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Thanks, Guido61..."First Man" Was an Incredible Movie!!


Anderton

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I'd thought about seeing it, because my Dad was a NASA consultant so I knew a lot about the space program and the moon missions. But I'm on a book deadline, have a lot to do, blah blah.

 

When I saw your comment in the Star Wars thread, I checked the movie schedule and saw that the last IMAX showing was yesterday. I thought if I'm going to see it, might as well not miss out on IMAX.

 

I am so glad I went!! You're right, it's an excellent movie on all levels. I couldn't believe Ryan Gosling. Armstrong really was as Gosling portrayed. As a matter of fact the whole movie hews really closely to the reality. The only artistic license I detected was they weren't down to 2 seconds of fuel prior to the landing, it was more like 20 seconds (still not much of a safety margin, given running into unexpected terrain), and what he left on the moon was different from what was shown (not gonna do a spoiler, even though it was factually incorrect it conveyed something true).

 

The movie has done only lukewarm at the box office, so I guess people want empty calories. One right-wing web site said it was because the movie didn't show Armstrong planting the flag on the moon. Give me a break!!! There were difficulties in setting it up, and besides, there were two scenes that showed the flag, people from outside the US talking about cool it was that America pulled it off, the big USA on the side of the rocket, etc. Jeez. So that's how low we've sunk.

 

Anyway, thanks for the recommendation. I noticed they listed the book's author as a co-producer. Class act all around, great movie, emotionally riveting, and those 2hours 22 minutes went by in a flash.

 

Oh, and was that a theremin in the sound track? Seemed like it, but if so, that was an incredibly good theremin player.

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Glad you enjoyed the movie! Yeah, it probably moves a little too slow for a lot of today's audiences but oh well Gosling was terrific and I'm sure there will be Oscar nominations for him and Claire Foy. I would expect a Best Picture nod as well.

 

Some people are upset, it seems, that it wasn't enough of a big Rah-Rah Go USA! movie, but it wasn't that kind of movie and wasn't telling THAT story. This was based on the biography of Armstrong and it tells THAT story amazingly well. The political to-do some made of it is nonsense. They accused the film of removing flags from the astronaut's uniforms (they did not) and accused the sequence you mentioned of people from outside the US praising the USA for what they accomplished as being some sort of "the whole world was in it together 'globalist' rewrite of history. Very sad that's where we are. Showing the flag planting would have detracted from the climatic, very personal scene involving Armstrong that was the heart of the movie, IMO. Again, this wasn't THAT story. It was neither blatantly patriotic nor was it anti-patriotic in any way whatsoever. It was about a man. Clearly those who complained about the movie didn't bother to watch it first.

 

Yes, they hewed VERY close to history. I read where the author was proud that they took very little artistic license. The only scenes of note that weren't historically accurate is that the crash that he had that opens the movie occurred later in time (after the death of his daughter), and instead of messing up his face in parachute fall he actually bit his tongue so hard he couldn't speak for a few days. And it seemed to me they made his daughter a couple of years older. But those are very minor details in the world of bio-pic movies.

 

As far as what he left on the moon? My understanding is that still remains a mystery and that the answer MAY be finally revealed when the crew's flight manifests become public in a few years. The author of the book claims he doesn't know and that when he asked Armstrong about it, Armstrong told him he had lost his flight manifest, which wasn't true. But it is still considered 'classified' for whatever reason the government classifies such things for decades. The author also said that even Armstrong's sister didn't know. But that she hoped it was as the movie tells the story.

 

As far as the theremin goes? I'm guessing synth. :)

 

 

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As far as what he left on the moon? My understanding is that still remains a mystery and that the answer MAY be finally revealed when the crew's flight manifests become public in a few years.

 

Probably something he wasn't supposed to leave there. My guess is a Maestro Fuzz-Tone, thereby assuring that all music produced anywhere in the universe from that time on would involve distortion.

 

 

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An astronomer I know said that it might be the most realistic movie about this subject he's seen.

 

It absolutely is, it jibes 100% with what my Dad told me.

 

He had lots of insights. I forget which astronaut it was, but on one of the space walks, he wouldn't come in...he was so blown away by the beauty and majesty of what he saw. The astronauts back in the capsule were like "Okay, time to come in now...uh, it's really time to come in now...YOU BETTER COME BACK IN NOW!

 

All the astronauts who were chosen were real straight arrows. Dad said they all came back altered by the experience, and were never the same again...in a good way.

 

 

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