Would you like to watchWill Smithtalk about how weird Earth is?
What if there were also astronautsastronauts, astronauts,astronautstalking about how weird Earth is?
Theten-episode seriesOne Strange Rock(debuting Monday at 10 p.m. Its edited like a Darren Aronofsky movie, which makes sense: Themother!director is an executive producer.
Credit: Matt Frost/National Geographic
Theres a kinetic quality to the montages here that recalls Aronofskys supercut style.
Take, for example, Air.
The President peddles it, hot.
Sofia Coppola fills her soundtracks with it.
But friends, I ask you, what do wereallyknow about air?
You wanna know about breathing?
SMASH CUT TO: A newborn baby, breathing for the first time.
This all takes about four minutes, and the pace never lets up.
Did I mention, while this is happening, Smith is playing catch with his dog?
Everything in the early episodes ofOne Strange Rockis like this.
Smith will say something cool: Theres another river in the Amazon…a river in thesky.
An astronaut will talk about how Earth looks from space.
(Spoiler alert: It looks awesome!)
A thesis emerges early.
Nothing exists in isolation.
So,One Strange Rockhas its heart in the right place.
Does it have a head?
This is a nonstop parade of vibrant images, a visual learning attention-deficit assault.
This is a Science documentary for any Science teacher trying to get kids excited about Science.
Smiths presence points in that direction, too.
Hes not just narrating.
He speaks to the camera, in front of a blank background.
Hes very excited, and when hes excited, how can you not be?
And then also Will Smith is, err, a metaphor?
Our planet has been battered and bruised and punched and pummeled, says Smith.
There seems to be nothing subtle about the way the Earth was built, Stott tells us.
It would almost be like building a space station with a sledgehammer.
Im inclined to sayOne Strange Rockwas built with a sledgehammer.
(The shows other executive producer, Jane Root, was actually President of Discovery in the mid-2000s.)
One Strange Rockis constantly trying towowyou, which is where you get that car-commercial vibe.
But: Why are we here?
What does any of this have to do with oxygen?
But the hyperkinetic sensibility feels purposeful.
Aronofskys got a real bee in his bonnet about Earth lately.
He turnedNoahinto a rockmonster parable about climate-change devastation.
Id never heard of Theia.
I guess that hypothesis was conceived after I got too old for mandatory astronomy.
Now Theia is all I think about.
One Strange Rockis a once-over-lightly guide to Planet Earth.
But most of us are dummies about science.
The sun is a planetkiller!
is how Smith teases episode 3.
