Spending a lot of time in Prime Video‘s huge library of documentaries can get a bit … weird. There’s a lot in there, from super-specific explorations of Houdini to exposés on the royal family to everything you ever wanted to know about the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.
Maybe I’ll get to some of those in a future roundup, but for this weekend (March 12 to 15), I’ve got two documentary features and a series for you. The first is a surprisingly emotional Mars exploration crowd-pleaser, the second is a fascinating deep dive into the making of a sci-fi horror classic, and the last is a rugged travel docuseries about a couple of guys on motorcycles ripping around northern China. Let’s go!
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Good Night Oppy
A tear-jerker of a doc about NASA’s cute Mars rover
I’m not crying over a robot, you are. Shut up. Good Night Oppy got me, even after the second time watching it, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. The Emmy-nominated documentary from 2022 tells the fascinating and surprisingly emotional story of NASA’s Mars rover, Opportunity—affectionately referred to as Oppy—and how it surprised everyone from its creators to those who followed its remarkable journey across the stars.
Lovingly narrated by Angela Bassett, Good Night Oppy follows the engineers and scientists behind the mission to design, build, and deploy the cute WALL-E-like rover, for what was supposed to be a 90-day mission of exploration on the Red Planet. Defying all odds, and with an almost-human level of determination (for a robot), Oppy surprised the world by staying active on Mars for 15 years.
Using stunning imagery and archival footage, both in the NASA labs and on the spectacular planet, the 105-minute movie also talks with those closest to the project, including principal investigator Steve Squyres, project manager John Callas, and others, who share how they became emotionally attached to Oppy. For a doc about a wheeled rover, the movie’s ending, and culmination of a decade and a half of hard work, is genuinely touching and bittersweet. A fascinating and real watch for anyone.
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Memory: The Origins of Alien
How a sci-fi horror masterpiece was made
Alien was, and is, still one of the most frightening sci-fi horror films ever made, and it spawned (pardon the pun) a mighty franchise that’s still scaring the hell out of us today, with series like Alien: Earth. If you’re a big fan of the original 1979 Ridley Scott film, this documentary, Memory: The Origins of Alien, is the deep dive you’ve been looking for.
While Scott and star Sigourney Weaver are absent from the doc, it doesn’t matter; Memory has more than enough fascinating insight and detail to go around, starting with its Lovecraftian roots, brought to life by screenwriter Dan O’Bannon, whose widow Anne lends her intimate perspectives on her husband’s work. That perspective, as well as those from cast member Veronica Cartwright and co-writer Ron Shusett, are laid over some incredible behind-the-scenes footage and visuals from the making of the film. The doc also includes loads of archival materials, early sketches from H.R. Giger’s unsettling art, story notes, early scripts, and other oddball ideas that didn’t make the final cut.
Memory: The Origins of Alien isn’t all about the effects, though. It explores how the story touched on Greek mythology and its overarching themes of cultural anxiety, impregnation, gestation, birth, and transformation that would ring throughout the franchise. Alien nerds should not miss this revealing documentary.
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Conquering Northern China
A gritty and fascinating motorcycle travel series
I recently wrote about how much of a fan I am of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman’s buddies-on-bikes “Long Way…” franchise of docuseries on Apple TV. And while they offer a fun thrill-ride and loads of male bonding, there is definitely a level of polish and pampering to them (not that it’s a bad thing). However, when a colleague of mine recommended his friend’s docuseries, Conquering Northern China, on Prime Video, I had to check it out.
The four-episode series from 2017 was created by popular YouTube vloggers Winston Sterzel (a.k.a. SerpentZA) and Matthew Tye (a.k.a. Laowhy86), two westerners and now-former long-term residents of China, who rose to popularity for their videos documenting daily life living in China. The pair team up for an epic motorcycle trek—from China’s coastal Shandong Province, where they sample fresh beer in a bag and sample some Fear Factor-level wriggly delicacies, all the way to China’s northernmost point, and through the sprawling landscapes of Mongolia before getting up-close and personal with the North Korean border.
I like this series so much because it’s a grittier, grosser, and wilder look at China, and Sterzel and Tye’s deep cultural knowledge and fluency in Mandarin delivers less of a fish-out-of-water, touristy feel than the Long Way series. The production is solid for a more independent project, and the hosts have a genuine rapport with each other—especially when they throw a few beverages back.
This is the second docuseries from the YouTubers, but I couldn’t find their previous series, 2016’s Conquering Southern China, streaming anywhere. Oh, and there’s not likely to be a second season of Northern either, as Sterzel and Tye were reportedly forced to flee China in 2019 due to safety concerns. You can still catch their content on their respective YouTube channels, though.
Hopefully, one of these weekly documentary pics is to your liking. But before you hit play, do yourself a favor and disable Prime Video’s annoying autoplay previews so your weekend doesn’t get hijacked by surprise trailers.
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Yes, via Prime membership or $9/month
- Simultaneous streams
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Prime Video has a large volume of content to watch. The other Amazon perks are a bonus as well.
