In the Shadow of the Moon

Cafe Society
1

I saw it tonight, and it pretty much sucked. For All Mankind, IMHO is a much better documentary.

While watching it, I couldn’t help but reminded of what Lovell’s wife was told in Apollo 13 as to why the media wasn’t airing the broadcast from the capsule prior to the explosion live, “You make going to the Moon seem like a trip to New Jersey.” (Or words to that effect.)

I liked the interviews with the astronauts (though I could have done without them talking about religion as much as they did), but the rest of it just bored me to tears, and really, that’s hard to do. (I like looking at the blueprints of the freakin’ launch tower, fer cryin’ out loud!)

For All Mankind manages to beautifully capture the wonder of travelling to the Moon, while this was just cold. I’d also like to know where they got the clips they used as the quality of the ones didn’t seem to be that good. Of course, that might have been due to the fact that the print I saw was in rough shape, but the ones in For All Mankind were taken from the original masters that are stored in liquid nitrogen. And where the heck was Armstrong? The man’s done some 3K presentations since he left NASA (he even did ads for Chrysler), so it’s not like he won’t come out of his cave.

They claim that none of the film was done with CGI, but some of the shots looked CGI’d to me. There were a couple when they were flying over the surface that seemed to have been CGI’d, and the top-down view of one of the astronauts descending the ladder just seemed to be CGI’d. Again, this could have been an artifact of the print I saw, or it’s possible that they could have cleaned up the original footage with CGI and that’s what’s responsible for it. One of the seperation shots, I could swear appears in Apollo 13 and was done in CGI since they didn’t have film footage of it.

Hopefully The Wonder of it All will be a better film. This one is a definite “wait for it on video” choice.

2

Thanks Tuckerfan. I was on the fence about seeing this (the raves seemed a little OTT) and after Mankind, anything seemed inevitably redundant. Glad to hear my suspicions were probably correct.

My understanding is that Armstrong has become much more reclusive in recent years, and his refusal to cooperate was the reason for his absence (through no fault of the filmmakers).

3

I saw this a few months ago, and liked it fine. It would be an excellent summary-slash-survey for anybody who’s unfamiliar with the history, or hasn’t seen the other high-quality films on the subject (For All Mankind being the best of the bunch). For space junkies, there’s very little new here.

That said, the interviews are good, and the film is probably most notable for letting some of the less-well-known astronauts have their say. A couple of them make very strong impressions.

And the bit during the end credits, where one of the astronauts comments on the whole “moon landing hoax” by reacting with bafflement and incredulity, is really priceless, and for me made watching the film worthwhile.

I’d give it an A for documentary craft, B+ as a generic historical summary, and B- for adding something new to the subject.

4

[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy]
Thanks Tuckerfan. I was on the fence about seeing this (the raves seemed a little OTT) and after Mankind, anything seemed inevitably redundant. Glad to hear my suspicions were probably correct.

My understanding is that Armstrong has become much more reclusive in recent years, and his refusal to cooperate was the reason for his absence (through no fault of the filmmakers).
[/QUOTE]

Armstrong was more than happy to film a short clip for the NASA website, and has come out to endorse the Bush space initiative, and from reading First Man, it’s apparent that he bristles at the thought of being called a “recluse.”

Cervaise, if it had been a simple retread, I’d have liked it fine, provided that they’d picked some of the lovely footage that was used in For All Mankind. That was filled with stunning visuals, and this didn’t have nearly so many. Even when you did get them, they were very, very, short. (When are we going to get the Apollo footage on an IMAX screen?)

And it can’t have been that they didn’t want to use them because they didn’t want to remind people of For All Mankind as there were portions of the soundtrack which were directly influenced by Eno’s work on For All Mankind. (I checked the credits to see if they mentioned him or not, they didn’t so they’re skating on the edges of copyright infringement, it seems.)

The interviews were the best part of the film, which is a shame, since the big screen would have been perfect for the lunar clips. (And what was up with the way they shot Buzz? He looked like a tarantula ready to strike the whole time he was on screen.)

This whole thing puzzles me, since this was done by Ron Howard, who did Apollo 13, and Al Reinert who did For All Mankind cowrote the screenplay for 13. Seems to me they could have got Al to give them a hand with this.

5

Well, to each their own, but I have to say I really liked this movie, although I must confess I have not seen For All Mankind, so I can’t compare the two.
I found the interviews fascinating, and thought-provoking. The astronauts came across as insightful and thoughtful: Mike Colins discussing what is was like to be alone while Armstrong and Aldrin were on the surface, Gene Cernan discussing his sense of guilt because he “should have been” flying combat missions in Vietnam, the discussions about how people all over the world saw the moon landing as something “we did” rather than something the Americans did–Mike Collins: “this feeling was extraordinary, if ephemeral”

6

You owe it to yourself to see For All Mankind. There’s oodles of great commentary tracks, and it certainly feels like you’re going along with the astronauts. I will give the edge to In the Shadow of the Moon in a few places, as it allows the astronauts to make a broader discussion of the impact of the missions on themselves and the world. (It also doesn’t include mention of “Whizz” Aldrin’s lunar first, when he decided to “boldly go” as it were. ;))

7

Hmmm, I know I’ve been shilling for this movie ever since I saw it at Sundance. I was certainly affected by the fact that David Scott and the film maker gave a talk afterwards. I thought it was great, too bad you thought it sucked.

8

[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
And what was up with the way they shot Buzz?
[/QUOTE]
I thought the same thing, but it seemed to fit his personality. He came across as a brash, aggressive individual (probably part of the reason he was selected as an astronaut). Upon a quick wiki, it seems he once punched a moon hoaxer in the face. It makes sense to me that he would lean forward in an assertive way like he did in his film interviews.

I’d never seen a moon doc before, so I really enjoyed this one. Michael Collins had me laughing quite a bit.

I was wondering if Armstrong was dead until one of the astronauts made a quick reference to him being a recluse.

9

[QUOTE=Team of Scientists]
I thought the same thing, but it seemed to fit his personality. He came across as a brash, aggressive individual (probably part of the reason he was selected as an astronaut). Upon a quick wiki, it seems he once punched a moon hoaxer in the face. It makes sense to me that he would lean forward in an assertive way like he did in his film interviews.
[/QUOTE]
There was much rejoycing when that happened. As you can clearly see from the video of the event, Buzz’s attacker towered over him and outweighed him by a considerable amount, not to mention being close to half a century younger than him. One really shouldn’t go around assaulting 70 year olds who are ex-military, test-pilot astronauts if you’re not prepared to get your ass beat.

10

I saw it a few days ago with my 7-year-old son, who loves space exploration stuff as much as I do (his teacher had recommended it). He got a little fidgety by the end but otherwise was rapt. The interviews were pretty good - Michael Collins in particular - and I appreciated that they linked the Apollo Project to JFK’s challenge to the nation (although I wish they’d had more Kennedy’s Rice University speech, where he says, “We choose to go the Moon, and to do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”). Good to see Jim Lovell, too, even though the Apollo 13 crisis got only a once-over-lightly.

It’s been a few years since I saw For All Mankind, but I remember being more impressed by that. This was worthwhile, though.

11

[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
(although I wish they’d had more Kennedy’s Rice University speech, where he says, “We choose to go the Moon, and to do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”).
[/QUOTE]

Agreed, especially the part where he said he didn’t want space to be home to “orbiting weapons of mass destruction.”

12

I heard an interview with the producers of this the other day. Apparently, they did get the masters thawed out for use in the film, so the print I saw must have just been in really pisspoor shape.

Also, while the producers said that they’d contacted Armstrong and he was “eager,” “excited,” and “helpful” about the film. So why wasn’t he in it? They never really gave a direct answer, but the implication they gave is that they didn’t think he’d work well on camera.