Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Apollo 11 (2019)

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Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 03-05-2019, 02:03 PM:

In what passes for IMAX at the AMC Garden State Theaters, Paramus, New Jersey.

*****

In the 1960s NASA made a deal with MGM to make a documentary about the Apollo program and the run-up to the moon landing, and they in turn hired producer Francis Thompson to actually put the project together. When MGM bailed out a while later, NASA bade Thompson to carry on, and he and his editor Theo Kamacke eventually put together a little-seen documentary called Moonwalk One, which came and went from theaters in 1971.

Flashing forward to a few years ago, NASA contacted documentary filmmaker Todd Douglas Miller about putting together a movie commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing. Miller began researching archival footage and was astonished to find that the NASA archive was sitting on all the footage shot for the previous film, including 165 rolls of pristine 70mm Todd-AO of behind-the-scenes activities that nobody had ever seen before, and miles of 16 and 35mm footage as well.

The result is this film, a very well assembled look at the mission featuring all this previously unseen material. The filmmaker has also used wild-audio tracks of NASA communications and has post synchronized them to film footage in the same manner as Peter Jackson did for They Shall Not Grow Old, you now see for the first time mission controllers speaking the voice communications themselves. There’s a great deal of in-capsule and on-the-moon footage from the astronauts themselves that I do not recall seeing before. What’s best is that the original photographers shot a great deal of footage of all the spectators at the launch, the picture is in some ways a real time capsule of old fashion styles and deceased brand names. I also appreciated the no-narrator approach, all the audio is actual if sometimes hard to clearly understand.

There’s nothing especially new or revelatory about Apollo 11 here, but it’s very interesting to see what was previously unseen, and it’s worth a look for space junkies and nostalgia-nauts. Good music track too.

Posted by Michael Cornish (Member # 6529) on 03-06-2019, 02:19 PM:

Ha thee been any 70MM releases of this fim?

Mike

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 03-06-2019, 05:47 PM:

I am not aware of one. Although there is some excellent unseen 70mm footage in this film, there is more (pretty grainy) 16 and 35mm material as well.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 03-24-2019, 11:58 PM:

question what did the DCP code denote this as for it's standard theatrical release 2K or 4K?

I saw this in IMAX-laser so I'm assuming IMAX might have had it at 4K - and it looked stunning no doubt.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 04-04-2019, 04:55 PM:

Agreed with the other comments--this was pretty terrific and is well worth seeing.

Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 04-04-2019, 06:46 PM:

My DCP is 4k.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 06-25-2019, 11:02 PM:

I happened to see the re-cut 47 minute 'First Steps' edition last week in IMAX-laser, and I have to say the streamlining of the events really did not work in an abbreviated form.

it's really annoying that Universal did not release this on 4K UHD disc

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-18-2019, 08:37 PM:

This is available for streaming on VUDU and Fandango Now in 4K UHD-HDR. It’s not free but it’s worth $5-$6 to me to see it.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 07-18-2019, 09:22 PM:

I have the blu Ray of Apollo 11 and it is terrific !

-Claude

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-25-2019, 05:53 PM:

I missed it in the theater, and am a bit surprised that they're not publishing it on a 4K BD. It would seem to me to be the ideal medium for this movie - in the home, at least.

Assuming that one doesn't appear, I'll probably buy the regular BD once the anniversary hype has died down and it's a bit cheaper.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-26-2019, 11:46 AM:

I tried to watch this on Netflix but it put me to sleep. I think seeing "Apollo 13" too many times has spoiled me for moon-shot movies. I need to watch it again when I'm not tired, I guess.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 08-14-2019, 08:37 PM:

it was just announced this week that a 4K UHD disc edition is coming out in November from a boutique video distributor in the UK, a Universal US 4K disc edition might appear.