Carl Sagan's "Cosmos"

Sadly, unless you get the DVD, you're unlikely to get the opportunity to watch it with your son. Unless Sagan knew something the rest of the scientific community didn't (or unless current interpretation of Hubble and WMAP, etc. turn out to be wrong), a lot of what he said will be out of date.

I fear we better get used to watching the likes of Brian Greene with his gee-whizz presentation. Gutting.

Similarly, I wouldn't mind seeing The Ascent of Man again. I fear I will have a long wait.

I've actually heard something about how much of the scientific facts in the series was supposed to be upgraded/updated for rerelease precisely for that reason -- though I could be wrong there? It would seem very hard to do without Sagan's unique voice, frankly.

But in part that's why I'd like to see the series as it stands again -- what it does is capture a moment in time, based on the knowledge to hand with the speculation as to the future and what could be learned. In ways, I'd like to say that Cosmos was a culminating moment in the optimistic/popularizing viewpoint of the Space Age after World War II. Sagan grew up and succeeded in a culture of speculation less immediately compromised by (bluntly put) crypto-religious/political idiocy and more open to certain possibilities and dreams -- the O'Neill-proposed space colonies and so forth. He didn't shy away from ideas of what could go wrong, of course -- the final episode of the series addressed questions of nuclear war in a way that frankly upset me at the time of original viewing, not because he was terrifying, but because what he outlined was so calm but frank.

He also had the public's eye and ear thanks to his regular appearances with Carson, a unifying factor among 'the public' in a broad sense far less possible now. The series featured on the front cover of Time magazine, for instance -- my mom saved that article and I still have it with my book. Can you imagine *any* hard-science themed series on PBS, or much more appropriately one of the cable channels where such a show would turn up instead, getting such relatively massive coverage today?

It's for these and for other reasons the importance of the series cannot be denied. Sagan was a classic example of the strong-willed professional with just enough flair for p.r. to bring things to a very wide audience, and was willing to compromise enough with the makers of the series to further to take a chance on it (for instance, he wasn't too fond of the whole puffball/spaceship idea as such, though of course it became a hallmark of the series and still looks gorgeous now). The result was lightning in a bottle, and I'd say I was fortunate beyond measure to see it when I did and at the age I was.

I love Carl Sagan beyond all time and space.

I doubt it was a very significant percentage. So much of the series was about illuminating things that all astronomers and scientists take for grented. I can't remember any of it that would be controversial, but then again, I haven't seen it for many years.

You nerds.

this hero compiled a list using hometaped copies of the original series: http://www.users.bigpond.com/cosmic_voyager/

the DVD version have 'science updates' at the end of each episode -- 1990 era updates from Sagan, and modern ones from Ann Druyan. but the later episodes are also updated with some Hubble shots, which come across as a real interrupt after all the 80's era effects shots... the DVDs are definitely worth getting, but it looks like the job of preserving the historical original edition is going to be left to online torrents -- which really, really sucks -- I hope someone with a home taped video set realizes how important they are and is generous enough to get them online, because it's the only way people are ever going to get to see them

Hahaha---- read a chapter browsing at the bookstore once but nothing else, must get DVD on the basis of Neds splendid, stirring post alone.

In the late-70s my dad took me to a presentation Sagan made at the SoCal Cornell alumni club and Sagan signed a picture of Mars for me. I've still got the original tapes I made of Cosmos when it aired.

ha ha, I also notice that lots of us who are into Spacerock are also into Sagan. I wonder if there's a connection...

Of course! It's the Cosmos background music... It's the first place I heard Heldon, Brian Eno, Terry Riley, Edgar Froese, and Pink Floyd's "One Of These Days"

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.

!!!!!

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.

http://carlsagancosmos.blogspot.com/

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.

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

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

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

everyone's seen this already i guess?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

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

Twenty years since the Voyager family portrait photograph.

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

this is super sweet <3

sagan autotune song is my ringtone

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

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.

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.

(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!")

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

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.")

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

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.

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

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)

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.'

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

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk4XN3KtOCg&feature=player_embedded

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.

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.

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)

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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)

it's the url you've all been dreading

http://www.deadline.com/2011/08/fox-orders-13-episode-sequel-to-carl-sagans-cosmos-docu-series-to-be-produced-by-seth-macfarlane-for-2013-launch/

That's for damn sure.

I hate him

FOX? Is the Cosmos going to be 6,000 years old?

I hate McFarlane so much. I wonder why a sequel being made now -- is it because of the relative success of The Wonders of the Universe et al?

The Cosmos Corporation can't put the original Cosmos on Blu-Ray since it's way too old, so if they want to keep earning $$$ with the name they'll have to make something new.

(correction: it's called Cosmos Studios)

UGHHHHH @ mcfarlane

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

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

stewie talks about supernovas

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

http://media.avclub.com/images/articles/article/60/60020/sagan_jpg_627x325_crop_upscale_q85.jpg

1969: Civilization
1973: Ascent of Man
1980: Cosmos

2011: Cosmos II: WTF

As talked about upthread...

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRmz0HrECIQ

a young neil degrasse tyson

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0my51b4sZ1qk7pano1_500.png

:D

I Be Like... Damn

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.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP7K9SycELA

"least hip" is not true, everyone loves cosmos

I continue to approve:

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

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.

^Yes.

^And yes. (xpost)

Started up a new thread for the Tyson version:

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's _Cosmos_

Love this sentence combining exercise!

Sentence Combining Exercises
Excerpted from William Strong’s
Sentence Combining: A Composing Book, 2nd
edition

Cosmos
by Carl Sagan
Paragraph One
1.1. Our genes could not store all the information. 1.2. The information was necessary for
survival. 1.3. We slowly invented brains.
2.1. But then a time came. 2.2. The time was perhaps ten thousand years ago. 2.3. We
needed to know more. 2.4. The knowledge could not be conveniently contained in brains.
3.1. We learned to stockpile quantities of information. 3.2. The quantities were enormous.
3.3. The stockpiling was outside our bodies.
4.1. We are the only species to have invented a memory. 4.2. The species is on our
planet. 4.3. The memory is communal. 4.4. The memory is not stored in our genes. 4.5.
The memory is not stored in our brains. 4.6. This is so far as we know.
5.1. The warehouse is called a library. 5.2. The warehouse is for memory.

wow @ ascent of man, truly great so far

yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjrmK8t6VYk

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