Documentaries often times offer up the most interesting and engaging stories of the world. I love them, but even more so when it’s a subject matter you don’t get to hear much about or that is so hard to believe it has to be true. The latest, Good Night Oppy takes on the space program, most notably the Mars expedition and the rovers, but does it bring something engaging to keep you invested or will it get lost in space?

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Good Night Oppy follows Opportunity, the Mars Exploration Rover affectionately dubbed Oppy by her creators and scientists at NASA. Oppy was originally expected to live for only 90 days but she ultimately explored Mars for nearly 15 years.

Going into this film I was fully invested and interested in how this all came to be. For the first bit of the film I was engaged in the development and launch of the rovers and the lives of the people that did it. Somewhere along the lines the pacing just felt off to me and I got kind of bored. It wasn’t the story mind you, but just seem to get repetitive for a while. I am sure that some was just me, but I was going to stick it out and see where it all went.

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Thankfully it does pick up again as we start to discover more details and things that they do with the rover. It is interesting and compelling seeing all the things they pulled with one of the most fun being how they managed to get the rover to take a selfie of sorts. Seeing the emotions of all these people on full display with every victory and defeat during this mission brings a depth to it that you might not expect.

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While not an overly exciting film it is amazing to see not only what they pulled off, but what the rover itself was able to do. They do a cool job of infusing archival footage and blending it with newly designed moments with the rover on Mars for dramatic effect. All of it impresses the sheer genius and ingenuity that these people put on display along with all their emotions and some their entire lives for something that doesn’t seem overly 

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