Despite the film's playful humour, there's also a deadly seriousness to The Wild Blue Yonder, for it shows man's insignificance faced with the sheer vastness of nature.
The Wild Blue Yonder: A Science Fiction Fantasy (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:23
Rotten:11
Average Rating:6.4/10
Runtime: 81 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Theatrical Release:15-06-2007
Synopsis: The film follows a hypothetical proposition: a group of astronauts are circling the earth in a spacecraft, but they cannot return, as our planet has become uninhabitable. The cause of this remains... The film follows a hypothetical proposition: a group of astronauts are circling the earth in a spacecraft, but they cannot return, as our planet has become uninhabitable. The cause of this remains open - all-out war, outbreak of a new disease beyond control, radiation after the complete disappearance of the ozone layer, or whatever. The crew of the spacecraft has to find a more hospitable place out there in space, and releases a probe from their cargo bay, Galileo. But Galileo - after sending back very disquieting data - has to be sent on a suicide mission... Without our knowledge we have had visitors from outer space for decades. They have come from a planet submerged in water, The Wild Blue Yonder, and their attempts to create a new community on earth have so far not met with great success. This film is narrated on-screen by one of the visitors, Brad Dourif. In words and lyrical images, he shows how our attempts to find a new home somewhere in space is doomed to failure. He explains how in the past when Earth was threatened with extinction, a manned space probe was sent to look for an alternative home in outer space. It did not succeed. Herzog’s space fantasy uses extraordinary music and images to create an imaginary scenario that has an impassioned sub-text telling us to protect our most precious and irreplaceable possession – our planet. -- © Official Site [More]
Reviews for The Wild Blue Yonder: A Science Fiction Fantasy
Sci-fi nuts, stoners and conspiracy theorists might get a kick out of this. But even Herzog fans will find this mix of found footage and Kinski-lite diatribe as frustrating as it's fascinating.
This is just further proof that Herzog can make a film about anything, and indeed, from anything.
Herzog remains a one-off in German cinema - eccentric, infuriating, cherishable - and nothing in this will detract from his legend.
An unlikely combination, but then Herzog never ceases to surprise and here, despite some dull patches, does so with an off-centre film of an almost dreamlike quality.
A scientific context is offered by interviews with researchers expounding modes of intergalactic travel, but the real pleasures are in the organic beauty of deep spaces and the ambiguous position of the humans suspended in them.
It’s not helped by a watery soundtrack that sounds like chill-out trance played on a nose flute.
When Herzog cycles through scenes of scuba divers under the ice and astronauts sleeping in zero gravity, he conveys a strong sense of what 'alien' really means.
The director calls the film a 'science-fiction fantasy,' but it's really a languid meditation on human impermanence.
A hypnotic fictional fusion of archival NASA footage and new material.
This wacky 'science fiction fantasy' (2005) by Werner Herzog looks like it was made for a few thousand bucks, but it's held aloft by the filmmaker's inexhaustible curiosity and wonder.
The Wild Blue Yonder is at times playful and inventive, at others simplistic and silly. Ultimately, Werner Herzog's free-form, idiosyncratic devolution of the documentary is beautiful but dull.
Raw materials are mingled with staged performance, context is scrambled, all of it is transformative
I don't know quite what Werner Herzog has been smoking all these decades, but more directors need to be smoking it.
Without a clear purpose in mind other than telling a story that is mildly interesting if rather weird, The wild blue yonder never really takes off.
Though far from perfect, The Wild Blue Yonder does have something to say about human folly and it makes its statement in an unusual and thought-provoking way.
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