Let's make it all look great and historically accurate, focus on the little details, but...

...crank up the intensity to 11, add all sorts of crazy intense unrealistic sounds, and try to give the audience a nosebleed... says Damien Chazelle, apparently.

What the hell was with that? Even Apollo 13, which was inaccurate on various points, wasn't nearly this ridiculous in terms of the "Hollywood intensity". It was so obviously overblown, the Gemini 8 and X-15 segments.

I read a quote that because the filmmakers went and viewed the old X-15 cockpit and it looked "rickety" to them, they decided to add all sorts of rickety sound effects to the film... which made it sound like a fucking 30-year old washing machine on its last legs was jetting into the atmosphere. Maybe they took that Apollo 13 quote literally? "If they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it."

Instead of feeling like I was watching the real deal, it felt like I was watching a young kid playing with toys and making sound effects with his mouth, just with a higher budget. It's like the film suddenly went into this childish "Transformers" mode during the flying scenes/technical issues. Shake the camera, violently! More! Add a crazy unrealistic sound effect! Add another one! Louder! Show someone's hand against a window! Extreme! Now do everything faster! Again!

Who gives a fuck about how accurate the actual experience was, right? It could have been dialed down 3 full notches and still been intense enough for the audience, and more realistic. But Mr. 33-year-old Damien Chazelle couldn't control himself apparently. He needed to make things as Intense™ as possible. I really enjoyed his previous films as well, it's unfortunate...