FIRST TIME WATCHING: Apollo 13...I can't believe I've never seen this!!!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 พ.ย. 2024
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James and Ninetailedbrush watch another cinemas classic, per reaction commission, Apollo 13!! What an awesome movie!!! Enjoy!
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ATTENTION: The UNEDITED REACTION of this movie had to be deleted from Patreon due to copyright issues. The footage can't be tampered for reuploading so it is no longer there. I am so so sorry. I hope you understand. (9/29/2021)
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My family all gathered around the television at my grandma's house and witnessed this as it happened. I remember me and my cousins being on our knees praying for the astronauts and everyone crying when the parachutes finally opened. It was one of those indelible moments in life that you can't really describe to anyone who wasn't there. This film came very close.
If you liked this, Tom Hanks followed it up with a 12-parts miniseries called From the Earth to the Moon, documenting the entire Apollo program. It’s absolutely incredible.
That is such a great miniseries.
Wow, didn't know about that. Thx
The miniseries and this movie both make you feel like you went to the moon with all the Apollo astronauts. Both are great shows. Highly recommend From the Earth to the Moon.
One correction; the first episode takes you from the Mercury program through the Gemini program.
@@milescoburn1845 True. The Right Stuff is also a good movie about the Mercury program too.
Fun Fact: The Navy Captain shaking hands with Tom Hanks on the aircraft carrier at the end of the movie is the real Jim Lovell.
I didn't knew it and I've seen this movie a few times but just now watching the scene that was my first thought, thank you for confirming it for me!
And his wife, Marilyn, is in the crowd, during the launch.
The gravity scenes were filmed on the “vomit comet” aircraft that simulated zero g by flying in a series of parabolic arcs like airtime on a roller coaster.
Much of the really tense dialog was dramatized to make the story more interesting. These guys were so well trained and cool headed that in reality there was just not that much verbal drama .
The Naval officer that Tom Hanks shakes hands with at the end is the real Jim Lovell, btw. The movie was based on his book about the disaster, Lost Moon.
I came here to comment this fact 😃
Did you also know that Ron Howard wanted to make his character an Admiral, but Jim Lovell said “I retired a Captain; a Captain I will be”. And that was his actual uniform he was wearing too 🙂
And Jim's wife, Marylin, is in the crowd, during the launch.
My dad has the book,I read it too. I cannot imagine going thru what they did.
Something for perspective, I was 13 when the first moon landing happened. We knew the names of all of the astronauts just like we knew the names of baseball pitchers. Astronauts were part of the popular culture. We really were glued to our tv's for this story. These were our guys up there.
The moment I remember most about the days of Apollo 13 was when my father explained to me that there had been an accident and they wouldn't be landing on the moon.
I asked him "But they'll be all right, won't they Daddy?"
He had a haunted look in his eyes when he said " I don't know. I hope so, but I just don't know. "
Older me realized years later I am pretty sure he didn't think they would, but he couldn't tell his 6 year old son who idolized those astronauts that.
Jeez that’s crazy
I was 8 years old and remember my father coming into my bedroom, waking me up, and telling me that the astronauts weren't going to land on the moon because an oxygen tank exploded. I was disappointed and felt that they should have landed anyway. That's all I remember about it.
I've watched this movie... a few times. "Was it the door?" breaks me every time.
Bill paxton was so damn cool its unfortunate he isnt here anymore
Honestly it's movies like this that made me rethink our "desperate to avoid spoilers" culture. Everyone walking into that theater knew exactly how it was going to end, but there's still enormous tension, because the people in the movie don't know that.
It's much like Titanic. Capable film makers know how to tell or even retell a story in their own way but still make it engaging.
I tend to rethink the way people teach history classes these days. You'd be surprised how many people didn't know the Titanic was going to sink...............
Also this was a perfect movie to showcase the reason why not every movie needs a bad guy. (Again, insert Titanic cross-reference here) Not every story has one, not every story needs one. You can root for the heroes without having to spend additional energy on a contrived trope.
It's the same with Chernobyl. Everyone knows the end result of it, but there's plenty of details to be filled and drama to be had regardless.
I like the story he tells of his plane lights going out. If he hadn’t been in darkness, he’d never have seen the bioluminescent of the sea. Things happen for a reason. If the other pilot hadn’t been grounded, he wouldn’t have been there to come up with the solution to the amps.
Yeah, it’s cool. Even if it’s not religious it’s a cool idea
No, things happen because of a cause, not for a reason. Did the three astronauts who didn't survive the Apollo 1 disaster have to be burned alive for a reason? Bad things do actually happen...quite a lot, in fact.
That was a detail they fudged. Ken Mattingly WAS in the simulator but it was the Tiger Team that largely solved the amp issue. They condensed it for drama sake.
My thoughts exactly! Lovell telling that story and Ken figuring out the amp problem are two of my favorite scenes. You never know what's going to conspire to bring you home.
@@kenmayes1932 Yes, the John Arron character (although he's a real person) was actually meant to represent a lot of people, who worked on the CM restart problem.
They also left out the bit, where they powered up the telemetry, at the end of the power up, only to discover that a breaker had been left closed (when it should have been open), wasting a bit of power.
Fortunately, that bit of wasted power wasn't, ultimately critical.
This is a perfect film. I am deeply moved every time. Howard should have won best Director for this.
It's one of the few very good 'we tell a story that really happened'-movies that stayed close to what went down. Apart from making the scientific stuff more comprehendable, condensed and interesting for the average person (it's still accurate and depicts the steps taken) and adding a bit drama (there was no fighting between the crew, you can listen to the whole conversation and it's incredibly calm and therefore somewhat boring despite the ongoing shitshow around them 😂).
I binged a lot of your videos in the last few days and I think you'd like 'Pan's labyrinth'. Thanks for the time and effort you guys put in your vids ✌️
I remember reading one of the few critiques of this movie was that not enough guys in Mission Control had slide rules! 🤣
@@beansfriend7033 that's hilarious 😂 but somehow understandable, there's not much to critique with this movie and you have to come up with sth when you're writing it 😅
The temperature never went down to -0 degrees, the lowest it reached was 3 degrees.
Not sure if Ron Howard ever made a 'based on' film where he didn't over dramatize events. Still makes great movies.
@@MoMoMyPup10 you kind of needed to in this case. If you've listened to the mission audio you might be hard pressed to know there was anything more than a minor issue.
Apollo 13, like all the Apollo craft returning from the Moon, entered the Earth's atmosphere at over 36,000 feet per second. Popular misconception is that the heat and fire of reentry is due to friction but it's actually due to compression - the command module is traveling so fast that the molecules in its path aren't able to get away and instead undergo rapid compression and ionization. In other words it's absolute insanity.
This is one of those films I never get tired of. The only reason I wasn't squirming with tension the whole time was because I already knew that the Apollo 13 astronauts all made it home safely. I love how they have a room full of the brightest minds in the world literally trying to figure out how to put a square peg in a round hole. By the way, Ed Harris, who played the head of mission control, also played astronaut John Glenn in The Right Stuff, and also played the voice of mission control in Gravity...you never see his face, but it's practically a tradition at this point that films involving NASA have to have Ed Harris in them. (Amazed he wasn't in The Martian.)
Also, if you watch footage of the real guy who was the head of mission control, he looks and talks very much like Harris. Great acting and casting.
I was in 2nd grade when this happened. They brought the whole school in the gym to watch a single television. I remember they had a priest who said a prayer. And when it went beyond the three minute blackout it was assumed they didn't make it . . . and then they made it.
The KC-135 jet was able to provide about 25 seconds of weightlessness. Meaning all the floating around was filmed in 25 second increments. They had to dip down and come back up 600 times.
In an interview with the real Jim Lovell, he said there was never any doubt that Jack could handle it, and the tension between Jack and Fred was just for drama. Neither Jim nor Fred ever blamed Jack. He said they were all hyper focused on working together to accomplish their new mission. They were all test pilots before, so they were used to staying calm in the face of danger.
Fun fact: the Naval officer that shook Jim’s hand when they returned was actually the real Jim Lovell himself. They also used the transcripts of the real flight and mission control, and copied a lot of the dialogue exactly as it was said.
I was just about to post the same, exact points. Well done!
Also know as The Vomit Comet.
Yep, the Vomit Comet flying huge parabolas... they got the weightlessness at the top of each parabola. Amazing actually filming scenes while going through that roller coaster ride in the air!
The Vomit Comet!
"A computer that can fit into a single room". And now we have laptops. Think about how much technology has advanced since then. Enjoying your reactions!
Yeah it’s honestly crazy
And a huge amount of that scientific progress came about BECAUSE of the space program. Too many people today don't see why it's important, but we wouldn't be using TH-cam right now if not for NASA.
@@whitenoisereacts Your cell phone has more computer power than all of NASA back then.
Yeah. There’s like two or three of cases in recorded human history where you can see such a massive leap within a lifetime or two. Technology in general (in two phases really. 1935-1970 or so and then 70 to about now) and combat sports. Now phone is technically more powerful than what they had to go to the moon, America went from the Stone Age to modernity in a few hundred years and come back on completely changed from basically nothing to a complete self defense system for any human being from the dawn of time until domesday to employ from 89-today. The blips in time these thing took to fully evolve and rainstorm the entire world is now insane.
And phones! My cellphone is more versatile than my laptop for sure. I barely even use it for phone services anymore 😅
This is such a great movie. I know this wasn't the exciting first step on the moon event, but I am still amazed at how many young people don't know about this event. What do they learn in school these days? Makes me sad that they are completely unaware of major events like this. Great reaction by you both!
Yeah, but at least we learning now right?
@@whitenoisereacts Yes indeed. Kudos!
I think everybody's just on their phones in school now lol
"Houston we have a problem.." That line is still memorable to this day. It was nominated for Best Picture but lost to Braveheart. I watched this with my family, didn't know it was based on a true story!
In real life, he actually said "Houston, we've had a problem."
2:07 I love Walter Cronkite’s reaction to the astronauts landing on the moon.
Great reaction, guys. I was a little kid when this happened and everyone was glued to the news. We prayed for them in school!
Well, good that you did. How else would they have made it??🙄
Fun Fact: The dude Tom Hanks salutes at the end of the movie is the actual Jim Lovell....Apollo 13 commander.
I was a fourth grader when this happened and I remember my teacher leading us in a prayer for the astronauts. The whole world was really caught up in it. Thanks for checking this one out.
The zero g scenes were shot at about 20 seconds at a time on a 'reduced gravity' jet called the vomit comet. Its ascending and descends in such a way that you achieve weightlessness. Similar to the feeling you get when a roller coaster drops.
Damn….that’s gotta be insane
One of my favorite moments in Mary Roach's book, _Packing for Mars,_ was when she got permission to fly on the "Vomit Comet" and was given strict instructions on behavior - per Roach, "'Horse-play' is forbidden." She also notes a couple pages later, after her flight, "When I get back to my room to review my notes, I find that I've written nothing of substance ... My notes say: 'WOO' and 'yippee.'" (Seriously, it's an awesome and hilarious book.)
@@whitenoisereacts The Russians have chartered flights now on their own version of the "Vomit Comet," and the band OK GO filmed their music video for their song "Upside Down" in dozens of those 20 second increments of Zero-G over the course of a number of those flights. You should check out their video as well as the "making of" video:
th-cam.com/video/LWGJA9i18Co/w-d-xo.html
@@whitenoisereacts A band called OK GO crafted a 5 minute music video, "Upside Down & Inside Out" by stitching together as many 20-second runs together as needed.
One of my absolute favorite movies. I was lucky enough to be dragged to this in the theaters when I was 10 years old and it absolutely captivated me. Obviously, 10 year old me knew jack shit about Apollo 13, but the visuals, acting, TENSION... it was mindblowing as a child. Watching that Saturn rocket take off on the big screen is probably a close second when it comes to childhood movie memories right behind watching the T-Rex in the first Jurassic Park break out of its fence.
What's amazing about this movie is that if you know history you know how this ends. But the movie still keeps you in suspense and on edge.
How good a movie is this? Those of us who lived through the events, and know the outcome, are still caught up in the drama as it's presented. Every time.
How awesome would it be to fly to the moon with Bill F'n Paxton? RIP you magnificent beast of a man.
This is one of my top five favorite films. In my admittedly humble opinion, it’s practically flawless. I was in high school and watched the first moon landing on a black and white TV, so this was “my” era. The acting, the script, the music, the way they achieved some tough special effects before CGI was really a thing, that silent shot of this tiny frail craft in the expanse of space, the tension that is almost relentless, the way that period of time was just so perfectly captured are all fantastic. You are too young to know this, but the news anchor they showed periodically with glasses and mustache was the absolutely legendary Walter Cronkite, “the most trusted man in America”. I love how they seamlessly wove actual TV footage of him into the movie. The initial disinterest of the networks is partly due to human nature - we love to rubberneck at an accident, but not events that seem “routine”. Plus, you don’t understand that there were only a few channels back then, and absolutely NO 24 hour news networks. Deciding how to fill your prime time broadcast slots was a big deal. Obviously, when everything went to hell, the story dominated the airwaves. And the press was getting their information from NASA, they didn’t have people embedded in the control room trying to get a scoop. In some ways, things were more straightforward back then (and not so much in other ways). I was a bit surprised you didn’t comment on “a computer that can fit into a single room”, the use of paper and pencil to do math, slide rules, etc. When you really boil it down, what all these people tried to do was batshit crazy. The fact that they mostly succeeded in their attempts is even more nuts.
I remember when this movie came out and my dad didn't know about this Apollo mission. He was just a kid when it all happened. We came home and he immediately went to a magazine that he had on the Apollo program and Apollo 13 wasn't in it. He couldn't believe they would leave a mission like that out and then spent the next few weeks finding out all he could because he wanted to know how accurate the movie was.
Guys blow this up cuz we all know these guys need to react to The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile! Top 5 movies all time no cap
Shawshank -- yes.
Green Mile -- no. That movie is full of tired old racist tropes and is unwatchable trash.
I like Shawshank, but I love The Green Mile.
Green mile is a classic and an amazing movie. To say it's unwatchable trash is laughable!
Yeah I don’t know what he’s smoking, Green Mile is a must watch. But Shawshank first. I did my part - and thumbed the original comment! 👍🏼
@@tfpp1 people these days just have to find any and every excuse to be offended by something instead of enjoying life
My Father worked for GRUMMAN during the APOLLO missions ( he was a Quality Test Engineer for Grumman who built the Landing module ). I was 5 years old when NEIL Armstrong walked on the moon and I remember playing outside and my father calling me inside to watch NEIL Walk on the moon.
My dad was an engineer in air systems, and he worked on the design of clean rooms for NASA. I remember when he went to Houston in the late '60s to oversee the installation of some clean rooms. He got to sit in one of the Apollo capsules before it was shipped to Florida for launch. He brought back cowboy hats and boots for us kids, my brother and I were about 8 and 9 years old then. It took soooo many people to make NASA and the space program a success -- it was a very proud time in the US for all Americans!
If y’all loved this, then I know you’ll love Interstellar, The Martian, Arrival, etc. All super good sci-fi movies
Yes to all three!
All great Sci-Fi films but Apollo 13 is not Sci-Fi
I second the votes for The Martian and Arrival! (Never seen the other one)
Robyn - in my view Interstellar is the best of the three, and is second only to my favourite Sci Fi film which is Blade Runner
@@BP-kx2ig I wasn't the biggest fan of Blade Runner, but Interstellar is definitely on my list of things to watch.
Apollo 13 was the 5th trip to the moon, that was why networks didn’t show it. Even Mission Control in Houston asked them (the Apollo crew) to end the coverage because there was a baseball game on. Right after Apollo 13 crew ended their broadcast, the explosion happened.
You feel bad for the guy not being able to go to the moon but then realize how much his expertise was needed.
Exactly. Mattingly was exactly where he needed to be.
Ken Mattingly did go on Apollo 16. He did the same thing as he would have on 13, continued in orbit around the moon and get the crew who landed and returned.
I’m always floored when people don’t know this was based on a real mission.
The floating in the cabin was done on NASA's K-135A aircraft that performs a series of parabolas using extreme climbs followed by extreme dips. At the top of the parabola everything in the plane becomes weightless. Dubbed the "Vomit Comet" the flights were used in astronaut training to expose astronauts to weightlessness to give a feel for what it will be like in space. For the movie they built a mockup of the Apollo capsule inside the fuselage & executed multiple parabolic maneuvers to capture the weightlesness scenes.
The older actress who played Jim Lovell's Mom and had some of the best lines in the movie, is the mother of director Ron Howard. She's been an actress as a young woman, and since she was the right age to play the part, Ron asked her to do it and she said yes. "If they could make a washing machine fly, my Jimmy could land it." "Are you boys in the space program too"?
The priest watching the re-entry on tv with the family was his father; and the controller Sy (Liebergot?) who recommended shutting down the fuel cells was his brother Clint.
I lived through this and not many people cared. It was supposed to be our 3rd lunar landing on the moon. Very few were interested. When they were in serious trouble, the whole world was watching. many prayers were said including mine and they were all answered. There was great relief and joy for me when I finally saw the TV image of the Apollo 13 with the parachutes deployed. I knew they made it. That view was taken from one of the helicopters. I was so happy I just cheered with tears in my eyes. I went home on my lunch hour to watch. In 1977 I took pictures of Apollo 13 at the tourists' building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I still don't know why I failed to take pictures of the armrest from the lunar module mounted on the wall.
I remember seeing this in the theater as a teenager. Despite every seat being full in a summer weekend showing, that’s the quietest theater I’ve ever been in. People seemed to be holding their breath.
Great reaction guys!! Just a fun fact, the actual Jim Lovell that flew in the Apollo 13 mission, is the General that greets Tom Hanks at the end of the movie!!
Captain. O6 in the Navy. CAPT Lovell was a naval aviatior. General is an O7-O9 IN The Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps.
It's very nice to see a couple of young folks reacting to this story because I lived it as I'm sure a lot of other folks in the comments have also! I went through my grammar school years first grade to grade 8 very much into the space program as a child!! In the sixth grade I did a report on the Gemini program which was the one that came before Apollo!! I had a scale model of the complete Saturn V rocket which was in separate stages that came apart and went back together!! The entire model was about 3 to 3 and 1/2 ft tall and I wish I still had it!! I say all this to show that I was very much into Apollo, landing on the moon watching it on television and it was an amazing time in American history and world history!! I feel like it was our Shining Moments as American engineers and scientists were leading the way in these areas!! I'm fortunate and grateful to have lived through it and experienced it for myself in real time!!
The filming of this movie is a story in itself. The cast and crew logged more hours in NASA’s 0G plane than any astronaut in history. They filmed the 0G floating scenes while falling from the sky.
The first unmanned test of the Saturn V (Apollo 4) the force of the launch shook apart scaffolding stands that ABC and NBC were using for their live reports 4 miles away!
Jim Lovell was the CM pilot on Apollo 8, which sent the CSM to lunar orbit and back without a LM. I watched their live tv broadcast from my Grandmothers living room on Christmas eve 1968, a mind blowing experience.
I'm old enough to have watched this event live, and the movie used a number of actual film clips (yes those were the days when film was the only recording medium). Among the real people in the movie was Walter Cronkite, the most trusted news anchor in the country. He is shown actually narrating the event on television.
Great reaction. You should check out a very underrated and almost forgotten mini series "From the Earth to the Moon". It was Tom hanks' first miniseries as producer after this movie and before Band of Brothers and it is excellent.
I'm in my 60s so I remember when Apollo 13 happened. It was scary because we really did not know if the astronauts would die! My dad was particularly into all aspects of the space program so at our house Apollo 13 was a big thing.
One of my favorite movies of all time. So glad you got to experience it!
Such a great movie. Of course, Tom Hanks, Gary Sinise, what more do you need for an amazing movie. So intense, especially knowing that it's a true story.
Love your reactions to this, it's one of my favorite movies. The reason it took longer than expected for them to make radio contact was because they actually were a bit shallow on re-entry. When I went to see the final shuttle launch in 2011, I had this soundtrack synced up to play during launch.
I got to see Jim Lovell give a speech when I was in college. The thumb thing? Of him holding his thumb up, is that "you're so far away from Earth, that you can cover up the entirety of history with just your thumb." Puts it in persepctive.
Great movie and this film definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat! I loved how Gary Sinise's character got sort of a redemption arc, how he wasn't able to have his moment to shine on the space mission but was able to find a way to bring back the space crew to earth safely, that was his big moment!
The huge Mission Control set was rebuilt on a gigantic sound stage at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, accurate to the tiniest detail. When some of the astronauts and NASA personnel visited the set, they freaked, said it was surreal to look at the re-creation. I live in Houston near NASA and you can still visit the facilities where a lot of this took place.
Tom Hanks & Gary Sinise are in three movies together that I know of: Forrest Gump, Appollo 13 & The Green Mile. All of them are award-winning movies that I could watch over & over again.
White Noise - fun FACT , Clint Howard the Actor is RON Howard's brother , Clint Howard was on Star Trek TOS, as a Small Bald Alien.
I had to watch Apollo 13 in School, we were then given a test on what happened during the movie (to ensure we paid attention to it) I'm proud to say I was the only one who Scored a Perfect 100% on it
The Apollo 1 fire happened because they were testing a seat spacecraft at high pressure with 100% oxygen (which is like dousing everything in gasoline).
Haise getting sick was just something that happens sometimes, as your inner ear adjusts to zero G.
The part about Swigert forgetting to file his taxes and Marilyn losing her ring in the show really happened. They don't show it, but Marilyn was able to get the ring back.
The movie is a family affair. Ron Howard's brother Clint plays the mission control guy with glasses who said "The Odyssey is dying". His mother Jean played Jim's mother, his father Rance played the priest, and his then-unknown daughter Bryce was the girl in the yellow dress when Marilyn is saying goodbye to Jim.
The older navy captain that Tom Hanks shakes hands with at the end is the real Jim Lovell.
The Apollo 1 fire was caused by a short in the electrical system. The biggest problem was that they did not have a quick escape mechanism to open the door and the men burned up due to the delay in getting the door open.
My grandfather was one of the sailor on the aircraft carrier that rescued Apollo 13. #USNavy
Glad to see this, wish more people reacted to this film! Also one of the great film scores ever.
You guys should watch "das Boot" (the boat). It's a claustrophobic, nail biting, crazy masterpiece and 99% of the time you will ask yourself "How did they film this?!" ... so if a "classic" international movie should interest you you will certainly not be disappointed
My mother's family, and then Mom and Dad when they first married, and then my brother and I growing up, all watched as much as we could of the launches. My grandparents were scientists who raised their children to be smart and curious, so we LOVE space! Mom watched this movie in the theater with me, and remembered the whole thing, and had friends who worked in that room of engineers given a box and told to Figure It Out, and her claustrophobia gave her fits just LOOKING at the Capsule! Mom didn't watch another space movie until I MADE her see Gravity, and she adored it!
That movie is the opposite of claustrophobic lol
A shiver goes down my spine during the part they discover they're leaking oxygen every time.
The shots of the rocket on the launchpad were so accurate, NASA asked Ron Howard how they got those shots for the movie because they didn't remember giving the production any footage. Ron had to tell them that they built those shots in CG.
Jim Lovell said they didn't argue and shout at one another. That was artistic license. The science was well represented. There was less compute power on that spaceship than on your phone.
The real Jim Lovell made a cameo as the captain of the ship that picked them up. One of my favorite lines in any movie is "and you, sir, are a steely eyed missile man," to an engineer. I'm a computer engineer and I really appreciate that. 😁
I remember watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon when I was 8. I remember Apollo 13 from the news.
The zero gravity scenes were filmed within the cargo bay of an aircraft preset to look like the inside of the Capsule and Lem. Weightlessness is achieved by flying G-FORCE ONE through a parabolic flight maneuver. Specially trained pilots fly these maneuvers between approximately 24,000 and 34,000 feet altitude. Each parabola takes 10 miles of airspace to perform and lasts approximately one minute from start to finish.
This movie came out when I was about 6. I grew up watching this with my older brother over and over and it's a big reason why I'm such a big astronomy/space nerd to this day. The whole film is a brilliant testament to the ingenuity of the steely eyed missile men who brought these men home from the most inhospitable situation imaginable.
I lived through all of this stuff from the first Mercury flight through the moon landing and beyond, and it was an exciting time. Lots of great moments, but tragic ones as well. I remember the special report about the Apollo 1 astronauts dying on the launch pad. I even heard the space shuttle Columbia explode during its doomed re-entry over Texas.
I enjoyed your reaction very much. I'll bet you guys would really like THE RIGHT STUFF, the story of the Mercury space program and the test pilot flights that led up to it.
I know how you feel, I was listening to the broadcast of the launch of Challenger while I was working construction and was shocked when the “O” ring failed on one of the SBR’s and exploded. Broke my heart.
I remember trying to see Apollo 13 at the theaters and it was sold out. We had paid for a babysitter so we went to see Braveheart and I didn’t know anything about that. Both are excellent movies. Good reaction boys!
Of course the main actors are all great, but I especially like Ed Harris in this movie.
This is his movie, hands down.
1) Fred Haise's Space Sickness
2) how they filmed Zero-G
3) backup crews and unfair portrayal of Jack Swigert
4) CGI and mockups that were used... and confused for the real thing
5) heightened drama for the sake of an enjoyable film
6) NASA and the News Media
1) When Fred Haise threw up early in the mission, that wasn't nerves. It was a common occurrence spaceflight called "Space Adaptation Syndrome" but more simply known as Space Sickness. Much like Sea Sickness, your equilibrium is thrown off and your brain immediately thinks the cause is something you ate, so it screams "EJECT, EJECT, EJECT"
It happened to about 30% of Astronauts during the days of Apollo, and persists to this very day. By the second day, even the strongest cases subside and the astronaut is good to go for the remainder of the mission. It is also why Soyuz flights to Mir and ISS (the International Space Station) take a two-day orbit before rendezvous and docking, so all crewmembers are rested and fully adapted to zero-G for the important docking phase.
2) Speaking of Zero-G, it was not at all CG, they literally filmed in Zero-G. But how?
Astronauts train for weightlessness in a modified KC-135 cargo plane which they nicknamed the "Vomit Comet"
What it does is it flies up high at a high angle and then begins a long slow dive. During a period of 20-30 seconds, the plane and everyone inside are in freefall. Inside, without any visual references to the outside, all you feel is a sense of total weightlessness. That is, until the dive is over, at which point you better hang on, because you're gonna get double the G's or more as it flies back up.
They had built special mockups of Odyssey and Aquarius inside the cargo area of this plane, and during the dives, they film the weightless scenes in those 20 second windows. Astronaut Jim Lovell had stated that the crew of this film logged more hours in the vomit comet than he himself would ever care to. But it is that effort and determination that makes for a great film, as we see those efforts on screen for all to see, without any need for Hollywood fakery.
3) Jack Swigert was far more skilled than the movie gives him credit for. Yes indeed he is a member of a very VERY short list of astronaut candidates, and you absolutely MUST prove yourself mentally and physically to even be up for consideration, much less be accepted. Every single astronaut on both the prime crew and backup crew is totally qualified to fly any space mission. The training is primarily for the specific mission objectives, and of course to drill and drill and drill every conceivable failure and emergency scenario.
The whole reason for backup crews to exist in the first place is in case of exactly such a scenario, should something happen to the prime crew, the backups can take their place
Traditionally however, when something happens to a member of the prime crew, the ENTIRE crew is swapped out, for the very reason of the cooperative training they have all done together. John Young, Charles Duke, and Jack Swigert were no doubt closely knit just like Lovell, Mattingly and Haise. But this was a unique situation as Charles Duke was the one who had the measles in the first place, eliminating him entirely. And since Mattingly's exposure to it led to health concern, the decision came to replace him with Swigert. But again, he was totally qualified. The only downside was that break in cohesiveness.
Not only did Jack perform more than admirably, but he even wrote many of the emergency procedures they used during the mission.
The moment of near fighting they had never occurred in real life. If anything, it was a way to heighten the drama and give Jack Swigert the "earning his stripes" storyline, which works as a film, but is a case of Hollywood embellishment. What they did do though was use a quote from days after the mission, when the press asked Jim Lovell if they were ever on the verge of panicking, to which he replied "We could have bounced off the walls for ten minutes, but we would have just ended up right back where we were with the same problems"
4) The Saturn V rocket and the launch phase were all very wonderful CGI. What is hilarious about that is.... it worked so well that the film was nearly disqualified for consideration for Academy Award nomination for Visual Effects, because the Academy accused them of using stock footage from actual NASA launches. They were THAT convincing.
Another instance of confusing for the real thing was MOCR, the Mission Operations Control Room (or "Mission Control" as the public calls it). NASA had granted the film crew the use of the actual Apollo MOCR which still existed at the time. But Ron Howard wanted to build the entire set himself, primarily so he could better control lighting and camera placement (as you cannot remove walls and sections of the ACTUAL control room to get certain shots). Astronaut Dave Scott (Apollo 15) was technical advisor on the film, and he said that the recreation was so accurate that a couple times he himself was faked out, when leaving after a shoot was done, he would go through a door that would have been the normal location exit, only to find that it was either a false door or led to some other backstage area he wasn't expecting. Boy I wish someone had a camera on him when that happened LOL
5) we spoke of the yelling match inside the spacecraft, but there were also other moments of heightened emotion throughout, especially in Mission Control. If you were to listen to the audio recordings of the actual mission, virtually everyone was totally calm and professional in every single aspect, even during the most dangerous moments. If they were to make the film straight off what had happened in real life, it would be boring quite frankly, to all but the most devoted and interested space nuts. Flight Controllers were not running around exclaiming and swearing, bumbling over their chairs and coffee cups, speaking in exasperated tones. But, in a movie, showing such things is a visual expression of the real tension they were feeling, but had kept bottled up and hidden under their calm and focused demeanor. It is one of those rare instances where the embellishment actually makes for a better film and adds depth and emotion to the history rather than stepping all over it.
Some little inaccuracies though - there is no way Ken Mattingly would have been able to drive his Corvette that close to the launch pad. NASA imposes a STRICT three mile barricade around the launch site, because those engines put out a MASSIVE concussive force (not to mention are the loudest man-made sound, short of a nuclear bomb). Being that close when the engines lit could have shattered not only the windows of his car, but his ear drums as well.
Also, the seat-of-the-pants maneuver where they had to keep the Earth in the window. Did you notice how the Earth was visible in the side window while we see the ship flying toward the Earth? The external shot was for the sake of audience comprehension. What they were actually doing was flying sideways, perpendicular to their flight path, because it was the path itself they were trying to change. Imagine a car slowly moving in a straight line, but is not quite going where you want. From the outside, you push it sideways to scoot it back into the right position, and that is what they were doing with their path.
6) NASA and the Media were in bed with each other from day one. Right from the very beginning of the space program, the competition was the Soviet Union's space program which was shrouded under secrecy. The people were scared of an aggressor nation getting a foothold in space. So the best way to put their mind at ease was to bring them along every step of the way, so they could see every advance we made as it was happening. Sometimes this meant that embarrassing failures (like rockets exploding on the launchpad, or the escape tower flying off while the rocket just sat there like dumb dead weight) were front and center for all to see, complain about, and laugh at (like that first failure getting Newspaper headlines like "Flopnik", "Dudnik", or my personal favorite "Kaputnik"). But whenever there was a success, the whole country was able to cheer along as it happened live. That is... up until the moon landing, after which the public just did not care anymore.
But the relationship between NASA and the Media was so solidified that the top row of consoles in Mission Control were all the Public Affairs and Media stations, as well as NASA Administrators/Management and the Department of Defense. PAO (or Public Affairs Office) was the "voice" of Mission Control, providing a constant narration and commentary of what was happening, transmitted out of Mission Control live and un-edited for not only record keeping, but for the press who was constantly monitoring. This was also because NASA was a public agency, and with American tax dollars funding every inch of it, the public had a right to know everything that was happening, short of violating national security (which the Department of Defense would make sure was known and secured beforehand). But that would rarely be an issue until the Space Shuttle days, when they would launch classified DOD payloads.
Suffice to say, they don't have to have anyone sneaking around getting a "scoop", every media outlet had the same access to the same transmissions, representatives even seated in the seats behind the glass (where the families were watching the not-so-live broadcast). The only real advantage different studios would have is exclusive interview time with certain NASA personal before, after, or during the mission. One such moment was during one of the Walter Cronkite news programs they showed, Astronaut Wally Schirra was seated next to him.
TL;DR: Read it. It's insightful :)
Bravo! So glad you took the time to write all of that. I knew most of it already, but even I learned a few things that I didn't know. 👏👏👏
@@otnat2094 Always happy to help someone learn some thing they didn’t know before, but I am even more happy to learn that many people already know such things, because unfortunately this is history is not taught in schools
@@k1productions87 I hear ya. Makes me sad how many people don't know about this. This movie is one of my all-time favorite movies and it made me want to research more into the actual Apollo 13 event after the first time I saw it.
Fred Haise also got ACTUALLY sick, as demonstrated in the movie. Ironic that they cut Mattingly for exposure to the measles but was totally fine, while Haise suffered a UTI that escalated to a kidney infection.
That's my favourite quote, from the whole movie "Gentlemen, it's been a privilege flying with you."
Rest In Peace Bill Paxton
RIP
Jack Swiggert is buried in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. It was a shame we didn’t get him as a Colorado Congressman, especially given his insights into the aerospace industry and its presence in the Denver area.
Ron Howard, the Director is one of the best directors in Hollywood. He has been in movies and making moves since he was a young boy in “The Andy Griffith” show. Amazing story teller.
He'll always be Richie Cunningham to me.
I was 14 years old when this happened, soon to be 15 the next September. Today, I'm 68 and I still remember this moment in history so well. One of the things you said struck me. Astronauts are some of the best trained and smartest people you could ever find anywhere. Their professional experience as pilots, (Aviators, or if they were in the Navy, Or Marines), provided them the ability to mentally handle the challenges they would find in space. It was true then and that is true today as well.
Soon we'll be going back to the moon and on our way to Mars too. I believe this because it's in our nature to explore. To use Technolgy in a way that benefits us all in the long run. In other words, to help is understand and grow as a people and as a civilization.
Great reaction to a stellar movie! I love that you guys don’t constantly talk over every scene like other reactors. Cool cameo at 45:38..the Navy commander in white, greeting Tom Hanks is the real Jim Lovell. 😁 Awesome channel, keep up the great work! 👍😎
so happy to see you react to this! one of my fav movies :)
my dad was in Mission Control for this. he was the asst. city foreman for Western Union and was assigned to Nasa to maintain the telex and twix machines. he was called out to work after the explosion and didn't get to come home till after splashdown. he said the feeling in the room when they found out they were safe was mystical.
Do You Realize it was 63 Years from the time the Wright Brothers first Flight, too Landing on the Moon. SIMPLY amazing!!
To address a few of your questions: Ron Howard arranged to build sets on an airplane that does the weightless flights so they had a realistic zero gravity for a few moments to film some scenes. All the Apollo launch scenes were recreated because actual footage varied too much in film quality.
There were a few liberties taken for the film: the astronauts never had the argument depicted about the cryostir, and the CO2 problem was anticipated and just one engineer pulled an all nighter to design the filter interface. It was a bit more dramatic in the film than it really was, but I loved that scene anyway. The umbilical they used to borrow LEM power was also designed as "jumper cables" in case the ascent stage of the LEM didn't fire. They would have attached it to the lunar rover and 'hot wired' the ignition with the door of the ascent stage open. One it fired, the 2 astronauts would have then had to close the hatch. Needless to say, this never happened on subsequent missions (Apollo 13 didn't have a rover) but it's interesting they had the umbilical on 13 to power the LEM in an emergency. Ironic it was used to power the CM instead.
At the time of Apollo 13, network news was considered a public service and wasn't expected to make a profit. Advertisement financed "journalism" has completely changed what is presented to us now.
This is one of my favorite movies of all time. So so good. My grandfather (who is passed away now) worked for Collins-Maxwell in Cedar Rapids, IA. They were the company the build the radios for all of the Apollo programs. His job was government contracts, and it was all very confidential. He never even told his family (my mom) about any of it until after the events, and even then, he didn't tell them much. He was an incredibly smart and capable man. Its just fascinating to me, and that's why I feel a little bit of a personal connection with NASA and the space program, and especially The Apollo program.
In the movie they played up the Apollo 13 and Houston to create more dramatic tension, because the filmmakers knew that if they just played the actual transcripts it would bore theater audiences to tears. Both parties sound deceptively calm and collected despite the emergency happening minute by minute.
Gene Cernan flew to the Moon on Apollos 10 & 17, and helped work out procedures on the ground during the Apollo 13 mission; he later called this film the scariest he ever saw, as it reminded him of just how narrowly they were brought home.
To compare with the real thing, here's film (with air-to-ground audio) of the actual Apollo 13 launch: th-cam.com/video/whtg0XgEzSk/w-d-xo.html
And here's where they first reported a problem: th-cam.com/video/PpTleKyn3gc/w-d-xo.html
Ron Howard’s whole family was in this film.
His father Rance plays the priest in the watch party scene at the end of the film.
His mother Jean plays the role of Jim Lovell’s mother Blanche
His brother Clint plays the role of the flight controller with the thick glasses.
They also say that one of the child extras in this movie was Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard's daughter)
ya mean sy liebergot ? - (eecom with the thick glasses)
@@sr71ablackbird yes I need to apologize fir not having his proper name on my comment
Love the story and the movie. It's one of the stories I use to remind myself to keep working through things in a tight place.
I saw the launch of Apollo 13 on the beach near the launch site, as part of a boy scout field trip..
And I can tell you from first-hand experience the emotions of everyone involved were totally real.
This movie hits different when you have actually lived through it., Is one of those things you never forget
And they did an excellent job creating this movie, you can tell if people are still talking about the event in the movie decades later. Ron Howard and the cast and the production crew knocked this one out of the park
In terms of training, the backup crew is just as experienced as the main crew and supposed to step in in cases like that. And the guy who didn't get to go did go on a later mission.
This is one of the only movies that feature Ron Howard's family
Clint Howard-NASA worker who wants to close the fuel cells(Brother)
Rance Howard-Preacher near the end on couch during the re-entering scene (Father)
Ron's Mother-as Blanche Jim's mother
And according to behind the scenes Bryce Dallas Howard as a child extra (Daughter)
I watched this happen as a kid. Handheld calculators were just coming out but they were just basic +,-, x, and divide. Before then were wood and metal slide rules, and you see one being used in the one scene.
Humans are capable of doing so much when we worked together, but it doesn't happen often enough. Thanks for this reaction.
Also it was so sad that after we won the space race the politicians started slowly shutting down the Apollo missions. 20, then 19, and 18 were cancelled. And we haven't been back for half a century. Even now the politicians are fighting over the cost the new Artemis program which MIGHT got us back in 2025.
I was born in 1960. I remember the Apollo missions very well. Ron Howard's movie reproduction of this mission, and how he represents the response to this real-life drama is accurate. It was the most nail-biting week of my 10 year-old life.
Oh yeah...the technology? A dial-operated phone and black and white TV was the familiar popular 'tech, until audio cassettes and players came out.
The way the film was shot was impressive as well. It was filmed on the vomit comit, a plane that flies straight up and then straight down. As its flying down your weightless.... then it pulls up before you crash and repeat
Watch The Right Stuff.. Definitely a companion piece to this film..
I think you would also like The Right Stuff. It's in the same vein as this and has a great line up of actors as well.
The Right Stuff is awesome.
They used the "Vomit Comet" for the weightless scenes. That's an airplane that flies in a parabolic pattern (wayyy up, then wayyy down, like a rollercoaster) and when you're cresting the top and start coming down, that's when you experience 'weightlessness'. It's only seconds at a time, so they must have flown that pattern a whole lot, but that's how they did it.
The fact that they didnt even have a 1% chance of surviving is wild...
The dude playing Jim Lovell is that dude from the TV show "Bosom Buddies". He was also in that movie "Mazes And Monsters". Cool.
This is one of my favorite movies of all time. Thank you!!!😊❤
BTW I was on second grade when this happened. I remember my nerves going bazurk hoping for the best on their return. Everything you see here is all accurate. One thing they don't mention here is the computers were essential to reach the right trajectory not just for the return but to sling the space craft around the moon. Remember that the moon is not a perfect sphere. The gravitational pull around the moon is not the same around. It was the risk of two choices; going all out into space or literally bounce into the moon. The trajectory had to be close to perfect to achieve this maneuver. Lovell was on the first crew (Apollo 8 Dec 1968) that first attempted and proved this maneuvering theory correct. (It was just a theory then never attempted before) Even though this mission is considered a failure because they did not reach the surface of the moon, i consider it a success and an example of Grace. The right and most qualified person (Lovell) was there to get them off this mess. It was providential! "Team work makes the dream work". 😮😊
Didn't see any of the real events of Apollo 13 live, but Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon early on my 7th birthday. My mother was very insistent i come down and watch it live. I think my memories are mostly of watching the footage later, but I remember being very tired and her being very excited that it was happening on my birthday, kerk
They built the sets inside of airplanes designed to simulate anti-gravity. The same type of things they used to train real astronauts. This movie gives me chills every time I watch it and is so incredibly inspirational. I've used many aspects of this film an examples when training people and working with teams in my job.
I was 8 years old in 1969 when Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon. What I remember, albeit quite vaguely, was that it was HUGE. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing people talk about it. Everyone had their eyes glued to the television. Like bigger than news stories 2-20 combined. We were just so amazed that two people were going to walk on the moon. Apollo 13 was less than a year later. No one really paid attention until the danger was made public. Only then did it become a big story. I always thought there was a positive for those 3 men that came out of that mission other than surviving. Think about it... how many people get to fly around the moon? They didn't
get what they really wanted but put in that perspective, it still had to be something very amazing.