Forget last year's overrated (and overacted) "First Man." THIS is the Apollo 11 movie you want to see. Working with a treasure trove of seldom seen and previously-unreleased NASA footage, Todd Douglas Miller has made the definitive film record of man's first steps on another heavenly body.
Quite simply, this is the finest documentary about the Apollo 11 moon landing that has ever been made. In fact, aside from the quite natural fact that it does not mention any of the other Apollo flights, Miller's film is probably the best documentary ever made about the early U.S. space program.
Trust me, I've seen them all, and own most of them in my own collection. And yet I was surprised by just how much of this footage, painstakingly restored and edited, was unfamiliar, and even those sections I have seen a few times looked great. For example, for Armstrong's first historic steps onto the moon, rather than using the grainy black-and-white TV picture we've seen so many times, Miller used the color footage shot from the lunar module's window (complete with an occasional reflection of Aldrin.)
There is no narration, other than announcements from NASA's public affairs officer and contemporaneous TV news reports (much of it from Walter Cronkite's historic broadcasts); most of what you hear is the actual communication between the astronauts and Mission Control, though there is some limited voice-over of prelaunch interviews with the Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, as we see them being suited up for launch. Captions are limited and inobtrusive, but informative (although those not studied in the mission's history will have to look elsewhere for explanations of the famous 1202 and 1201 computer alarms that nearly scrubbed the landing.) There are also some rudimentary (and for casual viewers, useful) animations explaining some of the mission procedures; although I suspect these were created for the film, they have a distinct late-60s "feel" to them, and fit in well with the rest of the picture.
There was not a lot of music, but what score there was did not call attention to itself (a notable exception is a cleaned-up version of John Stewart's "Mother Country," which is seen playing on a tape recorder the astronauts took with them.) It was a pleasure to see film taken by the astronauts themselves during their long trip, as well as the rarely-seen TV broadcasts that the astronauts made both on their way to the moon, and during their triumphant flight home. Even the film during the closing credits was interesting, showing the three astronauts traveling around the country, first in their Airstream trailer in which they were quarantined, then in raucous ticker-tape parades.
This is the documentary that Apollo 11 has needed and deserved, and I salute Mr. Miller for making it. And yet here's a tantalizing foretaste of what might be to come: Miller made this movie after being granted access to a cache of 165 reels of NASA Apollo-era 65mm Todd-AO filmstock... but only 61 reel concerned Apollo 11. Might there be accompanying documentaries of Apollo 8, 10, 12, and 13 in the future? One can hope, and feel assured he will treat this history with the respect and care it is due.
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Incidentally, in December 2018 "Vanity Fair" published a very good article explaining the source of Miller's "new" 1969 film of the mission: "The Found Footage That Provides a Whole New Look at the Apollo 11 Moon Landing." It makes for interesting reading.
Quite simply, this is the finest documentary about the Apollo 11 moon landing that has ever been made. In fact, aside from the quite natural fact that it does not mention any of the other Apollo flights, Miller's film is probably the best documentary ever made about the early U.S. space program.
Trust me, I've seen them all, and own most of them in my own collection. And yet I was surprised by just how much of this footage, painstakingly restored and edited, was unfamiliar, and even those sections I have seen a few times looked great. For example, for Armstrong's first historic steps onto the moon, rather than using the grainy black-and-white TV picture we've seen so many times, Miller used the color footage shot from the lunar module's window (complete with an occasional reflection of Aldrin.)
There is no narration, other than announcements from NASA's public affairs officer and contemporaneous TV news reports (much of it from Walter Cronkite's historic broadcasts); most of what you hear is the actual communication between the astronauts and Mission Control, though there is some limited voice-over of prelaunch interviews with the Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, as we see them being suited up for launch. Captions are limited and inobtrusive, but informative (although those not studied in the mission's history will have to look elsewhere for explanations of the famous 1202 and 1201 computer alarms that nearly scrubbed the landing.) There are also some rudimentary (and for casual viewers, useful) animations explaining some of the mission procedures; although I suspect these were created for the film, they have a distinct late-60s "feel" to them, and fit in well with the rest of the picture.
There was not a lot of music, but what score there was did not call attention to itself (a notable exception is a cleaned-up version of John Stewart's "Mother Country," which is seen playing on a tape recorder the astronauts took with them.) It was a pleasure to see film taken by the astronauts themselves during their long trip, as well as the rarely-seen TV broadcasts that the astronauts made both on their way to the moon, and during their triumphant flight home. Even the film during the closing credits was interesting, showing the three astronauts traveling around the country, first in their Airstream trailer in which they were quarantined, then in raucous ticker-tape parades.
This is the documentary that Apollo 11 has needed and deserved, and I salute Mr. Miller for making it. And yet here's a tantalizing foretaste of what might be to come: Miller made this movie after being granted access to a cache of 165 reels of NASA Apollo-era 65mm Todd-AO filmstock... but only 61 reel concerned Apollo 11. Might there be accompanying documentaries of Apollo 8, 10, 12, and 13 in the future? One can hope, and feel assured he will treat this history with the respect and care it is due.
------------------------------
Incidentally, in December 2018 "Vanity Fair" published a very good article explaining the source of Miller's "new" 1969 film of the mission: "The Found Footage That Provides a Whole New Look at the Apollo 11 Moon Landing." It makes for interesting reading.