History Channel ... Epic Fail
They hacked up the CBS broadcast pretty badly, putting very little of the landing coverage in the program, although the "first step" part was fantastic.
Their program "Moonshot" stinks. I'll never watch that turkey again.
In contrast, TCM's showing of "For All Mankind" (1989) is a keeper.
Sadly, they re-edit the audio/video sync of the first step so it matches the point when Neil Armstrong drops down from the ladder to the lander footpad for the SECOND time rather than when he steps off of the pad some 30 seconds later, but most of it puts a premium on real film and video with voice-over commentary - mostly from those involved in the mission.
Few "recreations". The actual astronauts getting dressed, not some actors like in "Moonshot", and certainly no fake dinner at home with the astronaut's parents.
The best part of "For All Mankind" might be the very beginning, where they play ALL of Kennedy's speech about going to the moon. I had no idea he went into such detail about the challenges that project would face.
However, the very best part is the high resolution film looking out during launches from the moon, where you can see the entire landing site (with instruments and tracks on the surface) as they pull away. Ditto for images of the Apollo 11 landing, which were much higher resolution than I have seen before.
2 comments:
Interesting to note how old Walter Cronkite is at the time of the landing.
Walter was born in Nov 1916, which would have made him a bit over 52½ years old, or 4+ years younger than you are now.
Too bad they left in the CBS' cut away to the full scale mockup of the LEM sitting in a moonish landscape. What a way to keep the we-never-made-it-to-the-moon people going.
I'm glad that was there. What bothered me was the lack of any "titles" defining the start and end of the time blocks they showed. In some places they simply cut away minutes of time.
The nutcases will keep going even now that we have photos showing the landers on the moon. Or do they say that we sent it up there but no men went along. That borders on insanity.
The simulators shown in "For All Mankind" or "Moonshot" would be enough for them, but what they miss are all of the errors in GOOD movies that tried to fake the trip, like leaving the atmosphere off of the limb of the earth.
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