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WWII from Space
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Lions Gate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (29th June 2013). |
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The Film
 World War II… FROM SPACE!No, there are no Space Nazis to be found within this 93-minute feature, nor news of recently unearth moon bases, uncovered footage that proves Wernher Von Braun’s V2 was actually the earliest craft to send a man into space, or anything like that. It isn’t about ancient aliens actually being the ones who attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The documentary doesn’t even offer any flights of fantasy that ponder the proverbial “what if?” with various voices—speculative historians, or science fiction writers—wondering what it might have been like had the Allied and Axis powers waged Total War with spacemen clamoring to claim the vast nothingness of outer space for themselves. No, “WWII From Space” is actually just a gimmicky, if decent enough—but admittedly entirely derivative—documentary about a handful of key moments in the Second World War, sporadically seen from an omnipotent Gods-eye-view through the use of some spotty CGI maps that attempt to give one a grasp of the global conflict that literally reached round the world. The satellite perspective of the conflict seen in “WWII From Space” is a silly, superficial, stab at a story told many times over, and little more. It’s CG-assisted inserts a distracting trick to tackle a topic endlessly explored over the years—seemingly from all sides and every angle—through innumerable avenues: books, photographs and films (fiction and non-fiction, both based in fact). Certainly, now, from this entirely different point of view, from space, every last aspect has finally been explored. The documentary takes an Allied, specifically American, stance from the outset; a fact made perfectly clear in the opening moments, which inexplicably begin with the attack on Pearl Harbor so many years after the actual start of the war in Europe. The timeline shifts back and forth from there, taking a look at the earliest moments in 1930's and springing ahead to the final days that followed in the wake of President Harry S. Truman giving the order to drop the Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. It even passably examines the impending fallout, pardon the pun, and how the United States to the role of military superpower in the new Nuclear age. Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and the drop of the Bomb are all familiar territory, each endlessly examined in both fiction films and non-fiction documentaries; yet they are seen here, too, again examined by historians, veterans and strategists in talking head interviews with the help of photographs and a cheesy, zooming, spinning digital replica of the earth circa the time of the conflict. The problem with “WWII From Space” is not that is uninteresting, but rather that even at its most interesting, those even slightly versed in the history of the Second World War will probably not find it particularly enlightening. Many of the famous battles, now broadcast as though from on high in “Space”, are well known; and even then, when a slightly lesser subject is brought up, it is quickly forgotten. The documentary’s commentators and roving CG map move on to other things quickly, too quickly, because there’s only so much time in an hour and a half—and it’s not nearly enough for the massiveness of a near decade spanning Total War. To “WWII From Space’s” detriment, the documentary wants to touch on too much—just one of the dozen battles, conflicts, or regions would be given its due in its own two-hour segment elsewhere (and it likely has gotten it; lest anyone forget, there’s the comprehensive 20-plus hour “The World at War” (1973) and several other similar series and specials produced in the aftermath, which shift the focus on many of the moments both big and small throughout the war). Also problematic is the fact that the new perspective—FROM SPACE (I’m sorry, but the title just makes me think of a bad B-movie from the fifties. It deserves my scorn; it's ridiculous)—is an entirely unneeded one. The amazing thing about World War II, and presumably one of the many reasons its is so often open for discussion in visual media, is that the conflict was documented on film so thoroughly, extensively in the extreme, from so many angles, all around the globe, on every front, from beginning to end. Forget the countless photographs—psh, photographs are so Crimean War! Motion pictures blossomed after the first World War; so much so that, by the time the Second broke out, compact handheld cameras were common place, which is why we have all the material the History Channel and others have turned to when wanting to create a documentary before—the combat footage, both aerial and assaults on the ground; the home movies shot by soldiers and citizens from both sides of the conflict; the propaganda films, also produced on both sides. And, by turning to rotoscoped still images, and CG maps replete with stat boxes, and the occasional talking head to explain or otherwise show what might be captured on film somewhere seems, well, just… silly, really. Like a step backward—or, certainly, not forward. Not new. For many years following its launch in 1995, The History Channel—which has since been re-branded the simpler History by parent corporation A&E Networks, and has begun airing several reality TV programs in between its big-budget docu-dramas and the occasional history special like “WWII From Space”—was jokingly referred to as The Hitler Channel, because the broadcaster had a certain tendency to air material focused on World War II. In the years since, their interest has shifted either further into the past, or not at all to history in the slightest—come on, we all know that “Pawn Stars” (2009-present) and “Swamp People” (2010-present) have about as much to do with history as the WWE has to do with Sci-Fi (oh, sorry, SyFy…). But the network still occasionally circles back to the old standard, and has aired several WWII focused series and specials in recent years, although, seemingly, each series and special has been more gimmicky than the last. First there was “WWII in HD” (2009), a 10-part documentary series that retraced many of the paths treaded in earlier specials, but this time with actual footage shot by soldiers, news crews, and propaganda patrols—taken from 8mm, 16mm and 35mm sources—and scanned into and presented in high definition. Then there was “WWII in 3D” (2011), which sure sounded stupid, but actually proved quite interesting by offering a peek at rare 3D technology actually deployed in the era and a chance to see some of the material captured with it. “WWII From Space” proves much less effective than those though, and seems instead just another new way History has found to talk about the same topics before, only at an absurdly fast pace—got to keep those ADD-addled masses engaged—with little scope beyond the sheer scale of the thing.
Video
History and Lionsgate offer up a decent enough 1.78:1 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 encoded high def transfer for “WWII From Space”. The documentary is comprised of talking head interviews sourced from clean and clear HD video, digitally manipulated photographs, and—when viewing World War II FROM SPACE(!)—video game quality CGI. Colors are desaturated across the board in an attempt to give the special a vintage look; black and white photographs are occasionally tinted with a Spielberg-ian touch of red in many a shot. Detail is adequate, but not spectacular. The picture is without flaw, showing no signs of significant artifacts or other anomalies, but is a bland and boring looking affair.
Audio
Front heavy and focused on narration and the occasional talking head; “WWII From Space” has an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (48kHz/24-bit) that is adequate, but rarely sonically surprising. Dialog is clear and well prioritized in the mix. Surrounds get a little use doing the CG-recreated battles, which feature buzzing planes, explosive bombs, and other Foley effects, but largely lay dormant in other scenes. Like the video, the soundtrack is perfectly fine, but also bland. English and Spanish subtitles have also been included.
Extras
Other than a trio of bonus trailers for other Lionsgate Blu-ray releases—the History Channel’s “The Men Who Built America” (1080p, 1 minute 50 seconds), and the war-themed feature films “The Hurt Locker” (1080p, 2 minutes 26 seconds) and “Apocalypse Now” (1080p, 1 minute 30 seconds)—there are no extras.
Packaging
Lionsgate Home Entertainment, distributing the History Channel documentary for A&E Networks, brings “WWII From Space” in a simple package. The region A locked BD-25 is housed in an Elite keep case; a cardboard slip-cover has been included in first pressings.
Overall
Underneath the “FROM SPACE!” gimmick are fragments of a decent enough, if entirely derivative, documentary about a handful of key moments in the Second World War, but they’re undone by an overextended scope. The folks at the History Channel simply wanted to do too much in a 90-minute special, pointlessly skewing the piece with an American slant—inherently losing some of the scale of a true World War. The Blu-ray offers adequate A/V, but no extras. “WWII From Space” is worth checking out if you’re a history buff in desperate need of another documentary on the war. Just be warned, while the delivery is new, none of the actual information is.
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