Apollo 13 Movie

[Urwumpe]

"Failure is not an option"

Yes...and a line that was never said in reality, but sounded so good that Gene Krantz made it the title of his book...a book that is really recommended BTW.

 

[n122vu]

All the scenes in space were filmed on the vomet comet also

Most of them. According to the special features, the one where Lovell is pointing the TV camera at himself and the one where Swigert was talking about his taxes, for example, they just did some creative swaying and leaning in front of the camera to get the effect of floating in space.

Easily my favorite movie of all time. Sitting in my DVD player right now as a matter of fact.

My wife just shakes her head when I come home from work and say, "I gotta get outta this suit" or when she asks me if I'm hungry, I reply "I could eat the ass out of a dead rhinoceros."

 

[CadetStimpy]

It's my favorite movie, also The book "Lost Moon" is very good and gives more

details on the Apollo 13 events.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

Absolute best movie and book I have ever read!
In the movie though, there's one thing that strikes me as a tad off. The NASA administrator (played by Joe Spano) seemed too pessimistic than I'd think. ("This could be the worst disaster NASA's ever faced.") Yea, sure he's got to be a realist they could have lost the astronauts, but the way he was portrayed was pessimistic. Now could that have been how he was in real life? Sure, but I have yet to see anything that points to that. But not saying anything about the actor, it was still well played and he did a great job!

 

[Izack]

and if you watch the credits to the end, there's mention of a KC-135 crew, (is that not a tanker?) which i guess is the proverbial "comet"

Yep. I've seen a KC-135 and an Airbus A300 used as Vomit Comets.

 

[ddom2006]

In the movie though, there's one thing that strikes me as a tad off. The NASA administrator (played by Joe Spano) seemed too pessimistic than I'd think. ("This could be the worst disaster NASA's ever faced.")

I believe it's widely reported that he was that pessimistic. Gene Kranz was often considered something of an optimist. I thought Apollo 13 played on that pretty well.

 

[chad_s]

Yep. I've seen a KC-135 and an Airbus A300 used as Vomit Comets.

The KC-135s were retired around 2004, and NASA went with a C-9B aircraft. However, recently NASA has been buying flights aboard Zero Gravity Corporation's Boeing 727. I've been in both the C-9 and the 727, and the NASA pilots in the C-9 were a lot smoother in the parabolas than Zero Gravity Corp.

Also, the KC-135 that Apollo 13 was filmed on is displayed at the entrance to Ellington Airport.

 

[Kurt M. Weber]

You know, I'm not sure why people are bothered about the whole "sound in space" thing, since, as far as I recall (it's been a couple of years since I last watched it) the only time there was ambient sound shown in outer space was during a dream sequence, which isn't even "real" within the context of the film's fictional universe!

And beyond that, who cares if they get some details wrong? They're not making a documentary--they're making a dramatic film. It might have its roots in real events, but in the end it is its own story and should be judged on that basis alone.

 

[Wonderer]

The tower arm sequence during launch is wrong that's about everything that bugged me watching the movie

 

[george7378]

Nothing made the movie any less enjoyable for me, but I have wondered about a few things:

- When they did the LM burn, was it really that 'stick and rudder'? In the film, the spacecraft was swaying about with thrusters firing everywhere and they were counting down manually on a stopwatch. Did they need to do any more burns to get their perfect re-entry?
- Did the long pause between the time of expected splashdown and the sighting of the spacecraft happen in the way it did in the film? Was it really that late? I didn't get that impression from watching the BBC coverage.

Kudos to the film makers and, most of all, the real crew.