We have an Apollo 13 one, but why aren't there any good, big movie productions of Apollo 11?
There is a made-for-TV movie, and some miniseries stuff, but no real film with a big name actor and a real theatrical release.
Why? It's been 41 years now since USA landed on the moon. A whole new generation should fall in love with it.
it's time!
is there not enough drama or something? what's the deal?
There definitely should be (for that matter, should have already been).
My guess is there will be one made by about 2019. Unfortunately, odds are pretty good not all of the crew will be around to see it.
I was somewhat surprised when "The Right Stuff" was a big hit, that a sequel following the program up through Apollo wasn't made within a few years.
I want one!
shareI think it's because despite a few technical glitches (which pretty much any mission had), Apollo 11 played out pretty much as planned.
But drama is not about things going according to plan. Drama is about struggling to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds, particularly when the proverbial *beep* hits the proverbial fan.
Apollo 11, of course, was a great challenge with many obstacles, but, although there were some serious delays (most notably redesigning the Apollo spaceraft after the fire), they had the better part of a decade to prepare for it.
Apollo 13, on the other hand, was a completely unforseen crisis that abruptly came upon them. The stakes were also much higher. If Apollo 11 failed, people would be disappointed, but nobody would've died.
Gene Cernan has actually said overcoming the problems of Apollo 13 was NASA's greatest achievement, even over Apollo 11.
You're right -- apart from the fact that it was The First, there's really not much to tell about Apollo 11 specifically. There were issues with Apollo 11 right before landing -- they planned landing site was all covered with boulders, and they ended up landing with only 25 seconds of fuel to spare. But really, given that everyone in the world knows about Armstrong on the Moon and "that's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind", there's no cinematic tension there anyway.
If there's another Apollo mission that'd make a good movie, I reckon it's Apollo 12. If only because of Pete Conrad. (Not to mention that the craft was struck by lightning twice...)
One thing is that the HBO miniseries "From The Earth To The Moon" was so good (in its format) that it has to some extent stolen the thunder of anyone wanting to make an Apollo 11 movie.
shareI have mixed feelings. I'd hate to see a movie overshadow the actual footage of the moon landing. Also I assume they would use CGI effects which would end up looking fake.
shareWell, they used CGI footage in "Apollo 13," and while anyone who saw the original broadcasts or has seen film footage of the Apollo launches since then can spot some minor errors and inconsistencies, by and large it was pretty well done, and CGI has advanced considerably since 1995 so I assume if they made an Apollo movie now, it would look even better (they might even get the black-and-white striping on the Saturn V right --- lol).
share(they might even get the black-and-white striping on the Saturn V right --- lol)
yeah, heheeh.
While I love "Apollo 13" overall, it always bugs me a teeny weeny bit that they didn't get the paint patterns on the Saturn V right.
I mean, there are thousands of still photos and film clips of the actual launch -- it's not like it should have been very hard to get accurate images to work from.
If it's just as easy to get something right vs. not getting it right, why not get it right?
Actually there is a dramatic back-story to Apollo 11. It wasn't known to the public at the time but they almost didn't come home.
When one of the guys, Armstrong I believe, had his EVA pack pack on, he bumped into the toggle of a circuit breaker and broke the toggle. Without the toggle, they couldn't flip the breaker and without flipping the breaker they couldn't take off.
Rather than worry about it, the astronauts reported it to the ground and went about their business of walking on the moon and gathering samples. They knew that people on the ground would work on the problem.
From what I read the engineer who was called in to work on the problem, first wacked the toggle on duplicate set-up and broke it off. Then he set about figuring out how to flip the breaker. The solution was to take one of the pens the crew had with them and by sticking it in a hole left by the broken toggle, the switch could be flipped.
I may not have been as dramatic, but the consequences of failure were just as great, maybe more so since it was the first landing on the moon.
It was Aldrin that snapped the engine arm circuit breaker. It was not a toggle but a push in type breaker that had a plastic knob with a hollow core. Aldrin noticed it and figured he could push it in, which would close the circuit and allow them to lift off. But he couldn't tell the status of the breaker so he asked Houston to read it for him. There was never much question about the LMs ability to take off. The trouble was that if the breaker were in, the engine could be fired inadvertently. Ground control replied that the circuitry setting was good and everything went along as planned from there.
Aldrin did not like to use ball tip pens provided by NASA so he used a Flair felt tipped marker and successfully engaged the breaker by pushing the Flair's tip into the exposed hollow core. Houston acknowledged the closing of the engine arm circuit. From there the crew and the Flair pen flew home to history. On subsequent flights guards would be placed over the breakers.
I love how you post these trollish quips but never offer any evidence for your outlandish claims!
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"I am a collage of unaccounted-for brushstrokes, and I am all random!"
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Actually I believe you're supposed to offer a bogus bit of research when trolling properly. I remember reading it from a (quite humorous) trolling website.
e.g. If you're trolling a cat lover's board you'd say something like '73% of cats are known despise their owners according to research by www.deeplycomplexresearchwebsite.com '.
Or if you can't find a site to link to just use the old 'most people know that ...' .
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The Dish is a 2000 Australian film that tells the story of how the Parkes Observatory was used to relay the live television of man's first steps on the moon, during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. It was the top grossing film in Australia in 2000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dish
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With how much movies cost these days, they could probably afford to actually GO to the moon to film it.
James Cameron could afford to start his own Apollo program by now.
"Atlas Shrugged" coming soon to a theater near you!
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Hollywood already made a movie about landing on the moon. It was called the Apollo 11 moon landing. It was shown all over the world in July 1969.
shareIt was all part of the NWO's plan right?
"I hate to say this, but this place is getting to me. I think I'm getting the Fear."
I don't know if you're trying to be funny, but if you really believe that, that's pathetic.
shareHouston, we have a problem. This space cadets oxygen supply has apparently been cut off.
shareI thought that film was called Capricorn 1!
shareI guess the best we're going to get is Tom Hanks' "From the Earth to the Moon", which is pretty darn good really. Goes over the space program all the way up to Apollo 17. It doesn't delve into Mercury or Gemini very much, but those were covered in "The Right Stuff". I you haven't seen FTETTM, you should check it out.
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