My Dad watched the moon walk with his grandfather. My Dad told me after Neil said his famous line, his grandfather said, "When I was a boy I drove wagons pulled by horses and now I have seen a man walk on the moon. I grew up in a good century."
I was also a keen observer of the "space race". It made me proud to be an American! We not only beat the Russians to the moon, we launched almost all successful interplanetary science probes. The achievements of that era will be remembered long after the death of some celebrity, or sports figure. I know that I have lived in one of the best times to ever be alive!!! If the moon missions were faked, then the Russians would have known and made a big deal about it. It dismays me that our country can"t get our s**t"together enough to get one of our private space partners to get a operational space vehicle in space to get to the space station! Back in the 60s the Russians would not be selling us rides to the ISS for long. We have lost some of our MOJO since then. Just give Musk exclusive rights to launch military satellites for the next 15 years and let him do it!
My parents woke me for the moon landing (I'm in the UK). I was only six, but I have this memory of the event. I don't know if it's 'real' or not, but to me it is precious.
Yup. My father, 1923-1991, made the same comment. He in fact, pointed out that his father lived the entire length of time between kitty hawk, and the sea of tranquility. All that in one lifetime. It is pretty amazing.
We need a deeper chronicle of the whole 20th Century spaceflight generation. The only problem I have with From The Earth To The Moon is that they not only left out nearly all of Mercury, but roughly 80% of Gemini as well, eliminated virtually all of Apollo 7 and Apollo 16, and didn't even mention Skylab or Deke's redemption on ASTP. Yes, I know, its a mini-series and they have very few episodes to work with,... but NASA (and all of spaceflight, including the Soviet efforts) deserve far more recognition, far more detail, and far more length. It might be up to some of us to get together and make it happen. After all, if they can make near theatrical quality with Star Trek fanfilms (so much so that Hollywood shrieks and whips out their lawyers), we can certainly do the same with our own beloved subject matter.
Neil was a very modest and professional man but he was not an unemotional robot. Watch his enthusiasm on the Hornet talking to Nixon. He's almost giddy! What a great treasure Neil Armstrong was! Rest In Peace Neil.
Thank you for mentioning this. I was almost shocked when I watched First Man and to be honest kind of annoyed with how they portrayed Neil. They make him seem like this depressed, unenthusiastic, detached empty soul who shows no passion towards his family and shows no enthusiasm towards his job. He is literally bummed out the entire movie, never gets excited once, even when they land on the moon. When you watch actual footage and interviews of Neil and listen to the actual radio transmissions from the Apollo 11 missions it in no way reflects the movie's portrayal of Neil. He always seemed happy, warm, and all around enthusiastic. I feel like tried way too hard to focus on the darkness of Neil's life rather than the details of the missions which he took part in, which I would have liked to see more of. Still a good movie but ANY movie about Neil Armstrong landing on the moon should be incredible.
I feel like when I watched it again, I noticed the lighter and happier side of him, especially in space during Gemini 8. He excitedly exclaims "that's unbelievable!", after they get a visual on the Agena, and after they dock smiles and laughs as he shakes his crewmates hand. I feel like the movie leaves people with a sad impression of him because those are the last images we get of him in the movie, but they definitely didn't leave all the lighter and more playful side of him out. Not to mention his kids worked on the film and "love it" and the quote from the movie about Karen not having some sort of effect in his life and missions actually came directly from Neil when James Hanson, the author was interviewing Neil for the book.
I feel like the movie portrays him in a way that is completely inconsistent with every interview, radio transmission, and bit of footage we have of him. Yes, I get that that is the public perspective but even his son never really paints him in that light either. Neil seemed like a very down to earth, happy, warm, positive, all around enthusiastic person. I was honestly kind of annoyed with how he seems bummed out the entire movie.
Buzz Aldrin was portrayed in a far too negative light. I particularly disliked the scene in which he said that Elliot See (who died in a plane crash) made a dumb mistake that got him killed - it made it seem like Buzz did not care. In fact, Buzz and See were friends, and Buzz felt guilty that he got his Gemini flight because of See's death.
Yeah they kind of did him a little dirty on one hand but between the opening scene, buzz mentioning see may gave been too short and the moon crater we have a thread throughout the film of which this is a part
@@coldforgedcowboy I read an interview with Armstrong's biographer. He asked Armstrong if his daughter's illness and death affected his performance as a test pilot. Armstrong replied, "Of course, how could it not?" The biographer said that his research into Armstrong's flight logs during that time did show that Armstrong was making errors as a pilot. You might recognize the quote from Armstrong above. It's actually a line of dialogue in the movie. The biographer's question is asked in the movie by the committee interviewing Armstrong for entry into the Astronaut program. In the movie, Gosling delivers the quote deadpan and matter of fact. It was very much in keeping with the male ethos at the time. Show no vulnerability even while admitting to vulnerability.
I watched First Man last saturday night. In the first few minutes of the movie, I sort of assumed it was going to be like The Right Stuff (one of my favorite movies). Around the point that Neil's daughter died, I realized it was something completely different. My impression of First Man was that it was not intended to be taken literally. I felt like it was more about what Neil was feeling rather than what he was doing. What I felt the filmmaker was trying to do was make a film that deviated from a historical chronicle and tried to portray a Neil that most people don't know. Neil usually gets portrayed as an almost super-human figure, but it seemed like the Neil in First Man was vulnerable and flawed....and human. When I noticed that First Man wasn't going to be Apollo 13 or The Right Stuff or From the Earth to the Moon, I put those portrayals aside. And I can't really say Ive seen a movie like First Man, so I enjoyed it for that reason.
Strange, but I saw The Right Stuff as a kid and loved it. Apollo 13 resonated as I read about it when I was 8 years old and it took a further 12 years to realise it on film hence its one of my favourite films. I watched First Man as a father. And this film now takes on a different resonance
Abbas yea lots of people did like The Right Stuff...I think it's just me! I think I never got over the disappointment of them not showing the X-15, which coloured my perception of the rest of the film. (....that and the special effects were pretty dismal, even for its day).
Whether or not the film accurately portrayed Neil Armstrong, disagree with the idea that it showed him as a robot. I feel like it did a good job of showing a humble, quiet man who kept his emotions in check. I found that very compelling.
Given how stoic Armstrong is I doubt that was his honest feelings on the matter, ironic huh ? :) Shame it was such a dull movie though, it was more about his wife than him, really it should have been called the "First Man's Wife"
freezatron I think “dull” is subjective-as an introverted space nerd who tends to internalize extreme emotions and recently watched her dad fall into a deep depression after he lost his daughter/her sister I found it to be ANYTHING but dull.
Well I guess there will always be some people fascinated by paint drying and good luck to them I say :) Seems it was a more subjective experience for you than most but for many it was bleak, dull and missed many of the good bits of history. The film was mis-titled.....
"Kept his emotions in check". From what I saw in the movie, the movie Armstrong nearly got eaten up by his emotions he so stubbornly refused to let out. Suppressing emotions is not keeping them in check.
I went to see Apollo 11, the CNN documentary last night. I hope you got a chance to see it. I LOVED it. I walked away much happier then I did when I watched First Man.
Both Chuck Yeager and Buzz Aldrin have said that the depiction of Armstrong was totally incorrect. I didn't see the movie because of that. He was not the type to have an almost emotional breakdown during a mission. There is also no evidence that he left anything of his daughter on the Moon. I was honored to meet him once and he was very quiet. He gave a speech though and everyone in the audience seemed to take a flash picture of him at once. His humor came out when he said "My! Zodiacal light!" :) (Rumor has it that he didn't like all the flash pictures that people took of him everywhere he went because on rare occasions, the old type flash bulbs would explode. When tens of thousands of them went off, there must've been quite a few that exploded in his face over the years.)
I agree. The movie's portrayal of him did not seem correct at all. It seemed like they tried too hard to make him into this dark, emotionless empty soul. Neil seemed very positive and enthusiastic in real life.
I actually had a twitter exchange with Chuck Yeager around the time this movie came out. I can't recall the exact words (I've since deleted all my social media), but it was something around the point of the lack of emphasis in this movie of the planting of the flag on the moon. Yeager's response was "that's not the Neil Armstrong I knew".
I'll never forgive Peter Jackson for omitting "The Scouring of the Shire"; that is the real end to the hobbit's character arcs. Then he went on and did unspeakable things to _The Hobbit_
Spoiler: Neil smuggles unregistered stuff into capsule and onto the moon and has visions of dead people. Why the hell didn't Bruce Willis play the role?
I guess if you consider finding out the movie was as gay and liberal as we thought it was going to be with subtle anti-american nationalizum a spolier. They might as well have added a side plot about armstrong dealing with his gender disphoria and hormone treatments in space. This is what the left and hollywood has come to. Most of the major media has been bought out by china look it up. INfo__/+=× W_ars C-O>M
on a sidenote, it's funny how some of the "leaders of the FREE world" dislike "liberal", which means literally the same thing. Really bad, this freedom thing... Until you lose it.
Hey Amy, I just wanted to let you know that I've gone down a rabbit hole these past 3 months in becoming interested about the history and future of space exploration with an interest in the subject I haven't had since I was a kid, all thanks to having stumbled across your channel.
I pretty much agree with your review. A flawed masterpiece. Ryan Goslings performance was enigmatic, but failed to deliver any reasonable insight to the man. Every aspect of his life is depicted as sad. The landing was a real comedown. The arrival home, even more so. The highlight of the movie is his Gemini flight with David Scott. One stick out flaw in the film design was the depiction of the inside of the spacecrafts. According to Al Worden, who I met, the spacecrafts were spanking new and gleaming to look at. Another weird thing is the emotionless farewell from the engineers on the launchpad. Like, clunk, click, off you go. According to Apollo 15's James Irwin in his seminal book To Rule the Night, those guys looked after the astronauts like mother hens. Love the channel by the way.
I did not see anything in this movie that would qualify it as any kind of "masterpiece", flawed or otherwise. Just an odd movie by somebody who neither understood the period, NASA, space exploration, the Apollo program, or Armstrong.
@@youtuuba I agree with you. Seems like he felt it was a chore if anything. As a side note, the director got invited to visit the moon (a flyby scheduled for 2023 to be carried out by SpaceX and financed by Yusaku Maezawa) and flinched... No passion here, such a shame.
That worn spacecraft interior thing bothered the hell out of me. The Apollo spacecraft were the very best machines man could produce, on a nearly unlimited budget. The movie people went down to a museum, saw the Apollo spacecraft in their current condition fifty years later, and decided they needed some 2020 patina for their 1969 moon shot. How ignorant. They clearly weren't students of Apollo, and they seem to have known less than many armchair enthusiasts. Sad.
@@youtuuba crazy and yet his son the movie was fantastic and did a great job on Neil. So I’m gonna go with his own son and not some chick that never met him. His son also said his father would have loved the movie. But go off
The spoiler warning reminds me of the time over 20 years ago when a woman told me not to "spoil Titanic" because she had not yet seen it. To which I replied "Well, I'll tell you how it ends, the boat sinks." She then slapped me. I never found out if she was just reacting without thinking to me blurting out an obvious fact, or if she seriously didn't know the Titanic sank. Good times!
I took a girlfriend to see one of the Star Wars movies a few days after she had seen it with her son. I reminded her as we sat down in the quiet theater "Now, remember... I haven't seen this yet, so don't spoil anything for me." She turned to me in the dark and whispered "A long, long time ago..." I pulled back then let her have it: "Slug!" I punched her (playfully) in the shoulder. "Jerk!" I scolded her loudly enough for others to hear. (They laughed too!) :-D
After she slapped you, you did file charges on her, right? Why do women feel they have the right to hit men? Should have slapped her back but then of course you would have been locked up.
adcolt54 -- Naw… She just laughed at me sadistically and we went on to watch the movie and enjoyed ourselves. My bump to her shoulder was just as playful as her comment was to me. We have a good time together. She or I pay for lunch then the other of us usually pays for the film. -- It all works out fine in the end. :-D
I hope Yusaku Maezawa considers history an art. The insight shown by Amy Shira Teitel in her review of "First Man" makes me think she would be an ideal candidate for the Dear Moon flight. Her knowledge of space history would help bring a unique perspective on the lunar flight of BRS to the watching world. Tom Clarke
IMO, the best space documentary ever is the "When we left Earth: the NASA missions" series. Six hour-long episodes, that start with the Mercury program and ends with the ISS. Beautifully narrated, wonderfully detailed, and a perfect mix of archive footage and interviews. I cannot recommend it enough! (you can actually find some of the episodes on youtube if you want to give it a try)
piranha031091 Over dramatic and not that well researched. It does have some nice footage. I'd go with in The Shadow of the Moon or From the Earth to the Moon.
@@mollari2261 I like Ryan Gosling as an actor, but not in the portrayal of real people. He played Neil Armstrong like he played the character he portrayed in Drive.
I'll get to see Fred Haise on sunday and I'm so god damn excited. I live in Germany so I don't really have many opportunities to meet astronauts but he's coming to a aerospace and technology museum.
Ask him how many times he said "Shttt" in real life in Apollo 13. Just kidding -- Haise has said many times he was kinda ticked off the movie (and Bill Paxton, RIP) depicted him as foul mouthed, spouting out "Shttt" every 10 seconds. In real life, Haise said, he hardly ever cussed.
Having been ten years of age when the Eagle landed I was eagerly waiting for the movie. I was not impressed. Ryan Gosling is great and Claire Foye is wonderful but the movie as a whole is lacking. Even when accepting that Neil Armstrong was remote and withdrawn person he appeared almost two dimensional in this movie. A better title thus would have been "First Pilot". Another issue is the depiction of the crafts and the flight. To me the interior appeared unreasonably worn and rickety. In some shots you could see that the handles of the controllers were worn, the paint near the windows flacking and the colouring outright wizened. Let alone the tiles of the X-15 clanking in supersonic flight. At some point I was wondering, whether they took exhibits from the Smithsonian and used them as film props. Whenever maneuvering, the engines were unnecessary loud and the entire craft was rattling. You can watch the moon landings here on youtube (from a LEM cockpit point of view) and at no point the noise nor the riveted sheet metal clanked as loud as in the movie. This might have been a good reality check of the film team. Now I do realize that this was done intentionally to give an impression of confinidness and danger. However, in me it instilled an almost comical retrospective of the past in which the dangers, which were very clearly stated by Claire Foye, needed some real world emphasize by drumming up the dangers by showing flimsy, shaky crafts chancing cruel space. For me, the movie failed to illuminate Neil Armstrong and the moon landings.
Yes, you summed it up well. I thought the mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon" did a way better job showing how much of a great accomplishment the first manned lunar landing really was.
The emotional connection is there very much if you have children yourself. The display of utter grieve Ryan Gosling portrays is very heart gripping if you have your own child in mind. So that scene on the moon really grabbed me and Gosling sells it very well.
Amy telling the tales better in 16 minutes and on a much tighter budget than Hollywood will ever do. I am really tired of artistic licence becoming historical rewrites. And I will someone like Amy would be listened to in scripting and producing such films. They'd be much better for it.
Jacke e-is-silent ditto, the problem is as well is that a wider audience (no offence Amy) will think that’s what Neil was like. Movies like this are 100% accurate in most people’s eyes.
Thing is it's a movie. A director should be allowed to do what he wants with it. It really is the audience's responsibility to know not everything in the movie is exactly true. If you're looking for Realistic tellings of a story, watch documentaries.
Sure, the director has artistic licence. But it should be used carefully and selectively. And unfortunately there's a lot of the audience that takes a film like this as chapter and verse on the actual history. I lived through these events and have read many a memoir and technical manual from the same. Amy has studied the history and read the transcripts. When historical fiction starts to seriously depart from what we know of history, it's at minimum irritating. This isn't Kubrick taking the novel _Red Alert_ and creating the film "Dr. Strangelove". Historical fiction, including film, can respect history and still be good in its own right. Neil Armstrong is a man who has many colleagues and friends still living with memories of the actual man. The film should at least made an honest attempt to portray him as he was, not as some artistic variant.
Sure you obviously don't want to intention get things wrong for no purpose, that's called being lazy. But Chazelle obviously had a reason to change Neil's character and I think If there's a valid reason to change his character it's ok. First of all no one should be taking this movie as historical fact. It was never promoted as that, and it's on the audience to know that a movie will always take creative licence unless it was a Documentary. It is an INTERPRETATION of Armstrong's life, obviously embellishing some areas while minimizing others. No one can say how Armstrong felt about things except himself. But his children and the writer of the Biography saying that it was a good depiction. Thats coming from the people who knew him best. Chazelle was trying to show the side of Neil that was more personal. Whether it's right or not, no one will really know. Chazelle was most definitely not trying to change the public view of Armstrong. But to show his interpretation of how Armstrong may have felt during these events. He felt like this depiction was accurate enough for the purpose of telling his story.
A tear is not always about sadness. And this movie was specifically about Mr. Armstrong, not his fellow astronaut team or other NASA missions. We space race fans love that stuff, but this film was about one man. The first man to stand on the moon. I think it accomplished that brilliantly. I absolutely loved the POV launch and flight scenes. So many movies have shown us launches before and this was a welcome new and intimate way to experience it. Being a stoic (part Scottish) man myself I appreciated the honest portrayal of an astronaut, husband, father, friend and man of the 1960s. A very different decade from today. The moon landing and walk-about left me breathless with its intensity. Intense is definitely the word I would use to described this movie and it’s extremely focused subject, the First Man. And intense emotions often lead to a tear or two.
Through the good fortune of my father’s Naval career stationing him on Guam, I was able to shake hands (or at least the side of his hand) with Neil Armstrong in 1969 when I was 14. President Nixon sent the Apollo 11 Astronauts on a round the world good will trip after their return to Earth. Guam was a layover point in their travels between Australia and Japan. Their arrival was announce on the radio, so I got my father to take me and my younger brother up to the Airport to see them. A crowd of maybe a thousand had showed up, and they put each Astronaut in a small cart to be pulled around to shake hands. I positioned my self to be near Neil’s cart as it passed by. Two other boys my age had the same idea, and we all grabbed at his hand as he reached out. I got the underside edge of his hand, and the other two boys latched on to the top, and opposite side, of his hand. To tell you the truth we were almost pulling him out of the cart! I remember he look me in the eyes, and greeted us with a slightly alarmed “Boys”. We all immediately released our grip so he could recover his balance. A round the world trip, where every stop was like that (and I’m sure much bigger), must have been more exhausting than anything involved with the Moon trip it self.
When you're seriously depressed and going through this loss he wasn't able to work out, you can still go through the motions of daily life, make small jokes at work, have moments where life distracts you and you seem like your old self, ie playing with his kids, joking about underwear. But throwing all that in might be confusing where it seems the goal of this film was to show how deeply affected he was by all of that death, how incredibly withdrawn he did become and how he threw himself 100% into the task at hand of getting to the moon because it offered him escapes from his life and his pain, until the climax when you see brought it all with him to the moon, dropped the bracelet, kinda gets this 'ok this is done now' look. Then when Jan comes to quarantine, everything is in the air between them, it's a 'if you're in there you need to let me know' kinda moment, he leaves her a kiss on the glass, reaching to her from where he's been trapped, it takes her a second and then she reaches back to him. I thought it was amazing.
Sean McCook it really was amazing. It’s just a shame our video host missed ALL of that. I am guessing she didn’t like GATTACA for exactly the same reasons. Oh....she’s too young.
Exactly, although Neil wasn’t like that in reality the little jokes and stuff he’d make would undermine his suffering. This movie wasn’t a documentary so the director took some artistic liberties and I think it helped keep the movie’s theme together.
Ricardo Garza that’s right!!!! And not a hard thing to grasp based on this all being a cinema PORTRAYAL. It’s literally how narrative films have been made FOREVER.
His sons say the film did a good job with him, I respect their judgment over any other. And I know pilots (my names hits it) and I know they can be just like that, I was when my health grounded me as a student.
TheGroundedAviator stated "His sons say the film did a good job with him, I respect their judgment over any other." Maybe ............. Gus Grissom's son believes NASA killed his father to prevent him from revealing that the Apollo missions were not possible with the technology of the day. Of course, all the "Apollo was a hoax" nuts have jumped all over this. First, let me state categorically, I know without any doubt that NASA Astronauts walked on the moon. I haven't seen the film yet so I can't comment on the film directly. I think it would be difficult to get an accurate assessment from a relative of Neil. Especially a child of Neil. I think they would have been too young to have accurate memories of their father during Apollo. I'm 58 years old and my father was an Electrical engineer for NASA from 1958 until 1978. He worked at Marshall Space Flight Center from NASA's inception, and then Teledyne Brown on the Space Shuttle until he retired in the nineties. I don't remember anything about the Redstone/Mercury, and Gemini programs although I learned their history as a teenager. My first recollection of Apollo was my mother crying and seeing my father visibly upset the day Apollo 1 caught fire. I vaguely remember Apollo 8's Christmas Eve broadcast. I know exactly where I was and what TV I was watching when Apollo 11 landed. I was all of 9 years old July 20th, 1969. I remember bits and pieces of the remaining Apollo lunar missions and have vivid memories of parts of the Skylab missions when I was 13 and 14 years of age. Neil's sons would have memories of their father. Eric is 4 years older than me and so he would have been about 13 during the Apollo 11 landing. Mark is 3 years younger than me so he would have been about 6. Mark would definitely have some memories of his father from that time period but Eric, not so much if any. Personally, I think the Astronauts, Engineers, and technicians that worked with Neil daily would be the best bet to critique the film's portrayal of Neil accurately.
Anybody can film a shaky cam....or endless extreme facial close ups. I was ready for this movie to be over after :30 min. Painful to watch. You are so right, his depiction of Armstrong as so stoic and unemotional, fixating on his dead daughter was awkward and insincere. Crappy director.
I specifically clicked on this video to post a message asking the same question. I wonder whats up.. I hope she is okay and just busy with other things. Her blog was also pretty inactive for a while too, but it is back up and running. She must be busy. I highly doubt that she has run out of topics to make videos about. Anyway, I hope the videos come back. To anyone who doesn't know about the Vintage Space blog, here is a link. blogs.discovermagazine.com/vintagespace/#.XJiENShKjIU
Perhaps the biggest flaw was that the film forgot that Armstrong was an engineer first and a pilot in the Right Stuff variety a somewhat distant second meant his detachment was built in. Indeed Chuck Yeager who flew with him just once testing an emergency field he knew was unfit because of recent rain said Armstrong like many engineer pilots ran the landing like a bench test and then got stuck. The filmmakers obsession with death in Armstrong's early life was a misplaced narrative and though he wasn't as gregarious as some others in the Gemini/Apollo program it wasn't because he was haunted. Armstrong most notable trait was his lack of hubris in needing to remind everyone about being an Astronaut/First on the Moon and his humility desire to have a private life seemed reclusive to a public he didn't need to entertain or wanted to.
Read an interview with Al Worden regarding the movie, and he said that Armstrong was portrayed as being much more aloof than what he actually was in real life. He said that his "aloofness" only really manifested itself when he was around strangers after the mission, especially strangers who wanted something off of him.. Ryan Gosling has always had a limited emotional spectrum to me as an actor, so that's probably why his portrayal as Armstrong comes off as being aloof & distanced.
Hi Amy. I feel the same way about the movie as you do. One thing you didn't pick up on was the biggest error made in the film that most people wouldn't pick up on. The error in the film was when Deke Slayton told Neil that NASA had chosen him to be the first man on the moon. That's not the way it happened at all. Neil and his crew were the backup crew of Frank Borman's crew and had the LEM been ready on time Frank's crew was going to do the second earth orbit test of the LEM in high orbit on Apollo 9 which would have put Neil's crew as the prime crew of Apollo 12 and Pete Conrad's crew (Who were the backup crew of Jim McDivette's crew of the original Apollo 8) as prime crew of Apollo 11. Of course as we all know the LEM fell behind schedule so Jim's crew mission to do the first test of the LEM in low earth orbit got bumped up to fly on Apollo 9 and Frank's crew got pushed back to Apollo 8 when NASA came up with idea of doing a mission to orbit the moon with no LEM in tow. This move gave Neil and his crew the opportunity to make the FIRST ATTEMPT at a landing. On top of all that if Apollo's 9 and 10 had failed to meet their mission objectives, which almost happened on both of those flights, then the flight schedule would have been pushed back until those flights could be reflown and objectives met which would mean Neil's crew would possibly would have had to fly one of them and the first attempt at a landing would have pushed back to a later flight. So Neil WAS NOT HAND PICKED!!!! He was just lucky enough to be able to make the first attempt at it and smart enough to overcome the problems that Apollo 11 had so he could actually land the LEM on the Moon's surface.
And Neil over the years has said exactly the same thing; i.e., he wasn't picked to be the first man on the moon - he was just picked to command that flight, and the mission of Apollo 11 depended on the progression of successes on previous flights.
Have my like, sir. Just one of a hundred things this movie gets wrong. Armstrong knew full well he might come home in failure and 12 would make the landing.
I loved the movie, I'm a father of a girl myself, and that determination to get to the moon was burning in his eyes and when you realise it was all for his daughter.... Amazing score and cinematography. I was very emotionally invested. The fact that you didn't really feel anything just tells how different we are as people and it all depends on where we are in our lives and what kind of movies we appreciate more. At 10:45 you mention his first time getting into orbit, that is in the movie, he says "that's unbelievable!" and it shows him very happy. So these happy, excited moments are in the film aswell. I'm always more invested when a movie focus deeply on a person's inner conflicts than the technical achievements of a bigger picture. For a historian I understand that there must be a frustration that it didn't go into more details about the career of Neil and the progress of the Apollo program and that the focus was entirely on him dealing with loss. For me though, it made the climax of the movie so much more epic and has really stuck with me because it touched me at the core. I wept with him at the crater.
Re. your remarks from 6:15 about crying on the moon and emotional control, I've been re-reading Chaikin's 'A Man On The Moon' for the 50th celebrations and on pg 360: "He [Shepard] took a moment to lean back so that he could look up into the black-sky, and near the zenith his gaze found a small and lovely blue-and-white crescent. Suddenly he was overcome by the beauty of the Earth ... and by his own feeling of relief. Standing on the gray dust of this promised land, Shepard cried. For several long moments, while the checklist went unnoticed, his tears flowed in spite of himself." which, for those who are familiar with his emotional arc, should come as no surprise (he was grounded due to an inner ear condition until he risked all with surgery in secret to correct it). Because of this he dodged two bullets: as commander of Apollo 1 and 13 !
Yes!! Thanks for brining this up Amy. I was so excited to see this movie and left feeling empty somehow. A technical masterpiece for sure but i feel they may have missed the mark by exaggerating his character ‘flaws’ making him a cold and lifeless person which for me contrasts with the archival footage and interviews most of us have seen. Having recently read Mike Collin’s autobiography he certainly hints at this element if his character but i think it was overdone in the movie. Sadly. Btw love the ‘easter eggs’ and cameos in the movie!
I saw the movie last night, and I thought it was very good. It seemed to me to be a somber and intimate telling of a well-worn story. It felt to me that it wasn't about the moon landing at all, but that the moon landing was simply a vehicle for (the character of) Neil Armstrong to finally release his grief. I think that showing him being jovial and wonderstuck would have undercut the type of story they were trying to tell. People are always complex, and no 2-hour film can fully encapsulate that complexity. By highlighting one thread of Armstrong's life, we can get a full arc of one element of his humanity. I, for one, was very glad that the film wasn't big, loud and bombastic. I loved that most of it was quiet and still. That made the moments of ferocity all that much more stark. Sitting in my theater, knowing that he was going to be fine and knowing how it all ended, I was still tense during every launch. I was just struck by how rickety and fragile those spacecraft were, and, with those as our tools, just how incredible it is that we managed to do so much. There were a few moments that seemed off to me, especially the Apollo 1 disaster, but I can see why those choices were made narratively. But, as a story of a man and not the story of an event, I thought the film worked really well. I loved the choice of using unsteadied cameras and grainy filters. I loved the color palette and the costume choices. I didn't find Claire Foy's accent wholly convincing, and I was wondering the whole time if the characterization of the other astronauts was accurate, especially Aldrin. tl;dr I thought it worked well as a movie, irrespective of how it worked as a biography.
I didn't see it in Imax, but the excessive (i.e.: in situations other than inside violently shaking rocket vehicles) shaky cam & grainy film stock bugged me as well. I suspect one reason for the grainy film might have been to mask the use of stock footage: there's at least one shot of "Buzz Aldrin" bounce-hopping across the lunar surface that I definitely recognize as actual NASA footage of an astronaut from a later Apollo mission, and I suspect a few of the shots of the Saturn 5 lifting off or separating stages might have been stock NASA footage as well.
Is there actually any evidence from letters or interviews or anything, which backs this whole "emotional" plot? Or is it just made up and retrofitted to events?
Ruslan Rus I'm also not a fan of shaky cam as it always takes away from the emotional impact for me. The grain thing though was nice imo and made it feel authentic and it really enhances the stark contrast to when he gets on the moon ...
Austin Penick -- my sense is that they overdid the "rickety" aspect. While the capsules had to be light, they also had to withstand re-entry G forces and extreme heat loads. The creaking hatch door thing was ridiculous, as were the dirty switches and rusted bolts.
I'm going to see it tomorrow. I also doubt it will surpass Apollo 13, but, I'm hoping it still works as an enjoyable movie. I remember seeing The Imitation Game in cinemas when it came out and that was, admittedly, filled with a few fabrications about Alan Turing and Bletchley Park in general but it worked really well as a movie.
Although I enjoyed The Imitation Game on its merits as a film, "a few fabrications" is an enormously generous description of the film's distant comprehension of history. Virtually every key historical element of the film- Turing's relationship with his colleagues, the way the machine was developed, the complete dismissal of the Polish codebreakers, the entire "Christopher" element- was drastically changed or ignored. A well-made film that unfortunately, like so many historical films, did not only a disservice but truly an insult to the history it purported to portray.
It's pretty hard to beat Forest Gump going to space... Apollo 13 was probably the best non fiction movie in the last 25 years, but then again I am not a Hollywood guy but the team was killer that made and acted in this movie.
Tom Hanks also produces a dozen more movies in "From The Earth To The Moon". I remember 1 episode about the Engineers who designed the Lunar Module... it is very cool to learn the technical detail while indulging on the human drama at same time.
mrpinkbullets I’ll never forgive the makers of that movie for how they desecrated history and Turing’s legacy. They were oblivious to their ethical obligation to the truth.
peteparkerh you can imagine her waxing lyrical about “That’s All There Is” from FTETTM. Mainly because it’s a road trip with Pete Conrad and his Navy buddies
Great idea! Apollo is all about corporate media and Hollywood. Hollywood provides Apollo's documentation and is THE reference source for Apollo's technology. NASA's astro Don Pettit tells us that NASA "destroyed" Apollo's technology, but that is NOT true. It's all right there for the viewing, produced by Tinsel Town for five decades.
Amy, FURTHER SPOILER ALERT HERE.. DON"T READ IF YOU HAVEN"T SEEN THE MOVIE:.... I love your stuff as a fellow space geek and as a guy who hung on every moment of Apollo XI just six weeks after I graduated from high school. I sense you wanted to see a space movie and this isn't it. It is a profile of an historic figure and showing us sides of Armstrong that we never saw.. and by "we" I mean all of us who are long standing geeks. THE moment of emotion for me, was when he didn't want to say good bye to his sons. At that moment, I remembered thinking, "when this is over, I won't consider him a hero." I was wrong as eventually it came to me that he didn't want to face saying good bye to his sons just as he didn't want to say good bye to Karen. I found it a great and surprising movie. Definitely not a happy, ectstatic Neil but a demonstration of how a man with human problems and emotions could incredibly compartmental-ize his personal from his professional/engineering self. SO he is still my hero to be sure, just seen more completely as a human being, not just a pilot/engineer/astronaut.
As a retired Raf pilot and never good enough to be a test pilot I found this movie as close to realism as what these guys went through. Their bravery made my flying safer. What more could you want without experiencing it first hand. Certainly the noise and creaking of bending of metal is as realistic and that's standard jet propulsion and not being strapped at the end of a Saturn rocket
Sadly, I will have to wait for it to come to NETFLIX before I see it. But, may I say that Mr. Armstrong was a very reserved man when he was out in the public eye. I once spoke to him while I worked at NASA and he does have a sense of humor and did laugh at my NASA joke. So glad NASA Dryden, Edwards A.F.B., CA was renamed after him. I have been in the house where he and his wife lived while he was stationed at Edwards. Plain Jane concrete block house that overlooked the high desert.
Naza is all bullshit by the way. Just try to explain how we transmit Direct Live TV from the Moon back in 1969, and now (2018) cannot make a clear direct between new york and washington without stutter
Since Neil’s own kids said the portrayal was accurate and consulted on it during the whole process, who are we to say it isn’t accurate? “That’s how our dad woulda said that.” Good enough for me. As bad as Hollywood usually gets things this film was a major win. So go support the crap out of it so it’s successful enough so more like it (on the subject) are made. Haven’t we all seen enough superhero and reboot crap for the past decade?
I knew; they'd botch it. Too bad. "That's not the Neil Armstrong; I knew" - Chuck Yeagar, After seeing "First Man". People's families often see them in a completely different light than everyone else, who they are associated with, making them appear like a completely different person. From experience, as strange as it sounds, it's pretty normal, that families have no idea, who their family member is outside of the family. Only what they want to believe, who they are.. Also, people usually "hit it off" pretty quickly in the military & back then, astronauts were pretty hardcore military or former military. They could meet one another for the very first time & by the end if the day, it's as if they've known each other their whole lives, so I wouldn't put too much stock in the significance of alterations to astronaut teams. There's a ton of inside jokes, & kidding around, that people on the outside would never be a witness to or not understand, making it seem as if there might be animosity, when it's simply military bearing. Unfortunately, unexpected death, even if it was just from people not wearing seatbelts & dying in car accidents, not to mention, the thousands dying every week in Vietnam, was much more common back then. It was part of life, where people had to have a "life goes on" or "show must go on" attitude, where a person had to compartmentalize their thoughts, when someone they knew died, just to be able to concentrate enough to do a mundane job. Not that they were numb to death. Just that, they were practiced in dealing with it. In fact, I remember back then; the most common advice, which I heard people give the bereaved, & it was from their own experience, which is why it was so common, was "Focus on your work", "Get into your work", or something along those lines. I'm sure, following the death of his daughter & others, Armstrong did precisely that. An astronaut, if he got lost in his thoughts or even took time to reflect, while he's on a mission, would never have been an astronaut in the first place. They'd have sooner taken a cripple, than someone who conjures up distractions in his head. A distraction is a distraction, whether it's from inner thoughts or not. There wasn't much downtime, so I doubt Neil thought about anything outside of the mission. Even if he actually dropped his late daughter's bracelet into the crater, in his mind, it was part of the mission, & maybe he said a quick prayer, but it was right back to the mission. No deep reflection or anything like that. People try to assign emotional reflection to someone who is quiet, but Armstrong, just like many engineers & scientists, was usually doing thought experiments or figures. Neil may have been self-deprecating & referred to himself as a "space nerd", but believe me, there were no nerd astronauts back then. In those days in the United States, going to the Moon was the most important thing going. Not hippies. Not even Vietnam. Even people who normally had ZERO interest in science, were interested in Apollo 11, so they had alpha male astronauts, not mealy mouthed soyboy incel nerds!
Agree 100% with your analysis - I came out of the viewing of 'First Man' feeling very depressed - there was no joy in the film and no real celebration of the human race's finest achievement. Like you, I couldn't help but compare it with the Apollo 13 film, which still showed the technical stuff, but conveyed the teamwork and the triumph. The space shots looked very convincing to me - but I did wonder about one thing in particular; the inside of the Apollo capsule and LEM looked very dirty, with grime over the control panels. I know they worked in a very cramped environment, but everything was pristine when they launched and it didn't seem believable that so much crud would be accumulated in a couple of days......?
Agreed! I'm glad someone else noticed the filth too; didn't like that aspect. Even the bathroom depicted in their training room looked dirtier than some of the worst roadside stops I've been too.
Moon dust is extremely very fine particulates and it got everywhere in LEM, it sticks to the suits. It’s impossible for them not to track it in. There was a good deal of concern about it. But yes moon dust would be coating everything. Personally I loved the movie. Did not find it depressing at all. Was just an interesting different take with some awesome photography. Doesn’t need to be rah rah and because of that had a greater sense of awe.
Totally agree with you that there's too much drama with Neil. It almost seems that the missions are secondary to the drama. Not that i don't appreciate it, but it wasn't the movie i was expecting :(
I personally thought the emotional journey of Neil was incredible to watch. Working as hard as those men did and dealing with as much loss as those men did puts massive strain on a family. As an emotionally repressed man coming from an emotionally repressed family I approve this message.
Naza is all bullshit by the way. Just try to explain how we transmit Direct Live TV from the Moon back in 1969, and now (2018) cannot make a clear direct between new york and washington without stutter
@@genericfakename8197 Yes it is hard for me to understand why CNN or any channel don't use these HGA, or even the second-hand model, because they have stutter problems even when transmitting in a local area
Great review Amy! Camera shakes when safely in the Armstrong home, aged spacecraft interiors on their first and only mission, the astronauts seeming scared and bewildered every time they enter a capsule after months of training on every switch and dial and the anticipation of finally getting to participate in their mission. gloomy skies for every mission... those distractions were bad enough, but I just didn't get the whole point of the movie. Yes, losing a child will affect a person for life (it did me). However, the drama of what Neil did in the X-15 program, the Gemini program, and of course being the First Man, would have been so satisfying to relive on the big screen. Like Amy, I love the early US manned space program and was set up to be disappointed by almost any fictionalized portrayal of that precious history. Even so, I didn't enjoy the story or really get the point. My 17 year-old daughter, on the other hand, loved every minute that Ryan Gosling was on the screen - which was most of the movie...
Naza is all bullshit by the way. Just try to explain how we transmit Direct Live TV from the Moon back in 1969, and now (2018) cannot make a clear direct between new york and washington without stutter
Listening to your comments, you obviously didn't read "First Man" or failed to properly understand the character of Neil Armstrong. Hollywood will always include dramatic licence in any production. Any inference of emotion by Armstrong on the moon is exactly that, dramatic licence. Armstrong never let-on that he felt anything other than pride for the 400,000 Americans that got him to the moon. He never even told his biographer what he took to the moon in his personal kit.
I thought it was a beautiful film. The important knowledge to go into this film with is that it is not a 'space movie'. Your talk about the humanity of 13 is literally what this movie is about. He lost his daughter and this is focusing on the struggle that he dealt with. This is a movie about internal struggle in maybe the most humble man in the space program. The only people I know that didn't like this movie were expecting the Apollo space drama like 13. This was not that. Watch it again without that expectation.
Also, AFAIK Neal's humility and humble nature are literally the reason that they picked him to command 11. So that ego or brazen would not get in the way and create something more dangerous.
I think the problem is Ryan Gosling. He's decent but a better actor would still be interesting to watch even while appearing stoic. I'm thinking of Matt Damon in The Good Shepherd. Even though he was an emotionless character he was still very interesting to watch.
Movies like this always tear me in two. I want to see it and spend 90 minutes living in that era, but I don't want a bad or misleading portrayal of Armstrong to taint the understanding I have of the man based on readings and documentaries. Competing memories get mixed up over time in my head.
Valid arguments Amy. I'm seeing it at the air and space museum tomorrow in IMAX. I just finished the biography - and I find it hard to believe Neil would have been this emotional on the moon. And I think Buzz would have noticed something. - TJ
How could you NOT be emotional on the moon? We know Armstrong had a quiet moment by himself, and it's unlikely he wouldn't have taken time to feel awe and gratitude, and to remember those he'd lost. I think it's a little silly to complain on the one hand "ugh, what a robot" and then to complain he was too emotional.
I felt like the attention to detail was a mixed bag. Somethings were perfect, like the recreation of the actual shot when they land on the moon looking down from the LM window. But then all the switches and knobs look old and grungy, almost how they might look today in a 50 year old spacecraft, rather than how they would have looked then, clean, bright and brand new. And the over all feel of the spacecraft cockpits were dark and creepy, with creaky doors and dim lighting. Although I did like how they used a lot of the original capcom audio!
Yeah.. .It looked to me that the LM switches were dirty before landing... after landing with all the dust, yes, but before they should have been pristine. And what is with the lack of dust? No dust on landing,, or no dust when it was disturbed by the astronauts And the moon didn't look accurate, with vivid whites and black rather than the shades of grey the pictures and accounts show.
Steve Devore -- regarding the dust, that struck me as well. While dust settles very quickly on the moon because there's no atmosphere, the regolith is very powdery and has an electrical charge, so it sticks to everything. When he makes the footprint in the movie, you can tell they're using fairly coarse-grained sand, instead of talcum powder, which would have closer to reality.
Agree with all 3 of you. The way things squeaked you would think the spacecraft were 10 years old. I also noticed the dirt on the LEM before the door was open to the moon. Plus the screw up with the Apollo 1 fire that Amy mentioned.
David, I totally agree. The movie is almost depressing, which is really quite an "achievement" considering the amazing success of Apollo program and personality of Neil Armstrong.
@@duckheadgaming What? The movie focuses on time period of Neil's work at NASA and ends right after return of Apollo 11, and you call it a movie about his life?... Neil Armstrong did a lot before and after his years at NASA. He fought in Korean War. Later he had successful careers in business and academia. Please read his biography. Media often showed him as recluse, but he was not such a person. He had warm, friendly personality, far from what they showed in that failed, semi-depressing movie.
Two films 25 years apart. Ron Howard wanted to make a film about Apollo 13 mission with the social commentary being the challenges of space flight. Chazelle wanted to make a film about Armstrong with Apollo being a back story.
I really loved the movie for its darker, meloncholy tone. I didn’t need to see another buddy space movie like the Right Stuff or Apollo 13. I'm glad that Hollywood for once dispensed with the feel-good aspects of mans race to the moon. Neil's stoicism and personal struggles over the loss of his daughter, his colleagues, and the fact that NASA didn’t seem to really know what they were really doing at times were done very well.
Apollo 13 is the best movie about the space exploration, I agree. I have seen it some 8 times, if not more. I do not feel like watching “First Man” again.
I know that you’ve been busy with your latest book and I’m sure the holidays have slowed down your schedule too but I think I speak for a lot of people when I say we miss you Amy! Hope you’re back soon!!!
I just watched this movie for the second time, after being a little unsure about it at first - Awesome!! Better the second time around! I think because I knew what type of movie to expect this time, not expecting an Apollo 13 type like I did the first time. This movie's all about the EMOTION of the event, not so much the chronology etc. The writers cleverly associate the Moon landing with the death of the daughter by making an emotional link between the two, especially through the music - the same theme is played for both. It's like a Pavlovian classical conditioning. Plus, being a father myself I could easily relate the family issues presented. If I was alone in the theatre I would've been balling my eyes out.
As a father of a stillborn daughter, I could understand SOME of the emotion of Amstrong, but I do believe it was overplayed in the movie and the rest of the characters where quite “one dimensional” and I didn’t connect with them.
I can't believe they didn't show Neil and Buzz collecting soil and rock samples, setting up the solar wind composition experiment, or placing the laser ranging retroflector. Why does conservative Hollywood hate science and geology so much?
BlueFox94: The word "conservative" can have more meanings than the political one. Unwillingness to take a risk on a new idea would be conservative. This is why there are so many sequels.
Maxx B Absolutely, Jesuitical Bullshit. It’s Jesuit theatre at its finest, not our fault however, there was no way we could have seen this at the time. Great to be able to see through the deception & understand what’s taking place in these days.
Great. Now I have to go watch that scene (for the 101th time). First, fire-up the projector, then crank-up the Amp and sub-woofer :) - Apollo thirteen flight controllers, listen up. Give me a go, no-go for launch.
I really didn't like the movie. The flight sequences were Hollywood contrived. The focus on emotion that some screenwriter basically made up was misleading and disrespectful.
The real story is so amazing, I have no idea why they have to invent stuff or change actual events. I imagine the film will feel boring or confusing if you know nothing about the actual history, as they show a series of events, but don't really explain what is going on. The recreations are amazing, but 'Robot Neil' is dealing with grief in the story, and they seem to have fallen for the 'recluse' portrayal rather than humanising him.
I fail to see how being reclusive isnt a human trait..now im not saying armstrong was this recluse, in fact, i thought he wasnt that reclusive in this film but rather a matter of fact, kinda blunt and to the point but not a hermit..he still socialized with people ..as depicted in the film.. Sometimes humans want to be alone, and need comfort space..in this case, neil may seem reserved but in his own time we see him weep and cry..In this movie, it just seems to me that he needed "me" time to cope with his thoughts..
I have seen it a second time, and Ryan Gosling is doing a super subtle acting job. It is easy to fall into the 'Gosling just stares into the middle distance' camp. On a second viewing I felt he was realy good in the role, and was suppressing a lot of hurt. It might just be the Kuleshov effect, but I think Gosling is excellent in this film.
Amy, where are you? It's been 6 weeks since this video and I haven't seen a new one from you since then. I see you posting on twitter but nothing on RU-vid. Are you having video equipment troubles? We miss seeing you so much.
I bought this movie and watch it occasionally for the special effects, which I thought were awesome. The X-15 in particular was a great scene. The only part I really have trouble with from a technical point of view is how dirty and worn the switches and controls in Gemini and Apollo looked. Those were brand new and should have been pristine up until they brought all that filthy moon stuff back with them.
I loved the movie and the visuals however the portrayal of Neil I found to be one dimensional. Yes, he had a deep grief and was reserved but he definitely also had a sense of humor. There are clips of him with Bob Hope entertaining the troops in Vietnam. Armstrong is funny and it’s not rehearsed because it’s him spontaneously responding to troop questions. You can see some of it on You Tube. Also, he wouldn’t have cried in space- he would have contained that because they knew that tears would have formed a clumped ball and stuck to the surface of the eye. He would have known that he had no way while he was in his space suit (which actually was like a miniature spacecraft) to wipe the tears off the eye. I thought the acting was great but that the portrayal didn’t bring Armstrong fully to life.
_First Man_ got the Saturn V down right with its flight-ready markings, unlike the _Apollo 13_ movie which had its Saturn V wearing the markings of the facilities-test dummy (interchanged in various scenes with the proper flight-ready markings). Also, the _Apollo 13_ Saturn V rose too quickly off the launch pad - similar to the Space Shuttle - in contrast to the real Saturn V that slowly and dramatically climbed as it cleared the launch umbilical tower. _First Man_ does a good job of tracking its Saturn V through the maximum dynamic pressure phase (Max-Q).
I think there are some genuine space geeks in the props and special effects side of the movie business in recent years who work extremely hard to duplicate the look of those days. There are people out there who make prop duplicates their life work and sometimes their work looks more realistic than the real thing!
Well it's matter of scale perspective both the shuttle and the Saturn V reached 100mph in about 9 seconds. It's the larger vehicle and taller tower that gives the illusion that it's not moving as quickly. I get where you coming from how looks though. As for the timing in Apollo 13 they gave you different angles, I seem to recall reading the launch sequence was real-time accurate per NASA. To me it looked like in First Flight they mixed slow mo shots of engine ignition and real-time during the launch. Today doing the CGI is much easier than it was to that back in 95' and nothing takes you out of the moment like bad CGI.
One note on the staging of the Saturn V that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else. The rocket had three distinct stages. They showed the first stage separation along with its interlocking collar, but they never showed the second stage separation which was quite dramatic in its own right. They made it look like the second stage carried them all the way to orbit and it also did the Lunar Orbit Insertion burn. Thats simply not the reality. It was the third stage that sent them on the way to the moon with the Lunar Module tucked inside.
The issues I saw were with the Gemini and the LEM. It looks like they filmed in an old simulator that had been touched by museum goers for 50+ years. The painted metal was clearly well worn, unlike the brand new spacecraft they actually flew. With the LM, when they switched the valves on the oxygen control module (behind the LMP) when they were preparing for the EVA, the valves in the movie were filthy! Again, this was a brand new vehicle and they only did one EVA. Some other technical points that came close, but were not 100% accurate: The moon phase at launch was actually 4% waxing crescent, but the movie showed about 20% which was the phase during day 2 of cis-lunar transit. For the landing, the phase was about 32% visible disc. It also showed Neil looking at the moon from his seat in the CM moments prior to launch. With the only window (through the BPC) facing straight up, and local moon rise occurring at 0815 EDT and launch at 0932 EDT on the 16th, he would have had to loosen his straps, get as close to the panel in front of him as possible and tilt his neck back to look East at the moon which was low above the horizon. This is highly unlikely and not how it was depicted in the movie.
I agree with you completely about the filthy, used look of the panels and knobs on those spacecraft. They would not have had a spec of dust on them, much less grunge! I don't know why they did that while doing such a marvelous job of everything else. As for the position of the moon at different moments, I will have to leave that to those far more knowledgeable such as yourself. I know Armstrong couldn't see the moon from his vantage point on top of the Saturn V, but it was kind of cool anyway.
I too thought Neil was portrayed way too serious. On an Apollo group I’m in on Facebook we were debating it in the comments and then none other than Rick Armstrong commented. Rick said it was accurate to how Neil (his dad) was then. So we stopped debating it as were not going to question Neil Armstrong’s son.
The Apollo 11 documentary that is out now to me was way better. It showed a lot of humanity in the astronauts with some jokes, smiles, waves and then the pure precision and professionalism that came with being the best of the best. It was all real and was put together in a way that let you know there were MANY people involved doing various things and that the crew was in contact with earth almost constantly. First Man was too dramatic to the point where it felt like it was lying. Just watch the real thing, presented in Apollo 11. You get the engineering side of it with people at mission control performing calculations, doing repairs prior to launch, and a whole lot of technical radio chatter but not so much that the average human is lost in it. I believe it is one of the best documentaries ever made and looks FANTASTIC in theaters.
NorthernChev I've been wondering what has happened as well. Amy is still active on Twitter so she is doing ok. But as to why she has not made a video in 2 months, I have no idea. I keep asking her on Twitter but she has not responded. I know she is super busy but she has never gone this long without putting up a video. If you find out anything about it please let me know. We really miss her.
Do not go to see First Man expecting your spirits to be lifted celebrating our main hero of the space race. This was one of the most depressing movies I have seen in a long time. And I get the director and producers not wanting to do yet another hero worship movie, but instead wanting to reveal the people behind the hype, especially Armstrong, and the amazing sacrifices they all made. But if this movie is to be believed, then I don't understand how NASA let Armstrong anywhere near their astronaut program. In this movie he is portrayed as deeply distraught over the death of his young daughter, and as a result emotionally detached from life and his family, and practically on the edge of a nervous breakdown for most of his career.
Jimbo 0117 Yes, this is exactly my problem with the film too. Neil is not shown to be cool and competent, yet still human; instead he is portrayed as uncommunicative, unstable and just lucky rather than skilled. It doesn’t seem to understand him at all.
On the face of it I agree. But it's a movie "artistically" exploring his inner life to engage our emotions, why else have Claire Foy play the role she did? It was like his wife had more of the Right Stuff than Neil, ahem? I think your point about Neil being portrayed as close to a nervous breakdown is the central problem of the movie. In real life he was tough as nails. Is there any greater stress test a human being could go under than the 20 years he had to the mission itself? He passed all that with flying colors. In real life he was solid as a rock and a consummate professional. But I liked the the movie anyway, despite it giving Neil a sensitive new age make-over.
I think Amy is spot-on. During the Gemini mission the camera focuses on Neil Armstrong's face as he's launching into orbit and it is stoic. Almost disconnected from what is going on. You never want to see him smile and when Neil Armstrong smiled his face lit up. Another point that bothered me in the movie and completely drew me out of the suspension of disbelief you need to watch a movie is the way they handled the radio calls. there are called x that the astronauts are supposed to make when the ground announces say a stage separation. You hear the ground control announcement of stage 1 separation and the astronauts don't acknowledge it. It felt wrong to me. The astronauts had to reply and had to have that radio chatter we're not just emotional but for technical reasons. And when it didn't happen it was disjointing.
Agree virtually 100% with your reactions. I know Armstrong was reserved and Gosling is an under-actor, but here he was practically on the spectrum. And was Buzz Aldrin that much of a jackass back then? FWIW, "The Right Stuff" is the ultimate space flight movie for me.
Yeah, Buzz was reportedly so unpleasant that hardly anyone would work with him. Armstrong was supposedly one of the few people at NASA that could stand to be around him much. This is just another of Armstrong's talents, and probably is related to the way he was able to wall off his emotions from his job. That said, Aldrin was very good at his job and the two of them worked well together. Otherwise he never would have been chosen.
Go see it. Some scenes are absolutely breathtaking. Well worth seeing on a big screen for the 40% they got right, but be prepared to be disappointed in the rest. I'll buy it on BluRay and skip over the parts that piss me off.
I saw it in IMAX and would say you can probably skip it, if the theater you're going to has a good sound system. There were only a few minutes actually shot in IMAX.
Why would any director want to make their version of Apollo 13? Apollo 13 is a great film, but it's aged in terms of it's narrative, it's very much a 90's film. They don't make films like that anymore. Ron Howard covered the Apollo program in portraying how challenging it was because that's the film he wanted to make. The social commentary of that film was the challenges of the Apollo program while focusing on Apollo 13. Why do we need to see it again? It would just be a rinse and repeat film.
I thought much of the cinematography was outstanding as did you but I also felt that the movie focused only on one aspect of the material covered in the book. Ultimately I found it boring. Also Neil Armstrong did not waste a lot of time on the Lunar surface. He was there to work and that is exactly what he did. But I just think this was not an accurate portrayal of the Armstrong that we all know and respect. There was no attention paid to the man who remarked on the "Stark beauty" of the Lunar environment or the man who was photographed in the LM afterward with a huge smile on his face. Although the death of his daughter Karen effected the man deeply it is wrong just to focus on this one element of his life and ignore everything else.
