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It wasn't 3 weeks. It only takes about 3 days to get to the moon. So this whole incident probably took about 1 week from takeoff to landing back on earth. I think you mistook the astronauts total time in space during his whole career for the time of that one mission.
The Naval officer that Tom Hanks shakes hands with at the end is the real Jim Lovell. The movie is based on his book about the disaster called Lost Moon. After this film Tom Hanks did a series for HBO called From The Earth To The Moon
And Marilyn Lovell is in the stands in front of Kathleen Quinlan during the launch. Jim and Marilyn is pretty much the only Apollo couple whose marriage survived the stress.
I knew the story before I saw the film. I've seen it dozens of times now. I still burst into tears _every single time_ I hear "Hello Houston, this is Odyssey".
The one line that hit me hardest was when Mrs Lovell told her son that something had gone wrong and he asks, "Was it the door?" That actor's delivery, the directing, the callback to his earlier discussion with his dad about the Apollo 1 that tells you that what he's REALLY asking is "Is he dead?"🥺😨😭 That moment was SO well done!
The only part that’s inaccurate is them losing their cool. They remained calm and collected throughout. Other than that, this movie is extremely accurate and the only way you can get closer to what really happened is to have actually been there.
Done for dramatic effect and also the Houston we have a problem is also incorrect. It was had a problem but was changed as it sounded like in the past rather than in the present.
if you ever hear the actual tapes from the day you know why. One of the actors in a talk show described it as reading from a phone book. He wasn’t wrong. Edit: I may be wrong. I think it was Jim Lovell in a documentary that made the “reading from a phone book” comment about how un excited their radio calls were
Really that's just "Hollywood Drama" thrown into it. And really... that's not a terribly bad alteration, as it does not alter the actual events, which is the most important thing. I think that movie watchers may have found it MORE unbelievable if the astronauts DIDN'T have some emotional breakdowns along the way. lol
Indeed. That's always bugged me a little about the movie. Dramatic license, etc. I get it. But when you listen to both the air-to-ground recordings and (for lack of a better term) the cockpit voice recordings, it's clear they were calm and professional the entire time. Nobody yelled at each other. None of this is to say that they weren't scared. But it's a bit of a disservice to the guys to depict them as yelling at each other in petty conflict.
The three weeks in space was for Lovell only. When you add up the time in space for his two Gemini missions and Apollo 8, plus this one, Apollo 13. The other two, Haise and Swaggert, it was their first and only time in space. This mission was just under 6 days.
If this was up your alley, the HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon” is another one they did that’s really well done. The episode about Grumman building the LEM was one of the best. Ed Harris’ portrayal of Gene Kranz (the Flight Director) in this movie was truly excellent. He’s one of those thousands of heroes on the backend that made the program work.
I was reading this and immediately my mind went to the LEM episode before I even read 'LEM' lol... definitely a great episode, even just as a stand alone watch.
The funny thing is that, it's actually been more time since this movie was made than it was from when the Apollo 13 incident happened. It was about 25 years after it happened when the movie was released. And it's been about 27 years since the movie was released. It's crazy that we haven't gone back to the moon in that amount of time. Hopefully, in the next couple years we will be there permanently.
Sad to say, it was more of a ratings thing. People lost interest. They commented as the last one left that they were leaving the moon and watching themselves via the rover's camera.... that no one was watching. It had become familiar, and people felt other things needed the budget. Let's hope Artemis rekindles interests and keeps them burning for a long time.
The woman who played Jim's mother "My Jimmy could fly a washing machine" (to paraphrase one of her lines) was Jean Speegle Howard- the real mother of director Ron Howard. Since embarking on his directorial career, Ron likes to put his family- almost all of whom are also actors- in his films as much as possible. Practically every Ron Howard film has a family cameo in it. Talented family!!
My cousin worked at Grumman and built the lunar module. He was instrumental in bringing the astronauts home. He was not happy with the nonsense they portrayed about questioning the Grumman guy regarding if the rocket would fire. My cousin then worked on building the shuttle wings. He would send me mission patches,signed astronaut photos plus photos he took of the lunar modules and shuttle wings being built.
Yes, I agree. Grumman was an OUTSTANDING company and produced a FANTASTIC LM ! Hollyweird always plays fast and loose with the truth. I also hated the way they portrayed Gene Kranz's boss, Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. Ron Howard shows him as a doubting Thomas when he remarks about "this would be the worst tragedy in NASA's history" ( I paraphrase). The real Chris Kraft was far more confident in his team's abilities and judgement and NEVER would've made such a remark. The whole Grumman guy scene is another one that I hate. I hate fast-n-loose with the truth anything. Same thing with the mid-course burn. There were SIX (6) course-correction burns, not one, and none of them were anywhere the dynamic, near out-of-control burns shown in the movie. More Hollyweird spin for "excitement". ARGH !!!
Anyone involved in ANY job/skill/discipline which is adapted for film/TV will always find some disappointment with the representation. As an air traffic controller in the navy I've had my fair share of eyeroll moments, even with simple things like seeing the sweep on a radar screen (that's a no no - it would 'burn' marks on the screen and render the scope useless quite quickly). But Hollywood thinks people need to see the sweep because they're stupid. Imagine being a cop and watching shows/movies . . . .
@@terrylandess6072 Yeah, that must be it. Film-makers have never used a radar screen, and you, I suspect, have never made a movie, and probably know as much about doing so as they do about your job.
They had to add a lot of drama to the film. The truth is that astronauts spend so much time practicing that there simply isn't a lot of panic or arguing. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield did a TED talk in which he discussed the time he went blind on a space walk.
Mary, there is a *great* movie about the early history of the US space program called "The Right Stuff", and *nobody* has reacted to it. It had a brilliant cast, notably an early role for Ed Harris, playing astronaut John Glenn. I think the style of that film was a major influence on this one.
got to meet john glenn once. was studying in dc at the time and he took the time to give some random teen excellent directions on using the subway. was also very gracious about me nerding out on him. real class he was.
@@chrissandoval7675 Everything I've ever read & heard is that he was one of the few completely genuine and wholesome people in DC or anyplace. The Right Stuff series on Disney+ went a little deeper into his personality, but it only lasted one season. (It also showed what a bunch of reprobates the other Mercury 7 astronauts were, except Slayton, who never flew.)
@@DonaldPK51 Thank you, I totally forgot about that! The TV show did a nice job of covering why he was grounded, it wasn't mentioned in the movie. (It was probably in the book, but I don't remember.)
I was 8 years old when this took place. I was, and still am, an Apollo program fanboy. I remember being an angry kid when the broadcast I had been promised failed to happen. Then, after the accident, nothing could tear me away from the TV as I waited for each little bit of news. When the televisions stations signed off for the day, playing the national anthem, I knew it would be "forever" until they came back on the air in the morning. I was there watching the test pattern, waiting for programming to actually begin. When my parents forced me to go to school, I thought they were the worst people on earth. All I wanted was to follow the story. When they landed safely, I thought I was the happiest person on earth until I saw that the crew had not been quarantined the way Apollos 11 and 12 had been. (they had been kept in what looked like an Airstream trailer on the deck of the carrier.) Then I realized that they had not been quarantined because they had not actually landed and an 8 year old boy realized that these 3 men might never get the opportunity to do what they had been born to do. I was devastated. These guys and the ones who preceded them and those that followed were my heroes as a kid. They still are.
I had the privilege of meeting Jim Lovell a couple of times at his restaurant he used to run in the north Chicago suburbs. He was always a pleasure to talk to and such an interesting and charismatic guy!
I also got to have a nice lunch at the Lovells as well, about 25-30 years ago. I didn’t get a chance to meet them in person but I toured the lower level to see all the NASA memorabilia they had. Very nice people but sadly they closed down the restaurant permanently some years afterwards.
"It wouldn't have happened if Kevin Bacon didn't do that thing!" Laughed pretty hard at that. Unfortunately, what Kevin Bacons character was doing was stir the O2 tanks. They had to be stirred on a regular basis to avoid build up of frozen solids, otherwise other bad things would've happened. No matter what, those tanks would have had to been stirred, and the explosion would've happened no matter what.
NASA had the contractors do a considerable redesign of the service module for missions after that where the piping was separated and a 3rd backup oxygen cylinder and a 400AH battery were added so in the future astronauts would not be reluctant to hit the switch to stir the tanks incase it blew up again.
@@MaryCherryOfficial there's another film about American space program which is very well done it's called The Right Stuff!! The actor Ed Harris who plays Gene Krantz in this film plays astronaut John Glenn in The Right Stuff!! It deals with the beginning of the space program the establishment of NASA and picking the seven original astronauts from hundreds of candidates including fighter pilots and test pilots from the 1940s and 50s!!
When Ron Howard made this movie, he commented that he was shocked the story wasn’t well-known, even a mere 25 years after it happened. The whole world came together to pray and root for these astronauts… and then just forgot the whole thing. So it’s kind of ironic that the movie itself has kind of fallen off everyone’s radar, too.
This was a remarkable true story. I highly recommend reading up on the Apollo missions, as well as checking out FIRST MAN (directed by Damien Chazelle and starring Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong). Speaking of which, interesting trivia: The man who shakes hands with him (the ship's captain) as the movie ends was the real Jim Lovell. Lovell is still alive (he's currently 94 years old) as is Fred Haise (he is 89). Also, on a side note: It was just announced that one of the Apollo astronauts (Walter Cunningham of Apollo 7) sadly passed away yesterday.
More trivia: Jim Lovell's mother was played by director Ron Howard's real-life mother. The mission-control tech with the glasses, the one who said "That's no joke, they'll jump on him" is Ron Howard's brother, and also appears in the Austin Powers movies.
little known fact: the gas stations in space have no public toilets. astronauts go through vigourous training just to learn to hold their biological functions for up to 6 months. why does no one ever mention "the right stuff?" based on a book by tom wolfe its the best movie about the early american space program
I was privileged to get to meet the real Jim Lovell at a lecture at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum years ago. He really is the nicest man, and Tom Hanks was the perfect actor to portray him. The story of Lovell's career is great reading.
Mary I was in third grade when this happened and my teacher Mr Corcoran brought a black and white tv from his house to watch the splashdown while we ate lunch in our classroom. It's cool to see the original broadcast with Walter Cronkite that we saw back then.
This is a perfect example of how to take a historic event where everyone knows the ending and still makes it compelling. Ron Howard is really great at real-life depictions. Also James Horner, the composer of Titanic and Avatar, made the music for this movie and Braveheart in the same year. What a boss. Ed Harris and Kathleen Quinlan were both nominated for Oscars. People say Tom Hanks should've been nominated, but honestly, Ed and Kathleen really anchored the story from the ground perspective.
I was 11 when Apollo 13 lifted-off. I was a big space fan. Pre home computer, pre cable television, I remember being disappointed when they didn't broadcast on network tv anything between lift off and the explosion. The public was not made aware of a lot of the details but I remember praying for them in school. I love your reaction and appreciate the stress of you not knowing the outcome.
I watched this movie with my dad. I felt the same way as you did while watching this (heart pounding, etc) and my dad pretty much said that's how the whole world was feeling in 1970.
A married couple who were friends of mine and a few years younger than myself, were in their teens when the Apollo program was taking place (I was in my early 20's when it ended). I watched this movie with them in the late 1990's, and when it was over, they both seemed stunned that it had been based on actual events. When I asked how they could have missed it given that it was such a huge part of my own growing up in that era, they answered: "Well, it was the early 70's... we were probably stoned out of our minds!" 🤣 At least you have the argument that it was never a big deal in Australia aside from Neil Armstrong and the first trip to the moon.
To be clear, this particular mission did not last 3 weeks. What they were referring to was Lovell's combined time (all missions) that he had been in space. Also, I heard it said that they grossly overdramatized Haise's sickness. He did get sick, but not nearly as bad as what was portrayed in the movie.
Ron Howard is one of the best directors out there when it comes to movies based on real life stories. Cinderella Man, Rush, A Beautiful Mind and Thirteen Lives are all brilliant movies.
- is no one going to mention that Ron Howard is best known for playing "Ritchie Cunningham" in the old T.V. sitcom "Happy Days" - co stared with Henry Winkler :)
Jack Black's parents both worked for NASA and she brought her work with her to the hospital when she was giving birth. Those calculations she did that day was instrumental in saving the crew of Apollo 13 and bring them home.
There were a lot of cameos in this movie. The best was the real Jim Lovel was the navy officer who shook Tom Hanks hand once he landed on the aircraft carrier. If you liked this movie, there is an HBO mini-series called From the Earth to the Moon, produced by Tom Hanks, that covers the whole space program. Well worth watching.
I was in middle school when this happened. It was like the whole world was holding their breath while this was going on and it was hard to concentrate on anything else. I applaud the amazing group of people that got them home.
5:25 the main contributing factors to the fire tragedy he is referring to: 1) they were using a very high concentration of oxygen 2) the doors were designed to open inward so the vacuum of space would serve to suction them closed The high oxygen level level the fire grow and spread extremely fast. With the fire burning and heating the air, the increased pressure inside prevented them from opening the doors, sealing the entire flight team inside a pressure cooker.
The cause of the event was a handling error during assembly and testing of the oxygen tank. It was NOT Jack Sweichart's fault. And the guy who shakes Tom Hanks' hand onboard the aircraft carrier is the real-life Jim Lovell.
Mary, fun fact. Jack Black’s mother helped design a system that contributed to the safe return of the Apollo 13 astronauts. The Abort Guidance System, she left work to go to the hospital but brought along a printout of a problem she was working on. She called in the solution - and Jack Black’s birth announcement - from the hospital later that day. She literally helped save those astronauts while in labor and then Jack Black was born.
I watched this happen in real time when I was 3 years old. My dad drove us from Charleston, South Carolina down to Florida to watch the launch in person. The ride took around 5 hours so we left early in the morning with a picnic basket. I remember how excited I was to see the rockets. They looked like skyscrapers they were so huge. When it was nearing time for the launch we all sat down on the blanket my mom had laid out for us and nibbled on our food until we heard the squawk of the PA. Everyone stood up and counted down with the man on the PA system. The rocket was so loud I could feel it rumbling in my chest. I remember thinking that it was taking off much slower than I expected so I thought something went horribly wrong. My dad and I always shot bottle rockets on New Year's Eve and 4th of July so I expected the Apollo rocket to take off super fast like they did. Also, like the boy in the movie I was scared of a possible fire because I had been told the story of my birth over and over again. I was born on January 27th, 1967 at 6:32 pm, the exact moment of the Apollo 1 fire. (Those astronauts were taking their last breaths as I was taking first and that thought has always haunted me.) I was standing next to my dad squeezing his leg and didn't let go until the rocket finally took off. During the ride back home I laid in the back window looking up at the sky imagining what the astronauts were doing and pretending I was with them. (There were no seatbelt laws back then so it was very common to see kids riding in the back windows of cars.) I must have fallen asleep because I don't remember getting home or going to bed. The next thing I remember is hearing my mom saying "there's been an accident with the rocket." She was waking me up in the middle of the night so I knew it had to be bad. My dad was pacing back and forth while talking on the phone with his father and I could tell he was distraught. He and my grandfather were connected to one of the astronauts somehow which is why we had driven down to watch the launch. We went over to my grandparent's house and everyone was glued to the TV, watching all of the news updates together, just like they showed in the movie. I can tell you first hand that the re-entry was even more intense than in the movie scene. When they didn't regain radio contact before the timer ran out everyone thought they died during re-entry and even the people on the news were crying. I don't remember hearing them regain contact. I just remember seeing the capsule and the parachute come out of the clouds and hearing everyone screaming while hugging one another. It is my most vivid childhood memory and one I will always cherish. (Coincidentally, my very first memory is Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. I was too young to understand what was going on so the only reason I remember it is because my mom told me over and over how important it was and to never forget that moment... so I didn't.
Absolute classic, we all knew the story and we still all cheered at the cinema. It really was a collective experience. The weightless scenes were all done for real on NASA's "vomit comet", now that's film making. Funny I watched Ron Howard's "Thirteen" last night, recommended.
@@MaryCherryOfficial if you ever get to see any documentaries about the Apollo 13 mission, you’ll likely see the real Gene Kranz get teary eyed talking about the final heroic moment when they made it through reentry, he was as emotional as the movie showed, Ed Harris acted well.
Yes, we couldn't hang 100lb TVs on the wall. Haha. And we only had channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13. And we had to get up and turn the channel manually when our parents told us to. Those were better days though.
I was still in elementary school when this happened. Both at home and at school we were completely consumed by this mission, everyone hoping against hope that they would make it back safely. You're right, it is a stressful watch, even KNOWING how it ends. Imagine how stressful it was in real time as we were all glued to our radios and TV screens for DAYS hoping for good news! You WILL watch it again, I promise you. And James Horner's music is absolutely one of my favourite scores of his...it is just perfect for this film.
I recall this too, as a high school student at the time. Wasn't worried because I knew the adults would work everything out and the crew would come back alive. I've learned a lot about adults since then.
"The Right Stuff' is well worth considering. Think of it as a prequel to 'Apollo 13'. 'The Dish' is another great movie, all about how a small Aussie town played an important part in the Apollo 11 landing. The thing was, that Apollo 13 was incredibly lucky. That fault could occurred at literally any time - and at absolutely any other time, the astronauts would have died without question. That the tank blew when it did meant that the crew had access to the connected Lunar Module as a lifeboat. Many valuable lessons were learned and acted on for the later Apollo missions. It has always been absolute tragedy to me that the Apollo Program was cut so short. It should have gone up to 20, at least, whereupon they would have had the know-how for the next phase, building permanent stations and bases. Instead, people in the US government decided that the money was much better spent on supporting corrupt governments in the Middle east and Latin America. Neil Degrasse Tyson did a really good TH-cam about all this - 'We Stopped Dreaming.' Watch iit. Finally, in the 'Believe It Or Not' category. The original proposal in the USA was to demonstrate their technological prowess by, not sending a man to the Moon, but launching and detonating a NUCLEAR WEAPON on the Moon. Thinking being that the fireball would have been visible from Earth. Happily saner heads prevailed (someone later described that entire idea as 'cartoonish supervillainry'). The really awesome takeaway from this is that the Apollo astronauts were true bad@$$e$ - because they were valid substitutes for nuclear weapons. :)
When Kevin Bacon's character received the phone call that he would be on Apollo 13, he was probably already excited. He was just being professional, and didn't want to express himself over the phone.
At 3:34, the actor on the left side of the screen is legendary film director/producer Roger Corman. Corman also has a small role in "The Silence of the Lambs."
"I didn't know the history behind it so NOTHING was spoiled" - Haha - I heard director Ron Howard tell a story that someone confronted him about the movie saying it was typical Hollywood cr*p, so unrealistic...not knowing it was a true story. Sigh...
This is one of those great disaster movies where, similarly to Titanic, the buildup to “the accident” is so good that on repeated viewings, you find yourself thinking “maybe this time will be different.”
Interesting fact: The real Jim Lovell appeared briefly at the end of the movie as the Captain of the USS Iwo Jima, the ship that the helicopter that picked the astronauts up landed on. He was the first Navy officer to shake their hands as they disembarked.
It’s so cool seeing a reaction from someone who didn’t know the story! Rest assured though, Mary, the movie was equally stressful for those of us who DID know the story! Ron Howard and co. did such an amazing job in building the tension and piling on the pressure, that even though I knew they made it back when I first saw it, there was such a release of emotion when they finally got home, and to this day it never fails to generate a tear or two! Of course, it takes some liberties for dramatic purposes - it was never Lovell’s call to ditch Mattingley for Swigert (the whole point of having a back-up crew was for situations like that), Swigert was not regarded as being a complete novice, and was in fact the best man to have up there as he’d been responsible for writing all the fault procedures for the CSM etc etc - but it accurately portrays the atmosphere of NASA, the teamwork, the problem solving, the dedication, and proves that you don’t have to dumb down or overly sensationalise something to make it entertaining. It’s essentially the antithesis of a Michael Bay movie!
'Apollo 13' came out when it was the Summer just before I was 6th grade- I kept watching it. It resonated quickly with me after having a VHS my family bought from probably Wal-Mart back then. It resonated with me because I knew my life, family and school life was getting a load of exponents harder than I think I probably knew to some level that both parents were not doing well enough to help me with- counting the fact that they were coming up on more than a year later, finally divorcing. The two in effect were very dysfunctional, angry later era hippies- Dad was and is better at work at least back in the 90s than actually being a person that in the early 80s picked out who would give birth to me.
This is one of my favorite films. I was a 4th grader in a US Catholic school whne Apollo 13 happened. We had favorite astronauts like favorite athletes back then. My favorite was one of the astronauts who died on Apollo 1. During Apollo 13 we had daily masses to pray for the astronauts. When I watched Apollo 13 in the theater (at 33 years old) I cried, the emotions just sprang out shockingly. I still cry when the little boy asks "Is it the door?"
I knew the story, I've seen the movie, I've seen others react to it... and I still get goosebumps at the 4+ minute mark when the static kicks on. (And yes, I knew the delay was "extra long" so it shouldn't matter...) They say that most of it, except the "blame game" as you put it was really accurate. The three in space never got... in each others face like that scene implied.
This movie came out when I was in secondary school (high school). I knew nothing of the events before this as I was born 9 years after them. I saw the trailer and a poster at school that gave me some idea of the events. I went to see it at the cinema and I tell you, nearly 30 years later. It feels EXACTLY the way it did on the first watch, and I cry every time upon the build-up to re-entry. No other film has ever touched me the same way.
I mean this movie inspired me to get my degree in astrophysics . It’s a 10/10 not much more to say. I was never wanting to be an astronaut my field is in exoplanets but still obviously I love all things space. Hell just a few weeks ago I streamed the launch of the Orion craft and the touch down of it, fun stuff
Time to add “The Right Stuff” to your watch list. Some of your viewers (like yours truly) watched these stories play out on live tv at the time. Being a kid at the time, the space program was absolute magic. Later in life as an academic, one of my fellow professors (but in the Engineering Department) was part of the mission control team for this mission. Warren’s stories were fascinating to this history professor.
Military families in general dealt with a lot of stress. Every 3 years they would get uprooted and moved across the country or overseas. As a child I was an Army brat. I move from Texas to New Jersey to Munich Germany to Nuremberg Germany to Massachusetts and finally my dad retired and we lived in New Hampshire for a few years. During that time my dad went TDY hundreds of times. When Kennedy was shot he was on alert which I believe was based on a defcon 2 military security setting. I didn't see my dad for about 3 or 4 days. Tension on the base was very palatable even at my young age. All the civilian workers that lived off base couldn't get on base. The base was sealed up tighter than a frogs butt!
My dad got the orders for Vietnam the day I came home from the hospital. By the time I was 18, I'd made 11 moves including an evacuation from Saigon when I was 3. This movie is the most accurate depiction of military families under stress I've ever seen. We knew that our parent's military career could be evaluated based on our fitness and reactions.
I enjoyed watching this movie while listening to Jim and Marilyn doing the commentary over the top. Jim was very happy with how Ron Howard handled the story, and he said that the only thing that Ron took licence with was the scene where they're all yelling at each other. Jim said that never happened, but he understood why Ron stuck that in there.
It's always fun to watch the reactions of younger folks who never experienced or learned about this event. It was as tense in real life. We were all glued to our TVs, or to our transistor radios from the moment they broadcast the first "Special Report" on thru the arrival on the carrier. In the film, the Navy Captain who greeted Tom Hanks was the real-life Jim Lovell.
If done today, perhaps there would be some 'tweets' from the astronauts which would help the young people become invested since that seems to be the main form of 'learning' beyond basic education.
Mary, love your videos! To continue your 'space education', review HBO's FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON .. .. Hanks/Spielberg first venture with HBO .. .. You realize how brave everyone was in the space program and how NASA eventually bankrupted Russia and ended the Cold War .. .. Keep up the great work!!
I remember when i was a teenager, i went to the Wright Patterson Airforce Base. The Museum there was fantastic, amd they had a special guest speaker that day, Buzz Aldrin. After his time on stage, he went to the crowd and started talking to people who were there. I got to shake his hand and ask him fun questions.
That's a great museum. Incredible collection from a Wright Brothers flyer to spaceships. I asked one of the guides where the alien autopsy bodies were. He said they didn't exist and I said, "of course you have to say that, but really. " Then I broke out in laughter and he said, "ok, you got me. "
There were actually _more_ problems with the mission than were in the movie. The writers cut them out, because they were afraid audiences would think that they were over-dramatizing the story. Even stuff like Marilyn losing her ring in the shower actually happened (she was able to fish her ring out of the drain, though).
_The Right Stuff_ (1983) has been suggested by others and I quite concur that you'll enjoy it. It's about the early days of NASA, the Mercury and Gemini programs. Sam Shepard plays Chuck Yaeger, America's greatest test pilot. Scott Glenn plays Alan Shepard, the first American to fly to space, aboard Mercury Seven. Ed Harris plays John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship Seven.
Mary, they weren't in space for 3 weeks. Jim's 24 days is as a total from his other missions to that day. Apollo 13 was in space for a little more than 5 days
MARY, AS SOMEONE WHO WAS ALIVE WHEN THIS HAPPENED I REALLY LOVE WATCHING PEOPLE REACT TO THIS FILM!! RON HOWARD DID A FANTASTIC JOB OF TELLING THIS STORY ALONG WITH THE EPIC SOUNDTRACK IT'S ONE OF THE BEST FILMS EVER MADE IN MY OPINION!! I WAS 13 YEARS OLD WHEN THIS WAS HAPPENING AND I HAD BEEN A REALLY HUGE FAN OF THE SPACE PROGRAM FROM THE TIME THAT I WAS A CHILD IN GRAMMAR SCHOOL, AS WE CALL IT IN THE U.S. I CAN REMEMBER DOING A SCHOOL PROJECT IN THE 6TH GRADE AND I CHOSE TO WRITE ABOUT PROJECT GEMINI WHICH WAS THE SECOND STEP IN OUR SPACE PROGRAM TOWARDS THE MOON!! THE FIRST STEP BEING PROJECT MERCURY WITH THE ORIGINAL SEVEN ASTRONAUTS AND PERFECTING LAUNCHING INTO SPACE AND ORBITING THE EARTH!! THEN CAME PROJECT GEMINI WHICH WERE TWO MEN CAPSULES AND THIS STAGE WAS TO PERFECT RENDEZVOUS AND DOCKING TECHNIQUES THAT WERE NEEDED IN ORDER TO GO TO THE MOON!! STEP 3 WAS PROJECT APOLLO!! I ACTUALLY HAD A SCALE MODEL OF THE SATURN 5 ROCKET WITH STAGES THAT SEPARATED AND IT WAS COMPLETE WITH A LUNAR MODULE WHICH YOU COULD ACTUALLY DOCK THE COMMAND MODULE TO!! IF I STILL HAD THAT MODEL IT WOULD PROBABLY BE WORTH A FORTUNE!! ALL THE NEWSCASTERS AND TELEVISION STUFF THAT THEY SHOWED WERE ALL THE REAL NEWSMEN THAT WERE BROADCASTING AT THE TIME OF THIS INCIDENT!! THIS MISSION MAY HAVE BEEN MORE SPECTACULAR THAN EVEN LANDING ON THE MOON ITSELF!! THIS SHOWED THE TRUE RESOURCEFULNESS AND PROFESSIONALISM AND EXPERTISE OF EVERY MEMBER OF THE CREW AND ON THE GROUND THAT WERE ABLE TO GET THESE MEN HOME SAFELY!! IT WAS A VERY PROUD FEELING TO BE AN AMERICAN IN THOSE DAYS, A LOT MORE UNITY THAN WE SEEM TO HAVE NOW IN OUR COUNTRY UNFORTUNATELY!! 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲
I was 16 when this happened. I can remember my family gathered around the TV watching everything. As for Ron Howard, an excellent movie with (a very young) him as an actor, American Graffiti is a classic. It's also the movie George Lucas made just before Star Wars.
@@shawnmiller4781 I've heard that Ford at the time was a construction carpenter and was taking small movie gigs at the time and when George Lucas asked him to be Han Solo, it was a real hard decision for him since he also had a big apartment complex opportunity that would have had him making Union Scale for at least an entire year.
Lovell was also on the Apollo 11 backup crew and was very close to being the CMC or the commander to work with Buzz but Neil accepted the challenges working with them. Read his book, “lost moon” (of which the movie is based on)… it’s very good! 👍 Probably one of my favorite movies ever
The sequence in the movies with the rocket launching was so realistic that Buzz Aldrin called Ron Howard asking which vault they found the footage used. Ron had to explain that it was created specially for the film using a combination of miniatures and CGI. Upon hearing that, Buzz said, "That was pretty good. Can we (meaning NASA) use it? C
Good he can joke about faking NASA footage. Especially after dealing with all the “faked moon landing” idiots he has had too deal with….including that moron he slugged
Ya, only major inaccuracy is lack of heat shielding on the F-1 engines. During launch they were shielded to protect them from the heat of each other that got trapped in the low pressure zone around them.
You hit the nail right on the head Mary. Aside from this being one of my favorite films for having a great cast and the story alone is incredible that those 3 men came home at all, the score gives me chills. The music alone sets the tone and fits the movie perfectly!
Mary, You should watch "Failure is not an option". In 90 minutes, you will be up to speed on the most memorable moments of the American space program. it's very entertaining as well. You already know more than most any American your age!
I'm old enough to remember Apollo 13 when it happened - I'm also old enough that my parents woke me up to watch the Apollo 11 landing - and I watched every single moment I could and held back tears when they landed. When I saw the movie it made me cry again. I know - old softie physicist :)
I'm generally not somebody that cares about good acting or not but that wife of his played that role perfectly. As you said, the happy but worried she displayed was utter perfection.
Lovell's Mom was played by Ron Howard's Mom. At the end of the movie on the Air Craft Carrier the Older Navy Officer in white who greets Tom Hanks is the actual Jim Lovell.
You will watch it again, and appreciate the story more than the stress. A true miracle of teamwork and grit before tictok and twitter. Like A Few Good Men and several other movies...you have to watch when you stumble upon it. Thanks for a great reaction.
So glad to see you react! This instantly became one of my top 10 movies the day it arrived in theaters and it has remained there ever since! I watch it at least once per year and will never pass up an opportunity if it happens to be on as well. 😊 *The mission director Gene Kranz did not retire until 1994. He was also there for another disaster, being in mission control in in 1986 when the space shuttle Challenger exploded during ascent.
I saw this movie when it came out. I was a little boy when this actually happened, and we were all transfixed at school as we watched every day during class what was going on. I was so moved by this film that I saw it 3 times ! The lift off sequence and seeing it on the big screen was spectacular!! Jim Lovell, thank God, had the most experience in space than any other astronaut in the program, and led all of them during this life and death situation. He was on Apollo 8, which was the first mission to go around the moon, and also was the mission that first showed the Earth from outer space back to us on TV!!!!
Great reaction. I can answer that: (18:18) Forever...no. Because there is no atmosphere, there is no wind on the moon. However, the moon is impacted by space objects regularly. So there's two ways the marks can be erased: moonquakes from the impacts and dust that gets kicked up and then falls back down over time. (29:08) The Apollo 13 crew was in space for three days. The "three weeks" from the newscast was the cumulative time that Jim Lovell was in space. Just in case anyone is curious, his final count was 29d 19h 05m.
I saw this movie in Rio de Janeiro when it came out and already knew the end of the story yet I was as tense as you were at the end simply due to how well this movie was made and edited.
You should really check out an Australian movie called The Dish. It's a comedy drama about the Parks radio antenna dish in Australia that was crucial to the 1969 Apollo landing on the moon. Based on fact it is a really fun, heartwarming story. Stars Sam Neill and others you would probably know better than I.
Sam Neil? Neil was in 'Jurassic Park' and he's one of those UK / British actors that I wish could someday get just as EPIC as Patrick Stewart in TNG. Alan Rickman was on his way to that- but 'Snape' got cut down by Cancer in real life. Long Live the British. :.D
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Splash, Cocoon, not Solo...one other great story I forget for the moment.
@ 29:45 that velocity in Km/h is a mere..... 38,673 km/h
Recommendation- another great movie to consider watching: ‘The King’s Speech’
It wasn't 3 weeks. It only takes about 3 days to get to the moon. So this whole incident probably took about 1 week from takeoff to landing back on earth. I think you mistook the astronauts total time in space during his whole career for the time of that one mission.
Mary I don't know if you know this but since you are into the Moon, take a look at Google Moon.
The Naval officer that Tom Hanks shakes hands with at the end is the real Jim Lovell. The movie is based on his book about the disaster called Lost Moon. After this film Tom Hanks did a series for HBO called From The Earth To The Moon
Jim Lovell is still alive, as is Buzz Aldrin.
Producer Ron Howard wanted to dress Lovell in an admirals uniform but Lovell refused, saying he hadn'r earned it.
Jim will always be humble. Hes accomplishment are incredible and no one can claim what he did.
And Marilyn Lovell is in the stands in front of Kathleen Quinlan during the launch.
Jim and Marilyn is pretty much the only Apollo couple whose marriage survived the stress.
The Special Edition DVD has a FANTASTIC commentary track by Jim and Marilyn Lovell.
I knew the story before I saw the film. I've seen it dozens of times now. I still burst into tears _every single time_ I hear "Hello Houston, this is Odyssey".
The one line that hit me hardest was when Mrs Lovell told her son that something had gone wrong and he asks, "Was it the door?" That actor's delivery, the directing, the callback to his earlier discussion with his dad about the Apollo 1 that tells you that what he's REALLY asking is "Is he dead?"🥺😨😭 That moment was SO well done!
good little actor!!
I missed that! Thanks for pointing it out.
Miko Hughes, who you might remember as Gage in "Pet Sematary" and Dylan in "New Nightmare".
The only part that’s inaccurate is them losing their cool. They remained calm and collected throughout. Other than that, this movie is extremely accurate and the only way you can get closer to what really happened is to have actually been there.
Done for dramatic effect and also the Houston we have a problem is also incorrect. It was had a problem but was changed as it sounded like in the past rather than in the present.
if you ever hear the actual tapes from the day you know why.
One of the actors in a talk show described it as reading from a phone book.
He wasn’t wrong.
Edit: I may be wrong. I think it was Jim Lovell in a documentary that made the “reading from a phone book” comment about how un excited their radio calls were
Really that's just "Hollywood Drama" thrown into it. And really... that's not a terribly bad alteration, as it does not alter the actual events, which is the most important thing. I think that movie watchers may have found it MORE unbelievable if the astronauts DIDN'T have some emotional breakdowns along the way. lol
Indeed. That's always bugged me a little about the movie. Dramatic license, etc. I get it. But when you listen to both the air-to-ground recordings and (for lack of a better term) the cockpit voice recordings, it's clear they were calm and professional the entire time. Nobody yelled at each other. None of this is to say that they weren't scared. But it's a bit of a disservice to the guys to depict them as yelling at each other in petty conflict.
BUSINESS CAT!
The three weeks in space was for Lovell only. When you add up the time in space for his two Gemini missions and Apollo 8, plus this one, Apollo 13. The other two, Haise and Swaggert, it was their first and only time in space. This mission was just under 6 days.
*Swigert
Haise did pilot the Space Shuttle Enterprise during the test landing. It didn't go into space but it was still a NASA mission.
Actually 8 days.
Yeah the journey to the moon is about 3 days each way.
Thank you... was bugging me she kept saying they were up there 3 weeks
"if they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it!" best line of the entire movie, i'm so glad you went full screen for that.
I always get teary eyed from that line; such rock solid assurance.
That was Ron Howard's mom, by the way.
The filming of this is incredible. The actors really were weightless.
Was it 200 or 600 loops in the Vomit Comet?
612 times and 4 hours of filming
@@wyrmshadow4374 Makes you wonder if that little scene of Fred Haise vomiting on the spacecraft was ACTUAL vomit. lol
@@nicholasgarratt5646 well you only get 30 seconds of zero G each time.
Very cool
If this was up your alley, the HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon” is another one they did that’s really well done. The episode about Grumman building the LEM was one of the best.
Ed Harris’ portrayal of Gene Kranz (the Flight Director) in this movie was truly excellent. He’s one of those thousands of heroes on the backend that made the program work.
I would also recommend “The Right Stuff” about the Mercury program.
Ed Harris plays John Glenn in that one
I was reading this and immediately my mind went to the LEM episode before I even read 'LEM' lol... definitely a great episode, even just as a stand alone watch.
I loved the episode "Spider". Its story, and those that would eventually make her fly, was very endearing.
@@NZBigfoot I never got used to them renaming it from LEM to LM, to me it will always be the Lunar Excursion Module!
@@leosarmiento4823 I loved the number of balls on the roof of the building they show late in the episode. Great episode.
Hidden Figures is another great movie based on the early days of NASA. Not too many people have reacted to it either.
Yeah it is pretty good too.
I definitely endorse this suggestion
The movie The Right stuff is really excellent. It talks about the xcraft flown by the Air Force before NASA was born.
Great film
That movie isn't accurate
Lovell's little boy asking, "Was it the door?" makes my heart drop every time.
You will LOVE an Australian movie called “The Dish.” It’s about Apollo Eleven and a town called Parks.
Yes. As important as Australia was to the success of the US space program, I'm surprised more wasn't taught in school.
Yes, I watched it a long time ago, when it first came out. Stars Sam O'Neill. Made in 2000.
That's Parkes, actually. Agreement on the movie.
The Dish is an absolute must, especially as an Australian. It’s also great fun, with dry laconic Aus humour.
Came to the comments to say this as well!
The funny thing is that, it's actually been more time since this movie was made than it was from when the Apollo 13 incident happened. It was about 25 years after it happened when the movie was released. And it's been about 27 years since the movie was released. It's crazy that we haven't gone back to the moon in that amount of time. Hopefully, in the next couple years we will be there permanently.
Welp, *I'M* old...
I guess Apollo 13 was pretty traumatic for everyone
Sad to say, it was more of a ratings thing. People lost interest. They commented as the last one left that they were leaving the moon and watching themselves via the rover's camera.... that no one was watching. It had become familiar, and people felt other things needed the budget.
Let's hope Artemis rekindles interests and keeps them burning for a long time.
The woman who played Jim's mother "My Jimmy could fly a washing machine" (to paraphrase one of her lines) was Jean Speegle Howard- the real mother of director Ron Howard.
Since embarking on his directorial career, Ron likes to put his family- almost all of whom are also actors- in his films as much as possible. Practically every Ron Howard film has a family cameo in it. Talented family!!
Ron’s brother Clint was the one talking about the income taxes.
Ron and Clint's dad played the priest sitting behind Marilynn during reentry.
Ron’s daughter Bryce Dallas Howard is in the crowd at launch as a girl in a yellow dress.
My cousin worked at Grumman and built the lunar module. He was instrumental in bringing the astronauts home. He was not happy with the nonsense they portrayed about questioning the Grumman guy regarding if the rocket would fire. My cousin then worked on building the shuttle wings. He would send me mission patches,signed astronaut photos plus photos he took of the lunar modules and shuttle wings being built.
Yes, I agree. Grumman was an OUTSTANDING company and produced a FANTASTIC LM ! Hollyweird always plays fast and loose with the truth. I also hated the way they portrayed Gene Kranz's boss, Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. Ron Howard shows him as a doubting Thomas when he remarks about "this would be the worst tragedy in NASA's history" ( I paraphrase). The real Chris Kraft was far more confident in his team's abilities and judgement and NEVER would've made such a remark. The whole Grumman guy scene is another one that I hate. I hate fast-n-loose with the truth anything. Same thing with the mid-course burn. There were SIX (6) course-correction burns, not one, and none of them were anywhere the dynamic, near out-of-control burns shown in the movie. More Hollyweird spin for "excitement". ARGH !!!
Anyone involved in ANY job/skill/discipline which is adapted for film/TV will always find some disappointment with the representation. As an air traffic controller in the navy I've had my fair share of eyeroll moments, even with simple things like seeing the sweep on a radar screen (that's a no no - it would 'burn' marks on the screen and render the scope useless quite quickly). But Hollywood thinks people need to see the sweep because they're stupid. Imagine being a cop and watching shows/movies . . . .
@@terrylandess6072 Yeah, that must be it. Film-makers have never used a radar screen, and you, I suspect, have never made a movie, and probably know as much about doing so as they do about your job.
They had to add a lot of drama to the film. The truth is that astronauts spend so much time practicing that there simply isn't a lot of panic or arguing. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield did a TED talk in which he discussed the time he went blind on a space walk.
My cousin also worked at NASA and then Grumman. He and his team wrote the computer program for the shuttle telemetry system.
Mary, there is a *great* movie about the early history of the US space program called "The Right Stuff", and *nobody* has reacted to it. It had a brilliant cast, notably an early role for Ed Harris, playing astronaut John Glenn. I think the style of that film was a major influence on this one.
got to meet john glenn once. was studying in dc at the time and he took the time to give some random teen excellent directions on using the subway. was also very gracious about me nerding out on him. real class he was.
@@chrissandoval7675 Everything I've ever read & heard is that he was one of the few completely genuine and wholesome people in DC or anyplace. The Right Stuff series on Disney+ went a little deeper into his personality, but it only lasted one season. (It also showed what a bunch of reprobates the other Mercury 7 astronauts were, except Slayton, who never flew.)
@@Johnny_Socko Slayton eventually flew once, on the final flight of an Apollo spacecraft, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program in 1975.
@@DonaldPK51 Thank you, I totally forgot about that! The TV show did a nice job of covering why he was grounded, it wasn't mentioned in the movie. (It was probably in the book, but I don't remember.)
If Mary watches it, I'm predicting her ick moment will be for all the crazy medical tests they were put through.
I was 8 years old when this took place. I was, and still am, an Apollo program fanboy. I remember being an angry kid when the broadcast I had been promised failed to happen. Then, after the accident, nothing could tear me away from the TV as I waited for each little bit of news. When the televisions stations signed off for the day, playing the national anthem, I knew it would be "forever" until they came back on the air in the morning. I was there watching the test pattern, waiting for programming to actually begin. When my parents forced me to go to school, I thought they were the worst people on earth. All I wanted was to follow the story. When they landed safely, I thought I was the happiest person on earth until I saw that the crew had not been quarantined the way Apollos 11 and 12 had been. (they had been kept in what looked like an Airstream trailer on the deck of the carrier.) Then I realized that they had not been quarantined because they had not actually landed and an 8 year old boy realized that these 3 men might never get the opportunity to do what they had been born to do. I was devastated. These guys and the ones who preceded them and those that followed were my heroes as a kid. They still are.
I had the privilege of meeting Jim Lovell a couple of times at his restaurant he used to run in the north Chicago suburbs.
He was always a pleasure to talk to and such an interesting and charismatic guy!
Aw. Love that
I also got to have a nice lunch at the Lovells as well, about 25-30 years ago. I didn’t get a chance to meet them in person but I toured the lower level to see all the NASA memorabilia they had. Very nice people but sadly they closed down the restaurant permanently some years afterwards.
"It wouldn't have happened if Kevin Bacon didn't do that thing!"
Laughed pretty hard at that. Unfortunately, what Kevin Bacons character was doing was stir the O2 tanks. They had to be stirred on a regular basis to avoid build up of frozen solids, otherwise other bad things would've happened. No matter what, those tanks would have had to been stirred, and the explosion would've happened no matter what.
NASA had the contractors do a considerable redesign of the service module for missions after that where the piping was separated and a 3rd backup oxygen cylinder and a 400AH battery were added so in the future astronauts would not be reluctant to hit the switch to stir the tanks incase it blew up again.
Always so exciting when the viewer is unfamiliar with the history.
Yeah, it was like fiction to me even though I knew it wasn’t 😅
@@MaryCherryOfficial please read my comment out in the regular thread. 😁😁
@@MaryCherryOfficial there's another film about American space program which is very well done it's called The Right Stuff!! The actor Ed Harris who plays Gene Krantz in this film plays astronaut John Glenn in The Right Stuff!! It deals with the beginning of the space program the establishment of NASA and picking the seven original astronauts from hundreds of candidates including fighter pilots and test pilots from the 1940s and 50s!!
@@MaryCherryOfficial you’ll REALLY enjoy The Right Stuff.
(All about those test pilots who had “the right stuff”.)
When Ron Howard made this movie, he commented that he was shocked the story wasn’t well-known, even a mere 25 years after it happened. The whole world came together to pray and root for these astronauts… and then just forgot the whole thing.
So it’s kind of ironic that the movie itself has kind of fallen off everyone’s radar, too.
This was a remarkable true story. I highly recommend reading up on the Apollo missions, as well as checking out FIRST MAN (directed by Damien Chazelle and starring Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong).
Speaking of which, interesting trivia: The man who shakes hands with him (the ship's captain) as the movie ends was the real Jim Lovell. Lovell is still alive (he's currently 94 years old) as is Fred Haise (he is 89).
Also, on a side note: It was just announced that one of the Apollo astronauts (Walter Cunningham of Apollo 7) sadly passed away yesterday.
Don't forget the HBO miniseries "From The Earth to The Moon" which also had involvement of Tom Hanks and Ron Howard. Easily one of my favorites
More trivia: Jim Lovell's mother was played by director Ron Howard's real-life mother. The mission-control tech with the glasses, the one who said "That's no joke, they'll jump on him" is Ron Howard's brother, and also appears in the Austin Powers movies.
@@falcychead8198 Rance Howard, Ron’s dad, plays the priest sitting with the Lovell family at the end.
little known fact: the gas stations in space have no public toilets. astronauts go through vigourous training just to learn to hold their biological functions for up to 6 months.
why does no one ever mention "the right stuff?" based on a book by tom wolfe its the best movie about the early american space program
I was privileged to get to meet the real Jim Lovell at a lecture at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum years ago. He really is the nicest man, and Tom Hanks was the perfect actor to portray him. The story of Lovell's career is great reading.
FYI, Jim Lovell is still alive. He’s 94.
Mary I was in third grade when this happened and my teacher Mr Corcoran brought a black and white tv from his house to watch the splashdown while we ate lunch in our classroom. It's cool to see the original broadcast with Walter Cronkite that we saw back then.
This is a perfect example of how to take a historic event where everyone knows the ending and still makes it compelling. Ron Howard is really great at real-life depictions.
Also James Horner, the composer of Titanic and Avatar, made the music for this movie and Braveheart in the same year. What a boss.
Ed Harris and Kathleen Quinlan were both nominated for Oscars. People say Tom Hanks should've been nominated, but honestly, Ed and Kathleen really anchored the story from the ground perspective.
I thought Quinlan won the Oscar for best supporting actress?
@@Caseytify no, Mira Sorvino won that year.
I was 11 when Apollo 13 lifted-off. I was a big space fan. Pre home computer, pre cable television, I remember being disappointed when they didn't broadcast on network tv anything between lift off and the explosion. The public was not made aware of a lot of the details but I remember praying for them in school. I love your reaction and appreciate the stress of you not knowing the outcome.
I was 11 too!
I watched this movie with my dad. I felt the same way as you did while watching this (heart pounding, etc) and my dad pretty much said that's how the whole world was feeling in 1970.
Crazy fact is that Jack Black's Mom while going into labor provided critical calculations to save the Apollo 13 crew.
A married couple who were friends of mine and a few years younger than myself, were in their teens when the Apollo program was taking place (I was in my early 20's when it ended). I watched this movie with them in the late 1990's, and when it was over, they both seemed stunned that it had been based on actual events. When I asked how they could have missed it given that it was such a huge part of my own growing up in that era, they answered: "Well, it was the early 70's... we were probably stoned out of our minds!" 🤣
At least you have the argument that it was never a big deal in Australia aside from Neil Armstrong and the first trip to the moon.
To be clear, this particular mission did not last 3 weeks. What they were referring to was Lovell's combined time (all missions) that he had been in space. Also, I heard it said that they grossly overdramatized Haise's sickness. He did get sick, but not nearly as bad as what was portrayed in the movie.
Ron Howard is one of the best directors out there when it comes to movies based on real life stories. Cinderella Man, Rush, A Beautiful Mind and Thirteen Lives are all brilliant movies.
It's really good storytelling when you know how the story ends but you're on the edge of your seat anyway.
"Cinderella Man, Rush" Fun fact, the band Rush has a song called Cinderella Man.
Another good Ron Howard film is Ransom; with Mel Gibson, Gary Sinise, and Rene Russo. It came out in 1996, a year after Apollo 13.
@@falcychead8198 I had the same thought about this movie!
- is no one going to mention that Ron Howard is best known for playing "Ritchie Cunningham" in the old T.V. sitcom "Happy Days" - co stared with Henry Winkler :)
Jack Black's parents both worked for NASA and she brought her work with her to the hospital when she was giving birth. Those calculations she did that day was instrumental in saving the crew of Apollo 13 and bring them home.
There were a lot of cameos in this movie. The best was the real Jim Lovel was the navy officer who shook Tom Hanks hand once he landed on the aircraft carrier. If you liked this movie, there is an HBO mini-series called From the Earth to the Moon, produced by Tom Hanks, that covers the whole space program. Well worth watching.
And Ron Howard’S Brother, Mother and Dad were all in it
I was in middle school when this happened. It was like the whole world was holding their breath while this was going on and it was hard to concentrate on anything else. I applaud the amazing group of people that got them home.
The part that gets me every time is, when told of the accident, his young son asks "was it the door?" - absolutely heartbreaking.
5:25 the main contributing factors to the fire tragedy he is referring to:
1) they were using a very high concentration of oxygen
2) the doors were designed to open inward so the vacuum of space would serve to suction them closed
The high oxygen level level the fire grow and spread extremely fast. With the fire burning and heating the air, the increased pressure inside prevented them from opening the doors, sealing the entire flight team inside a pressure cooker.
The cause of the event was a handling error during assembly and testing of the oxygen tank. It was NOT Jack Sweichart's fault.
And the guy who shakes Tom Hanks' hand onboard the aircraft carrier is the real-life Jim Lovell.
The Dish!!! It's around Australia's role in Apollo 11
Mary, fun fact. Jack Black’s mother helped design a system that contributed to the safe return of the Apollo 13 astronauts. The Abort Guidance System, she left work to go to the hospital but brought along a printout of a problem she was working on. She called in the solution - and Jack Black’s birth announcement - from the hospital later that day. She literally helped save those astronauts while in labor and then Jack Black was born.
Oh wow, he must love being a former NASA kid
But Jack Black was born in 1969, not 1970...
I watched this happen in real time when I was 3 years old. My dad drove us from Charleston, South Carolina down to Florida to watch the launch in person. The ride took around 5 hours so we left early in the morning with a picnic basket. I remember how excited I was to see the rockets. They looked like skyscrapers they were so huge. When it was nearing time for the launch we all sat down on the blanket my mom had laid out for us and nibbled on our food until we heard the squawk of the PA. Everyone stood up and counted down with the man on the PA system. The rocket was so loud I could feel it rumbling in my chest. I remember thinking that it was taking off much slower than I expected so I thought something went horribly wrong. My dad and I always shot bottle rockets on New Year's Eve and 4th of July so I expected the Apollo rocket to take off super fast like they did. Also, like the boy in the movie I was scared of a possible fire because I had been told the story of my birth over and over again. I was born on January 27th, 1967 at 6:32 pm, the exact moment of the Apollo 1 fire. (Those astronauts were taking their last breaths as I was taking first and that thought has always haunted me.) I was standing next to my dad squeezing his leg and didn't let go until the rocket finally took off. During the ride back home I laid in the back window looking up at the sky imagining what the astronauts were doing and pretending I was with them. (There were no seatbelt laws back then so it was very common to see kids riding in the back windows of cars.) I must have fallen asleep because I don't remember getting home or going to bed. The next thing I remember is hearing my mom saying "there's been an accident with the rocket." She was waking me up in the middle of the night so I knew it had to be bad. My dad was pacing back and forth while talking on the phone with his father and I could tell he was distraught. He and my grandfather were connected to one of the astronauts somehow which is why we had driven down to watch the launch. We went over to my grandparent's house and everyone was glued to the TV, watching all of the news updates together, just like they showed in the movie. I can tell you first hand that the re-entry was even more intense than in the movie scene. When they didn't regain radio contact before the timer ran out everyone thought they died during re-entry and even the people on the news were crying. I don't remember hearing them regain contact. I just remember seeing the capsule and the parachute come out of the clouds and hearing everyone screaming while hugging one another. It is my most vivid childhood memory and one I will always cherish. (Coincidentally, my very first memory is Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. I was too young to understand what was going on so the only reason I remember it is because my mom told me over and over how important it was and to never forget that moment... so I didn't.
Thanks for sharing your story....I really enjoyed it.
Watched the real events as a 16 year old. Pretty accurate movie. Still gets to me.
Absolute classic, we all knew the story and we still all cheered at the cinema. It really was a collective experience. The weightless scenes were all done for real on NASA's "vomit comet", now that's film making. Funny I watched Ron Howard's "Thirteen" last night, recommended.
Vomit comet!! Haha
@@MaryCherryOfficial if you ever get to see any documentaries about the Apollo 13 mission, you’ll likely see the real Gene Kranz get teary eyed talking about the final heroic moment when they made it through reentry, he was as emotional as the movie showed, Ed Harris acted well.
Props for bringing up the old girl, vomit comet. Amazing flight profile they would fly...
Yes, we couldn't hang 100lb TVs on the wall. Haha. And we only had channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13. And we had to get up and turn the channel manually when our parents told us to. Those were better days though.
I was still in elementary school when this happened. Both at home and at school we were completely consumed by this mission, everyone hoping against hope that they would make it back safely.
You're right, it is a stressful watch, even KNOWING how it ends. Imagine how stressful it was in real time as we were all glued to our radios and TV screens for DAYS hoping for good news!
You WILL watch it again, I promise you. And James Horner's music is absolutely one of my favourite scores of his...it is just perfect for this film.
I recall this too, as a high school student at the time. Wasn't worried because I knew the adults would work everything out and the crew would come back alive. I've learned a lot about adults since then.
"The Right Stuff' is well worth considering. Think of it as a prequel to 'Apollo 13'.
'The Dish' is another great movie, all about how a small Aussie town played an important part in the Apollo 11 landing.
The thing was, that Apollo 13 was incredibly lucky. That fault could occurred at literally any time - and at absolutely any other time, the astronauts would have died without question. That the tank blew when it did meant that the crew had access to the connected Lunar Module as a lifeboat.
Many valuable lessons were learned and acted on for the later Apollo missions. It has always been absolute tragedy to me that the Apollo Program was cut so short. It should have gone up to 20, at least, whereupon they would have had the know-how for the next phase, building permanent stations and bases. Instead, people in the US government decided that the money was much better spent on supporting corrupt governments in the Middle east and Latin America.
Neil Degrasse Tyson did a really good TH-cam about all this - 'We Stopped Dreaming.' Watch iit.
Finally, in the 'Believe It Or Not' category. The original proposal in the USA was to demonstrate their technological prowess by, not sending a man to the Moon, but launching and detonating a NUCLEAR WEAPON on the Moon. Thinking being that the fireball would have been visible from Earth. Happily saner heads prevailed (someone later described that entire idea as 'cartoonish supervillainry'). The really awesome takeaway from this is that the Apollo astronauts were true bad@$$e$ - because they were valid substitutes for nuclear weapons. :)
When Kevin Bacon's character received the phone call that he would be on Apollo 13, he was probably already excited. He was just being professional, and didn't want to express himself over the phone.
Yep, he was being a pro.
At 3:34, the actor on the left side of the screen is legendary film director/producer Roger Corman. Corman also has a small role in "The Silence of the Lambs."
"I didn't know the history behind it so NOTHING was spoiled" - Haha - I heard director Ron Howard tell a story that someone confronted him about the movie saying it was typical Hollywood cr*p, so unrealistic...not knowing it was a true story. Sigh...
The actual live recording of the explosion is publicly available. But they're so calm you'd think they were talking about the weather.
Brilliant! Really glad you included the Grandma reassuring the scared kid!
Fun fact: that’s actually Ron Howard’s mother.
Ron Howard cast his mother to play the role of Lovell’s mother.
This is one of those great disaster movies where, similarly to Titanic, the buildup to “the accident” is so good that on repeated viewings, you find yourself thinking “maybe this time will be different.”
Interesting fact: The real Jim Lovell appeared briefly at the end of the movie as the Captain of the USS Iwo Jima, the ship that the helicopter that picked the astronauts up landed on. He was the first Navy officer to shake their hands as they disembarked.
It’s so cool seeing a reaction from someone who didn’t know the story! Rest assured though, Mary, the movie was equally stressful for those of us who DID know the story! Ron Howard and co. did such an amazing job in building the tension and piling on the pressure, that even though I knew they made it back when I first saw it, there was such a release of emotion when they finally got home, and to this day it never fails to generate a tear or two!
Of course, it takes some liberties for dramatic purposes - it was never Lovell’s call to ditch Mattingley for Swigert (the whole point of having a back-up crew was for situations like that), Swigert was not regarded as being a complete novice, and was in fact the best man to have up there as he’d been responsible for writing all the fault procedures for the CSM etc etc - but it accurately portrays the atmosphere of NASA, the teamwork, the problem solving, the dedication, and proves that you don’t have to dumb down or overly sensationalise something to make it entertaining. It’s essentially the antithesis of a Michael Bay movie!
'Apollo 13' came out when it was the Summer just before I was 6th grade- I kept watching it. It resonated quickly with me after having a VHS my family bought from probably Wal-Mart back then. It resonated with me because I knew my life, family and school life was getting a load of exponents harder than I think I probably knew to some level that both parents were not doing well enough to help me with- counting the fact that they were coming up on more than a year later, finally divorcing. The two in effect were very dysfunctional, angry later era hippies- Dad was and is better at work at least back in the 90s than actually being a person that in the early 80s picked out who would give birth to me.
This is one of my favorite films. I was a 4th grader in a US Catholic school whne Apollo 13 happened. We had favorite astronauts like favorite athletes back then. My favorite was one of the astronauts who died on Apollo 1. During Apollo 13 we had daily masses to pray for the astronauts. When I watched Apollo 13 in the theater (at 33 years old) I cried, the emotions just sprang out shockingly. I still cry when the little boy asks "Is it the door?"
If you liked that you'll love "the Dish", one of the best Aussie movies ever made, also about the Apollo missions. True story and bloody hilarious
I knew the story, I've seen the movie, I've seen others react to it... and I still get goosebumps at the 4+ minute mark when the static kicks on. (And yes, I knew the delay was "extra long" so it shouldn't matter...)
They say that most of it, except the "blame game" as you put it was really accurate. The three in space never got... in each others face like that scene implied.
As a person who watched from Gemini through Apollo and upwards,the hopefulness and the “we can do it “ spirit has carried me through many years.
This movie came out when I was in secondary school (high school). I knew nothing of the events before this as I was born 9 years after them. I saw the trailer and a poster at school that gave me some idea of the events. I went to see it at the cinema and I tell you, nearly 30 years later. It feels EXACTLY the way it did on the first watch, and I cry every time upon the build-up to re-entry. No other film has ever touched me the same way.
I mean this movie inspired me to get my degree in astrophysics . It’s a 10/10 not much more to say. I was never wanting to be an astronaut my field is in exoplanets but still obviously I love all things space. Hell just a few weeks ago I streamed the launch of the Orion craft and the touch down of it, fun stuff
Time to add “The Right Stuff” to your watch list. Some of your viewers (like yours truly) watched these stories play out on live tv at the time. Being a kid at the time, the space program was absolute magic. Later in life as an academic, one of my fellow professors (but in the Engineering Department) was part of the mission control team for this mission. Warren’s stories were fascinating to this history professor.
The spouses' commitment to go through it with their husbands is one of my favorite aspects of this story.
One episode of the "From the Earth To the Moon" miniseries dealt with home lives of the astronauts. That was one of my favorites.
Military families in general dealt with a lot of stress. Every 3 years they would get uprooted and moved across the country or overseas. As a child I was an Army brat. I move from Texas to New Jersey to Munich Germany to Nuremberg Germany to Massachusetts and finally my dad retired and we lived in New Hampshire for a few years. During that time my dad went TDY hundreds of times. When Kennedy was shot he was on alert which I believe was based on a defcon 2 military security setting. I didn't see my dad for about 3 or 4 days. Tension on the base was very palatable even at my young age. All the civilian workers that lived off base couldn't get on base. The base was sealed up tighter than a frogs butt!
My dad got the orders for Vietnam the day I came home from the hospital. By the time I was 18, I'd made 11 moves including an evacuation from Saigon when I was 3.
This movie is the most accurate depiction of military families under stress I've ever seen. We knew that our parent's military career could be evaluated based on our fitness and reactions.
I enjoyed watching this movie while listening to Jim and Marilyn doing the commentary over the top. Jim was very happy with how Ron Howard handled the story, and he said that the only thing that Ron took licence with was the scene where they're all yelling at each other. Jim said that never happened, but he understood why Ron stuck that in there.
It's always fun to watch the reactions of younger folks who never experienced or learned about this event. It was as tense in real life. We were all glued to our TVs, or to our transistor radios from the moment they broadcast the first "Special Report" on thru the arrival on the carrier. In the film, the Navy Captain who greeted Tom Hanks was the real-life Jim Lovell.
If done today, perhaps there would be some 'tweets' from the astronauts which would help the young people become invested since that seems to be the main form of 'learning' beyond basic education.
Loved seeing that 'square peg into a round hole' thing, something I had long known about. Seeing it performed adds a whole level to the memory.
Mary, Jim's 24 days in space were from 4 missions (2x Gemini missions, 2x Apollo missions), Apollo 13 being the last. This mission wasn't 3 weeks.
Mary, love your videos! To continue your 'space education', review HBO's FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON .. .. Hanks/Spielberg first venture with HBO .. .. You realize how brave everyone was in the space program and how NASA eventually bankrupted Russia and ended the Cold War .. ..
Keep up the great work!!
I remember when i was a teenager, i went to the Wright Patterson Airforce Base. The Museum there was fantastic, amd they had a special guest speaker that day, Buzz Aldrin.
After his time on stage, he went to the crowd and started talking to people who were there. I got to shake his hand and ask him fun questions.
That's a great museum. Incredible collection from a Wright Brothers flyer to spaceships. I asked one of the guides where the alien autopsy bodies were. He said they didn't exist and I said, "of course you have to say that, but really. " Then I broke out in laughter and he said, "ok, you got me. "
There were actually _more_ problems with the mission than were in the movie. The writers cut them out, because they were afraid audiences would think that they were over-dramatizing the story. Even stuff like Marilyn losing her ring in the shower actually happened (she was able to fish her ring out of the drain, though).
If you haven't seen it... aside from From the Earth to the Moon, and The Dish... Hidden Figures, The Right Stuff.
I'd also suggest watching "The Spacewalker" aka "The Age of Pioneers 2017", amazing movie.
The Right Stuff (1983) is a film about early space travel history. Plus there is an Australia component later on that film.
_The Right Stuff_ (1983) has been suggested by others and I quite concur that you'll enjoy it. It's about the early days of NASA, the Mercury and Gemini programs. Sam Shepard plays Chuck Yaeger, America's greatest test pilot. Scott Glenn plays Alan Shepard, the first American to fly to space, aboard Mercury Seven. Ed Harris plays John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship Seven.
That's such a good movie. I hope it will show up some day.
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 If I recall correctly there's a bit of an Australia cameo in that film...
Great flick.
Mary, they weren't in space for 3 weeks. Jim's 24 days is as a total from his other missions to that day. Apollo 13 was in space for a little more than 5 days
MARY, AS SOMEONE WHO WAS ALIVE WHEN THIS HAPPENED I REALLY LOVE WATCHING PEOPLE REACT TO THIS FILM!! RON HOWARD DID A FANTASTIC JOB OF TELLING THIS STORY ALONG WITH THE EPIC SOUNDTRACK IT'S ONE OF THE BEST FILMS EVER MADE IN MY OPINION!!
I WAS 13 YEARS OLD WHEN THIS WAS HAPPENING AND I HAD BEEN A REALLY HUGE FAN OF THE SPACE PROGRAM FROM THE TIME THAT I WAS A CHILD IN GRAMMAR SCHOOL, AS WE CALL IT IN THE U.S. I CAN REMEMBER DOING A SCHOOL PROJECT IN THE 6TH GRADE AND I CHOSE TO WRITE ABOUT PROJECT GEMINI WHICH WAS THE SECOND STEP IN OUR SPACE PROGRAM TOWARDS THE MOON!! THE FIRST STEP BEING PROJECT MERCURY WITH THE ORIGINAL SEVEN ASTRONAUTS AND PERFECTING LAUNCHING INTO SPACE AND ORBITING THE EARTH!! THEN CAME PROJECT GEMINI WHICH WERE TWO MEN CAPSULES AND THIS STAGE WAS TO PERFECT RENDEZVOUS AND DOCKING TECHNIQUES THAT WERE NEEDED IN ORDER TO GO TO THE MOON!! STEP 3 WAS PROJECT APOLLO!! I ACTUALLY HAD A SCALE MODEL OF THE SATURN 5 ROCKET WITH STAGES THAT SEPARATED AND IT WAS COMPLETE WITH A LUNAR MODULE WHICH YOU COULD ACTUALLY DOCK THE COMMAND MODULE TO!! IF I STILL HAD THAT MODEL IT WOULD PROBABLY BE WORTH A FORTUNE!! ALL THE NEWSCASTERS AND TELEVISION STUFF THAT THEY SHOWED WERE ALL THE REAL NEWSMEN THAT WERE BROADCASTING AT THE TIME OF THIS INCIDENT!! THIS MISSION MAY HAVE BEEN MORE SPECTACULAR THAN EVEN LANDING ON THE MOON ITSELF!! THIS SHOWED THE TRUE RESOURCEFULNESS AND PROFESSIONALISM AND EXPERTISE OF EVERY MEMBER OF THE CREW AND ON THE GROUND THAT WERE ABLE TO GET THESE MEN HOME SAFELY!! IT WAS A VERY PROUD FEELING TO BE AN AMERICAN IN THOSE DAYS, A LOT MORE UNITY THAN WE SEEM TO HAVE NOW IN OUR COUNTRY UNFORTUNATELY!!
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I was twenty years old at the time and I must add that Ron Howard and company nailed the look and feel of that period!
This is one of my favorite films of all time. I love that people are reacting to it.
I was 16 when this happened. I can remember my family gathered around the TV watching everything.
As for Ron Howard, an excellent movie with (a very young) him as an actor, American Graffiti is a classic. It's also the movie George Lucas made just before Star Wars.
I was 16 too and my family did the same.
And a very young Harrison Ford and Richard Dreyfus!
@@shawnmiller4781 I've heard that Ford at the time was a construction carpenter and was taking small movie gigs at the time and when George Lucas asked him to be Han Solo, it was a real hard decision for him since he also had a big apartment complex opportunity that would have had him making Union Scale for at least an entire year.
Lovell was also on the Apollo 11 backup crew and was very close to being the CMC or the commander to work with Buzz but Neil accepted the challenges working with them. Read his book, “lost moon” (of which the movie is based on)… it’s very good! 👍
Probably one of my favorite movies ever
The sequence in the movies with the rocket launching was so realistic that Buzz Aldrin called Ron Howard asking which vault they found the footage used. Ron had to explain that it was created specially for the film using a combination of miniatures and CGI. Upon hearing that, Buzz said, "That was pretty good. Can we (meaning NASA) use it? C
Good he can joke about faking NASA footage. Especially after dealing with all the “faked moon landing” idiots he has had too deal with….including that moron he slugged
Ya, only major inaccuracy is lack of heat shielding on the F-1 engines. During launch they were shielded to protect them from the heat of each other that got trapped in the low pressure zone around them.
You hit the nail right on the head Mary. Aside from this being one of my favorite films for having a great cast and the story alone is incredible that those 3 men came home at all, the score gives me chills. The music alone sets the tone and fits the movie perfectly!
Mary, You should watch "Failure is not an option". In 90 minutes, you will be up to speed on the most memorable moments of the American space program. it's very entertaining as well. You already know more than most any American your age!
For Australian space history, you should do a reaction to “The Dish” from (2000)! Highly recommend, great film!
I'm old enough to remember Apollo 13 when it happened - I'm also old enough that my parents woke me up to watch the Apollo 11 landing - and I watched every single moment I could and held back tears when they landed. When I saw the movie it made me cry again. I know - old softie physicist :)
The fact that so many young people don't know how the movie ends until they see it :(
It's shameful.
@@mal74 No, it provides young people with an almost true to life experience as those of had who lived through Apollo 13
Test audiences said it was Hollywood BS the would never have been able to get back after àll that.
The HBO miniseries "From the earth to the moon" was created after this movie came out, produced by Tom Hanks. Pretty good.
Is there a chance you watch the original Star Trek films?
if you enjoyed this one, then you may also enjoy The Right Stuff (1983)
I've watched this movie dozens of times, and it still puts me on the edge of my seat.
I'm generally not somebody that cares about good acting or not but that wife of his played that role perfectly.
As you said, the happy but worried she displayed was utter perfection.
Lovell's Mom was played by Ron Howard's Mom. At the end of the movie on the Air Craft Carrier the Older Navy Officer in white who greets Tom Hanks is the actual Jim Lovell.
You will watch it again, and appreciate the story more than the stress. A true miracle of teamwork and grit before tictok and twitter.
Like A Few Good Men and several other movies...you have to watch when you stumble upon it. Thanks for a great reaction.
So glad to see you react! This instantly became one of my top 10 movies the day it arrived in theaters and it has remained there ever since! I watch it at least once per year and will never pass up an opportunity if it happens to be on as well. 😊
*The mission director Gene Kranz did not retire until 1994. He was also there for another disaster, being in mission control in in 1986 when the space shuttle Challenger exploded during ascent.
The reentry took far longer than normal because the capsule had an abnormally shallow trajectory (though still within limits).
Like others have mentioned, another great movie that would go well with this one is "Hidden Figures". You will be inspired.
Great vid, Mary!
I saw this movie when it came out. I was a little boy when this actually happened, and we were all transfixed at school as we watched every day during class what was going on. I was so moved by this film that I saw it 3 times ! The lift off sequence and seeing it on the big screen was spectacular!! Jim Lovell, thank God, had the most experience in space than any other astronaut in the program, and led all of them during this life and death situation. He was on Apollo 8, which was the first mission to go around the moon, and also was the mission that first showed the Earth from outer space back to us on TV!!!!
The music in this was so damn good.
Great reaction. I can answer that:
(18:18) Forever...no. Because there is no atmosphere, there is no wind on the moon. However, the moon is impacted by space objects regularly. So there's two ways the marks can be erased: moonquakes from the impacts and dust that gets kicked up and then falls back down over time.
(29:08) The Apollo 13 crew was in space for three days. The "three weeks" from the newscast was the cumulative time that Jim Lovell was in space. Just in case anyone is curious, his final count was 29d 19h 05m.
FWIW, this really was a big deal at the time. I was in kindergarden, and remember running home from school and asking my mom "are the astronauts ok?"
The guy at the end on the ship who greets Tom Hanks was the real Jim Lovell
I saw this movie in Rio de Janeiro when it came out and already knew the end of the story yet I was as tense as you were at the end simply due to how well this movie was made and edited.
You should really check out an Australian movie called The Dish. It's a comedy drama about the Parks radio antenna dish in Australia that was crucial to the 1969 Apollo landing on the moon. Based on fact it is a really fun, heartwarming story. Stars Sam Neill and others you would probably know better than I.
Sam Neil? Neil was in 'Jurassic Park' and he's one of those UK / British actors that I wish could someday get just as EPIC as Patrick Stewart in TNG. Alan Rickman was on his way to that- but 'Snape' got cut down by Cancer in real life.
Long Live the British. :.D