The Hunt for Planet B, 2021.
Directed by Nathaniel Kahn.
SYNOPSIS:
Taking us behind the scenes with NASA’s high-stakes James Webb Space Telescope, The Hunt for Planet B follows a pioneering group of scientists – many of them women – on their quest to find another Earth among the stars.
The possibility of extraterrestrial life has fascinated scientists and filmmakers for as long as either have existed, but in more recent times as humanity’s impact on Earth has become more grimly apparent, an increasing number of both have posited the prospect of leaving our planet for a similar one out in the cosmos.
In his new film The Hunt for Planet B, documentarian Nathaniel Kahn (My Architect, The Price of Everything) chronicles the development of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope which launches on October 31st of this year, and which scientists hope will allow them to eventually locate another Earth-like planet.
Before one can even begin to broach the practical or existential implications of finding another planet similar to Earth in the stars, Kahn lays out the flabbergasting logistics of getting the new telescope into space. More than 300 individual operations have to work in perfect concert for the telescope to function once it’s there, but first it needs to be folded up, launched into space, and then remotely unfolded once it arrives.
If the doc’s sometimes dry presentation – making little time for the layman as it does – might deter you, this is nevertheless a valuable science and sociology lesson that attentive viewers are well advised to stick with. Beyond the practical particulars of launching the telescope, there’s a deep consideration of the wider search for extraterrestrial life amid the immensity of the universe; other life is almost certainly out there of course, but where?
Despite looking to the stars, the film is tethered at all times to our collective humanity, keenly considering the problems still facing us on Earth, most if not all of which cannot be fled from on another planet.
From global warming and climate change denial to the environmental impact of technology, and humanity’s self-destructive potential (if not nature), the point is raised here that if we can’t along among our own species, how would we deal with aliens? And if we wreck this planet, why wouldn’t we wreck another one?
And on another level, when so many people continue to live in poverty worldwide, are these undeniably pioneering experiments truly money well-spent? While there’s little in the way of concrete answers or solutions here – because how could there possibly be? – these musings nevertheless add a welcome flavour to the more clinical coverage of the telescope’s prep.
Perhaps more surprisingly, the featured scientists also lend a heft of personality to the doc, giving interviews far away from the stodgy talking heads fare you might well be expecting. The focal subject is astronomer Sara Seager, a foremost authority on exoplanets (planets outside the Solar System) and the ongoing search for them, a search which the James Webb Space Telescope will massively aid.
Beyond her own tireless commitment to the mission, she also opens up about her fraught personal life, her quest informed by the untimely death of her husband in 2011. Though Kahn makes a slightly silly “twist” out of who her new husband is – spoiler: he’s one of the doc’s other subjects – for the most part Seager and other interviewees allow their personalities to shine through while opining thoughtfully on many of the film’s central issues (including, eventually, sexism and a lack of diversity in the scientific community itself).
The search for another Earth obviously continues, but there is a prevailing hope threading through The Hunt for Planet B for humanity’s ability to endure – albeit with some stern caveats about our need to do better on this Earth. After all, even were Earth 2.0 found tomorrow, it wouldn’t change the first Earth’s importance, and as one subject rightly ponders, what would the discovery even truly mean for humans in this very moment?
Though most of the scientists featured here are deeply hopeful for humanity one day finding a new home and also discovering extraterrestrial life, it’s important not to discount the improbable-yet-chilling alternative – what if we are, in fact, alone?
If a little discursive structurally, this fundamentally, perhaps unavoidably academic doc successfully melds detached scientific observations with noodle-baking existential food-for-thought.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
