"In the Shadow of the Moon", New documentary gets a favorable review Options

[nprev]

That is sad, RedSky. The publicity has really dropped off, so that's probably part of the reason.

Hopefully the DVD release will be much more successful. (I admit this: haven't been in a movie theater in years, I ALWAYS wait for the DVD...)

[dvandorn]

Well, it's playing at the local "art house" theater here in Mpls this week, and looks as if this is the only week it will be playing. I'm planning on seeing it over my weekend (Tues.-Weds.), though I have a feeling I've seen every piece of footage they have. Maybe not as cleaned up as they've managed, but if there is a single bit of film taken during the Apollo missions that I haven't seen, I'd be quite surprised...

-the other Doug

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Always amazed when they mention " stunning never-before-seen NASA footage from the Apollo missions " as this only applies to the general public and not to us who have seen all the Apollo Spacecraft Films DVDs

[tedstryk]

Lovell did an interview on the Colbert Report. For our non-U.S. folks, the Colbert Report is a show on the Comedy Central channel that is a parody of a news program.

[nprev]

Thanks, Ted! Very good interview; Colbert's always a hoot, but Jim Lovell was great as well!

[David]

Stephen Colbert seems to me like the kind of guy who would read UMSF.com. If he knew it existed.

Steve? You there?

[nprev]

Yeah, I got that vibe, too, even though he was staying in character. Come out, come out, wherever you are, Steve!

[djellison]

He (or his researchers) must read Phils great blog at BadAstronomy.com - because a while back Steve popped a 'we never went to the moon' throw-away joke into his show and Phil called him out on it....so Steve's repented

Doug

[dvandorn]

Well, I saw it yesterday. I was impressed.

For one thing, of the nine men still alive who walked on the Moon, they had commentaries from eight of them. Only Neil Armstrong chose not to participate -- and it's not like we didn't see and hear him, from contemporary recordings and films. Interestingly, perhaps in silent memory of them, there were almost no images of the three moonwalkers who have passed on -- Conrad, Shepard and Irwin -- with Al Bean only even mentioning Pete's name once.

There was a good amount of commentary from a guy who only ever flew as a CMP, too -- but then again, Mike Collins has such a startlingly intelligent wit and delightful way of telling a story, I was *really* happy to see a lot of him in this piece.

The next most prolific contributor was Charlie Duke, and this again met my wholehearted approval. Charlie was always the most enthusiastic of the guys who went to the Moon, and while he has lost some of that frenetic energy with age and the calming influence of his faith, he was more boyishly happy in his reminiscences than I've seen him in years. He even admitted to having been so incredibly relieved when Apollo 11 finally touched down on the Moon that "...I couldn't even say Tranquility. I said 'Twangquility' or something like that." Which is very true.

Charlie had one of the best insights into himself and into Neil Armstrong, as well. He said something along the lines of (paraphrasing from memory, here) "Neil was the best guy to be the first guy on the Moon. He was real -- controlled. He had a lot of control, he thought up that great line. I wouldn't have been a good choice, I wouldn't have had any control, I would've just screamed 'Yahooooo, I'm on the MOON!' or somethin' like that..." In point of fact, Duke was the *only* guy to let out a scream when his LM landed, and he did sort of holler "That first step on the lunar surface is SUPER, Tony!" when he had his own shot at climbing down that ladder and setting his own foot onto the Moon.

I was very pleased to see John Young appear, albeit somewhat briefly. He had some very pithy and insightful things to say, though. Just like John -- never use six words when three will do.

Al Bean was confident and happy. Dave Scott was only on screen a little, but as always he was well-spoken. Cernan, as usual, came off as a cheerleader who hasn't yet realized that high school is over. Schmitt was reserved and somehow sad. Mitchell showed the sense of awe and wonder that the trip brought out in him, never to be put back in the bottle like the proverbial djinni.

There were maybe 20 seconds of footage that I had never seen before, almost all of it from one of the trasnposition and docking maneuvers. There was a very nice piece of film editing, though, that I had never seen before -- someone matched the multi-loop MOCR recordings to the 16mm film being shot in the control room on July 20, 1969, and we got to watch Charlie Duke throughout the descent, hearing the actual words he spoke *and* watching his face as he spoke them. That was a very nice piece of work.

Finally, they end the film running each and every one of the guys' reactions to being questioned about the "moon hoax" thing. From John Young's "Why would you want to take the most impressive thing people have ever done and crap on it like that?" attitude to Charlie Duke's "I could maybe see faking it one time -- but NINE TIMES???? Why in the world would anyone do that?" to Mike Collins' "You ever have two people who know a secret? You can't even keep it then. You just CAN'T <breaking out in laughter> you CANNOT have TENS of THOUSANDS of people in on a secret like that!"

It was an amusing way to end the piece.

-the other Doug

[edstrick]

The kooks always say "They laughed at Einstein"
But there are a lot more Bozo's the Clown than there are Einsteins. and they laugh at Bozo's too.

The active we-never-went-to-the-moon crowd consists of scientific illiterates <even with advanced degrees, I presume, in a few cases> who are clueless and unclueable.

Endlessly disproving their bogus claims as fast as they can fabricate them is a loser's game.

The thing to do with these bozos is to LAUGH AT THEM.

[kenny]

I was at the world premiere of this film in Edinburgh, Scotland on 17 August. Having seen virtually every piece of Apollo film, I still found it an exceptional film. The tower-top sequence of Apollo 17 lifting off in the dark is rarely seen and quite amazing. The astronaut interviews are all original and very refreshing. I can thoroughly recommend it.

Kenny

[dvandorn]

Yep -- and while looking at some other things on YouTube, I came across a trailer for yet another interview-the-Moonwalkers film, "The Wonder of it All," which is being shown at various special functions across the U.S. right now but seems never destined for general release.

-the other Doug

[nprev]

It's great to see these guys honored as they should be, finally, and their achievements publicized. Other then the Apollo 11 crew, of course, the rest of them never got the recognition they deserve. Wish Pete Conrad had lived to see it.

BTW, if anybody ever has to deal with particularly obnoxious 'Apollo-denying' types, here's a nice resource:

http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/space/apollo.html

Many amateur astronomers observed & tracked the flights, and they captured things like venting, S-IVB burns, etc. I know it won't convince the hard-core tin hats, but in my case at least it convinced one guy I used to work with who is a rabid Art Bell fan (US late-night radio personality well known for promulgating whacko pseudoscience & conspiracy theories). Additionally, many ham radio operators monitored CSM<-->Houston communications, even when they were in lunar orbit, and there are too many websites to list documenting these events.

Just givin' everybody some ammo, here...

[kenny]

... and .... Dangerous Films is producing ....MOON SHOT - "New major docu-drama co-production" for launch in 2009.

Yes, for those of us who stayed with the moon topic through the bleak late 1970s, 80s, 90s, this is an astonishing come-back for the subject...

Kenny

[kenny]

Here's the web site for the movie.... click on the mission logos

In the Shadow of the Moon