by Christopher Fulkerson
Of course in principal this documentary is important but there are some ways it falls short of optimal. The photos seem legitimate, but reality has been tweeked a bit to make someone seem like a better guitarist than he really is... there is no scordatura tuning on Earth or in space that will produce the chords we hear from the fingerings we see being used. So the specificity at the beginning of the of the film, that the photographs were produced in space by astronauts, is important: photos, NOT sound tracks. From here it is not too much to propose that the lusty singing we hear was also not recorded in space. Or maybe the line was a disclaimer meaning "Anything photographed by Astronauts was photographed in space; the same cannot be said of the footage of the Cosmonauts." The Russians really sent that crappy guitar into space? High point: American woman loses a shoe. Prize for finding it: Jello. No explanation of the Priroda Module, only that it is important. Meanwhile the music they are listening to in space is rubbish, country western, etc., the worst. No wonder life on Earth is so dull, we're being bombarded from space with country western music. Where do I file a MUSINT complaint? Not one hint that better culture is available from either side. Shannon Lucid was there 188 days; she is the woman who was photographed with an aureole around her head, a photo published in the US without comment to see who would notice. Tweeks or not, the technology is amazing. We have come a long way since the ancient days when it was believed there were only 153 species of fish in the ocean.
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Posted 7/19/2010