Greg MacGillivray's IMAX film The Discoverers is purportedly based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name, by historian Daniel Boorstin. How can a 700+ page book be successfully adapted in a 39-minute film, you ask? Answer: It can't. What we get in The Discoverers is an assortment of discovery-themed scenes that barely hint at the potential depth of the material.

Rather than examining important moments of discovery in detail, or considering the process that leads up to scientific discoveries, The Discoverers focuses exclusively on the emotion felt at the moment of discovery, whether by Magellan's sailors discovering the Pacific Ocean, or a modern-day scientist viewing the first radar pictures of the surface of Venus. It's not an inherently flawed approach: after all, with only 39 minutes of running time to play with, the film requires a very tight focus.

The problem is that it's very hard to divorce the emotions associated with discovery from the process leading up to that moment. For instance, in the second segment (dealing with the Magellan spacecraft's pass over Venus) it's mentioned in an off-hand manner that many of the scientists had been working on the project for eight years. Yet that work is almost trivialized, in favor of the brief moment of elation as the data starts rolling in. There's no indication of how the process of discovery works, or how those years of work actually paid off. The result is that the genuine excitement of the scientists seems shallow and uninvolving: we know nothing of how hard they worked, or what the importance is of this data, so it's difficult to share their enthusiasm as we're intended to.

Other segments are frustrating in how they dangle fascinating information in front of the viewer, but don't take the time to explore its implications. In the segment on dolphins, we learn that a research lab in Hawaii has succeeded in demonstrating that dolphins can understand sentences and sentence structure. The film shows us some remarkable examples of this amazing leap in our understanding of dolphin intelligence... and then moves on to the next segment. Science never takes place in a vacuum, but for all the context we get here, it might as well be someone's backyard project.

All in all, The Discoverers isn't terrible as a film; it's just unsatisfying, hinting at fascinating moments in science but refusing to go into any depth. On a positive note, though, it has led me to put the original book The Discoverers on my to-read list.

The DVD

The Discoverers is a two-disc set, packaged in a single-wide keepcase. The first DVD has the program and special features, and the second disc has the program in high-definition format.

Video

The Discoverers appears in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1; unlike the other IMAX films from MFF, there's no widescreen version offered. The image quality is passable, but that's it. The picture is mostly clean, with no noise and only a few print flaws, but there's moderate to heavy edge enhancement in many scenes. Colors tend to be a bit on the dull side, and in several scenes there are distracting compression artifacts, causing a shimmering effect in parts of the image with high levels of detail.

Audio

Viewers have the choice of a DT S track or a Dolby 5.1 track; Spanish and French 5.1 tracks are also provided. The default is the 5.1, and you can't change it on the fly. The DTS track is marginally superior to the 5.1, mainly because the 5.1 is marred by an excessively heavy bass element. Both the DTS and the 5.1 make extensive use of the surround channels for discrete sound effects, mainly to give a lot of spatial separation to the various speakers in some of the scenes. It's certainly distinctive, but since the music tends to stay focused in the center speakers, the overall audio experience isn't all that immersive.

Extras

The main special feature is a moderately interesting making-of feature, which runs 33 minutes. You can access it through the special features menu, or view it in segments through the chapter menu of the film. The French subtitles are on by default, but fortunately you can switch them off on the fly.

There are also trailers for a selection of other DVDs from MFF, text blurbs about the director and the film processing company, and a text section describing a "do-it-yourself science" experiment on contour mapping.

The second disc of the set has the complete feature in a high-definition transfer. As there are currently no high-definition DVD players, this version of the film is intended to be played on a PC running the Windows XP operating system.

Final thoughts

The Discoverers isn't awful, but neither does it present a compelling reason to actually watch it. The 39-minute IMAX film introduces viewers to selected moments of discovery throughout the history of science; they're not badly done, but they're presented with so little context that it's hard to appreciate them. Its one merit might be to get viewers sufficiently intrigued by some of the topics that they'll go out and find more information on their won. Rent it.