“This is one of the craziest adventures that humankind has ever created”: Ryan White, Abigail Fraeman and Doug Ellison on Good Night Oppy

A documentary about a pair of NASA Mars rovers might not sound like a riveting experience, but told through memories of those who worked with them, archival footage, cinematically designed CGI and nostalgic references to the era they were operating through, Good Night Oppy is a surprisingly moving and affecting film.

Infused with the awe-inspiring sentiment of old-school sci-fi (such as Steven Spielberg’s ET) with the characters of Opportunity and Spirit easily likened to R2-D2 and Wall-E, the stories of these personified machines become as much about the people who devoted their lives to operating them as the robots themselves, and as much about the pursuit of scientific discovery and space exploration as the human race and its function. A soundtrack from Blake Neely further heightens the sense of childlike wonder at the feats achieved: a jukebox of classic music choices, from Here Comes the Sun to Walking on Sunshine, are used as the “wake-up” songs played to alert the machines into action each morning).

The Upcoming had the pleasure of speaking with director Ryan White and some of the engineers featured in the film, Abigail Fraeman and Doug Ellison, about the motivation to pay tribute to the legacy of the Mars rovers and how they hope their story will inspire the next generation of space scientists.

Sarah Bradbury

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

Read our review here.

Watch the trailer for Good Night Oppy here: