Apollo 13

Rating:
Summary: Good movie, good extras, nice price
Review: "Failure is not an option!". So says mission-control director Gene Kranz, played by Ed Harris, as mission control devises a way to get the astronauts safely home. Although initially viewed as a disaster (explosion in spacecraft which forces cancellation the the moon-landing mission), in reality it is a story of success due to resourcefulness. The astronauts must return to earth and splash down safely with only enough electrical power to run a coffee pot.

Probably the best of director Ron Howard's movies, it is well acted by stars Tom Hanks (as Jim Lovell), Kevin Bacon (Jack Swigert), and Bill Paxton (Fred Haise) as the three space-bound astronauts, Gary Sinise (mission-bumped astronaut Ken Mattingly), Ed Harris (mission control Gene Kranz), and Kathleen Quinlan (Marilyn Lovell). The movie was nominated for 9 Oscars including best picture, writing, supporting actor (Harris), supporting actress (Quinlan), music, and visual effects, and won for editing and for sound.

There are a lot of special effects thoughout the movie, including the entirely-recreated lift-off sequence from a bird's-eye viewpoint. The weightlessness scenes were achieved by filming in a KC-135 airplane that did a series of parabolic climbs and dives, allowing about 25 seconds of filming at a time.

An exciting 220 minute movie about one of the most-watched successful rescues in history, the DVD contains a good "making of" documentary, a commentary by director Ron Howard, and another by Jim and Marilyn Lovell. "Bill Paxton's home movies" were never located, and the "comparison with NASA footage" and the "extensive exploration of special effects" were brief parts of the "making of", not separate items. Text-based production notes and cast/crew blurbs, and a trailer. Undocumented feature is the isolated score which plays in its entirety at the main menu (can skip forward, but not backward, however). The 2.35:1 wide-screen movie has 56 (!) chapters. Highly recommend for fans of any of the actors listed above, the space program, or adventures in general.

"With all due respect, sir, I believe this will be our finest hour" - Gene Kranz

Rating:
Summary: A Dandy Film! And A Terrific "Collector's Edition" DVD!
Review: 1995's "Apollo 13" is a well-crafted and truly inspiring motion picture, based on the actual events of the nearly-doomed Apollo 13 moon mission in April 1970.

Director Ron Howard guides this project with passion. A passion that seems to be equally shared by each and every one of his starring actors on screen -- Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Bill Paxton, and Ed Harris. Plus, there's the ever-appealing Kathleen Quinlan, as Hanks' wife. Quinlan and Howard worked together more than two decades prior to this movie -- on "American Graffiti" (Kathleen had a very small role in that 1973 film, which starred Howard).

Three astronauts' lives hang in the balance during the last half of this finely-tuned film, as the Apollo 13 spacecraft suffers a major "problem" on board. An oxygen tank explodes, crippling the craft and endangering the lives of the moon-bound passengers (Astronauts Lovell, Haise, and Swigert -- portrayed by Hanks, Paxton, and Bacon, respectively).

Some of the more dramatic dialogue-driven scenes on board the spacecraft are fictionalized, but most of this film (from what I've been able to discern) is derived from actual, true events. With much of the dialogue between Mission Control and the spacecraft being taken (nearly verbatim) from the official NASA tapes and transcripts.

This single-disc (and single-sided) Universal "Collector's Edition" DVD delivers the goods admirably IMO, with very good picture quality, excellent 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround sound (with the rousing music score shining through especially well), and some nice bonus features to boot.

The film is presented here in its original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1. This is the perfect screen shape for this film, in my view -- nice and w-i-d-e! And it looks great via this anamorphically-enhanced DVD transfer.

DVD Special Features include a very informative and extremely fun-to-watch Making-Of documentary, "Lost Moon". This feature, which runs 58 minutes, begins with a nicely well-preserved clip of the real three Apollo 13 astronauts being introduced by Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show" (circa May 1970). Director Ron Howard, and the cast members, add much insight into the making of this technically-challenging motion picture, including stories (with film clips) from rehearsals inside the KC-135 aircraft (a modified Boeing 707 jetliner) known as "The Vomit Comet", which was used by the filmmakers to simulate weightlessness. Interesting stuff here.

Also on tap on the DVD are two Audio Commentary Tracks (one of them by Director Howard), the film's Theatrical Trailer, and some extensive text notes.

This DVD package also contains a multi-page (fold-out type) paper insert, which contains Production Notes, Chapter Lists (for both the film AND the nearly-hour-long documentary, which is broken down into 13 "chapters" itself), and some photographs.

Plus -- Don't forget about the really cool "Easter Egg" on this disc. Well, I guess you could say it's not really an "Egg", being that it isn't really "hidden" here. But it isn't an "advertised" bonus on the packaging, at any rate. -- By just popping in the disc and getting to the "Main Menu", you thereby get to the unadvertised bonus of the "Complete Musical Score" to the film, which will play non-stop to its end by just leaving the Main Menu on the screen. Pretty nifty indeed. An excellent idea, I think, for incorporating an "Isolated Music Score" onto a DVD. I wish more DVDs had this nice musical feature. The music score can be "advanced" to the next "track" (or music segment) by using your remote's "Skip" or "Chapter Advance" key. (You can only go "forward" in the score, however. The "Skip Back" button has been disabled for this bonus feature; at least it has been on my player.)

"Apollo 13" is a good film to re-visit occasionally -- and this well-done Universal Collector's Edition DVD makes doing just that even a greater pleasure.

Rating:
Summary: the light and the shadow of Apolo
Review: I am young man, for that I don't know about Apolo activity very much, but in those days in Japan even, I hear that arriving to the moon of Apolo 11 was special things. For instance in Japan the pictures was printed to top article of all newspaper and the live was broadcasted all over Japan.
I have thought that a series of Apolo challenging succeeded, but when I watched this movie, I was very surprised.

Certainly because the movie was univers genre, there were difficult technical terms, but the scene that the crews struggled against the accident that broke one after another, the tense situation of NASA and the crews etc, there ware many highlight scene, that is, we can't blink our eyes for the special scene broke one after another.

After I watched this movie, I was interested to the universe world even in addition to Apolo history of NASA. In such meaning, the movie was important for me.

Though the comment have been said from old times, arriving to the moon was incredible things and dreaming. I am a little sad because recently NASA don't challenge to landing of other cosmoses including the moon. Certainly many cost will be needed. and their money is tax. That is difficult problem.

But challenging is what give dream to us. That is sure.

Thank you for reading poor English.

Rating:
Summary: engineers to the rescue
Review: I saw this long ago in the theatre and rented it tonight to see some good, old-fashioned problem-solving. You can get plot details from the other reviews.

It was interesting to see the film post-Columbia: for example, the issue of telling the astronauts whether there was a particular problem came up as a small dramatic moment, and the flight commander (the Ed Harris figure) decided not to tell them because the astronauts could do nothing about it, anyway. Was it ethical for NASA to keep the astronauts in ignorance of their chances? There were lots of problems they >could< do something about, however. The representative from Grumman (the movie presents Grumman as the manufacturer of the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) that is the astronauts' shelter on the way back to earth) is featured 2 times asserting his ignorance of the LEM's ability to fire its rockets for any purpose other than landing on the moon. This concern with corporate liability stands in contrast to the other engineers' focusing on using available resources to make the craft do something that differs greatly from the original mission plan. One of the great subplots of the movie shows how a little duct tape, some spare parts, and a lot of ingenuity can compensate for unexpected demand on the air-cleaning system.

I think the movie intends to show that individuals display heroism and that great achievement entails great risk for some, but also that great technical achievements float on the collaborative work of thousands of people. The mass of engineers at NASA are white-shirted, sideburn-wearing, narrow-tie sporting problem-solvers, completely subsuming their individual egos to the collective task of "getting them home." It is compelling to see the astronauts turn off their computer and follow "Newton's laws" on their way back to Earth; from the perspective of 2004, their "computer" display looks less sophisticated than pong (that dates me!). In general, the showcasing of antique technology (31 years old) is really cool, from the TV-camera cockpits at launch to the bizarre analog gauges in the command module (like my mom's diet scale from the 1970s), to the computer displays with their elementary graphics.

My first memory of TV is watching the moon landing; near this anniversary of the Columbia disaster, it is bittersweet to watch this story of disaster averted. The romantic appeal of stepping on Mars aside, I'm relieved that amazing advances in computers and robotics permit us to explore the solar system "better, faster, cheaper" by keeping people here at home.

This movie would be a 5, except the depiction of women was so lousy as to be irritating. Did the mom really let a 5 year old watch what might have been his dad's incineration on re-entry to the earth's atmosphere? Did moms really let their kids listen to the TV pundits who emphasized the long odds? I applaud any woman engineer making her way in the world.

Rating:
Summary: You never know what events are to transpire to get you home
Review: At some point in the publicity surrounding the 1995 film "Apollo 13" I had occasion to hear the real Jim Lovell say the word's "Houston we have a problem" that signaled to NASA that a routine mission to the moon had become a life and death situation. If you did not know what Lovell was saying I doubt that you would be able to tell any difference in his tone from anything else he said during the mission. With that baseline in my mind every time I have watched "Apollo 13" since then I have been aware that Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon as astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert are a lot more emotional then than their real world counterparts. However, that does not take away from my enjoyment of this film.

When I was in the first grade when my father was stationed in Orlando, Florida, we would go outside and watch the Mercury missions take off from Cape Canaveral. We were in Japan when Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, an event that we were able to watch on Japanese TV. So the idea that going to the moon was "routine" is inherently offensive and I easily picture a universe in which Fate cripples Apollo 13 as reminder to humanity not to take sending men to the moon in a small capsule for granted.

The best part of Ron Howard's film takes place on earth as the NASA team headed by Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) has to deal with the disaster and the potential of losing the crew. When one of the adminsitrators declares that this could be the worst disaster NASA has ever faced, Kranz insists, "With all due respect, sir, I believe this is gonna be our finest hour." Indeed, watching NASA literally true to figure out how to get a square peg into a round hole is the most captivating part. After the explosion cripples Apollo 13 the three astronauts spend most of their time waiting in their freezing lunar module for the few times when they can actually do something while former crew member Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise), pulled from the mission because he was exposed to measles, tries to figure out how to turn on the capsule's power without using too many amps (Stop and think about how weird that is to have as a tense situation).

The space shuttle disasters with "Challenger" and "Columbia" are a subtext for this movie because those two times there was nothing NASA could do. By the time they knew there was a problem, the astronauts were gone. This time, there is things that can be done, and despite all the rocket scientists running around the place, it is good old fashion American problem solving that matters here. As Kranz says at one point, "I don't care about what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do," and there is a sense in which NASA jury rigs a final solution.

Kathleen Quinlan plays Marilyn Lovell, the wife who has to suffer while her husband's mission is ignored (the networks will not show the crew's television broadcast) and then as the entire word waits to see if he and his crewmates are going to die in space. However, the bit role I like is Jean Speegle Howard as Blanch Lovell, Jim's mom. Blanch is in a retirement home and is not always clear on what is going on; when Marilyn assigned Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to distract her from the worst predictions of disaster on television as Apollo 13 heads back to earth she wonders if they work with her son. But when Marilyn and the kids first tell her about what is happening with the mission and she notices her granddaughter is scared, she tells her: "Don't you worry. If they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it."

Much was made about what the cast and crew went through to make "Apollo 13," during zero-G dives in an aircraft containing a capsule set to film the weightlessness scenes. But as much as the film and the story about technology, both really come down to the human beings. Harris and Quinlan were both nominated for their supporting roles and the film was up for Best Picture, but was one of those rare nominees that directed itself (i.e., Howard was not nominated) and won Oscars for Film Editing and Sound. If you watch "From the Earth to the Moon," produced by Hanks, you will find the episode of Apollo 13 takes a different tack from both this movie and the rest of that series that is rather interesting as well.

Rating:
Summary: Ron Howard at his best
Review: Director Ron "Opie" Howard gets behind the camera and directs his best film ever....a dramatization of the near-fatal voyage of Apollo 13. Starring Tom Hanks & Kevin Bacon. James Horner's music soars like a rocket throughout the movie...with vocal accompaniment by Annie Lennox. (The Eurythmics) A great movie to watch.

Rating:
Summary: Avoid panicing while your Angel flies about the Cabin
Review: A longer albeit appropriate alternate title for Apollo 13. Like the rest of my family, I (then in my teens) sat on tenterhooks before our TV, praying for our Astronauts. Though no one must believe in an Almighty God / Buddha / Mohammed / What Have You, Apollo 13 is superb evidence that such a Divinity not only Exists but has a Good Reason for Everything - and contemplating the 100s of literal Miracles by which our Astronauts safely returned to Earth, it is at least clear to me, one or more Angels / Unseen Helpers were there, helping our Men surmount the otherwise Impossible. No, no one -has to- believe in God. The Bottom Line here is whether it's Apollo 13 -or- any of the countless unexplainable times when one or more human beings could have 'bought' it but didn't, Something - or Someone - surely intervened ... furnishing, I say, ample reason to throw "God is dead / doesn't exist" OUT the door. Watch Apollo 13 and draw your own conclusion - and I wish for you that you reach the sort of conclusion I briefly expounded upon here.

Rating:
Summary: Exceptional, Ingenious, Fantastic..You Know any other Words?
Review: There is plenty of praise worthy of this film, "Apollo 13," directed by Ron Howard. Not only is it surprisingly attune to the facts of the ill-fated moon mission, it still makes you care about the astronaunts who flew: Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Jack Swaggert (Kevin Bacon) and Fred Haise (Bill Paxton). The film also features Gary Sinese has Ken Maddingly, the astronaut kept out of the mission. Their woes began when an oxygen tank exploded and they had to rely their lunar lander in order to get home. But they were aided by NASAs' impassioned crew back on the ground led by team leader Gene Kranz (Ed Harris). Plenty of risky improvising insues to get them home, such as using socks and suits to help make an air filter and turning off their navigating computer in order to save power.

Even throughout all this tenchnical and historical clutter, director Ron Howard still keeps the filming flowing fluidly with white-knuckled scenes aboard the spacecraft. And the production design is incredible. Most likely modeled after the actual Saturn 5 rocket, the exquisitely detailed sets serve to give the film an added sese of realism, and isn't the truth more interesting than almost any fiction? It should be said however that the film is also augmented by a sharp script that keeps the movie exciting as well. However, more importantly Howard instills a tangible human element that lifts the film even higher.

Rating:
Summary: Houston, We Have a Problem
Review: Apollo 13, Ron Howard's 1995 recreation of the star-crossed April 1970 manned mission to the moon, is a riveting and stirring film about courage and ingenuity in the face of great peril.

Starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Kathleen Quinlan, Xander Berkeley and Ed Harris, Apollo 13 begins with a flashback sequence set in January of 1967, when the three crew members of Apollo 1 died in a tragic launch pad accident. As Walter Cronkite does a voiceover, there is a quick segue to Houston July 1969, where veteran astronaut Jim Lovell (Hanks) is throwing a moon-landing party to watch Neil Armstrong be the first man on the moon. (According to the director's commentary, this scene was written and shot to introduce the major characters of the drama and to give the viewer some idea of what life was like in the astronaut community during NASA's Apollo heyday.)

After a tender moment with his wife Marilyn (Quinlan) and a scene at Cape Kennedy in which Lovell explains to a skeptical politician the necessity of continuing the manned moon landings at least up to Apollo 14 (a mission he is slated to command), fate intervenes. Al Shepard, the commander of Apollo 13, is grounded when an ear infection flares up, and Lovell and his crew, lunar module pilot Fred Haise (Paxton) and command module pilot Ken Mattingly (Sinise) are moved "up the slot" to take over.

For Marilyn, the news is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, she's aware that this will be her husband's final mission in space, so she's proud and supportive. On the other hand, she has a bad feeling about this flight, and her anxiety comes to the fore in this exchange:

MARILYN: Thirteen. Why does it have to be Thirteen?
LOVELL: Because it comes after Twelve, hon.

Lovell might have been nonchalant about the mission's "unlucky" number, but Apollo 13 was dogged by bad luck even before it lifted off the pad at 1313 hours on April 10, 1970. A few days before liftoff, command module pilot Mattingly was grounded when another astronaut came down with the measles (he'd never been exposed, so ground controllers were afraid he'd get sick in space). Lovell was forced to choose between flying with a replacement, Jack Swigert (Bacon) or holding out for Mattingly and being "bumped" off the flight altogether.

There were other little omens of ill luck involving Lovell's Corvette and Marilyn's wedding ring; critics later lambasted Howard for coming up with such "hokey" scenes, but according to Jim and Marilyn Lovell in their separate audio track, these events actually did occur.

Despite some minor errors in the details and a few things done intentionally for dramatic license, the depiction of an Apollo moon shot is about as accurate as a movie made for entertainment can be. Hanks and Quinlan even stayed with the Lovell's to capture their characters' qualities and motivations. Bacon and Paxton are wonderful as Lovell's two crewmates, and Ed Harris portrays Flight Director Gene Krantz as a logical and determined engineer/administrator. Watching him go from grim realization that the mission has been jeopardized by an explosion ("We just lost the moon.") to firm decisiveness ("We've never lost an American in spaceflight and we sure aren't going to lose one on my watch. Failure is not an option.), one sees that the moon landings depended as much on the ground controllers and engineers in Houston as they did on the astronauts in the spacecraft.

With a stirring score by James Horner and top notch special effects, Apollo 13 is one of director Howard's finest offerings. It is fast paced, incredibly well-written and acted, and it is a fine tribute to the men and women who worked for a decade to get us to the moon and back.

Rating:
Summary: Simply the greatest movie about space ever made.
Review: This film, in my opinion, is a staggering achievement--the saga of Apollo 13, the first time an American spacecraft was in real danger of destruction. The most impressive thing about this film is the fact that almost the entire storyline is absolutely authentic. The skill and bravery (and honest fears) of the crew, the ingenuity of the NASA ground support team, the events as portrayed in the movie--all of this is what actually happened. For once Hollywood manages to almost completely avoid tampering with the facts--this is said to be the influence of Tom Hanks, who is a space enthusiast; Hanks believed (correctly!) that the actual story contained more than sufficient drama. The movie moves at a quick pace, never drags, and the end packs an emotional wallop that I personally found to be unforgettable. I saw this film when it first came out, and just revisited it on DVD. The impact is the same--this is a powerfully told story about a great event and a great success of courage and technological prowess.

I like Tom Hanks as an actor, and this is the best performance by him that I can recall seeing. He simply becomes his character, Astronaut Lovell--he plays the part to utter perfection. The supporting cast is equally good and all turn in superb performances. This is a great and classic film that will leave few viewers untouched. The DVD audio and video are crisp and clean, and this DVD belongs in every library collection.