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Summary: The True Apollo Spirit - Untruths Aside!
Review: As a serious student of the Apollo program, this is my favorite documentary of the program, despite its contextual fabrications and errors. The conceit is to represent a voyage to the lunar surface and back as a composite drawn from footage taken from all Apollo (and even some Gemini!) missions. As such it is in some sense a fictionalized account to begin with, thus one must look beyond this film as a simple and literal documentary, if you are willing to accept its premise. To me it succeeds at a psychological and emotional level as the film that best captures the spirit of the Apollo program, and even better, what it must have been like to have actually gone to the moon.The footage is fantastic and rarely seen, even in real documentaries about Apollo. The pace at many points slows, and you are invited to dwell on the scenes, and perhaps even picture yourself there with the astronauts. A particular treat is that the movie is heavy on footage from the final mission involving the lunar rover, where the real exploration took place. These missions are often woefully represented, but here you get a sense of what it must have been like to have diven miles from the LM, exploring the lunar surface in complete solitude; or in other parts of the movie to have orbited alone in the CSM. Other treats are candid footage of the controllers in Houston, as well as dramatic usage of JFK's speach on Apollo given at Rice university in 1962. I will admit that the film doesn't state the true context of any of its footage, and a good portion of my enjoyment is being able to sort this out for myself; however, more than anything this program reminds me of what it was like to grow up and go to the moon with Apollo.
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Summary: Just a note...
Review: Brian Eno's score is one of the best soundtracks ever put together for a film. Deserves a listen.
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Summary: Fantastic record of manned space flight
Review: For All Mankind is a fantatic video and audio record of mankind's greatest achievement, landing men on the moon. Al Reinart has assembled actual NASA footage and astronaut descriptive comments in a truly engaging manner. One hundred years from now, this will be the lasting record of the Apollo Program.
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Summary: As close as we'll get to being there...
Review: Forget the grainy, scratched, washed out films we've grown accustomed to seeing in the past, this film has the best print of original NASA Apollo footage you will probably ever see. The simplicity of it's construction coupled with matter-of-fact narration from the astronauts and an excellent score from Brain Eno will move you deeply- when you see the story put together like this, you realize just how stunning this achievement truly was.
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Summary: Visually splendid but weakly informative
Review: I absolutely concur with the gentleman who reviewed this DVD on Feb. 28. The footage is outstanding, and I have not seen a majority of it in any other documentary. However, I expected to see some unbelievable documentary about the Apollo program. Instead, the DVD shows what it looks like to go to the moon. This is done by taking various films of different missions and splicing them together though out of context/sequence. Again, this is beautifully done, but it does not tell you anything. This DVD is to be enjoyed if you have a good knowledge of the space program and want to watch some unseen or rare footage. But if you want to learn about the actual space and/or Apollo program, look for documentaries elsewhere. You won't find anything knew in this documentary other then the beautiful visual images.
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Summary: Informative, Beautiful, Fun, and Moving
Review: I don't want to repeat the positive comments of others with which I agree, and couldn't state any better, so here are a few more things about this movie and disc which make it a worthy thing to own. One of the most memorable things about the Apollo astronauts that you learn from this presentation is that when they weren't fully occupied with their tasks, which was rarely, they felt like playing, a lot like kids, in the zero and low-g environments. I found this really cool, coming from serious men committed to doing something very difficult and dangerous. The other unexpected common experience was that even the most red-blooded military-raised task-oriented Astronauts with their rustic accents had profoundly spiritual experiences during the missions, which changed them in ways that they're grateful for. The viewer shares these alternately childlike and deep feelings of discovery and exploration, so what's ostensibly an interesting documentary also becomes much more of an experience. You have the sense that this wasn't intended, necessarily, by the director at the outset, so it comes across very sincerely, not at all saccherine. As a film nut, I regard "For All Mankind" as a masterpiece of editing and documentary. As an appreciator of history, I see it as a both a national and world treasure. Criterion's digital restoration work and added features, as always, are beautiful and appropriate. Brian Eno fans should know that there's much of his music here that isn't available on the "Apollo" album.
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Summary: great documentare about mankinds finest hour
Review: I first saw this film in 1989 on the BBC,recorded it on my VCR and still have it today. A lot is said about it being not accured but I think Al Reinert wanted to capture the sensation of being there. I saw a lot of documentares about the apollo-missions but 90% the audio did not match with the picture. Even Charlie Duke uses the Apollo 17 lunar lift off for his Apollo 16 moonwalker tape. al reinert also wanted to capture the sensation of spacewalking . However Apollo didn't give us a lot of footage about spacewalking astronauts so he decided to use Gemini material instead. Concluded I thing its a great tape and it's a must for apollo people such as myself.
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Summary: Still the best Apollo documentary
Review: I first saw this film in 1989 while working on my cinema production degree at USC in Los Angeles. Hosting the special screening was the film's director Al Reinert. The film's academy award nomination was already the talk of the film department, so I brought some high expectations with me to the screening. Also, being a long-time US Space Program enthusiast, and also having personally witnessed the liftoff of Apollo 11 when I was 5 years old, I was especially interested in the film's topic. My first impression that night was typical for many Apollo enthusiasts; I thought "Hey, he (Reinert) jumbled the missions and voice-overs into a confusing montage!" I walked away unimpressed, but entertained. About a year later, I saw the film again at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center theater in San Diego. This time, the film really hit the mark for me. I was overwhelmed by the mood & awe the film created. Alas, I "got it". And therein lies the beauty and secret genius to this film; it "gets it" too! It understands that it doesn't matter which Apollo astronaut or moonwalker is talking, or which mission is being depicted. It only matters that we planted 6 flags and sent 24 men to the moon (12 on the moon); their experience is common, their voice one. Reinert recognized this, and it is this distinction that allows For All Mankind to transcend mediocrity and become the great film that it is. For many viewers, the film's subtlety & hissy voice over (which gives the voice over an engrossing, coffee table conversation quality) are likely to disguise its cleverness. And there is a lot of cleverness and genuinely good filmmaking in For All Mankind. I was especially impressed with the editing. Around the 1:02 hr mark there is a slow lunar pan with voice over (Apollo 17's Gene Cernan) commenting on how "you just had to steal the time to stop chiseling at a rock and contemplate where you were... and then suddenly you had to go back to work again". The slow pan ends on a moonwalker hammering a core sample into the surface. As a film school grad and filmmaker, I must say; nice editing! Simple and very effective. Lesser documentaries on Apollo may offer you the technical aspects of this amazing feet. And few would dare to let a long, slow lunar pan play out uncut. But only For All Mankind gives you the human aspect of Apollo. Sure, it comes as the expense of some technical accuracy. But by emphasizing the human aspects of Apollo the film preserves the most important truths. And to very liberally paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, hundreds of years from now that is all that need be remembered, because that is all that really matters. Today when watching the film I delight in telling people which mission footage they are seeing, who's talking, etc. (And I still cringe when I see the old standard of using the shot of Buzz Aldrin descending the ladder to the moon over Neil Armstrong's famous first words - yes, that's Buzz, not Neil. I've checked it against the uncut Apollo 11 TV footage. The bright spot you see reflecting through the LEM handing gear just to the left of Buzz is Neil already standing on the surface, taking photos of Buzz descending ladder. The shot of Neil descending the ladder didn't turn out very clear. Very few people, save for Ron Howard in Apollo 13, use it when depicting the first step on the moon) But these once important details have, for me, long since become trivial in light of For All Mankind's artistic accomplishments. I didn't know it when I first saw it in 1989, but For All Mankind is the film I'd been waiting for ever since watching the moon missions live. (and, yes, Leonard Maltin, it WAS in fact filmed on location) John Starr
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Summary: The Best
Review: I got the feeling and floated through space watching the DVD the first time. If you want to know the astronauts and other informations, just listen to the audio-commentary and turn the astronauts-identification on. But it's relaxing to watch the original-scenes with the music again and again ... it's timeless!
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Summary: For All Man Kind!
Review: I have long been a fan of the U.S. space program. I think it is a very noble endeavor. As far as the public goes, we may be amazed at the technical achievements of the space program and in awe of the fact that mankind has left this world and set foot on another... And since most of us will not ever get the chance to set foot on another planet we can only imagine what an extraordinary adventure going into space and visiting the moon could feel like. This film captures through its imagery and ethereal music and the conveyed feeling of these Astronauts thoughts of what it could be like for the rest of us had we been there. It gives us a third person perspective of being on the moon. The viewer is the camera, not just watching the spectacle of what Astronauts do in space but standing there beside them on the moon. Feeling what they felt, experiencing what they experienced. After watching this I came away with the since that I had been there and had at least glimpsed a tiny bit of the emotional experience that those few men must have been consumed by. It made me think of the beauty of nature, the universe and what it all means. I've watched this movie twenty times now, and each time I get that same feeling of humility. It's a good thing and I think everyone should see it because it's for all mankind!
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