Amid all the glitz and effects that Hollywood has painted upon the notion of space travel and exploration, such as in the hit movie Interstellar, the mere notion of humans moving through a region as untamed as space is the driving force behind the public interest in such movies.
The human curiosity of space is primarily what Erik Wernquist, an animator and digital artist from Stockholm, Sweden, draws upon in the production of Wanderers.
Wanderers is a short science-fiction film that serves as a vision of the human race's expansion in the future into the rest of the Solar System. While Wernquist admits that most of the visuals contained in the short film are speculative, they are all based on scientific concepts and ideas that guess on what the future of humans in space would be like.
In addition, Wernquist said that each and every one of the places depicted in Wanderers are digital recreations of true locations that can be found within the Solar System. The recreations were produced from authentic pictures and any map data available, with the locations described in details at the gallery section of the website for the short film.
Included in the locations featured in Wanderers is Mars, where humans rode up a space elevator, Jupiter's moon Europa, where humans trekked across icy fields, Saturn's moon Titan, where humans flew in winged suits, and Uranus' moon Miranda, where humans went base jumping.
The title of the movie partly refers to the first meaning of "planet," as in ancient times, the planets were called by the Greeks as "aster planets," or the "wandering star." According to Wernquist, Wanderers also refers to the human race, who he hopes would one day become wanderers up in the sky and in space.
The short film has no story, but with the voice of Carl Sagan as a backdrop. The film uses audio from Sagan's reading of Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future Space, which is a book that Sagan wrote himself and was, according to Wernquist, a major inspiration for Wanderers.
Wernquist also borrowed concepts and ideas from authors in the realm of science fiction, including Arthur C. Clarke and Kim Stanley Robinson. Chesley Bonestell, who Wernquist calls the "legendary master of space art," is also credited.
In Wanderers, there is no mission to save the Earth, nor a search for a new home. The short film primarily just shows its viewers a glimpse of the possibilities of humans taking the step further in exploring space, which holds beautiful and fantastic sights that are unlike any that can be found on Earth.
