Even that’s a copy – Jack Williamson (who just died) wrote a story with that idea back in the 1920’s
I think, until the movie comes out and it’s crystal clear who this guy is and what happens to him, it’s silly to mock based strictly on the trailer, unless your politics demand it based on that very funny line.
It might well be totally stupid. It might well be a grown-up fantasy and he really does launch. It might well end in his dream NOT coming true but he gave it a good shot. It could be more about a wife and children standing by their clearly insane husband and father. I didn’t read the whole reveiw because I wanted to stay away from spoilers, but a reviewer at IMDB called the movie a fun “Frank Capraesque popcorn flick” which sounds good to me.
[QUOTE=Raguleader]
If you neglect to get permission from the FAA first, and your pipe dream ends abruptly with a mid-air collision with a 767 full of schoolchildren or something, be certain that the FAA will be on your ass like hobos on a ham sandwich. QUOTE]
I somehow think, in this scenarion, the FAA would be the least of your worries 
mm
Ooooh, Sci-fi Capra-Corn! 
This won’t mean anything to most people, but for those who will understand, it might be a huge selling point for this movie. I just found out about it, and this bit of information turned the movie from a “It looks cute, I definitely will see it at some point, maybe on a $5 Tuesday” to a “OH MY FREAKING GOD I’M THERE ON OPENING DAY!!” film. Now I KNOW it’s going to be good. At the very very least, it’ll be interesting.
The Astronaut Farmer was co-written (along with his brother Mark) and directed by Michael Polish, the co-writer and co-director (along with his brother Mark) of Twin Falls, Idaho, and one of my favorite films from 2003, Northfork, a sweet, sad, gentle and surreal film about a town being forced to evacuate because a new dam will soon put the town underwater.
The Polish Brothers’ next movie will be a science fiction film called I.D., but there’s no information about the plot yet. It probably hasn’t even been cast. I hope The Astronaut Farmer does very well for them so they can make I.D. the way they want. These boys have talent and a unique vision.
I’m not sure if I understand you, but I agree the joke doesn’t make sense. The U.S. gov’t couldn’t find any WMD in Iraq because there weren’t any WMD to be found, not because they were incompetent searchers. Superman, Batman and the whole Justice League couldn’t have found WMD in Iraq.
The envelope, please…
(rip)
And the question is…
“How do you inspire huge numbers of impressionable Texans to launch themselves into space?”
Batman could find WMDs in Iraq… If he was prepared!
Mosquito Coast in SPACE!SPACE!SPACE!SPACE!
Concerning the eeeeeevil government trying to shut him down, I read an article in the LA or NY Times (one of the Timeses, don’t remember which) about amateur rocket builders facing new restrictions because the propellant they use has been newly classified as a weapon. Newly as in post 9/11.
They were very upset about the uptick in red tape and beaurocracy involved in building and launching rockets because of increased and (in their view) misplaced concern about “security.” I’ll see if I can find a cite about this, but it’s something for people ot go looking for with regard to the government crackdown angle. I’m sure some of the people involved in chasing the X-Prize have faced similar difficulty.
Ah, but you don’t know the special twist!
Snakes on the Spaceship!
I sure hope they serve those French fried potatoers on the Moon.
OK – I had to resurrect this thread.
This post is a stream of spoilers. So stop now.
I just saw this movie. It might be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Or the greatest.
This movie has lines like this: Billy Bob goes to his kid’s school to remove his kid from class to help him build the rocket (oh, yeah, this was after he is sent to the school nurse to see if he is crazy – Billy Bob, that is, not the kid – because he actually threw a brick through the bank window because he couldn’t get a loan to buy rocket fuel). So, the teacher says, “You can’t do that.”
Billy Bob looks at her and says, “you’re teaching him how to read history. I’m teaching him how to make it.” Bear with me. It gets worse.
I still thought that the movie was being played straight. Then. . .when he first hears the feds are going to quash his plans, he goes to see his small town lawyer. The lawyer actually says, “I have a friend who works at a big Manhattan law firm. He specializes in these kinds of things, and he owes me a favor.”
Another: when Billy Bob is finally flying in space, he looks out the window and says, “this is where dreams live.”
This is while he has lost radio contact, due to power loss, with mission control. Mission control is either his son in his bed room with a lap top and a pair of altec lansings, or a trailer in the backyard filled with computer parts. Oh, and he restores power only after we’re informed he only has so much oxygen and he pulls out a flashlight and shines it on pictures of his family. So, he flips down a panel, and reconnects one plug. Then, he starts saying “Shepherd, you there? Shepherd, you there?” (yes, “Shepherd” is the name of his son. Shepherd!)
That brings up one of those odd things about the movie. Now, in Apollo 13, when they lost radio contact with the orbiter, Ron Howard didn’t show the orbiter. This helped establish the feeling of tension that Houston must have had at the tie, right, even though we know they made it home. Here, the director stays with Billy Bob to create tension like his family isn’t there! They’re on Earth. We know they’re on Earth. They’re safe. The only “tension” is how long until the kid wakes up to hear the broadcast. It’s like they got everything backwards.
The movie is endless cliche after endless cliche. Writing cliches. ACting cliches. Directing cliches. Cinematographic cliches.
For some odd reason, when the father in law dies, they have the funeral at sunset and they bring the body there on a horse drawn carriage.
There are random scenes spliced in of his sun-dappled tow-heads collecting daisies in meadows.
So – why is it possibly great? I don’t know. . .maybe for similar reasons that people find Showgirls great. It’s almost like the entire movie is completely ironic, and he has the balls to never let you in on it. Like they’re saying, “America, you want movies about dreamers with cowboys and astronauts? Well here you go. This is what you asked for.”
Or maybe, it was a joke on a studio. Like every shot and every line was based on the suggestions from a focus group, or a boardroom of executives. There’s no way this movie could have been made sincerely.
No director would actually have the stones to have the feds show up at a farmhouse in a dusty succession of black town cars and black SUVs, would he? And, then, have two agents get out who are BOTH wearing Ray Bans and mustaches. Didn’t MIB send that up years ago?
I kept waiting to be let in on the joke. . .like at the end, an 8 year old was going to wake up in his sick bed and we realize it was all a dream. There were 4 or 5 scenes where I thought the actors were going to turn to the camera and wink and go, “gotcha”.
Did I mention that Bruce Willis shows up as a supportive manly astronaut, and they drink Budweisers together?
Or that Billy Bob’s father killed himself, and that “the bullet is still travelling.”
Or that the big scene with the feds places Billy Bob at a little two-man table in front of a raised panel of like 10 nasa and FAA guys, who I think have gavels. And he smart-asses them?
Or that he borrows a “rocket ride” from the county fair to help him train? “How much for the ride?” “5 bucks.” “No, I mean to buy it.”
I haven’t even mentioned Jay Leno, or the encamped news media, or the scene where the wife runs out of money at the grocery store. Yup, the scene where the wife runs out of money at the grocery store.
There must be 50 shots in this movie of people walking along a grassy ridge, lit from behind by the sun.
The name of the rocket, by the way, is “The Dreamer”. At one point, as they pan up the rocket, they linger on the “AMER” a little too long. I think they want us to believe that there’s a little bit of America inside of every dreamer.
I for one, do.
(this is also a great movie to use the joke where you turn to your wife and go, “you were crying, weren’t you?”)
I just saw it a couple of days ago as well.
I could accept the parts about Farmer having been an astonaut trainee and having the knowledge, skill and resources to construct a Mercury rocket from spare parts.
I could take the icky-gooey cinematography and cheesy dialog. The anvils with messages didn’t bother me too much.
But once the filmmakers started to flout the laws of physics I pretty much just zoned out. Why do they do this? If you are going to make a film about a rocket scientist launching a rocket, why not have a rocket scientist make sure that all the stuff portrayed in the film is somewhere in the vicinity of reasonableness?
Wow. I like Billy Bob Thorton, and that sounds painful.
Wow. The implausibility of constructing a rocket, or the physics of both launches didn’t bother me at all.
I have to wonder how cheesy dialog could get that it would bug you, Uncle. It doesn’t get worse than this. You CAN’T write cheesier lines than “this is where dreams live.”
This is the kind of movie where “not bad for an old man”, and “this is so crazy, it just might work” would fit right in.
I can’t remember what movie someone here was talking about once, but he mentioned that the only people who might enjoy it were people who had never seen any other movie ever. . .a person who would find, “you gotta figure out what to do before someone else figures it out for you” inspirational.
Yeah, the whole premise of this turd is just so unbelievable-like, let’s totally suspend reality. Did they show HOW this guy ACTUALLY BUILT the rocket? Did he just weld it together out of parts from the local junkyard? Reminds me of years ago-you could actually buy old, surplus Nike Missiles 9with the guts ripped out). I recall reading about some nut who decorated his front yard with a pair of them!