PATREON EXCLUSIVE UNCUT REACTION - Apollo 13 (1995)
Added 2023-09-25 04:09:45 +0000 UTCThis is the first in our new series of movie reactions that will be exclusive to Patreon. Every few weeks we will watch a movie and alternate between one chosen by us and one chosen by you, the Patrons.
Apollo 13 was the first choice made by the Patrons for this series. Keep an eye out for the next poll coming soon!
Had trouble uploading this one to Patreon. No idea what was causing the issue, but that's why this one is on YouTube.
Thank you for being a Patron & enjoy!
Comments
Just saw that Ken Mattingly died this past week. Such a great man who played a big part in an amazing piece of human history.
Collin Freeman
2023-11-05 14:42:46 +0000 UTCThe movie carefully hedges its bets about the "argument" scene. Note the emphasis at the end of the scene on the astronauts not being on "VOX", i.e., voice activated transmission, meaning that the argument would be lost to the historical record even if it did happen. Also, the movie reveals to the audience immediately after the argument that the astronauts are beginning to suffer from hypercapnia, which may be affecting their judgment, thus letting them off the hook for their hypothetical behavior.
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-10-05 15:00:23 +0000 UTCThe "true events" graphic only comes on at the end of the closing credits, in relatively small type.
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-10-04 06:25:35 +0000 UTCIt wasn't actually a switch throw that cause the fire -- no one knows what the ignition point was. The switch throw in the "Apollo 13" movie is there to clarify the chain of events visually for viewers, especially given the surreal and nightmarish visual style of the prologue.
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-10-04 06:24:20 +0000 UTCYes, you're right. My mistake, sorry.
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-10-03 22:08:39 +0000 UTCFred Haise has, of course, outlived Bill Paxton. Alex and Josh will eventually encounter a similar, but even more heartbreaking, occurrence in the Star Trek franchise.
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-10-03 22:07:12 +0000 UTCRichard Nixon was President for five years, from 1969 to 1974, but those years were extremely eventful. Moreover, "Watchmen," in which Nixon is President for much longer, is set in an alternate timeline. Roger Corman is in "Apollo 13" because directors such as Ron Howard whom he had given their start in films traditionally repaid him by casting him in a cameo role at some point in their careers. Howard realized that he had not yet cast Corman in any of his films and so cast him as a congressman in this one. At least one of the news segments you thought was real footage from 1970 was actually filmed for the movie: the commentator who demonstrates the narrowness of the reentry window with a basketball and a sheet of paper is Jeffrey Kluger, the co-author of the book on which the film was based, making a cameo appearance.
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-10-03 21:48:36 +0000 UTCMiko Hughes (Jeffrey Lovell) was indeed in "Pet Sematary" when he was only three years old, six years before "Apollo 13," making your recognition of him extremely impressive. He also appeared in "Kindergarten Cop," "Spawn," "Mercury Rising," "Wes Craven's New Nightmare," and in a recurring role on the TV sitcom "Full House." (You may recall that people mentioned in the comments on your reaction to "And the Children Shall Lead" that Pamelyn Ferdin, the child actress in that episode, was the same kind of seemingly inescapable child performer in the TOS era.) The origin of "Houston, we have a problem" is more complicated than it seems. In real life, Jack Swigert made the initial report of the emergency by saying, "Okay, Houston... we've had a problem here," with Jim Lovell repeating a few moments later, "Ah, Houston, we've had a problem." Later commentators have suggested that the past-tense phrasing was more "astronaut-like," not suggesting panic due to an ongoing emergency. Nonetheless, NASA itself entitled its 1970 documentary about the mission (available for download on the Internet Archive), "Apollo 13: 'Houston, We've Got A Problem.'" That particular present-tense formulation was also the title of an extremely poorly regarded TV movie docudrama which aired in 1974, and which is to the 1995 film what the 1978 animated "Lord of the Rings" is to the live-action trilogy. In 1995, when I saw "Apollo 13" on its day of release, I had recently read "Lost Moon," the non-fiction book by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger on which the film was based, so I was extremely familiar with the details of the real story. I went into the film wondering how the famous line would be phrased, since I knew both the real quote and the fact that it was popularly quoted in the present tense. When Tom Hanks said, "Houston, we have a problem," I immediately thought to myself, "Print the legend" (a quotation from another film, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"). Nonetheless, in the ensuing decades the idea has somehow arisen that the present-tense formulation originated with the 1995 film, and that it only became a semi-proverbial saying after 1995. Certainly, the line was greatly popularized and perpetuated by the film, but it was already a well-known quotation before 1995, when a greater percentage of the population had been alive in 1970. Incidentally, "Apollo 13" is one of only four movies I've ever seen on their release dates. The others were "DuckTales: The Movie," "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" and "Rogue One."
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-10-03 21:17:18 +0000 UTCJosh, I know what I was doing the day you were born! Can you guess? :-) Also, it's sad that Khan never got to see "Queen of the Damned" or "Ghost Ship"... It's extremely unfortunate that the moon landing conspiracy theory has become so mainstream that it needs to be brought up whenever the Apollo program is discussed. The idea that humans never landed on the Moon *should* be as much of a fringe concept as flat Earth. Oh, wait a minute... According to family lore, my grandmother, who died in 1974, believed that the Moon landings were faked. However, there is more to this story than at first appears: since Nana lived for only a year and a half after the last Apollo landing (in December 1972), the conspiracy theory may have been more believable to her than it should be now, when a much longer time has passed without any of the thousands of people who would have had to know about the conspiracy coming forward about it. Moreover, my late mother, although she was extremely intelligent, could sometimes be very naive. Because Mom was fascinated by the space program and even met many of the astronauts when she was working at MIT as an executive secretary (a title which the message board just tried to autocomplete as "executive assistant" -- how times have changed), Nana may have been teasing her about the conspiracy theory without Mom realizing it. A controversial film you might consider for a future reaction is "Capricorn One," a 1977 film about a manned *Mars* landing faked in much the same way that people believe the Moon landings were faked. Space buffs have often accused "Capricorn One" of spreading and perpetuating the conspiracy theories, although of course they existed already -- Nana did not live to see "Capricorn One." Indeed, even though Mom knew the Moon landings were real, she was fascinated by "Capricorn One" because she realized how much her mother would have loved it.
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-10-03 20:56:30 +0000 UTCSince Walter Cronkite was still alive in 1995, he recorded various new voiceovers as himself which were included along with the footage of him from 1970, taking advantage of the fact that people's voices don't age as fast as their faces. For example, Cronkite's voiceover at the very beginning of the movie was a new recording he made for the film.
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-10-03 20:49:24 +0000 UTCWasn't that the insulating foam that fell off though that caused the shuttle problems?
Andreas Schmitt
2023-10-03 20:48:54 +0000 UTCIt *was* a huge problem in the Shuttle era...
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-10-03 20:47:28 +0000 UTCLovell appears on screen as the recovery ship captain at the very moment Tom Hanks says "And as for me..." in the voiceover. The filmmakers wanted Lovell to wear an admiral's uniform, but he declined because he retired from the Navy at the rank of Captain.
Anthony Bernacchi
2023-10-03 20:46:33 +0000 UTCLovell co-wrote the book that led to the movie and did do some consulting but the primary day-to-day consultant was Dave Scott, commander of Apollo 15.
JD Nevesytrof
2023-10-01 03:21:26 +0000 UTCAlso, great musical score. Fun fact: Ron Howard's mom played Jim Lovell's mom and Ron's dad played the minister on the couch with the Lovell family watching the re-entry. Plus his brother Clint at Control in Houston. He got the whole family involved! I also love Kathleen Quinlan's performance as Jim Lovell's wife. Even in 1970, she plays a very strong, supporting woman. Loved when she told the NASA press secretary that the Press could take it up with her husband - he'll be home on Friday.
Collin Freeman
2023-09-30 21:32:14 +0000 UTCThe actual Apollo astronaut that was a consultant was none other than Jim Lovell (who also has a small cameo in the movie at the end).
Ross43
2023-09-28 16:25:56 +0000 UTCLook up some videos on the making of the film. They actually put the set of the ship on a special plane called “the vomit comet” that can do specific maneuvers and create about 10-15 seconds of weightlessness. So the actors and crew did this for take after take. The weightlessness you’re seeing in the movie is REAL - no wires, etc. https://youtu.be/8Kld61n8ZDI?si=tLtLUWcXeS4j1Q2I
Stuart Arbury
2023-09-28 15:58:27 +0000 UTCWas going to mention the real Jim is in the movie.
Stuart Arbury
2023-09-28 15:55:55 +0000 UTCSome of the news reports they show are original from the time, some are faked for the movie. The anchor you see the most in this is the famous Walter Cronkite.
Joe Concepts
2023-09-27 00:46:17 +0000 UTCClarification on the timing: when the text on screen says "day 4" or whatever, that's counting the days of the mission, not the days of the emergency situation. The explosion happened on day 3, so you can subtract 3 days from your impressions of how long people have gone without rest/sleep/etc. That still leaves the astronauts awake for something like 4 days straight by the time they get back. Unrelated, that weird ruler with the sliding middle bit you commented on, when they were doing calculations to convert the program settings to the lunar module; that was a slide rule. Basically the 60s version of a calculator. Sliding two rulers next to each other and seeing how their scales line up allows you to add lengths at a glance, and by using clever math (logarithms) to decide how those scales are printed on the rulers to begin with, adding lengths can be turned into more difficult calculations like multiplication and sines and cosines. This is one of a few movies that I find impossible to watch just a few minutes of. If I decide to watch some of it, I get sucked in and I have to watch all of it. "A Few Good Men", with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, and "Crimson Tide", with Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman, are the main other movies I think of that pull me in like that. I'd recommend either of them for the next poll if y'all haven't seen them.
Jeff Cornell
2023-09-26 06:48:59 +0000 UTCHe does quite resemble Denis Leary though, it's true.
JD Nevesytrof
2023-09-26 00:17:35 +0000 UTCYes I think we mentioned that on the movie reaction as well. They indeed named that ship in honor of that lost Astronaut. Still such a horrific way to die for those guys...
Andreas Schmitt
2023-09-26 00:13:51 +0000 UTCThe "stuff falling off the rocket" is indeed normal. That's ice. The rocket is fuled with liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Therefore it is incredibly cold (it's insulated obviously but the surface temp is still cold enough to freeze the surrounding water that's condensating on it). When the rocket launches the vibrations are strong enough to shake the ice loose. And yes people were initially worried about those ice pieces hitting something, but it turned out not to be a huge problem in the Apollo era. Nowadays I think we try to avoid this a bit more.
Andreas Schmitt
2023-09-26 00:12:16 +0000 UTCCheck this out: https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/ When Josh made one of his editing live streams I linked him the Artemis 1 launch, which he watched :) You guys should absolutely make a reaction video to the Artemis 2 launch. It'll be the first time since Apollo 17 that we're sending humans to the moon (not landing yet, just circling it, landing will be Artemis 3 as I said) Scheduled launch date for Artemis 2 is currently November 2024. The spacecraft already went around the moon on Artemis 1. Just nobody was onboard. The new spacecraft is very similar in setup to the Apollo spacecraft, just bigger. What you saw here as the Service module, the thing that blew up, is European built this time. The actual capsure is the Orion spacecraft. A lunar lander is still being designed. I don't think any company has gotten the contract yet, but there's already several designs. You guys absolutely do not want to miss Artemis 3. It will be your generation's Apollo 11. And this time we'll build a base on the moon and a space station around it, which will be used as a pit stop for the future Mars program :) Check out some of the videos on the Artemis program. It's exciting. They re-used some stuff from the Space shuttle on the new rocket. Here's NASA's explanation video for the mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T8cn2J13-4
Andreas Schmitt
2023-09-25 23:51:52 +0000 UTCYes, as I said some minor changes. That was added for drama, and the "12 Amps" or wheverever thing was also very simplified.And during the final course correction the ships is flying towards the earth when it should be flying perpendicular to it, otherwise you wouldn't even see the Earth in the window :D But aside from such minor changes, almost everything in the movie is spot on. For something that's not a documentary they did an amazing job here and Lovell is very happy with the movie :)
Andreas Schmitt
2023-09-25 23:45:59 +0000 UTCFYI. The Captain that shakes Tom Hank's hand on the aircraft carrier in the final scene... that was the ACTUAL Jim Lovell, the guy Hanks is playing :) They gave him a cameo :)
Andreas Schmitt
2023-09-25 23:40:02 +0000 UTCYes, that's where the USS Grissom came from. :)
Tom Occhipinti
2023-09-25 23:20:50 +0000 UTCRon Howard found himself sitting next to Tom Hanks on a flight and he asked Tom what type of role has he always wanted to play. Tom said he always wanted to play an astronaut. Ron then pulled a book out of his carry-on and it was Jim Lovell's Lost Moon. Jim is in the movie as the captain of the recovery ship - Tom (playing Jim) shakes his hand.
Ross43
2023-09-25 22:48:46 +0000 UTCNot the argument between Haise and Swigert. Lovell said that that never happened.
whacky deli
2023-09-25 22:08:34 +0000 UTCAlso, everything in this movie (except for minor things) was 100% like it happened in the original Apollo 13 mission, down to a lot of dialog coming directly from the official radio transcripts.
Andreas Schmitt
2023-09-25 21:43:38 +0000 UTCWhat do you guys mean you won't be alive for anything like this? You're literally alive for the Artemis program. Artemis 2 will launch next year and will send Astronauts around the moon again (like Apollo 8) and Artemis 3 soon after will send men and women (first woman on the moon) back. You are literally exactly on time for that :D You guys need to keep yourselved more up to date with the space program :)
Andreas Schmitt
2023-09-25 21:32:37 +0000 UTCBTW, that wasn’t Gwen Stacy’s dad.
whacky deli
2023-09-25 18:10:42 +0000 UTCI want to throw up just from reading this
Josh (Target Audience)
2023-09-25 14:00:37 +0000 UTCAlex mentioned claustrophobia, on the Gemini program, two astronauts had to spend up to two weeks in a cabin literally no bigger than a small two-seater sports car. They could not get up from their seats without opening the hatch to space. So everything you do, eating, washing, bathroom activities, you just can't get up, for two weeks.
JD Nevesytrof
2023-09-25 12:59:44 +0000 UTCJosh, the funny thing about the moon landing conspiracy theory is that it's pretty much the most difficult theory to prove, because unlike other conspiracies, hundreds of thousands of Americans worked to make the moon landings possible, and the people with the most to gain from proving it a conspiracy, namely the USSR, made no opposition whatsoever to the evidence and actually published the news in their famously government-controlled media.
JD Nevesytrof
2023-09-25 12:49:42 +0000 UTCYes it is!!! I looked at the IMDB to confirm
Josh (Target Audience)
2023-09-25 10:30:59 +0000 UTCAnd that WASN'T Boomer. Nice try. lol
MertzRocks
2023-09-25 10:07:13 +0000 UTCThe TV thing with the chimp jumping on a suitcase was a commercial for Samsonite luggage, touting how tough their product was. I remember seeing these ads as a little kid.
MertzRocks
2023-09-25 09:23:24 +0000 UTC"Is that Gary Seven climbing on that?" No! He already did that two years earlier... 'Assignment: Earth' took place in 1968 and that rocket was taking an orbital nuclear launch platform into orbit. Later, in December, Jim Lovell, Frank Borman and Bill Anders would man the Apollo 8 mission to the moon; not landing, just orbiting several times. They had no LEM with them, and actually the first LEM was still under construction. However, this event (Apollo 8), just before Christmas, was a surprise to most Americans and in the opinions of many, it "...saved 1968.". In the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, this exact quote is used. I was only 3 for most of that year, but knowing history the way I do now, I agree that few years in world history have had as much turmoil as 1968. p.s. if I got any facts wrong, I'm sure Mr. Johnson or someone will correct me.
MertzRocks
2023-09-25 09:13:37 +0000 UTCOne of my oldest friends actually worked on this movie. I was say that one of the only famous people I ever got to meet was Captain Jim Lovell, but I really just merely got to see him at a college lecture. He is still alive at age 95. Fred Haise is still alive at age 89, and I guess he is a real hero in his native state of Mississippi. Ed Harris' character Gene Kranz is still alive at age 90, and Clint Howard's character Sy Liebergot is still alive at age 87. I think Captain Lovell says that the only part of the movie that was really fictionalized was the scene where the three astronauts argue, but Ron Howard apparently insisted upon one scene with some tension. Ron's mom played Jim Lovell mother while his dad played the Lovell family minister. Apparently Herbert Jefferson Jr only appears in space features where the word Apollo is frequently mentioned. The movie The Right Stuff makes a great prequel while Ron Howard and Tom Hanks made a 12-hour mini-series 25 years ago that is a great sequel to fill in a lot of the missing material. It looks like it has been 23 years from the last man to walk on the moon until this movie came out; now it is over 50 years since anyone walked on the moon.
Chtphr Rrr
2023-09-25 09:03:32 +0000 UTCI was only 5, almost going on 6, and I remember it only slightly less than the first landing, which I got to see when I was 4 going on 5. When one of you asked, "Did this happen!?" I almost fell over and re-started to see what you were saying/watching when the graphic came on saying it was based on true events.
MertzRocks
2023-09-25 08:29:42 +0000 UTCFor the longest time I had a poster from this movie on my wall. It's a shot of Tom Hanks in his full astronaut regalia, strapped into his seat, looking back over his shoulder at the audience. This is a fine example of a balance between drama and authenticity. There were a few things they cut which actually happened, but they felt would strain audience credulity. One was the NASA ad campaigns actively making fun of the "13" superstitions. Another was a freak occurrence of a car driving by the launch vehicle and spontaneously exploding. Lots of things like that. What's cool is a lot of the Mission Control dialogue is taken directly from the archival video and audio flight logs. That shot of Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) sitting down at the end and letting out his emotion is real. The real Gene Kranz was caught on camera actually having that moment. He was a tough SOB and for him to finally let it out. It makes you cry when you actually see it. You know he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. In the movie, at the end, they describe what likely went wrong, but as I understand it the whole story is that one oxygen tank was dropped during construction. Literally they almost died because some ugly had butter fingers two years before the mission even happened. Space is dangerous. On the subject of the disposable pieces of the rockets. The Saturn V was the most powerful space vehicle the US ever manned. The technology available to us has greatly improved. I'd love to see a redesigned Saturn vehicle. However between NASA and Space X we're seeing some really impressive next gen craft. The Space X vehicles, the Artemis system which will be taking us back to the moon. The big leap that was made, thanks to Elon Musk putting so much financial resources into it, was the capacity to launch and return rocket components, and land them on exact targets. That alone will ultimately save the existing space programs a lot of money in the future. In future, during one of those summer gaps, it might be a lot of fun to check out the HBO miniseries "From The Earth to the Moon" Produced by Tom Hanks (and featuring Rod Serling inspired introductions from him.). It's basically the equivalent to Saving Private Ryan's "Band of Brothers." One of the commentary tracks on the DVD features Jim and Marylin Lovell talking about their experiences. Jim is a stoic tough man. War veteran, pilot. When they talk about the greatest generation he is a hallmark example. A stand up man. A man's man. There's a point in the commentary, that scene where Hanks is imagining stepping out onto the moon. Jim is quiet, but you can hear Marylin softly cry and she speaks on how she knows, that's exactly how he felt. So close. So very close. A lot of my family works in the aerospace field. One of my uncles was a high ranking member of the service and manned Minuteman missile silos. He used to sit and tell me about the killing power (KP) of the US compared to other nations. Another served on a submarine before transferring to working for the space program as an engineer. So space has always been close to my heart. A lot of great going to the movies memories from around this time. This, Independence Day (My 4th of July birthday ritual movie), Star Trek First Contact, Men in Black. So many awesome genre films. If you were a Sci Fi geek in the 90s you were well taken care of most of the time.
Steven Johnson
2023-09-25 08:22:22 +0000 UTCI mean, they flipped a switch which caused a spark and they all died. It's a tragic story, yes, but it's not exactly a two hour movie unto itself. As JD said, they made From The Earth To The Moon and one episode deals with that event.
Steven Johnson
2023-09-25 07:46:42 +0000 UTCThis movie came out when I was a teenager, and like you guys going in I didn’t know the whole story. It was cool going to see this with my grandfather who worked on the global antenna system that makes the communication with the ship possible and on the engineering of the lunar module. One of the odd things I remember from that trip to the theater was the AC being messed up so I was shivering right along with the astronauts. I second the comment above recommending From the Earth to the Moon. I watched a making of video of them going in one of those anti gravity simulators and being very methodical to get the shots they needed during the brief periods of weightlessness it provided.
Jonathan
2023-09-25 07:09:13 +0000 UTCThe calculation issue was because only two of them were supposed to land on the moon in the LEM, the other guy was supposed to hang around in orbit in the command module. So all of the calculations regarding the LEM would have just had two people in the calculation, because there were never supposed to be three in it.
Michael Ducharme
2023-09-25 07:06:10 +0000 UTCI was 10 when this happened and I remember it well. There are plenty of documentaries and articles online where you can learn more about the mission. If you happen to have Disney Plus it has a National Geographic documentary called Apollo: Missions to the Moon that has details about what happened here, the landing with Apollo 11, and the tragedy of Apollo 1 with audio from the event along with the successful landings. I've watched it several times and it's really good.
KatWithAttitude
2023-09-25 06:47:18 +0000 UTCCool, I look forward to it.
MrDeadstu
2023-09-25 05:42:00 +0000 UTCThey made an excellent film about Apollo 1, it's the second episode of the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, which Tom Hanks and Brian Grazer made after Apollo 13 because they wanted to tell the story of the rest of the moon program. It's comprehensive and I don't think they could have made a better depiction.
JD Nevesytrof
2023-09-25 05:22:29 +0000 UTCThe one thing that is actually fabricated for this film is the crew tension. Listening to the actual audio logs of the mission, these three were absolute professionals, and while tempers flared a couple times, it was in frustration at the problems and never at each other. Jack Swigert actually got done a real disservice, he may have been a rookie but he actually helped design the command module and he knew everything about its systems, Lovell and Haise had complete respect for him right from the start and all throughout the mission and there was never any doubt he could dock with the LEM. Even if he couldn't, Lovell or Haise each could have easily done it. Also, they actually did not depict ALL the technical problems that occurred, since they thought the audience might imagine they were throwing things in just for even more unnecessary drama. That being said, the rest of the film is incredibly accurate, right down to the perfect replica of the spacecraft interiors and mission control. They even had an actual Apollo astronaut as consultant, making sure every switch and setting was correct for the phase of the mission they were filming. As dramatized history goes, this film is absolutely top-notch.
JD Nevesytrof
2023-09-25 05:06:46 +0000 UTCOne of Ron Howard’s best movies. Rush is also a great one, if you guys haven’t seen it yet. I’m not a car guy at all but his direction and the acting performances really made it something special.
whacky deli
2023-09-25 04:41:12 +0000 UTCI think you 2 will see people walk on Mars…
Badger
2023-09-25 04:36:50 +0000 UTCIf you like tension, great acting and a happy ending sure, it's OK..lol. They should make a movie of Apollo 1. Very sad.
MrDeadstu
2023-09-25 04:20:33 +0000 UTCGreat movie! I look forward to watching it with you guys.
Rich Cirivilleri
2023-09-25 04:11:49 +0000 UTC
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