Approaching The Unknown

2016 • 90 minutes

About this movie

Captain William D. Stanaforth (Mark Strong) is on a one-way solo mission, taking humanity's first steps toward colonizing Mars. Although the entire world is watching him, he is completely alone in a dark and distant sea of stars. Stanaforth rockets bravely through space facing insurmountable odds, but as the journey takes a toll on his life-sustaining systems, he is forced to make impossible choices that threaten his sanity, mission and very existence.

Ratings and reviews

Mark Strong did a great job with the material, but I wondered a lot about the plot. Essential gear is needed for a long-term mission, yet there is no backup or spare parts (even though it looks like there's room for that -- a different version is shown being carried in a suitcase). The scientists on the space station seem curiously incapable of making themselves useful. And no-one besides the main character seems to know how to troubleshoot.

This is whats wrong with sci-fi now days, its all about the journey not the destination. I'd like to see a Mars movie where they stretch the imagination, go into a cave on Mars and find ruins or something, most these Mars movies if they make it to Mars, it turns into getting off the planet shortly into it. Mission to Mars was a great Mars movie.

I thoroughly enjoyed this inspiring and entertaining science fiction movie about humankind's approach to exploration of the unknown (Space, especially one man's voyage to Mars, an "inner planet". What? H2O extracted from sandy soil? Unlikely and impossible!). Captain Stanaforth's pre-flight experiments as well as his onboard ones may inspire a new generation of prospective astronauts to prepare themselves in the fields of the life-sciences, engineering, and technology, One great future achievement will be colonization of the exo-planets armed and informed with our extra-terrestrially gained experiences.