Carl Sagan Narrates A Hopeful View Of The Future In ‘Wanderers,’ A Short About Space Exploration

With Interstellar blowing minds in theaters, interest in space exploration is heightened with the public. Not that we ever stopped thinking about it, we just put it on the back burner and forgot about it for far too long. This short film from Erik Wernquist is hoping we start to remember it.

Utilizing Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot for narration, Wernquist creates a stunning trip through the galaxy to paint a picture of a future where we venture out. It’s a hell of a ride with no shortage of beauty. From the video:

Wanderers is a vision of humanity’s expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available.

Without any apparent story, other than what you may fill in by yourself, the idea with the film is primarily to show a glimpse of the fantastic and beautiful nature that surrounds us on our neighboring worlds – and above all, how it might appear to us if we were there.

Sagan’s word really help to push it past just a beautiful visual piece. It’s a good introduction, along with the original Cosmos, into how he could describe these events in a way that established some wonder. From Sploid:

For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled. Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven’t forgotten. The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood. We invest far-off places with a certain romance. This appeal, I suspect, has been meticulously crafted by natural selection as an essential element in our survival. Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game—none of them lasts forever. It is beyond our powers to predict the future. Catastrophic events have a way of sneaking up on us, of catching us unaware. Your own life, or your band’s, or even your species’ might be owed to a restless few—drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands and new worlds.

Herman Melville, in Moby Dick, spoke for wanderers in all epochs and meridians: “I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas…”

Maybe it’s a little early. Maybe the time is not quite yet. But those other worlds— promising untold opportunities—beckon.

Silently, they orbit the Sun, waiting.

Jesus Diaz’s breakdown over at Sploid is something to read after watching, but I have to agree with his viewing recommendations. Isolate yourself and enjoy the ride. Take it in.

(Via Sploid / Erik Wernquist)

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