3 Must-See Prime Video Documentaries to Stream This Weekend (March 13)

Spend a lot of time in main videoThe huge library of documentaries can get a little… weird. there is a lot There you’ll find everything from super-specific explorations of Houdini to revelations about the royal family and everything you ever wanted to know about the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

Maybe I’ll get to some of them in a future recap, but for this weekend (March 12-15), I have two documentaries and a series for you. The first is a surprisingly emotional, crowd-pleasing exploration of Mars, the second is a fascinating deep dive into the making of a sci-fi horror classic, and the last is a travel documentary series about a couple of guys on motorcycles traveling through northern China. Come on!

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Good night Oppy

A tear-jerking documentary about NASA’s friendly Mars rover

I’m not crying over a robot, you are. Shut up. Good night Oppy It got me, even after watching it a second time, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. The 2022 Emmy-nominated documentary tells the fascinating and surprisingly emotional story of NASA’s Mars rover, Opportunity, affectionately known as Oppy, and how it surprised everyone, from its creators to those who followed its extraordinary journey through 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 type rover, for what was supposed to be a 90-day exploration mission to the Red Planet. Defying all odds and with an almost human level of determination (for a robot), Oppy surprised the world by remaining active on Mars for 15 years.

Using stunning footage and footage, both in NASA labs and on the spectacular planet, the 105-minute film also speaks to those closest to the project, including principal investigator Steve Squyres, project director John Callas and others, who share how they became emotionally attached to Oppy. For a documentary about a wheeled rover, the end of the film, and the culmination of a decade and a half of hard work, is genuinely moving and bittersweet. A fascinating and real watch for anyone.

Good night Oppy

Release date

November 4, 2022

Execution time

105 minutes

Director

ryan white

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Memory: The Origins of Alien

How a Sci-Fi Horror Masterpiece Was Made

Foreign was, and remains, one of the scariest sci-fi horror films ever made, and generated (pardon the pun) a powerful franchise That still scares the hell out of us today, with shows like Extraterrestrial: Earth. If you’re a big fan of Ridley Scott’s original 1979 film, this documentary, Memory: The Origins of AlienIt’s the deep dive you’ve been looking for.

While Scott and star Sigourney Weaver are absent from the documentary, it doesn’t matter; Memory has more than enough fascinating information and details to go around, starting with its Lovecraftian roots, brought to life by screenwriter Dan O’Bannon, whose widow Anne provides intimate perspectives on her husband’s work. That perspective, as well as those of cast member Veronica Cartwright and co-writer Ron Shusett, are combined with incredible footage and behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the film. The doc also includes a wealth of archival materials, early sketches of H.R. Giger’s haunting art, story notes, early scripts, and other odd ideas that didn’t make it into the final cut.

Memory: The Origins of Alien However, it’s not just about the effects. It explores how the story touched on Greek mythology and its overarching themes of cultural anxiety, impregnation, gestation, birth, and transformation that would resonate throughout the franchise. Alien nerds shouldn’t miss this eye-opening documentary.

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Conquering northern China

An exciting and fascinating series of motorcycle trips.

Yo recently wrote about What a fan I am of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman’s “Long Way…” docuseries franchise on Apple TV. And while they offer a fun, exciting ride and plenty of male bonding, there’s definitely a level of polish and pampering to them (not that that’s a bad thing). However, when a colleague of mine recommended his friend’s documentary series, Conquering northern China, On Prime Video, I had to check it out.

The four-episode 2017 series was created by popular YouTube vloggers Winston Sterzel (aka SerpentZA) and Matthew Tye (aka Laowhy86), two Westerners and now former long-term residents of China, who rose to popularity for their videos documenting daily life in China. The pair team up for an epic motorcycle ride, from China’s coastal province of Shandong, where they try fresh beer in a bag and sample some. fear factorwinding, multi-level delights, to the northernmost point of China and through the vast landscapes of Mongolia before getting up close and personal with the North Korean border.

I really like this series because it’s a rawer, rawer, wilder look at China, and Sterzel and Tye’s deep cultural knowledge and fluency in Mandarin offer a less touristy, fish-out-of-water 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 over a few drinks.

This is the YouTubers’ second docuseries, but I couldn’t find their previous series, the one from 2016. Conquering southern Chinastreaming anywhere. Oh, and there’s not likely to be a second season of Northern neither, as Sterzel and Tye were reportedly forced to flee China in 2019 for safety reasons. However, you can still watch their content on their respective YouTube channels.

We hope that some of these weekly documentary photographs are to your liking. But before you hit play, do yourself a favor and disable annoying Prime Video autoplay previews so that your weekend is not hijacked by surprise trailers.

Subscription with ads

Yes, through Prime membership or $9/month

Simultaneous currents

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Prime Video has a large volume of content to watch. Amazon’s other advantages are also a plus.