Award-winning Canadian documentary that transports the viewer through space from the Sun and the inner planets of the solar system to the black emptiness of the intergalactic void. The imagery is striking and Douglas Rain's narration is interesting and evocative (sadly, the statement that the transient dark patches on Mars were vegetation turned out not to be the case). The film is framed with scenes of University of Toronto astronomer Dr. Donald MacRae preparing the 74" reflector telescope at The David Dunlap Observatory for a night of star photography and watching him manually set up and calibrate the massive pre-computer instrument is fascinating. 'Universe' may be best known as one of the inspirations for Stanley Kubrick's '2001 A Space Odyssey' (1968). Kubrick was so impressed that he recruited some of the production crew for his epic space opus and chose Rain to be the iconic voice of the renegade HAL9000 computer. Needless to say, the film's imagery cannot be compared with contemporary CGI space-art but if watched with 1960's eyes 'Universe' is an outstanding trip into the beyond.