Carl Sagan's "Cosmos"

the soundtrack mainly documents the classical side, but the show really picked some of the most psychedelic classical pieces, and the way they segue from orchestra to synth music on the soundtrack is key. the first episode's soundtrack keeps seamlessly sliding back and forth from Shostakovich & Vangelis, turning them into the same piece

one great bonus feature of the DVDs -- you have the option of watching them without the monologues -- just the bizarre visuals & the soundtrack at full volume.

>I've still got the original tapes I made of Cosmos when it aired.

!!!!!

― milton parker (Jon L), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 20:01 (7 years ago) Permalink

Vangelis was in there everywhere, but remember that the "Music Of Cosmos" LP only featured a small % of all the music that was used in the series. There's a link upthread that lists the whole works.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 00:26 (7 years ago) Permalink

http://carlsagancosmos.blogspot.com/

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Sunday, 1 October 2006 03:15 (6 years ago) Permalink

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 1 October 2006 06:24 (6 years ago) Permalink

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Sunday, 1 October 2006 13:47 (6 years ago) Permalink

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Sunday, 1 October 2006 13:50 (6 years ago) Permalink

revive!

i'm almost through with the varieties of scientific experience, presented originally in '85 as a series of lectures. very conversational tone, of course. easy to hear his voice. with occasional updates and notes by editor ann druyan. it's so inspiring! never sell the universe short! it's all so fantastically unlikely! love this book.

been constantly keeping my eyes out at the stacks of vhs tapes at all the flea markets around for cosmos on tape. it'll happen. and i'll probably go ahead and get it on dvd at some point, but it's a bit expensive for me at the moment.

― andrew m., Friday, 21 March 2008 02:48 (5 years ago) Permalink

two really cool astronomy stories today (ilx is my blog):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/science/space/21bangw.html?ref=science
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/science/space/20planetw.html?ref=science

― 31g, Friday, 21 March 2008 03:08 (5 years ago) Permalink

very cool! quite a lot of this book touches on similar "stuff of life" spectrometer readings and such.

― andrew m., Friday, 21 March 2008 03:20 (5 years ago) Permalink

Netflix has this on 'Watch Instantly.' Still so totally awesome. I have such a boner for this man.

― mascara and ties (Abbott), Thursday, 3 December 2009 04:17 (3 years ago) Permalink

everyone's seen this already i guess?

― rent, Thursday, 3 December 2009 04:29 (3 years ago) Permalink

Found the box set of DVDs in a thrift store for 8 bucks a few years ago and I still watch them regularly!

― Adam Bruneau, Thursday, 3 December 2009 07:15 (3 years ago) Permalink

Twenty years since the Voyager family portrait photograph.

― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 12 February 2010 21:10 (3 years ago) Permalink

btw that Sagan autotune song is being distributed on vinyl by Jack White's record label, apparently

― lukevalentine, Friday, 12 February 2010 21:23 (3 years ago) Permalink

this is super sweet <3

― DJ NAIR (tehresa), Friday, 12 February 2010 22:52 (3 years ago) Permalink

sagan autotune song is my ringtone

― DJ NAIR (tehresa), Friday, 12 February 2010 22:52 (3 years ago) Permalink

it is here in case anyone else wants to be really cool like me.

― DJ NAIR (tehresa), Friday, 12 February 2010 22:56 (3 years ago) Permalink

This collection of Voyager's electromagnetic recordings of the planets is still one of my fave drone/ambient albums. Drop me a line if you want a copy.

― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 13 February 2010 00:20 (3 years ago) Permalink

omg tehresa that makes me almost want to get a cell phone.

― vacation to outer darkness (Abbott), Saturday, 13 February 2010 00:29 (3 years ago) Permalink

woah that sounds awesome
xpost

― DJ NAIR (tehresa), Saturday, 13 February 2010 08:40 (3 years ago) Permalink

>This collection of Voyager's electromagnetic recordings of the planets is still one of my fave drone/ambient albums.

I have only four of those, from when they were being distributed as individual discs for each planet by the BRAIN / MIND RESEARCH record label

and they get dragged and out and listened to frequently, they are keepers

― Milton Parker, Saturday, 13 February 2010 08:59 (3 years ago) Permalink

man if they are milton parker approved, i must certainly listen to them!

― DJ NAIR (tehresa), Saturday, 13 February 2010 09:00 (3 years ago) Permalink

no idea exactly how they processed the data into audible waveforms, but... not going to argue, they are classic CDs

― Milton Parker, Saturday, 13 February 2010 09:10 (3 years ago) Permalink

i was a pre-teen astronomy nut, even before i'd seen a single episode of "cosmos." when i finally did (on one of its periodic rebroadcasts on the local PBS station), i thought that i'd gotten over astronomy (an eighties version of "astronomy for dummies" that i took out of the school library went into a lot of the ridiculously hard mathematical concepts of astrophysics, and since i've never been a math ace that pretty much killed any dreams i ever had of being an astronomer). anyway, "cosmos" reopened my own love and fascination for astronomy which never really died.

watching these old episodes again on Netflix, i realize now how much of what Sagan had to say about science, rationality and humanity's place in the cosmos (for lack of a better turn) came to influence my own adult thinking about such things. almost subconscious -- it was like walking through an archaeology dig of my own way of thinking. it also helped that Sagan had one of the most mellifluous voices imaginable, plus the skill in making non-scientists understand difficult-to-grasp concepts.

― there can be only but steam that smells of shit and weaklingness (Eisbaer), Wednesday, 24 February 2010 01:49 (3 years ago) Permalink

I am watching this on Netflix and it just the most wonderful thing I've ever seen.

― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Tuesday, 27 July 2010 09:04 (2 years ago) Permalink

I sometimes see the series on DVD in a store but I always put it back, thinking something that's 30 years old will be at least half wrong by now. Would it be?

― StanM, Saturday, 5 February 2011 19:24 (2 years ago) Permalink

The last time I saw it on television, they had "updated" some of the animations with cgi...but probably sometime in the 90s, because it looked terrible. Even worse (and far less charming) than the originals.

― Johnny Fever, Saturday, 5 February 2011 19:27 (2 years ago) Permalink

it's still on Netflix fwiw

― polyphonic, Saturday, 5 February 2011 19:41 (2 years ago) Permalink

I'm in Netflix-less Belgium but thx

― StanM, Saturday, 5 February 2011 19:46 (2 years ago) Permalink

Think all of it is available on youtube.

― State Attorney Foxhart Cubycheck (Billy Dods), Saturday, 5 February 2011 19:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

most of this is still "right", but even if it weren't, it's so good that it'll be worth watching long after we have better models for everything it describes. it's sistine-chapel-level.

― difficult listening hour, Saturday, 5 February 2011 20:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

(one of the reasons it's so good in fact is how constantly it hammers the message "and this is only what we think SO FAR!")

― difficult listening hour, Saturday, 5 February 2011 20:18 (2 years ago) Permalink

ok, thanks for that, I'm definitely getting it next time.

― StanM, Saturday, 5 February 2011 20:33 (2 years ago) Permalink

xp I just watched the Mars episode and the whole time Sagan is going on about being biased towards seeing what we want and/or expect to see ("I'm a carbon chauvinist. (...) I'm a water chauvinist. (...) Maybe it's because I'm made of up carbon and water.")

― Les centimètres énigmatiques (snoball), Saturday, 5 February 2011 20:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

Thing is, its not just about the scientific theories, its about the narrative of the progression of human thought over the millenia. The wasted opportunities, the significant leaps ahead, etc. That he 'visits' the library of Alexandria in the first episode pretty much displays much of Cosmos's M.O.

Billions and billions of classic

― Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 5 February 2011 23:39 (2 years ago) Permalink

planetary science has changed a huge amount because of the probes of the last 10 years, although a lot of what we know (and the best images) came from voyager (which were also post-cosmos).

cosmology/extragalactic stuff (pretty much only episode 10) is a totally different subject, and the limited amount he was presumably able to present has been superseded.

otherwise it looks it covers areas in which progress has been incremental or negligible.

my impression though is that it's kind of timeless and the specific material is almost not the point. i haven't seen it though.

― caek, Saturday, 5 February 2011 23:52 (2 years ago) Permalink

Your impression is correct. Why, I said as much in response to you five years ago at the start of the thread. :-D

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 5 February 2011 23:54 (2 years ago) Permalink

haha, yeah, in that sense its got more in common with civilization or the ascent of man that it has with, say, that brian cox thing (or that brian greene thing for that matter), both of which are current knowledge but lack the personal, essayistic stuff and are going to date badly.

one day i will watch this show and civilization and then poll them vs. the ascent of man (and then vote for ascent of man)

― caek, Saturday, 5 February 2011 23:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

One day you will host your own show 'Caek's Corner,' we all guest star, the scientific knowledge of humanity is improved forevermore and you dedicate your combined Nobel in Peace, Literature and Physics to 'that one bunch of people I knew at some point...I forget their names.'

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 6 February 2011 00:00 (2 years ago) Permalink

Thanks for confirming it's not as (out)dated as I feared.

― StanM, Sunday, 6 February 2011 01:01 (2 years ago) Permalink

i thought about Carl Sagan and "Cosmos" the other day when i read the story about the Kepler satellite finding planets that might contain life:

i still remember the episode where Carl visited his old classroom in Brooklyn to do a guest lecture on astronomy, passed around NASA pictures of different satellites in our solar system, and demonstrated the techniques that late-70s astronomers used to detect if a star had any planets.

― Political Unrest Stabilizes Society Yeah (Eisbaer), Sunday, 6 February 2011 01:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

BTW, the Cosmos episode about Kepler himself (and his discoveries) is a thing of beauty ... one of the few films that makes me well up a little bit.

― Political Unrest Stabilizes Society Yeah (Eisbaer), Sunday, 6 February 2011 01:21 (2 years ago) Permalink

Right. 10 episodes into this. It takes a little getting used to, the slow voice, the dreamy sequences, the sometimes dated and repeated synth music (don't watch one episode a day like I tried initially), but overall, it's very very very impressive indeed. I'm joining your ranks, fellow Saganists.

Kenan OTM re: Connections, by the way. Series 1 and The Day The Universe Changed are both awesome (Connections 2 and 3 not so much)

― StanM, Monday, 25 July 2011 19:24 (1 year ago) Permalink

Oh, and you were right about Cosmos not being outdated at all. Some details here and there (dark matter and dark energy are too new to be included, for instance), but nothing big.

― StanM, Monday, 25 July 2011 19:28 (1 year ago) Permalink

I wanna see the outside of the Spaceship Of The Imagination!

― StanM, Monday, 25 July 2011 19:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

the slow voice, the dreamy sequences and the synth music are what make it epic and timeless! if you want frantic pacing, breathless narration and shitty music, there are multiple seasons of "the universe" available for viewing.

― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Monday, 25 July 2011 20:20 (1 year ago) Permalink

when the people assembling the VHS tape edition decided they couldn't afford to license all of the tracks they used for the original broadcasts, they cut about 80% of the most amazing synth tracks: Heldon / Jarre / Eno / Reich / Schulze / Froese / Stockhausen etc. and they hired Vangelis to write a bunch of new music to fill in the gaps. this being the late 80's, the new Vangelis music was actually much more dated & repetitive than the original broadcasts

so while the DVDs look wonderful, on the musical side of things they're a step down, and another example of how exorbitant sync licenses are prompting us to mutilate broadcast history

http://cosmic_voyager.tripod.com/cosmosindex.htm

― Milton Parker, Monday, 25 July 2011 20:51 (1 year ago) Permalink

the original Vangelis music is still pretty amazing. not to mention all of the classical music selections throughout.

― My name is Frunze. Learn it well it is the chilling sound of your doom (Eisbaer), Monday, 25 July 2011 21:54 (1 year ago) Permalink

i almost always tear up a little when any episode of this hits its final five minutes and starts in with the tinkly-piano-backed summation

― my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Monday, 25 July 2011 21:58 (1 year ago) Permalink

i also love any shot of sagan looking thoughtfully out the viewport of his SHIP OF THE IMAGINATION, especially the totally lol one in episode 2 or 3 where he watches a supernova (i.e. stares off-camera with a grave but accepting expression while someone shines a light in his face and cranks up a dimmer switch)

― my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Monday, 25 July 2011 22:00 (1 year ago) Permalink

UGHHHHH @ mcfarlane

― ILX Point Never (diamonddave85), Friday, 5 August 2011 16:43 (1 year ago) Permalink

i guess i shouldve read the article, VERY glad it's NOT hosted by mcfarlane

― ILX Point Never (diamonddave85), Friday, 5 August 2011 16:45 (1 year ago) Permalink

I remember watching Cosmos and feeling like the universe is awesome - these days I watch it and feel that the internet is awesome

― hwy not write Ohkhaye!" Onktean? (Latham Green), Friday, 5 August 2011 16:50 (1 year ago) Permalink

stewie talks about supernovas

― My name is Frunze. Learn it well it is the chilling sound of your doom (Eisbaer), Friday, 5 August 2011 23:26 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.avclub.com/articles/seth-macfarlane-to-update-carl-sagans-cosmos-for-f,60020/

― Crazed Mister Handy (kingfish), Saturday, 6 August 2011 03:13 (1 year ago) Permalink

1969: Civilization
1973: Ascent of Man
1980: Cosmos

2011: Cosmos II: WTF

― shaane, Monday, 26 September 2011 22:04 (1 year ago) Permalink

As talked about upthread...

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 26 September 2011 22:22 (1 year ago) Permalink

right. just making the point that no one can be bothered to come up with something new.

― shaane, Tuesday, 27 September 2011 00:48 (1 year ago) Permalink

― Cashmere Combabe, Friday, 27 January 2012 10:57 (1 year ago) Permalink

a young neil degrasse tyson

― caek, Thursday, 15 March 2012 11:05 (1 year ago) Permalink

:D

― Kony Montana: "Say hello to my invisible friend" (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 15 March 2012 11:08 (1 year ago) Permalink

I Be Like... Damn

― Marilyn Hagerty: the terroir of tiny town (Abbbottt), Thursday, 15 March 2012 19:07 (1 year ago) Permalink

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2012/05/16/seth-macfarlane-gets-serious/

His second initiative is further out there, at least for him. The man who never met a toilet or sex joke he didn’t like is deeply concerned that the U.S. has lost its passion for science. No one seems to care about the space program. Evolution has somehow become a debatable fact. “The resistance to science is idiotic,” says MacFarlane, sipping on a coffee that he declares way too fancy. “Those people shouldn’t be allowed to have antibiotics. Give us back your TVs and the dentures.” But MacFarlane is serious, putting his money and his clout with Fox, where his mouth is. Fox plans to air a reboot of the 1980s PBS science show Cosmos, one of the most popular and least hip programs ever made. MacFarlane is also spending his money to help get late Cosmos host Carl Sagan’s substantial collections of letters, notes and drawings into the Library of Congress. “I never met Carl Sagan, but this is my way to give something back to him for all of the things he gave to me,” says MacFarlane.

MacFarlane’s path to Cosmos started with the Science & Entertainment Exchange, an organization set up by Airplane director Jerry Zucker to help Hollywood work with scientists to ensure shows like CSI are factually correct. Through the group he met the famous astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson. “He said he was going to host Cosmos, and he was trying to sell the show to a cable science network,” says MacFarlane. “I said, ‘Let me take you into Fox and we’ll see what happens.’”

Fox might seem like a strange network to host a reboot of Cosmos. The show was one of the most popular ever on PBS, but much of its success depended on viewers buying into Sagan’s poetic vision of space as the exhilarating new frontier for exploration. Not exactly the kind of show you’d expect on a network dominated by shows like American Idol and MacFarlane’s naughty cartoons. “It’s not going to be the biggest money earner,” admits Kevin Reilly, head of entertainment at Fox Networks. “But it could have a cultural impact.”

Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow and the force behind the new Cosmos, says that the network has agreed to make the show using cutting-edge visual technology (the original was one of the first to use green screens) and is letting her have control over the content of the show. “Seth was already a hero in our household because of Family Guy,” says Druyan, who has two sons. “I knew he would be someone with a skeptical nature and an impatience with superstition and nonsense.”

Perhaps in penance, the king of animated lowbrow hopes the show will help inspire better programming on TV. “The trend today is vampires, zombies, angels, all the stuff that puts me right to sleep,” says MacFarlane. “It’s too bad because it’s so much less interesting than the diversity of stories you can tell with science.”

Fuck it, I'm on board fully now. If it's as memorable to enough nine-year-old kids now as the original was to me back then, then it will be enough.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 18 May 2012 14:42 (1 year ago) Permalink

Pretty surprised this hasn't been posted. Up there with the autotune song.

― The Painter of Blight™ (Sanpaku), Friday, 18 May 2012 15:42 (1 year ago) Permalink

"least hip" is not true, everyone loves cosmos

― a hauntingly unemployed american (difficult listening hour), Friday, 18 May 2012 16:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

I continue to approve:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/creator-of-family-guy-donates-carl-sagan-papers-to-library-of-congress/

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 27 June 2012 20:52 (10 months ago) Permalink

Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson)
.@NateWeeksLaw: Do we share DNA w /Plants & Bacteria, you ask? Indeed we do. A theme we'll address in Cosmos (Spring 2014).

I like.

― shaane, Thursday, 28 June 2012 00:54 (10 months ago) Permalink

^Yes.

^And yes. (xpost)

― arby's, Thursday, 28 June 2012 02:38 (10 months ago) Permalink