Shanelle ..I own this on bluray and cry as much as you. Ron Howard is such a great director. You know what space movie that you will love 2018's "First Man" it a movie about Neil Armstrong.
13 is just a number like any other number, it has absolutely no significance. Unicorns aren't real and neither are gods, and certainly not unlucky numbers.
The number 13 has never been lucky or unlucky to me. Even Friday 13th has been just another ordinary day. I was 22 when Apollo 13 was launched. I lived through this and tried to be positive, but there were times. When they went behind the moon I went outside and looked at it. My stomach was tied in knots. When they emerged from the other side and an hour later when they fired the LM engine to speed up to get back sooner, I felt better but they weren't home yet. I was able to go out with my father to eat supper even though my stomach was still queasy. I got it all down. They had to power everything down to a bare minimum and they got really cold. Can you imagine living in a refrigerator for three days? That is what it was like for the astronauts until they splashed down in the Pacific. When I saw those three big beautiful; parachutes, I knew they made it. I almost forgot the Richmond Braves were to open their season that night, but still went to the game. All of those 13s were a bit unusual but were just a coincidence.
@ShanelleRiccio i get your adversion to the number 13 but look at it from NASA these are scientists they are not the superstitious type. Neither am i 13 is just a number just anything else.
My wife suggested to her elementary school teacher friend that she could show that scene to her class as an example of problem-solving. The teacher said no, she couldn't use it. Why? Because it depicted people smoking cigarettes. My, how things have changed.
@David Williams as a teacher myself, the person you speak of is overbearing. ALOT of people smoke cigarettes and, to be honest, how much different is it from vaping? Kids aren't dumb, they know smoking is bad.
NASA admits we can't even go beyond low Earth orbit today which starts at like 90 miles up so this is obviously all fiction to anyone that does a small amount of research and uses common sense
The movie critic for my home town newspaper wrote, "I've seen so many people die in movies this year, so many populations on the brink of distruction, but the first time I was really scared by a movie was watching a story which I knew, for a fact, had a happy ending." I've watched this many times, and when Lovell's little boy asks, "Was it the door?" my heart drops every time.
I feel this exact way every time I watch this movie... it gets me stressed and worried for the crew, despite knowing full well that everything will just be fine. How can a movie be crafted so well to bring you that feeling?! I marvel at it.
Jim Lovell spoke at my college graduation a few weeks before this movie came out. It was a great speech about perseverance and solving problems through life. Very moving speech, and this movie holds a special place for me because of that speech.
@@ShanelleRiccio For more space related movies, check out The Right Stuff (1983). It follows the early space program (called Mercury), which preceded the Apollo program, with the selection process for the first seven astronauts, and their first missions into space. Funnily enough Ed Harris is in that one too, along with so many highly recognizable actors. :)
I don't usually go through other replies but based on what she was saying yes she needs to know this really did happen Apollo 1 is tragic but we did lose another 14 astronauts and our endeavour to go into space but like other great explorers in the end it's necessary
@@ShanelleRiccio jim Lovell was the real deal he was in his day the most reavelled astronaut in the world he had more time in space then anyone. I do love that this movie shows how NASA was our best problem solvers. I also get your aversion 13 but NASA is bunch scientist they dont believe in luck bad or otherwise. To them 13 is just another number i agree as well.
Just a few things: 1. Swigert was as experienced and as well trained to pilot the Apollo 13 mission as Mattingly. He was even THE Apollo program's expert for emergency procedures for accidents like the one that happened during the mission. 2. When you listen to the real radio recordings of the mission, you'll hear how calm and focused they all were right after the explosion. You'd think nothing actually bad has happened. 3. The three astronauts never had a fight on board. 4. They already knew how to connect the LEM's filter with the filters from the command module. They just rebuilt it to make sure it would really work. 5. Same thing with Mattingly in the simulator. They already had all the procedures ready to restart the command module, they just wanted to make sure it'll work and that they get all the things right.
Yeah, the astronauts were a cold-blooded bunch, in the best way. But that made for a boring movie, so they added the arguments to make it more relatable to the audience. ... From what I've read, they had to develop the restart procedures, but it wasn't all Mattingly's doing. Again, storytelling took precedence over history.
@@Caseytify Ken wasn't working alone; the other two astronauts of the back-up team, John Young and Charlie Duke (who walked on the moon in Apollo 16 while Ken was orbiting) were there, too. Charlie was over the measles by then. When 16 rolled around, the three astronauts were sent on a trip to Hawai'i to simulate conditions on the moon by walking around the lava beds. Charlie somehow managed to catch pneumonia (in Hawai'i, no less!) and they were worried he wouldn't be over it in time for the launch in March (this was December). However, other technical problems necessitated pushing the launch back to April, which not only proved lucky for Charlie, but also the mission as the delay let them catch a problem with the fuel bladders, saving another aborted (or worse) mission. (There was no discussion of just doing a one-for-one swap if Charlie hadn't been ready; NASA had learned their lesson. So if the March launch had stayed on the calendar, NASA would have used the back-up crew, with Fred Haise in charge of Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell, and Charlie would have screwed Ken out of TWO trips to space, lol.) When the Apollo 16 astronauts were in quarantine before the launch, Charlie was spotted around the hotel pool and NASA was furious. Except it wasn't him, it was his twin brother, Bill. Oops. And then they went to the moon and everything was fine. Charlie Duke, after all the drama, became the youngest person ever to walk on the moon. At least, for now. Manned moon landings are supposed to resume in 2025 with the Artemis 3 mission, but none of the 18 astronauts that are candidates for Artemis would be young enough to break Charlie's record (he was 36 years and 6 months old), so it's safe until we get a new candidate pool, assuming the program lasts.
@@Caseytify I think Stanley Kubrick is the only director who ever did it properly and had realistically stoic, unflappable astronauts in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which ironically *isn't* based on a true story.
I was in elementary school when the Apollo 13 drama unfolded. All our classes were suddenly cancelled, and instead the school rolled in television sets for us to watch the re-entry and splashdown. I was happy about the classes being cancelled, but then I noticed that all the teachers looked scared. And I clearly remember the re-entry radio silence thing. One young teacher was really freaking out during those silent minutes, if I recall. And then the teachers began cheering when we saw the capsule and parachutes. We all cheered. It was very, very dramatic.
I was in 6th grade when the Challenger exploded. We weren't watching it on tv. The classroom I was in didn't have intercoms, they had a phone on the wall that had a light that would flash if the teacher got a call from the office. The phone started to flash, the teacher picked it up, and after a moment or two she looked visibly shocked. She collected herself, turned to us and told us the Challenger blew up.
I was a senior in high school when the Challenger exploded. The high school teacher I had was a personal friend of Christa McAuliffe , which they attended the same school. Until the day of the disaster, I had never seen a grown man fell to the floor, ball up into a fetal position while sitting on the floor and broke down into a flood of tears for a very, very long time. As a class we were completely stunned. R.I.P. Christa McAuliffe and the valiant crew of the Challenger.
Agreed! The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 make for a great double feature night! :) (And Ed Harris is in both.) Also I think Jeff Goldblum had his first role in that movie.
26:20 "Can we all agree this is two and half hours of torture?" I'm old enough to remember when it was many days of torture. I understood this was a big deal even though I was only 8.
The great thing about Hank's "From the Earth to the Moon" miniseries, is that each episode explores the space race from a different angle. I especially like the geology episode and how it makes you passionate for it. Despite the setbacks, it's one of the most hopeful things you'll ever watch, in movies or on TV.
Although "From the Earth to the Moon" does introduce a bit of a plot hole with "Apollo 13"; in the latter, the public affairs officer, Henry Hurt, says to Marilyn Lovell, "One of them said we made going to the Moon as exciting as taking a trip to Pittsburgh." Whereas we see in "From the Earth to the Moon", the episode which focuses on Apollo 12, clearly that isn't true. Either that or NASA made the wrong decision to not simply have Pete Conrad on VOX the whole way.
@@fallingstar9643 Having Pete Conrad on VOX all the way WOULD make things a LOT more exciting. But not in a way that NASA would ever... EVER... want! Conrad was a pro. But he was absolutely NAVY down to his almost complete lack of a language filter! LMAO!!! 🤣🤣🤣
Besides all the other great stuff in this movie, one thing I really love is watching groups of people who really know their stuff making quick and correct decisions even when it's not the decision they want. "We just lost the moon"
1:33 - The difference between those movies and this is this one is REAL. 11:34 - It comes after 12, Shanelle. 29:35 - That man shaking Tom Hanks' hand is the REAL Jim Lovell.
This movie was behind me building my first home theater, and the beginning of my quest for true low frequency, shake the walls sound. October Sky is a great true story follow on movie.
To simulate weightlessness, they used a jet plane that made parabolic climbs and decents. At the apex, the occupants a virtually weightless. There are videos of Stephen Hawking on a parabolic flight. He had people help him during the weightlessness.
Small technical correction. The zero G effect starts well before the apex when the pilot begins applying down elevator on the upper leg of the parabola.
How good is this movie? You knew what was gonna happen, you even tried to fool yourself into not being stressed. And still, at the end, you were in tears. Great reaction, thanks for the watch.
The best thing about this film and Ron Howard's direction is that it still makes you think they might not make it back even though you know the outcome. One of my favorites.
Saw this in the theater when it came out, and it was breathtaking. It hasn't lost any of its magic over time either. I can still watch today and feel the same things. It's a very primal story. People are thrust into an environment and situation where they just have to survive and not know how or what the next step is until it presents itself. I think that's what makes the stress the astronauts are in translate to the viewer so easily. Such a good movie...
"Did this really happen?" re: the CO2 scrubber. It definitely did - a family friend was one of the people in Mission Control on the Apollo 13 mission, and was part of the team who improvised that fix. He was either an electrical or mechanical engineer (can't remember which), and these events inspired him to go to med school and become a physician.
I love this film, because it's one of the few films where it's not a single heroic figure that saves the day, it's an entire team of people who do. It's a testament to the amazing things humans can accomplish when they work together, and I think feeling that possibility is part of what makes this film so emotional.
I had to laugh a little when you mentioned how good the "screenplay" was when Marilyn lost her wedding ring down the drain. _Apollo 13_ is probably as close to a straightforward reenactment of the actual events as Hollywood's ever gotten. Marilyn dropping her wedding ring into the drain, her nightmare in the lead-up, the square-canister-in-round-hole problem, Fred Haise contracting a UTI, Jim Lovell removing his bio-sensors, the longer-than-expected radio blackout after re-entry - it's all basically true to actual events as recounted by Jim Lovell, with only small alterations (Marilyn did end up recover her wedding ring, Ken Mattingly wasn't exposed to true measles but to rubella (German measles), that kind of thing). The story is simply so extraordinary all on its own that there was no need to add any major fictionalised elements to the screenplay at all. An incredible movie about a real catastrophe overcome by the ingenuity and courage of real people
Ron Howard is a great filmmaker. Another excellent Howard flick is “Backdraft.” The Apollo 13 mission is epic. The movie is based on the book, “Lost Moon,” by Jim Lovell. The true genius of this movie is that everyone knows how it ends but Ron keeps us all stressed the entire time. I’ve seen this movie so many times but I still cheer every time. I can’t imagine how it is for people without knowledge of the incident. Gene Krantz’s wife made him a vest for every mission, thus the significance of the vest. With the exception of the argument between the astronauts, all of this stuff happened. You need to watch the HBO 10 part series, “From The Earth To The Moon.” Tom Hanks did it after this movie. It’s like “Band of Brothers,” and “The Pacific.” Also, do “The Right Stuff.” It’s about the creation of NASA and the Mercury program.
I was 10 years old when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. I got to stay up late that night and watch the whole Moonwalk live on TV as it happened. I'll never forget how I felt that night or the look on my Dad's face while it all took place in front of our eyes. Several years ago I got to hear a presentsation by Gene Kranz at the EAA Museum in Oshkosh and later I got to meet Fred Haise who sat one seat away from me and chatted with several of us Space geeks. What an amazing man. Thanks for another great video!
They took the weightless shots in a Nasa plane called the Vomit Comet. You climb to altitude then dive towards the ground gets everyone weightless for like 30 seconds. So, they did all those shots in that plane for those durations. Pretty cool!
If you haven't already you should watch Hidden Figures. It's about Katherine Johnson who unfortunately was omitted during this film. Mathematical genius.
Yes. The Abyss is probably my favourite movie with him in it. It was pretty shocking to find out he almost drowned during the making of one scene. Can’t blame him for never wanting to work with James Cameron again.
I saw this in the theater but also in real life. All of America was glued to the news 24-7. My strongest memory was laying with my mother while we waited for Apollo 13 to come around the dark side of the moon.
The real incident happened when I was a kid, so I knew Ron Howard picked a great story. There are four Howards in the movie - Clint (little brother) at Mission Control, Rance (dad) as a priest, Jean (mom) as Jim Lovell's mother, and Bryce Dallas Howard standing next to Kathleen Quinlan before the launch.
FIVE (5) ... You missed Cheryl, Ron's wife. Additionally, in case you're interested, the real Jim Lovell played the "Captain of USS Iwo Jima" (uncredited) and his wife, Marilyn Lovell played an "Onlooker at Launch Site" (also uncredited).
I was around 12 when the real life event happened. The film really captured it well, the small changes Ron made to heighten the tension worked great without making it too far from what actually occurred. As a space follower my whole life I am always amazed when I find out people don't know the history.
One of my favorite movies which I guess you could call it a "space movie" is Hidden Figures. It is about the early days of NASA. Along with this movie and the Martian, it seems sort of like a trilogy of the important steps in getting into space. Of course, with Hidden Figures, it is also how some critically important contributors were for a long time overlooked. Movie tears me up no matter how often I watch it.
Growing up, Walter Cronkite was the man. His voice and delivery gave weight to the information he passed to us. I enjoy hearing it today. I flew the 'Vomit Comet' in a flight sim mission. Upon reaching a specific altitude at the proper speed and climb rate, we begin to nose down at a specific rate which is like some roller coasters when you leave your seat. Losing altitude and increasing speed is why 20 seconds is the safety margin to begin leveling the plane. It's not a fighter jet :)
What's so amazing is how tense and on the edge of your seat this movie keeps you, even if you already knew how it all turned out before you started watching.
The brilliance is in the execution of a plot you know the end of before it starts and yet still manage to feel every ounce of the tension the characters feel.
I remember seeing it in theaters back in ‘95 without researching the actual mission and it’s outcome, it was an emotional rollercoaster. One of Ron Howard’s trademarks is casting his family members in just about every film he does. His brother Clint was the ECON technician; father Rance was the priest at the Lovell residence, and mother Jean was Jim’s mom.
Apollo 12's glitch was all their electronics shutting down... it took steely-eyed missile-man John Aaron (the guy with the glasses who figured out how to power up the command module) to figure out that it had been hit by lightning.
What I love about good space movies (most notably this one and The Martian) is that there are no bad guys. Just smart problem solving, people coming together to help other people survive. Comes to show that a good story doesn't necessarily needs a villain.
This was based on Jim Lovell's memoir originally titled "Lost Moon" later retitled "Apollo 13" to tie-in to the movie. Nearly everything in the movie occurred in real life, though dramatically heightened. Definitely a great read!
They did the cryogenic stir (edit) more often than they should because of a weird signal in the oxygen sensor. If they had done the stir on schedule, Swiggert would have been by himself in the command module and the entire crew would have been lost because they needed the LEM to survive. Swiggert being on the mission was a huge bonus. He literally wrote the book on emergency procedures for the astronaut. Plus he was beefier so he had more mass to draw on while being dehydrated. The Houston crew went to an actual movie a few months before Apollo 13 launched. It was about astronauts who were stranded due to an electrical failure. Which started a discussion regarding what to do in an emergency. Duct take was used for the first time on the mission which was used to make the CO2 filter. At one point during the emergency, they could not close the hatch. If they had locked down the hatch, they would have delayed transferring to the LEM. Lovell was on Apollo 8 and he did some tests where he navigated using the Earth. This was in case of computer loss. So they had the right person on the job.
I was four years old when the events of Apollo 13 happened. The day that the crew re-entered the atmosphere my parents had friends and neighbors huddled around the TV. I can clearly remember the entire room erupting with joy when they realized the astronauts had made it home safely. One of the most vivid memories of my childhood. (Edit to correct my horrible typing skills.)
Hydrogen fuel cells create electricity to run the ship. Oxygen is not just used for breathing, it is also mixed with the hydrogen to create electricity and the byproduct would be water for drinking.
Seeing into the Spacecraft, then the camera pull back of the moon. Then Earth, all getting smaller into the blackness of of Space. While in a huge dark room. Really gives you a brief feeling of the grandeur of space. You needed to see this film in a theater.
"Steely eyed missile man" is one of the highest compliments a person can receive at NASA. The real ending wasn't quite that dramatic. They started receiving telemetry from Odyssey right when they were supposed to.
I was really into all sorts of space stuff as a kid in the 80's. When my parents realized it wasn't just the science-fiction but real stuff as well, they of course told me of the space race, the first moon landing, and ... the time it felt like the ENTIRE world held their breath hoping three astronauts would make it back home. At least the entire western world was watching, like my parents here in Norway. (and shortly after they told me about this was when I witnessed the Challenger disaster live on TV) So when this movie was made, I didn't expect it to be a good adaptation, you know? It is one of the best movies ever. I absolutely love it.
They couldn't pay you enough to go to the Moon? I'd gleefully give them every last penny I have to go to the Moon. I was four when Armstrong set foot on the Moon. It's mixed in with my sister's birth, which happened a week apart, but I remember it. I remember Apollo 13 as a disaster for which there could be no rescue. Only later in life did I learn about how harrowing it was. Ron Howard took some liberties with events and time -- it was actually _worse_ than what Howard portrayed. However, it's close enough that it doesn't matter. Excellent film. I never tire of it.
The Command module and LEM interiors were made by SpaceWorks in Hutchinson, Kansas, a shop affiliated with the Kansas Cosmosphere, (the best aviation/space museum that nobody has ever heard of). The recreations were loaded on a 707, then flown in parabolic arcs with cameras on board, to film the weightless shot. One of the best shots in the movie, IMO, is when they take their helmets and gloves off after the launch. Paxton and Bacon seem to be genuinely amused seeing all their gear floating around.
The Apollo 13 command module "Odyssey" is displayed at the Kansas Cosmosphere, along with "Liberty Bell 7", Gus Grissoms Mercury "spacecraft", which was recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic in 1999. Along with a Russian Soyuz, and (reportedly) the largest display of Russian/Soviet space equipment outside of Russia. Really. A fantastic museum, especially when you consider where it is. The locals decided they wanted to have a first class space museum, and they made it happen.
Fun Fact: Jim Lovell has a cameo at the end of the film. He’s the Naval Captain Tom Hanks shakes hands with when he steps off the helicopter. Several years later, Jim Lovell made a speech when Tom Hanks received his AFI award.
One of the best movies ever. We know how it ends, we know what happens, we know they make it… but it’s SO stressful every time! Ron Howard’s masterpiece!
In Mitchell, Indiana, there's a state park known as Spring Mill, which has a museum dedicated to its hometown hero, Gus Grissom. He was the first astronaut to go into space twice, and if the Apollo 1 fire hadn't happened, it might have been him instead of Neil Armstrong to be the first man on the Moon.
You cut my favorite line, when Lovell's mom (played by Ron Howard's mom) said "Don't worry honey. If they built a washing machine to fly, Jimmy can land it." with absolute certainty. She was one of the treasures of the movie, for met. If memory serves, Kathleen Quinlan was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in this role. ... The music had a tremendous impact in this movie. There really was a Gunter Wendt, and "I vonder vere Gunter vent." was a tag line among the astronauts. There were a lot of German engineers that came to America after WW2. Werner von Braun was pivotal in designing the Saturn rocket. It sounds like you haven't seen The Right Stuff (1983) yet. It covers the early period of manned American space flight. Ed Harris was in that one as well. It's not _in_ space, but another good movie is October Sky (1999), set right after the Soviets launched Sputnik. If memory serves it was Jake Gyllenhaal's first film role.
Great reaction, Shanelle! I saw this movie in the theater with my Dad. He especially liked Dick Cavett's line: "I like those ingenious girl watchers who put on Con Edison helmets and dig trenches in the street..." (My Dad is a Con Edison retiree who worked there for over 45 years.)
Watching this in theatre gave it an additional dimension in my opinion. Of course, the big screen, the sound etc. But also, you sit in the dark watching people sit in the dark. That adds quite a bit.
I am 71 and I got to see a lot of the coverage of the Apollo 13 mission. My Dad said they should use the LEM as a lifeboat even before they reported that. There were a lot of people praying for their safe return to earth.
That was a wonderful reaction, Shanelle. I suppose another sign of a truly great movie is that even if you know the history, and even if you've seen it a few times before, the movie still affects you just as much. For me, this is one of those rare movies, and I hope it will be for you as well.
I got to see this movie in IMax with Fred Haise sitting in the row behind me. The event host asked him about the gum scene, and he said that didn't happen. During his talk afterwards he said, "Yeah, I'm the guy who got sick in space." He also complemented how nice it was to talk with Bill Paxton. On an even more personal level - my grandfather was one of the engineers on the ground when this event happened. My dad talked about how grandpa was gone the entire time, and himself not sleeping either until it was all over.
The part where Ed Harris tears up after he fell back in his chair was a lot of work for him. The director watched an interview with Gene Crantz where he was so emotional talking about what happened that he almost couldn't contain his tears. The director then told Harris "that's what I want from you."
It's a wonderful moment. Amidst all the clichéd cheering and paper-throwing, the true emotional reaction to a good outcome after several days of relentless tension is exactly as portrayed by Ed Harris.
In Gene Kranz's autobiography "Failure is Not an Option", he describes the tense final hours in Mission Control; his sweaty palms curling the corners of the log-book, the deep gouges cut by his pen as he notes various events, the "seconds [turning] into minutes and minutes into infinity". It was a full 1 minute 28 seconds past the expected time before they had acquisition of signal. There was a brief cheer or gasp for breath around the room, but as the real Gene noted, "if a controller ever did that before the mission was over and the crew was on the carrier, that would be the last time he sat at a console." Because they were professionals. Consummate professionals. Even when Gene found "himself crying unabashedly, then I try to suck it in, realizing this is inappropriate. But it doesn't work; it only gets worse. I was standing at the console crying." ... it's an amazing book, well worth a read.
There were many, many people working in other rooms to produce what was displayed on the screens in the main Mission Control room. That wasn't only computer data, it was information that other unseen people worked hard to produce. Each person in Mission Control represented an entire team that we rarely ever get to see or hear about.
One of the few details they got wrong was the nozzles of the five F-1 engines during the launch scene. The real nozzles were clad in inconel sheet metal for thermal shielding which gave them a very scrappy looking appearance. It was among the final steps in assembling the rocket before flight, so none of the unused engines that went to museums include the cladding. The film's artists used museum pieces for reference, thus missing the detail.
It still wrecks my brain to think how important it was to have Ken Mattingly stay behind so he could figure out a startup sequence in the simulator. If he hadn't been bumped from the flight, they might not have made it home. Like Lovell ha said, you never know what events are gonna transpire to help get you home safely!
Mattingly's work on the ground was overstated in the movie. It was very important, but he was a part of a team that worked out the procedures together.
@@vraspir123 that's a very good point, it was indeed a team effort. Still his intimate familiarity with the command module as pilot cannot be overlooked and was probably vital to them being able to formulate a startup proceedure.
They had a whole team that were just as expert and they all helped. Swaggert had actually written the manual on emergency procedures so he was just as much an expert as Mattingly rather than a newbie as is portrayed in this movie.
The news footage in the movie is actual news footage from television at the time. I was in high school when this happened and absolutely everyone was just glued to the TV. Because there was no internet or 24/7 news channels to get information it was random breaks in TV shows for information.
Other movies to consider include (but are certainly not limited to) 'The Right Stuff', 'Hidden Figures' , and 'Apollo 11' (Which was made entirely from NASA archive footage). On a personal note, I was 7 years old when we first landed on the moon, and was captivated by news reports as they became available concerning Apollo 13... Watching this movie in 1995, I found myself holding my breath, and on the edge of my seat despite knowing the eventual outcome. It is a true pleasure to watch others watching this film for the first time, and recapturing just a bit of the wonder of experiencing something for the first time...😄
This movie is so well done. I was 14 when this happened for real and remember following it on television. I also remember all the churches in town holding special prayer meetings to get them home safely.
I remember the events well since I was in high school. Much of the world was holding its breath before they landed, and I saw the landing in real time myself. I also saw the film in the theater when it came out. The most impressive things were when the capsule was reentering the earth's atmosphere and was a stream of fire. Then the huge red and white parachutes opening had the crowd cheering. Most of the black and white news footage was real. The only thing that was really different from reality was them arguing in the capsule. That didn't really happen, but they added it for the story. (As if it needed more suspense!)
I love this movie. the whole 'houston, we have a problem'' thing, even though it WAS taken from the audio logs of the actual mission, has got to be the most over-quoted and joked-to-death things to ever come out of hollywood. we're even seeing kids movies with characters named ''Houston'' JUST so they can make that reference at one point. It gets old. Anyway, enough of my old-man ranting. thanks for the video Shanelle. It was great watching you enjoying this modern classic
Fun bit of trivia if you like space movies: The phrase "Steely eyed missile man", used in this movie and The Martian (and probably others) is an unofficial title of honor used within NASA. It originates from Apollo 12, in which the mission was almost aborted moments after launch when the rocket was hit by lightning, causing garbled telemetry data in the command module. John Aaron (the guy who's concerned with the electricity usage in this movie), thinking quickly, recommended a highly obscure remedy (set SCE to Aux) which would allow the Signal Conditioning Equipment to function with low voltage, and thankfully one member of the crew (Alan Bean) knew where the switch (one out of hundreds) was to do that, and the mission was saved. John Aaron was given the title by his colleagues for his quick thinking under pressure and obscure knowledge.
One of the things I most love about this movie on a personal level is that I get to see so much of real TV anchor Walter Cronkite! He was widely known as The Most Trusted Man In America! No joke. I still miss him every day.
The way Gene said "I believe this is going to be our finest hour" is so perfectly appropriate, tying into why the mission was a "successful failure". It really was NASA's finest hour, and still is to this day. Its greatest accomplishments have generally happened while a mission was, at least at that point, going according to plan. This is the only time the whole mission went out the window with any slim hope of maybe finding a way to bring the astronauts back... And they brought them back. I just hope the next time something happens to a manned spacecraft that doesn't immediately kill everyone on board, that mission control is being staffed by people as dedicated as the ones that were there for this.
As a massive science geek who loves all things astronomy, cosmology and astrophysics the reason I love this movie is that it's the most historically and scientifically accurate movie ever made, ever, in all of human history. Full stop.
@ShanelleRiccio I just remembered this video on Astrum's channel called "Artemis 1's Attempts To Reclaim The Moon Blew Us Away", a short 17 minute documentary on NASA's Artemis missions to colonize the moon. The space-test dummies are named Compos after Arturo Compos, the engineer who designed the fix for the Apollo 13 oxygen tank disaster. Did you know he won the Medal of Freedom for doing that? Humans will be going to the moon again in a couple years or less.
Tom Hanks in the 90s was just unstoppable. Apollo 13 was Hanks at the height of his career. But if you were around in the 90s, it was like hit movie after hit movie for him.
I love this movie! I was 9 when Apollo 13 actually happened. Back then we had favorite astronauts like kids have favorite ball players. My favorite astronaut was one of the people who died in the Apollo 1 fire. I went to Catholic school and we had daily mass to pray for the Apollo 13 astronauts safe return after the accident. i was in my 30's when I saw it in the theater, I was surprised how I cried when I watched it. The memories came crashing back! I still cry when the little boy asks "Is it the door?"
"Steely-eyed missile man" was a line directly from real life, although it was spoken during a different mission. It was when on Apollo 12 the whole rocket was hit by lightning twice during launch, causing the systems in the Command Module to go haywire. Fortunately, the Saturn V's computer was not affected, so the rocket kept on flying on its own (which is normal), but the astronauts couldn't do anything with their control panel, so they were almost forced to abort the mission. But in Mission Control, John Aaron remembered something from training about switching SCE to AUX in such a situation, and this was relayed to the crew (fortunately, the radio still worked, or else they would have manually aborted the mission by activating the crew escape system). Out of the three astronauts, only Alan Bean remembered that switch and where it was, and it was right in front of him, so he switch SCE to AUX, and everything returned to normal. Once again, this was a known issue that they were trained for, but with time constraints really tight (seconds away from a manual abort) and under pressure, two guys together remembered what to do, and saved the mission. That was when someone called John Aaron a "steely-eyed missile man," but the line is so good that the filmmakers just had to steal it for _Apollo 13_ .
Catch the full length version on Patreon! www.patreon.com/shanellericcio
Shanelle ..I own this on bluray and cry as much as you. Ron Howard is such a great director. You know what space movie that you will love 2018's "First Man" it a movie about Neil Armstrong.
13 is just a number like any other number, it has absolutely no significance. Unicorns aren't real and neither are gods, and certainly not unlucky numbers.
@@js0988 right like a dozen eggs ..and a digital clock showing 1.11 all the way to 12.12 ...and no 13th floor in hotels
The number 13 has never been lucky or unlucky to me. Even Friday 13th has been just another ordinary day. I was 22 when Apollo 13 was launched. I lived through this and tried to be positive, but there were times. When they went behind the moon I went outside and looked at it. My stomach was tied in knots. When they emerged from the other side and an hour later when they fired the LM engine to speed up to get back sooner, I felt better but they weren't home yet. I was able to go out with my father to eat supper even though my stomach was still queasy. I got it all down. They had to power everything down to a bare minimum and they got really cold. Can you imagine living in a refrigerator for three days? That is what it was like for the astronauts until they splashed down in the Pacific. When I saw those three big beautiful; parachutes, I knew they made it. I almost forgot the Richmond Braves were to open their season that night, but still went to the game. All of those 13s were a bit unusual but were just a coincidence.
@ShanelleRiccio i get your adversion to the number 13 but look at it from NASA these are scientists they are not the superstitious type. Neither am i 13 is just a number just anything else.
The captain who welcomes them home on the recovery ship is the real Jim Lovell making a cameo.
My friend was on that ship during filming
And the guy 'on TV' talking about the paper-thin reentry window was Jim's co author on Lost Moon.
Ron Howard wanted to make him an admiral but Lovell refused saying he would never play a rank higher than he had in real life.
Plus he already had the uniform. 😀
Your observations, genuine reactions and insight always keep me coming back for more!!!
Sooooo good!!!😎
When I was a kid my teachers used that O2 filter scene to explain what engineers do. Today I've been an engineer for 16 years
My wife suggested to her elementary school teacher friend that she could show that scene to her class as an example of problem-solving. The teacher said no, she couldn't use it. Why? Because it depicted people smoking cigarettes.
My, how things have changed.
@David Williams as a teacher myself, the person you speak of is overbearing. ALOT of people smoke cigarettes and, to be honest, how much different is it from vaping? Kids aren't dumb, they know smoking is bad.
CO₂ filter. 😁
@@rbrtck it wad abbreviated 😉
@@aldenallen28 O, I C. 😉
Tom Hanks went on to produce a series called "From The Earth To The Moon" exploring the full history of the US Space Race. absolutely worth a watch.
NASA admits we can't even go beyond low Earth orbit today which starts at like 90 miles up so this is obviously all fiction to anyone that does a small amount of research and uses common sense
i bought the box set when i saw the cast , well worth the watch
He put a ton of Easter Eggs into his movie "That Thing You Do" too. Hanks is a space geek, god love him.
Yeah and I haven't really seen anyone react to that series, unlike the similarly inspired Hanks production Band of Brothers.
thanks for letting us know. I will have to check it out
The movie critic for my home town newspaper wrote, "I've seen so many people die in movies this year, so many populations on the brink of distruction, but the first time I was really scared by a movie was watching a story which I knew, for a fact, had a happy ending."
I've watched this many times, and when Lovell's little boy asks, "Was it the door?" my heart drops every time.
I feel this exact way every time I watch this movie... it gets me stressed and worried for the crew, despite knowing full well that everything will just be fine. How can a movie be crafted so well to bring you that feeling?! I marvel at it.
UGH... PUNCH IN THE GUT...
Leiutenant Dan: if you're ever a captain....that's the day I'm an astronaut.
One year later......
Jim Lovell spoke at my college graduation a few weeks before this movie came out. It was a great speech about perseverance and solving problems through life. Very moving speech, and this movie holds a special place for me because of that speech.
WOW !!! That's unreal!!
@@ShanelleRiccio For more space related movies, check out The Right Stuff (1983). It follows the early space program (called Mercury), which preceded the Apollo program, with the selection process for the first seven astronauts, and their first missions into space. Funnily enough Ed Harris is in that one too, along with so many highly recognizable actors. :)
I don't usually go through other replies but based on what she was saying yes she needs to know this really did happen Apollo 1 is tragic but we did lose another 14 astronauts and our endeavour to go into space but like other great explorers in the end it's necessary
@@ShanelleRiccio hey I have a request for a movie anaconda and wearing gloves
@@ShanelleRiccio jim Lovell was the real deal he was in his day the most reavelled astronaut in the world he had more time in space then anyone. I do love that this movie shows how NASA was our best problem solvers. I also get your aversion 13 but NASA is bunch scientist they dont believe in luck bad or otherwise. To them 13 is just another number i agree as well.
Just a few things:
1. Swigert was as experienced and as well trained to pilot the Apollo 13 mission as Mattingly. He was even THE Apollo program's expert for emergency procedures for accidents like the one that happened during the mission.
2. When you listen to the real radio recordings of the mission, you'll hear how calm and focused they all were right after the explosion. You'd think nothing actually bad has happened.
3. The three astronauts never had a fight on board.
4. They already knew how to connect the LEM's filter with the filters from the command module. They just rebuilt it to make sure it would really work.
5. Same thing with Mattingly in the simulator. They already had all the procedures ready to restart the command module, they just wanted to make sure it'll work and that they get all the things right.
Yeah, the astronauts were a cold-blooded bunch, in the best way. But that made for a boring movie, so they added the arguments to make it more relatable to the audience.
... From what I've read, they had to develop the restart procedures, but it wasn't all Mattingly's doing. Again, storytelling took precedence over history.
On the other hand, Marilyn’s wedding ring really did drop down the drain (I think they managed to retrieve it, but it did actually happen).
@@Caseytify Wally Schirra would like a word. There's a photo of him riding his Mercury capsule like Slim Pickens. 😂
@@Caseytify Ken wasn't working alone; the other two astronauts of the back-up team, John Young and Charlie Duke (who walked on the moon in Apollo 16 while Ken was orbiting) were there, too. Charlie was over the measles by then.
When 16 rolled around, the three astronauts were sent on a trip to Hawai'i to simulate conditions on the moon by walking around the lava beds. Charlie somehow managed to catch pneumonia (in Hawai'i, no less!) and they were worried he wouldn't be over it in time for the launch in March (this was December). However, other technical problems necessitated pushing the launch back to April, which not only proved lucky for Charlie, but also the mission as the delay let them catch a problem with the fuel bladders, saving another aborted (or worse) mission.
(There was no discussion of just doing a one-for-one swap if Charlie hadn't been ready; NASA had learned their lesson. So if the March launch had stayed on the calendar, NASA would have used the back-up crew, with Fred Haise in charge of Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell, and Charlie would have screwed Ken out of TWO trips to space, lol.)
When the Apollo 16 astronauts were in quarantine before the launch, Charlie was spotted around the hotel pool and NASA was furious. Except it wasn't him, it was his twin brother, Bill. Oops.
And then they went to the moon and everything was fine. Charlie Duke, after all the drama, became the youngest person ever to walk on the moon. At least, for now. Manned moon landings are supposed to resume in 2025 with the Artemis 3 mission, but none of the 18 astronauts that are candidates for Artemis would be young enough to break Charlie's record (he was 36 years and 6 months old), so it's safe until we get a new candidate pool, assuming the program lasts.
@@Caseytify I think Stanley Kubrick is the only director who ever did it properly and had realistically stoic, unflappable astronauts in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which ironically *isn't* based on a true story.
I was in elementary school when the Apollo 13 drama unfolded. All our classes were suddenly cancelled, and instead the school rolled in television sets for us to watch the re-entry and splashdown. I was happy about the classes being cancelled, but then I noticed that all the teachers looked scared. And I clearly remember the re-entry radio silence thing. One young teacher was really freaking out during those silent minutes, if I recall. And then the teachers began cheering when we saw the capsule and parachutes. We all cheered. It was very, very dramatic.
I was in 5th gr, watching in class, when the Challenger exploded. We were all stunned.
I was in 1st grade as they rolled in those televisions and we then watched as The Challenger exploded.
I was in 6th grade when the Challenger exploded. We weren't watching it on tv. The classroom I was in didn't have intercoms, they had a phone on the wall that had a light that would flash if the teacher got a call from the office. The phone started to flash, the teacher picked it up, and after a moment or two she looked visibly shocked. She collected herself, turned to us and told us the Challenger blew up.
I was a senior in high school when the Challenger exploded. The high school teacher I had was a personal friend of Christa McAuliffe , which they attended the same school. Until the day of the disaster, I had never seen a grown man fell to the floor, ball up into a fetal position while sitting on the floor and broke down into a flood of tears for a very, very long time. As a class we were completely stunned. R.I.P. Christa McAuliffe and the valiant crew of the Challenger.
I RECOMMEND: "The Right Stuff (1983)" For Space, Flight and Movie making - that is a GREAT watch! Also it's a free history lesson. 🙂
Agreed! The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 make for a great double feature night! :) (And Ed Harris is in both.) Also I think Jeff Goldblum had his first role in that movie.
Agreed as well! Too few people react to this classic also based on historical events. It’s a fantastic movie.
I Second this Recommendation..... Awesome Movie.... Awesome Cast...... Ed Harris shines as John Glenn.....
And the soundtrack alone is EPIC.
No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
26:20 "Can we all agree this is two and half hours of torture?"
I'm old enough to remember when it was many days of torture. I understood this was a big deal even though I was only 8.
Me too, glued to the TV in real time, 4 days, not 2 1/2 hours. Great movie.
Gravity- fiction.
Interstellar - fiction.
The Martian - fiction.
Apollo 13 - real life.
Ya know it’s a great movie when even though you know what happened you are fully invested and stressed.
Not only did I know the story, I'm not really a fan of this kind of 'blockbuster' movie. And I still wept like a child at this one. :)
The great thing about Hank's "From the Earth to the Moon" miniseries, is that each episode explores the space race from a different angle. I especially like the geology episode and how it makes you passionate for it. Despite the setbacks, it's one of the most hopeful things you'll ever watch, in movies or on TV.
Although "From the Earth to the Moon" does introduce a bit of a plot hole with "Apollo 13"; in the latter, the public affairs officer, Henry Hurt, says to Marilyn Lovell, "One of them said we made going to the Moon as exciting as taking a trip to Pittsburgh." Whereas we see in "From the Earth to the Moon", the episode which focuses on Apollo 12, clearly that isn't true.
Either that or NASA made the wrong decision to not simply have Pete Conrad on VOX the whole way.
@@fallingstar9643 Having Pete Conrad on VOX all the way WOULD make things a LOT more exciting. But not in a way that NASA would ever... EVER... want! Conrad was a pro. But he was absolutely NAVY down to his almost complete lack of a language filter! LMAO!!! 🤣🤣🤣
Haha, they couldn't pay you a million dollars to go to space, yet others would gladly pay that to go themselves 😂
Besides all the other great stuff in this movie, one thing I really love is watching groups of people who really know their stuff making quick and correct decisions even when it's not the decision they want. "We just lost the moon"
Yes that was SO so cool! everyone was at the top of their game
1:33 - The difference between those movies and this is this one is REAL.
11:34 - It comes after 12, Shanelle.
29:35 - That man shaking Tom Hanks' hand is the REAL Jim Lovell.
This movie was behind me building my first home theater, and the beginning of my quest for true low frequency, shake the walls sound.
October Sky is a great true story follow on movie.
"That's a load-bearing wall, Jerry!!!"
To simulate weightlessness, they used a jet plane that made parabolic climbs and decents. At the apex, the occupants a virtually weightless. There are videos of Stephen Hawking on a parabolic flight. He had people help him during the weightlessness.
It was the vomit comet!
@@Kriszilla727 Yes, they leased it from NASA.
@@ShanelleRiccio 🤢🤮😂
@@ShanelleRiccio They built the sets for the spacecraft inside the vomit comet and then filmed at the times they were weightless
Small technical correction. The zero G effect starts well before the apex when the pilot begins applying down elevator on the upper leg of the parabola.
How good is this movie? You knew what was gonna happen, you even tried to fool yourself into not being stressed. And still, at the end, you were in tears. Great reaction, thanks for the watch.
The best thing about this film and Ron Howard's direction is that it still makes you think they might not make it back even though you know the outcome. One of my favorites.
Saw this in the theater when it came out, and it was breathtaking. It hasn't lost any of its magic over time either. I can still watch today and feel the same things. It's a very primal story. People are thrust into an environment and situation where they just have to survive and not know how or what the next step is until it presents itself. I think that's what makes the stress the astronauts are in translate to the viewer so easily. Such a good movie...
Same here. I feel so blessed to have seen this film in all its full-screen glory. Still watch the film regularly almost 30 years later.
Amidst all the technical stuff, Kathleen Quinlan (Marilyn Lovell) really gives the movie its heart.
Did you know that Tom hanks and Kathleen Quinlan spent a couple of days at the Lovell's house, to prepare themselves to play the parts?
as an aerospace engineer - the best part - " We need to fit this into the hole of this - using only this" such greatness
"Did this really happen?" re: the CO2 scrubber. It definitely did - a family friend was one of the people in Mission Control on the Apollo 13 mission, and was part of the team who improvised that fix. He was either an electrical or mechanical engineer (can't remember which), and these events inspired him to go to med school and become a physician.
I love this film, because it's one of the few films where it's not a single heroic figure that saves the day, it's an entire team of people who do. It's a testament to the amazing things humans can accomplish when they work together, and I think feeling that possibility is part of what makes this film so emotional.
I had to laugh a little when you mentioned how good the "screenplay" was when Marilyn lost her wedding ring down the drain. _Apollo 13_ is probably as close to a straightforward reenactment of the actual events as Hollywood's ever gotten. Marilyn dropping her wedding ring into the drain, her nightmare in the lead-up, the square-canister-in-round-hole problem, Fred Haise contracting a UTI, Jim Lovell removing his bio-sensors, the longer-than-expected radio blackout after re-entry - it's all basically true to actual events as recounted by Jim Lovell, with only small alterations (Marilyn did end up recover her wedding ring, Ken Mattingly wasn't exposed to true measles but to rubella (German measles), that kind of thing). The story is simply so extraordinary all on its own that there was no need to add any major fictionalised elements to the screenplay at all. An incredible movie about a real catastrophe overcome by the ingenuity and courage of real people
Ron Howard is a great filmmaker. Another excellent Howard flick is “Backdraft.”
The Apollo 13 mission is epic. The movie is based on the book, “Lost Moon,” by Jim Lovell. The true genius of this movie is that everyone knows how it ends but Ron keeps us all stressed the entire time. I’ve seen this movie so many times but I still cheer every time. I can’t imagine how it is for people without knowledge of the incident.
Gene Krantz’s wife made him a vest for every mission, thus the significance of the vest. With the exception of the argument between the astronauts, all of this stuff happened.
You need to watch the HBO 10 part series, “From The Earth To The Moon.” Tom Hanks did it after this movie. It’s like “Band of Brothers,” and “The Pacific.”
Also, do “The Right Stuff.” It’s about the creation of NASA and the Mercury program.
From The Earth To The Moon is required viewing after watching this.
The vest indicated which shift the person was on and indicates position
I was 10 years old when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. I got to stay up late that night and watch the whole Moonwalk live on TV as it happened. I'll never forget how I felt that night or the look on my Dad's face while it all took place in front of our eyes. Several years ago I got to hear a presentsation by Gene Kranz at the EAA Museum in Oshkosh and later I got to meet Fred Haise who sat one seat away from me and chatted with several of us Space geeks. What an amazing man. Thanks for another great video!
It was actually “Houston we’ve HAD a problem.” In a very matter of fact way. Because they were cool and didn’t freak out in real life.
Yeah, she went into this. Did you watch the video?
They took the weightless shots in a Nasa plane called the Vomit Comet. You climb to altitude then dive towards the ground gets everyone weightless for like 30 seconds. So, they did all those shots in that plane for those durations. Pretty cool!
If you haven't already you should watch Hidden Figures. It's about Katherine Johnson who unfortunately was omitted during this film. Mathematical genius.
Was she directly involved with Apollo 13?
Ed Harris steals every scene he's in. Tremendous actor.
Yes. The Abyss is probably my favourite movie with him in it. It was pretty shocking to find out he almost drowned during the making of one scene. Can’t blame him for never wanting to work with James Cameron again.
I saw this in the theater but also in real life.
All of America was glued to the news 24-7.
My strongest memory was laying with my mother while we waited for Apollo 13 to come around the dark side of the moon.
The real incident happened when I was a kid, so I knew Ron Howard picked a great story.
There are four Howards in the movie - Clint (little brother) at Mission Control, Rance (dad) as a priest, Jean (mom) as Jim Lovell's mother, and Bryce Dallas Howard standing next to Kathleen Quinlan before the launch.
FIVE (5) ... You missed Cheryl, Ron's wife. Additionally, in case you're interested, the real Jim Lovell played the "Captain of USS Iwo Jima" (uncredited) and his wife, Marilyn Lovell played an "Onlooker at Launch Site" (also uncredited).
I was around 12 when the real life event happened. The film really captured it well, the small changes Ron made to heighten the tension worked great without making it too far from what actually occurred. As a space follower my whole life I am always amazed when I find out people don't know the history.
This is by far the most real “space” movie you’ve ever seen.
My mom’s parents were in high school at the time and they witnessed the launch of Apollo 13 on TV.
One of my favorite movies which I guess you could call it a "space movie" is Hidden Figures. It is about the early days of NASA. Along with this movie and the Martian, it seems sort of like a trilogy of the important steps in getting into space.
Of course, with Hidden Figures, it is also how some critically important contributors were for a long time overlooked. Movie tears me up no matter how often I watch it.
Growing up, Walter Cronkite was the man. His voice and delivery gave weight to the information he passed to us. I enjoy hearing it today.
I flew the 'Vomit Comet' in a flight sim mission. Upon reaching a specific altitude at the proper speed and climb rate, we begin to nose down at a specific rate which is like some roller coasters when you leave your seat. Losing altitude and increasing speed is why 20 seconds is the safety margin to begin leveling the plane. It's not a fighter jet :)
What's so amazing is how tense and on the edge of your seat this movie keeps you, even if you already knew how it all turned out before you started watching.
"The Right Stuff" definitely worth a reaction if you have not done it...
The brilliance is in the execution of a plot you know the end of before it starts and yet still manage to feel every ounce of the tension the characters feel.
I remember seeing it in theaters back in ‘95 without researching the actual mission and it’s outcome, it was an emotional rollercoaster. One of Ron Howard’s trademarks is casting his family members in just about every film he does. His brother Clint was the ECON technician; father Rance was the priest at the Lovell residence, and mother Jean was Jim’s mom.
Same here. Saw it when I was 18 at the drive-in on a date. Good date but I have zero recollection of the movie.
And his wife is his wife in real life'
Apollo 12's glitch was all their electronics shutting down... it took steely-eyed missile-man John Aaron (the guy with the glasses who figured out how to power up the command module) to figure out that it had been hit by lightning.
I saw this movie at a drive-in theater, and it's one of the inspirations for my career as an engineer.
What I love about good space movies (most notably this one and The Martian) is that there are no bad guys. Just smart problem solving, people coming together to help other people survive. Comes to show that a good story doesn't necessarily needs a villain.
“Open the pod bay doors please Hal…”
You are so good at this. Always entertaining.
"Was it the door?"
That line always gets me in the feels.
This was based on Jim Lovell's memoir originally titled "Lost Moon" later retitled "Apollo 13" to tie-in to the movie. Nearly everything in the movie occurred in real life, though dramatically heightened. Definitely a great read!
I turned 13 one month after Apollo 13 launched. The movie largely gets things right.
They did the cryogenic stir (edit) more often than they should because of a weird signal in the oxygen sensor. If they had done the stir on schedule, Swiggert would have been by himself in the command module and the entire crew would have been lost because they needed the LEM to survive.
Swiggert being on the mission was a huge bonus. He literally wrote the book on emergency procedures for the astronaut. Plus he was beefier so he had more mass to draw on while being dehydrated.
The Houston crew went to an actual movie a few months before Apollo 13 launched. It was about astronauts who were stranded due to an electrical failure. Which started a discussion regarding what to do in an emergency.
Duct take was used for the first time on the mission which was used to make the CO2 filter.
At one point during the emergency, they could not close the hatch. If they had locked down the hatch, they would have delayed transferring to the LEM.
Lovell was on Apollo 8 and he did some tests where he navigated using the Earth. This was in case of computer loss. So they had the right person on the job.
I was four years old when the events of Apollo 13 happened. The day that the crew re-entered the atmosphere my parents had friends and neighbors huddled around the TV. I can clearly remember the entire room erupting with joy when they realized the astronauts had made it home safely. One of the most vivid memories of my childhood. (Edit to correct my horrible typing skills.)
The real Captain Lovell said "Houston, we've had a problem." Ron Howard changed the line because he thought "we've" would confuse the viewer.
Hydrogen fuel cells create electricity to run the ship. Oxygen is not just used for breathing, it is also mixed with the hydrogen to create electricity and the byproduct would be water for drinking.
The thing that always gets me about the radio blackout sequence is its similarity to the Columbia shuttle disaster... when there was only silence.
Yeah, ever since the Columbia shuttle disaster that's what I think of every time it gets to that line in the movie "there will only be silence".
_Columbia_ was cut off mid-sentence, though.
Love that we finally have an answer (tentatively) to Lovett's (via Hanks) last question. We'll be going back to the moon December 2025. I can't wait!
Great movie of a heroic event.
Seeing into the Spacecraft, then the camera pull back of the moon. Then Earth, all getting smaller into the blackness of of Space. While in a huge dark room. Really gives you a brief feeling of the grandeur of space. You needed to see this film in a theater.
"Steely eyed missile man" is one of the highest compliments a person can receive at NASA. The real ending wasn't quite that dramatic. They started receiving telemetry from Odyssey right when they were supposed to.
I was really into all sorts of space stuff as a kid in the 80's. When my parents realized it wasn't just the science-fiction but real stuff as well, they of course told me of the space race, the first moon landing, and ... the time it felt like the ENTIRE world held their breath hoping three astronauts would make it back home. At least the entire western world was watching, like my parents here in Norway. (and shortly after they told me about this was when I witnessed the Challenger disaster live on TV)
So when this movie was made, I didn't expect it to be a good adaptation, you know? It is one of the best movies ever. I absolutely love it.
They couldn't pay you enough to go to the Moon? I'd gleefully give them every last penny I have to go to the Moon.
I was four when Armstrong set foot on the Moon. It's mixed in with my sister's birth, which happened a week apart, but I remember it.
I remember Apollo 13 as a disaster for which there could be no rescue. Only later in life did I learn about how harrowing it was. Ron Howard took some liberties with events and time -- it was actually _worse_ than what Howard portrayed. However, it's close enough that it doesn't matter.
Excellent film. I never tire of it.
The Command module and LEM interiors were made by SpaceWorks in Hutchinson, Kansas, a shop affiliated with the Kansas Cosmosphere, (the best aviation/space museum that nobody has ever heard of).
The recreations were loaded on a 707, then flown in parabolic arcs with cameras on board, to film the weightless shot.
One of the best shots in the movie, IMO, is when they take their helmets and gloves off after the launch. Paxton and Bacon seem to be genuinely amused seeing all their gear floating around.
The Apollo 13 command module "Odyssey" is displayed at the Kansas Cosmosphere, along with "Liberty Bell 7", Gus Grissoms Mercury "spacecraft", which was recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic in 1999.
Along with a Russian Soyuz, and (reportedly) the largest display of Russian/Soviet space equipment outside of Russia.
Really. A fantastic museum, especially when you consider where it is. The locals decided they wanted to have a first class space museum, and they made it happen.
The wedding ring thing actually happened. The hotel was able to recover the ring.
Fun Fact: Jim Lovell has a cameo at the end of the film. He’s the Naval Captain Tom Hanks shakes hands with when he steps off the helicopter.
Several years later, Jim Lovell made a speech when Tom Hanks received his AFI award.
One of the best movies ever. We know how it ends, we know what happens, we know they make it… but it’s SO stressful every time! Ron Howard’s masterpiece!
In Mitchell, Indiana, there's a state park known as Spring Mill, which has a museum dedicated to its hometown hero, Gus Grissom. He was the first astronaut to go into space twice, and if the Apollo 1 fire hadn't happened, it might have been him instead of Neil Armstrong to be the first man on the Moon.
Two good Tom Hanks comedies from the beginning of his career are Dragnet based on the old television show and The Money Pit, "Two weeks"
You cut my favorite line, when Lovell's mom (played by Ron Howard's mom) said "Don't worry honey. If they built a washing machine to fly, Jimmy can land it." with absolute certainty. She was one of the treasures of the movie, for met.
If memory serves, Kathleen Quinlan was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in this role.
... The music had a tremendous impact in this movie.
There really was a Gunter Wendt, and "I vonder vere Gunter vent." was a tag line among the astronauts. There were a lot of German engineers that came to America after WW2. Werner von Braun was pivotal in designing the Saturn rocket.
It sounds like you haven't seen The Right Stuff (1983) yet. It covers the early period of manned American space flight. Ed Harris was in that one as well.
It's not _in_ space, but another good movie is October Sky (1999), set right after the Soviets launched Sputnik. If memory serves it was Jake Gyllenhaal's first film role.
Great reaction, Shanelle! I saw this movie in the theater with my Dad. He especially liked Dick Cavett's line: "I like those ingenious girl watchers who put on Con Edison
helmets and dig trenches in the street..." (My Dad is a Con Edison retiree who worked there for over 45 years.)
The plot to so many Tom Hanks films is, his character goes on an adventure, something goes wrong, and he has to fight his way home
This movie and “Forrest Gump” introduced me to Tom Hanks.
Watching this in theatre gave it an additional dimension in my opinion. Of course, the big screen, the sound etc. But also, you sit in the dark watching people sit in the dark. That adds quite a bit.
Ed Harris does a reprisal of his role, of sorts, as the voice of mission control in Gravity. Great reaction as always 👍🏻
He also played Astronaut John Glenn in the 1983 move The Right Stuff
I am 71 and I got to see a lot of the coverage of the Apollo 13 mission. My Dad said they should use the LEM as a lifeboat even before they reported that. There were a lot of people praying for their safe return to earth.
That was a wonderful reaction, Shanelle. I suppose another sign of a truly great movie is that even if you know the history, and even if you've seen it a few times before, the movie still affects you just as much. For me, this is one of those rare movies, and I hope it will be for you as well.
Thanks so much for watching Alan!!
I got to see this movie in IMax with Fred Haise sitting in the row behind me. The event host asked him about the gum scene, and he said that didn't happen. During his talk afterwards he said, "Yeah, I'm the guy who got sick in space." He also complemented how nice it was to talk with Bill Paxton.
On an even more personal level - my grandfather was one of the engineers on the ground when this event happened. My dad talked about how grandpa was gone the entire time, and himself not sleeping either until it was all over.
The part where Ed Harris tears up after he fell back in his chair was a lot of work for him. The director watched an interview with Gene Crantz where he was so emotional talking about what happened that he almost couldn't contain his tears. The director then told Harris "that's what I want from you."
It's a wonderful moment. Amidst all the clichéd cheering and paper-throwing, the true emotional reaction to a good outcome after several days of relentless tension is exactly as portrayed by Ed Harris.
In Gene Kranz's autobiography "Failure is Not an Option", he describes the tense final hours in Mission Control; his sweaty palms curling the corners of the log-book, the deep gouges cut by his pen as he notes various events, the "seconds [turning] into minutes and minutes into infinity".
It was a full 1 minute 28 seconds past the expected time before they had acquisition of signal. There was a brief cheer or gasp for breath around the room, but as the real Gene noted, "if a controller ever did that before the mission was over and the crew was on the carrier, that would be the last time he sat at a console." Because they were professionals. Consummate professionals.
Even when Gene found "himself crying unabashedly, then I try to suck it in, realizing this is inappropriate. But it doesn't work; it only gets worse. I was standing at the console crying."
... it's an amazing book, well worth a read.
There were many, many people working in other rooms to produce what was displayed on the screens in the main Mission Control room. That wasn't only computer data, it was information that other unseen people worked hard to produce. Each person in Mission Control represented an entire team that we rarely ever get to see or hear about.
"It comes after 12."
One of the few details they got wrong was the nozzles of the five F-1 engines during the launch scene. The real nozzles were clad in inconel sheet metal for thermal shielding which gave them a very scrappy looking appearance. It was among the final steps in assembling the rocket before flight, so none of the unused engines that went to museums include the cladding. The film's artists used museum pieces for reference, thus missing the detail.
It still wrecks my brain to think how important it was to have Ken Mattingly stay behind so he could figure out a startup sequence in the simulator. If he hadn't been bumped from the flight, they might not have made it home. Like Lovell ha said, you never know what events are gonna transpire to help get you home safely!
Mattingly's work on the ground was overstated in the movie. It was very important, but he was a part of a team that worked out the procedures together.
@@vraspir123 that's a very good point, it was indeed a team effort. Still his intimate familiarity with the command module as pilot cannot be overlooked and was probably vital to them being able to formulate a startup proceedure.
They had a whole team that were just as expert and they all helped. Swaggert had actually written the manual on emergency procedures so he was just as much an expert as Mattingly rather than a newbie as is portrayed in this movie.
The news footage in the movie is actual news footage from television at the time. I was in high school when this happened and absolutely everyone was just glued to the TV. Because there was no internet or 24/7 news channels to get information it was random breaks in TV shows for information.
Other movies to consider include (but are certainly not limited to) 'The Right Stuff', 'Hidden Figures' , and 'Apollo 11' (Which was made entirely from NASA archive footage). On a personal note, I was 7 years old when we first landed on the moon, and was captivated by news reports as they became available concerning Apollo 13... Watching this movie in 1995, I found myself holding my breath, and on the edge of my seat despite knowing the eventual outcome. It is a true pleasure to watch others watching this film for the first time, and recapturing just a bit of the wonder of experiencing something for the first time...😄
This movie is so well done. I was 14 when this happened for real and remember following it on television. I also remember all the churches in town holding special prayer meetings to get them home safely.
Nominated for 11 Oscars including Best Picture but won for Best Sound Editing and Best Film Editing.
One of the BEST cast ever assembled for a movie.
If you ever get to Houston, check out the tour that lets you see the original Mission Control room
I remember the events well since I was in high school. Much of the world was holding its breath before they landed, and I saw the landing in real time myself. I also saw the film in the theater when it came out. The most impressive things were when the capsule was reentering the earth's atmosphere and was a stream of fire. Then the huge red and white parachutes opening had the crowd cheering. Most of the black and white news footage was real. The only thing that was really different from reality was them arguing in the capsule. That didn't really happen, but they added it for the story. (As if it needed more suspense!)
I love this movie. the whole 'houston, we have a problem'' thing, even though it WAS taken from the audio logs of the actual mission, has got to be the most over-quoted and joked-to-death things to ever come out of hollywood. we're even seeing kids movies with characters named ''Houston'' JUST so they can make that reference at one point. It gets old. Anyway, enough of my old-man ranting. thanks for the video Shanelle. It was great watching you enjoying this modern classic
It’s not even a correct quote. Lovell said, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
Fun bit of trivia if you like space movies: The phrase "Steely eyed missile man", used in this movie and The Martian (and probably others) is an unofficial title of honor used within NASA. It originates from Apollo 12, in which the mission was almost aborted moments after launch when the rocket was hit by lightning, causing garbled telemetry data in the command module. John Aaron (the guy who's concerned with the electricity usage in this movie), thinking quickly, recommended a highly obscure remedy (set SCE to Aux) which would allow the Signal Conditioning Equipment to function with low voltage, and thankfully one member of the crew (Alan Bean) knew where the switch (one out of hundreds) was to do that, and the mission was saved.
John Aaron was given the title by his colleagues for his quick thinking under pressure and obscure knowledge.
Please give the STAR TREK franchise a chance. 🖖
Definitely start with Wrath of Khan
One of the things I most love about this movie on a personal level is that I get to see so much of real TV anchor Walter Cronkite! He was widely known as The Most Trusted Man In America! No joke. I still miss him every day.
The way Gene said "I believe this is going to be our finest hour" is so perfectly appropriate, tying into why the mission was a "successful failure". It really was NASA's finest hour, and still is to this day. Its greatest accomplishments have generally happened while a mission was, at least at that point, going according to plan. This is the only time the whole mission went out the window with any slim hope of maybe finding a way to bring the astronauts back... And they brought them back. I just hope the next time something happens to a manned spacecraft that doesn't immediately kill everyone on board, that mission control is being staffed by people as dedicated as the ones that were there for this.
As a massive science geek who loves all things astronomy, cosmology and astrophysics the reason I love this movie is that it's the most historically and scientifically accurate movie ever made, ever, in all of human history. Full stop.
I had no way of confirming but it felt that way!!
@ShanelleRiccio I just remembered this video on Astrum's channel called "Artemis 1's Attempts To Reclaim The Moon Blew Us Away", a short 17 minute documentary on NASA's Artemis missions to colonize the moon. The space-test dummies are named Compos after Arturo Compos, the engineer who designed the fix for the Apollo 13 oxygen tank disaster. Did you know he won the Medal of Freedom for doing that? Humans will be going to the moon again in a couple years or less.
Video is 3 weeks old (er than this video) sobit's pretty much up to date in the mission timeline.
Tom Hanks in the 90s was just unstoppable. Apollo 13 was Hanks at the height of his career. But if you were around in the 90s, it was like hit movie after hit movie for him.
Christoper Columbus discovered the America that you are living in today.
No.
@@Parallax-3D yes
I love this movie! I was 9 when Apollo 13 actually happened. Back then we had favorite astronauts like kids have favorite ball players. My favorite astronaut was one of the people who died in the Apollo 1 fire. I went to Catholic school and we had daily mass to pray for the Apollo 13 astronauts safe return after the accident. i was in my 30's when I saw it in the theater, I was surprised how I cried when I watched it. The memories came crashing back! I still cry when the little boy asks "Is it the door?"
Keep working on the intros...but please, don't ever try "Shan Shan" again...I don't think it is the direction you want to go. LOL
We are happy to see you, so not much work needs to be done.
"Steely-eyed missile man" was a line directly from real life, although it was spoken during a different mission. It was when on Apollo 12 the whole rocket was hit by lightning twice during launch, causing the systems in the Command Module to go haywire. Fortunately, the Saturn V's computer was not affected, so the rocket kept on flying on its own (which is normal), but the astronauts couldn't do anything with their control panel, so they were almost forced to abort the mission. But in Mission Control, John Aaron remembered something from training about switching SCE to AUX in such a situation, and this was relayed to the crew (fortunately, the radio still worked, or else they would have manually aborted the mission by activating the crew escape system). Out of the three astronauts, only Alan Bean remembered that switch and where it was, and it was right in front of him, so he switch SCE to AUX, and everything returned to normal. Once again, this was a known issue that they were trained for, but with time constraints really tight (seconds away from a manual abort) and under pressure, two guys together remembered what to do, and saved the mission. That was when someone called John Aaron a "steely-eyed missile man," but the line is so good that the filmmakers just had to steal it for _Apollo 13_ .