Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission

When you are a kid, one of the biggest dreams you might have is to be an astronaut. But for most of us that dream dies when we grow up. Most of us are not Richard Garriott. As a boy he grew up with an astronaut for a father. When he was still in his teens he created one of the first computer games, and became an unlikely billionaire. Now with the means and the opportunity he was able to accomplish his dream of traveling into space. Luckily for us, he brought a camera with him to document his trip.

“Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission,” is a documentary chronicling Garriott’s training and eventual launch into space. And while this film is an interesting portrait of a man determined to live his dream, he is rarest of men who have the ability to actually realize it. The film is not really about any kind of struggle. All the obstacles facing Garriott are quickly solved by his fabulous wealth. There is no problem too big to throw money at. He is extremely lucky in this way. But what saves the film is the fact that he actually captured footage that none of us would ever have seen otherwise. All the footage of the actual launch and of the international space station is incredible. Just as a pure document of space life, it is remarkable. Every second of footage in space is mesmerizing.

Another problem that the film has is the ending. It ends so abruptly. He returns from space, there is a bit of drama about his landing, but then that’s it. Sorry if I ruined it for you, but you had to know that he made it back safe; they couldn’t have released the movie if he died. Anyway, I was hoping there would be more about the aftermath of the space flight. Here you have a man who just lived his ultimate dream. What’s next? I wanted to see if he was in a crisis, never able to regain the rush of the experience. How was he affected psychologically? Once you’ve done everything you’ve ever wanted you really have no reason left to live, so how does he feel about it? I guess we’ll never know. I have a feeling that this film will have a theatrical release, and will definitely get released to DVD sometime. I guess I’ll have to wait for the extra features to know the rest of the story.