature films 1925 documentary films German black-and-white films Silent adventure films 1920s German films