Good Night Oppy

Falling somewhere between Disney’s WALL-E and Ridley Scott’s The Martian, Good Night Oppy has no qualms with tugging the ol’ heartstrings as it takes you through the journeys of Spirit and Opportunity, the NASA Mars rovers launched in 2003 within three weeks of each other. Director Ryan White’s angle is clear from the get-go; imbue Spirit and Opportunity with human characteristics and investable arcs, and, just like that, the strings fall into his hands to be tweaked at his will.

We are immediately introduced to voice clips of NASA engineers and scientists speaking fondly of them. “Once the rover’s on Mars, it has its own life…it needs to be given love”, is the first sentiment we hear. “Sometimes she has a mind of her own” is another, spoken over the tones of Roam by The B-52’s, giving the impression that we are about to watch an unruly, cheeky teen comedy. This is particularly true of Spirit, who is spoken about affectionately as something of a moody teenager. “Spirit was troublesome, Opportunity was little miss perfect”, says one engineer.

The documentary blends archival footage with visual effects, provided by the George Lucas-founded Industrial Light and Magic, which recreate, to startlingly cinematic effect, the rovers as they roam through the martian wasteland, picking up scraps of information as they go. As well as Lucas’s visual effects company, Stephen Spielberg’s Amblin Television played a significant role in realising the project. It figures that the spectres of Lucas and Spielberg lurk in the background of Good Night Oppy, two stalwarts of science-fiction whose work has helped lay the storytelling framework which White is operating within. While it may rely a little heavily at times on the Spielbergian brand of sentimentality as its emotional engine, there are moments when the cinematic tension decisively lands, most notably Spirit and Opportunity’s actual landings on Mars, a nerve-wracking sequence in spite of sure knowledge of the outcome.

The ritualistic “wake up song” – a different song that would play each time the rovers rose from a recharging nap as the control room aligned their own internal calendars to that of Mars – also provides some nice diegetic music, and any excuse is a good excuse to bring out Here Comes the Sun during a space movie (although perhaps, in the context of space exploration, Harrison’s lyric should be more cause for alarm than hope).

The strength of this true story is where the film’s real power lies, however, and the infectious enthusiasm of the NASA engineers and scientists who have devoted their life’s work to Spirit and Oppy, and their affection for the little robotic creatures themselves, is stirring. Although they are, of course, real people, their arcs and motivations do feel carefully planted throughout, but the general goodwill of Good Night Oppy means that it just about gets away with it. Similarly, many of its lurching heart tugs do end up providing some tear-jerking moments as the momentous scientific achievement becomes inextricably enmeshed in our everyday fears, worries, relationships and dreams.

You do wonder how much stronger Good Night Oppy could have been if the strength of the story was trusted on its own merit without the apparently artificial sprinklings of misty-eyed schmaltz. But sentimentality in and of itself is no bad thing, and when Good Night Oppy utilises it well, it can be disarmingly effective.

Matthew McMillan

Good Night Oppy is released on Amazon Prime Video on 23^rd November 2022.

Watch the trailer for Good Night Oppy here: