Spaceship Earth, a documentary out now on Hulu, tells the tale of the Biosphere 2 project from the early 90’s, in which 8 crew members were sealed in an allegedly self-contained facility for two years. As one comes to learn through the documentary, things did not go entirely according to plan. With vague mission parameters, managerial secrecy, and publicity issues, the experiment was largely seen as a failure.
Spaceship Earth’s biggest asset is its interesting subject matter. The tale of Biosphere 2, from inception to bitter end, is a strange and fascinating journey. The documentary shows the evolution of the group behind the project, covering its history from the 1960’s to the present. A performing arts group setting up an ecological science experiment may seem like a weird leap, but the documentary shows how one thing led to another over the course of almost 30 years to make that transition seem perfectly natural. This is all to a specific effect, as the documentary spends a great deal of time considering how the artistic background of the Biosphere 2 team affected the presentation and execution of the project itself. Additionally, the documentary features a large number of former employees and “biospherians”, whose differing perspectives based on their different roles add to the overall story.
While it is interesting to see the whole history behind the project, it’s a story that takes an unfortunately long time to tell. The documentary spends too much time on seemingly unrelated history, taking too long to get to the point, the experiment itself. Director Matt Wolf seems to be aware of this fact, as the documentary opens in media res with the beginning of the experiment, before jumping back in time. As previously stated, delving into the group’s history is not without reason, but it is still presented and organized in a way that is, at times, downright boring.
While the story of Spaceship Earth is intriguing, one can’t help but feel like it could have been approached in a different way to create a truly fascinating documentary. The focus on the experiment itself, while understandable, is undercut by the fact that nothing in the experiment really goes all that wrong. It weirdly feels like a let down to know that the biggest controversy surrounding it was the inclusion of a carbon dioxide scrubber. Maybe it’s our current reality talking, but these days mundane isolation in film is just plain boring.
Instead, Wolf could have chosen to focus on the tension between science and theater present in the experiment. Many scientific critiques of the experiment are mentioned, but we never actually get to hear from the critics themselves, except in old news footage. Was the performative nature of the Biosphere, the spectacle of it, at odds with the stated scientific goals of the experiment? Did the need to capitalize on the biosphere lead to its doom? In roughly the last 15 minutes of the documentary, it begins to delve into the fate of the biosphere after the experiment, a topic that is much more interesting than mysterious duffel bags and severed fingers. Was Biosphere 2 an ethical experiment? What happens when things go wrong, despite our best intentions? Who is held accountable? There is the ghost of a great documentary here, floating on the periphery, but unfortunately, it’s not the film we get to see.
Spaceship Earth tells an inherently interesting story that could have been fascinating with a few changes. Its relevance in modern times, the “so what?” factor, comes into play at the end, but it is ultimately too little too late. Still, the subject matter is interesting enough to hear about. The footage from inside the experiment is beautiful and strange, and the general weirdness of the whole situation is enough to hold one’s attention. I, personally, had not heard of these events before watching the documentary, as they were before my time, and I appreciated the chance to learn about them. All in all, Spaceship Earth is a fine watch if you’re recovering from spring quarter and want to do some more learning before the summer kicks in. Maybe you’re locked inside, but at least you’re not trapped in a sealed glass building with a bunch of goats and a depleting oxygen supply. Probably.
3/5 STARS