Filmic Friday 212: Apollo 11

I love going to the movies. The smells and ambiance of a proper theater are intoxicating. The fact that the popcorn is crisp and the cola cold helps to...

I was surprised this week with a trip to the local theater for Apollo 11, a film about (and made up of actual footage from) the moon landing.

Which was not faked, and if you believe it was, I cannot respect you. I can understand why it's hard to accept that a bunch of stupid baby naked monkeys who haven't even figured out how not to kill one another consistently could slap together a bunch of stuff they dug up and set on fire until they had a can they could throw at the nearest celestial body.

That was more or less my mindset the whole time I was watching the film - how was this even possible? We're just such tiny things! We shouldn't be able to leave the planet that's so cool! We went to the moon holy cow!

I'll say it one more time.
We 100% actually went to the moon.
And it was awesome!

So I am a huge fan of science, documentaries, space travel, and all things lunar, so of course I'm gonna love a movie that is literally the entire Apollo 11 mission, from launch-prep to return, in the words and images taken both in space and on Earth. And that's literally what this is. It's almost entirely the original images and voices. The only new thing is the score, and it's mindblowing. It will drag you to space, man!

You wind up feeling like you're one of these fellows!

 But what about the sound effects?

What sound effects.

Ever wondered what liftoff actually sounded like? What it sounded like when the capsules uncoupled or coupled? How the landing sounded?

Well now you can know.

Expertly edited and brilliantly scored, Apollo 11 is a true triumph. It is brilliant and bold and it really does bring you into the history. There's no narrative being stuck onto the events. There's no narration save that of the men on the radio. There are no rapid zoom-ins or shaky-cam moments staring at someone who is wearing the wrong tie as they pretend to be Neil Armstrong. No.

You get the real men & women, both in orbit and hard at work or gazing up at the vapor trail from the rockets. You get the terror of the void as pieces of our planet, hammered and melted together by human hands, break away from one another as they're meant to, and, having served their purpose, are lost forever.

You get to go to the moon.

If you get the chance to watch this brilliant documentary, do it.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC