"From the Earth to the Moon"

[Trinitrotoluene]

Just watched Mare Tranquilitatis last night. I'm loving this series so far. Spider has been my favourite upto now! I don't like how they portrayed Aldrin in the last one, he came across as a moody son of a bitch who did nothing but whine about being second.

[laurel]

The recent discussion on the "An intro" thread about the appearance of the LM reminded me of the episode Spider; Jim McDivitt says the LM looks like a toaster oven with legs but he doesn't want to tell Tom Kelly this. But then after he and Rusty fly the LM, he changes his mind and says it's a beautiful machine after all.

[Ranb]

I have the series on DVD. My favorite episodes are 5, 7, and10. Episode #7 showing the Apollo 12 landing was especially well received due to the downright boring (in my opinion) episode #4, the Apollo 11 mission. The producers put so much non-Apollo material into that episode that I end up holding down the fast forward button a lot.

Other than episode #4, I really enjoyed the entire series. I wish they had put in more of the Apollo 10 mission. Showing the landing abort test would have been interesting.

I also thought that HBO could have included more of the darker sides of the program such as Schirra's problems during Apollo 7, and the postage stamp scandal.

Ranb

[tedward]

Just been informed that its in the post from Amazon. Looking forward to this.
Any other gems that are available commercially I could look out for?

[PhantomWolf]

The Right Stuff for the Mercury Program

For documentaries, Nothing so hidden

[LunarOrbit]

In the Shadow of the Moon comes out on February 12 (in North America anyway).

[laurel]

admin said:

In the Shadow of the Moon comes out on February 12 (in North America anyway).

I already pre-ordered that. I heard the dvd has a lot of extra interview footage that wasn't included in the film.

I agree with Ranb, I really liked episode 7 (That's All There Is) too. Dave Foley was great in it. I was watching it with my sister last month; she doesn't have a particular interest in Apollo, but she really liked the part about Alan Bean leaving his silver astronaut pin on the moon.

[Bob B.]

laurel said:

Dave Foley was great in it.

Really? I thought Foley's acting was very weak. It seemed forced and not at all natural. In fact, I don't rate episode #7 nearly as high as most other people because I have trouble overlooking what I thought was a bad performance by Dave Foley.

[laurel]

I'm probably biased because I like Dave Foley's other work. What episodes were your favourites?

[Bob B.]

laurel said:

I'm probably biased because I like Dave Foley's other work.

I have nothing against Dave Foley in general, but I wasn't very impressed with his FTETTM performance.

laurel said:

What episodes were your favourites?

I really liked them all. I can put any episode into the DVD at any time and be thoroughly entertained. A couple episodes I really like that seem to be rarely mentioned as favorites are #1 "Can We Do This?" and #9 "For Miles and Miles." I suppose some of my other favorites are #4 "1968", #5 "Spider", and #10 "Galileo Was Right". I also like #2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 11 and 12. Have I left any out?

[LunarOrbit]

laurel said:

I already pre-ordered that. I heard the dvd has a lot of extra interview footage that wasn't included in the film.

Yep, there are over 60 minutes of additional interviews that weren't included in the theatrical release.

One of the few perks of my job is that I can sometimes get new DVDs before the official release date. I was able to get "In the Shadow of the Moon" last week, and it really is quite good.

Ron Howard (the producer) describes it this way: it's the astronauts telling the same stories they have been honing for the last 30+ years that most people have never heard. He explains that since the astronauts are used to talking in short and to the point sentences (which is ideal for pilots) and not expressing their feelings, it has taken them years to develop the story-telling skills required to share their experiences.

I do wish Neil Armstrong was interviewed (on camera) for this, but it's still a great documentary and definitely worth seeing.

[Al Johnston]

I finally got to see In the Shadow of the Moon on Tuesday. The DVD is pre-ordered ;D

[Obviousman]

Still waiting for an Australian release. Might have to get the DVD to see it.

Bob, your selections pretty much gel with mine.

Amongst the favs were:

Can we do this?
Apollo 1.
We have cleared the tower.
Spider.
Is that all there is?

I suppose my favourite has to be Ep1 - Can we do this?; when I first saw that, boy! I was so excited that an ET could have sat next to me and I would have shushed them if they spoke. The graphics in the Shepard flight were so astounding, so accurate, well I was falling over myself.

Despite the small errors or departures for artistic licence, it still gets my vote as the Best Space Series (Non-fiction).

If Tom or Ron happen across this post: PLEASE do a revisit on the other Mercury and Gemini missions. Perhaps do a series on the Soviet effort - there is very little available on it. ASTP? Perhaps a retrospective on Deke's first and last flight?

[Obviousman]

gavsto2006 said:

Just watched Mare Tranquilitatis last night. I'm loving this series so far. Spider has been my favourite upto now! I don't like how they portrayed Aldrin in the last one, he came across as a moody son of a bitch who did nothing but whine about being second.

I understand that. I think he has been treated poorly by history for standing up for something he thought was worth putting his hat into the ring for.

He is, IMO, DA MAN!

(Of course, his slugging of Sibrel has nothing to do with my choice!)

[Bob B.]

obviousman said:

I suppose my favourite has to be Ep1 - Can we do this?

That is arguably my favorite episode as well. I like that much of it is about a part of the space program largely overlooked by most people, i.e. the Gemini missions. We have The Right Stuff about the Mercury era and several movies about the Apollo era, but what do we have about the Gemini era? Other than this one episode, pretty much bupkis as far as I know.

obviousman said:

If Tom or Ron happen across this post: PLEASE do a revisit on the other Mercury and Gemini missions. Perhaps do a series on the Soviet effort - there is very little available on it. ASTP? Perhaps a retrospective on Deke's first and last flight?

All good suggestions; I agree.

A couple years ago a saw a program titled Space Race: The Untold Story that told about the early space program from both the American and Soviet sides. I had high hopes they'd do a good job with it, and although I found the two-part series partially entertaining, it was riddled with technical errors that greatly detracted from its overall quality. I'd really like to see something of the quality of FTETTM that covers the Vostok-Mercury-Voskhod-Gemini period.