From the Earth to the Moon: My Apollo Space Nerd Film List

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Former Apollo astronauts meet with the media at the Apollo/Saturn V Center prior to an anniversary banquet highlighting the contributions of aerospace employees who made the Apollo program possible. From left are Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin who flew on Apollo 11, the launch to the moon; Gene Cernan, who flew on Apollo 10 and 17; and Walt Cunningham, who flew on Apollo 7. This is the 30th anniversary of the launch and moon landing, July 16 and July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon. Source: https://images.nasa.gov/details-KSC-99pp0840.html

I’ll admit it. I’m a space nerd. I am a complete and utter space nerd. Specifically of the “space” that occupied the popular imagination from the years 1957–1975. The “space” of the Space Race, which saw the United States and the Soviet Union battle for supremacy of the heavens and be the first to step foot on the Moon. A battle you could play on your computer in the obscure strategy game Buzz Aldrin’s Race into Space (no longer “Buzz Aldrin’s” for licensing reasons, but nonetheless available for FREE download). Play me via mail with difficulty set to 3 and historical model ON. I DARE YOU.

But I digress. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, the mission which launched Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins not only to the Moon, but into the annals of history reserved for Washingtons, Napoleons, Caesars and Cleopatras.

There’s a quote from Armstrong—one which doesn’t involve steps or leaps small or large—from the last milestone anniversary of Apollo 11. The last milestone, it would turn out, where all three of the original crew would be alive to mark it. In a rare public appearance, Armstrong said how kids used to come up to him and tell him they had learned about him in science class. Now (in 2009), they come up and say they had learned about him in history class. Time does not stop, particularly for those fated to become a great of history.

I remember well the 30th anniversary of the moon landing. I was about 11 and it consumed a good portion of the first half of 1999 for me. I’ve often felt like someone born out of time, from my love of film photography, to my taste in music, films and desire to consume alcohol in the workplace. Never have I felt that sense more acutely than in June and July of 1999. I was in awe of the Space Race, particularly of the milestones that got the technology (then humans) into orbit and on to the Moon. But no one—bar my wonderful science teacher—seemed to share my wonder. There were no great museums of industry and technology in Melbourne (or Australia for that matter) that put the Space Race front and centre like riches of the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Space Centre or Huntsville. Although “we” in Australia had played a key role in the success of the entire US space program and of Apollo 11 in particular, I felt, at this time, this was not recognised or well remembered (thankfully Working Dog Productions would rectify this the following year with The Dish).

The Internet (sic.)—also known as the Information Superhighway—helped immensely to feed my passion. NASA was in the midst of their own public digital revolution, having recently published the comprehensive Apollo Lunar Surface Journal and making available freely and easily the best photographs from the Apollo program. I got in heaps for downloading several 400kb JPEGs, clogging up the phone line, but holy Alan Shepard, I’d be damned if I’d ever seen anything so beautiful in my hitherto short life. It’s amazing how good JPEGs that size look on a 640x480 screen.

But most memorably of all for me were the movies and documentaries that brought history to vivid life. Firstly, there was Apollo 13 which, even though covered an entirely different mission, featured the best (to date) filmed representation of a Saturn V launch. And boy...that subwoofer (a feeling I’d only know once I had the DVD and a surround sound system). Then there was a little-seen TV movie called—imaginatively—Apollo 11 which dramatised the leadup to the eponymous mission and the landing. I think I originally saw it on channel 10, but it lived on—like so many childhood memories—on a VHS recording. I don’t remember much about it, other than Xander Berkeley (who was in Apollo 13 and would go on to play George Mason in 24) was Buzz Aldrin and it probably isn’t as good as First Man.

Above both of these, though, sat the defining television experience for 1990s Richard (aside from A*Mazing, Captain Planet and Widget the World Watcher). From the Earth to the Moon was a 1998 HBO miniseries, before anyone—in Australia at any rate—knew what that really meant. Its twelve parts charted the epic journey of American manned space exploration from the chalkboard calulations of ex-Nazi engineers through to the end of Apollo (with a detour to 1902 to witness Georges Méliès making the journey on 845 feet of celluloid before astronauts would make it on 7.5 million pounds of thrust). And, oh my gosh, that Michael Kamen score.

Although such a series could, in lesser hands, fall into a docudrama funk, each episode is written and directed by its own creative team, leaving each one with its own unique feeling and flavour. The executive creative team of Tom Hanks, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer ensure coherence and consistency, but never compromise. The narrative’s points of view vary from episode to episode, each focusing on a different element that ultimately constitutes the whole. Even though that “whole” is NASA of the 1960s, the sum of its parts does indeed—somehow—feel greater than the whole. If I had to pick two standout episodes, they’d be the sombre and underplayed Apollo 1 and Spider, dramatising the conception and construction of the Lunar Module. But there’s too much goodness in this series to fit in these bulging paragraphs—MARK FU$#ING HARMON—so I’ll just finish it up with this: From the Earth to the Moon has been confined to cable TV (how I first viewed it—thanks Optus Vision!), VHS, then two versions on DVD. Next month it’s out on Blu Ray and I will delight in watching it anew as soon as it is out.

To mark this most awesome of milestones, the golden anniversary of humanity’s greatest achievement, I will be watching the best of the best of films about or pertaining to Apollo 11 and the Apollo program. If I find the time (heh) I might even write a few words about them as I go. In no particular order:

1. For All Mankind (Al Reinert, 1989) 
2. Apollo 13 (Ron Howard, 1995) 
3. In the Shadow of the Moon (David Sington and Christopher Riley, 2007) 
4. The Dish (Rob Sitch, 2000) 
5. First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018) 
6. When We Left Earth: the NASA Missions (Discovery, 2008)
7. The Space Race (Christopher Spencer and Mark Everest, 2005) 
8. Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller, 2019) SEEING IT IMAX, BEACHES 
9. From the Earth to the Moon (HBO, 1998) BLU RAY ARRIVING AT MY DOOR 17 JULY!! 

Godspeed, movie watcher.