HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Apollo 13: 15th Anniversary Edition

I agree Nicholas!  I mean, if you didn't take the time to pick up both the widescreen and full-screen VHS copies of this movie, why bother trying to be a completist?

In seriousness, though, this title has definitely been mined pretty good in terms of all formats.  It's along the same lines as the Bond films or the Rocky movies.  VHS releases, followed by laserdisc releases, followed by widescreen releases in both VHS and laserdisc, followed by the initial DVD release, and then a "special edition" DVD release, and then a "really special edition" DVD (and maybe a DTS DVD release too, while we're at it), and then an HD-DVD release, and now a Blu-ray release.  There's a writer who once put down the basic logic of home video re-releases:   "How many times can they get you to buy Goldfinger?"  Or Star Trek or Star Wars or any other film or series that we love?

In any case, the positive reaction here, and the large collections in evidence, is testament to the affection people have for this film.  And it is a good film.   It's just not one that particularly resonates for me.  Nelson is right - this is meant to be the kind of movie that Gene Siskel described in his review of Blue Thunder back in the day:  "...the kind of movie you have a good time gobbling popcorn to!"  My issues with the film stem both from its ignorance of serious issues that impact the way the story could have been framed and told, and from Ron Howard's apparent inability to see this.  His commentary and his interviews here show that he was delighted to tell a story about NASA and this specific mission, and that he was happy to do some dramatic embellishing to make it a little more exciting along the way.  (This is where he loses the ground to say that the film is just factual, since it isn't.) 

And Howard is perfectly entitled to do this - but it opens him up to strong criticism that the world he's presenting here does not reflect the real 1970 by a long shot.  His nostalgia is understandable, but 1970 was by no means an idyllic time, for many reasons.  And there was a lot of potential to really examine these guys, that barely gets hinted at.  We get some glimpses of Lovell's inner drive here and there, but it all gets glossed over.   We get an invented story about the crew not having confidence in the replacement pilot - when you could actually turn it the other way and see what it does to the guy who suddenly gets his shot to go to the moon and things go this wrong. 

That said, this is still a well-made, clearly told story.  One thing I have always liked about Ron Howard's films is that it's always clear what is going on and where everyone is.  Other filmmakers tend to try to jumble everything up with a million cuts or a lot of fancy camera tricks that make things more confusing.  Howard has always been very clear in his staging.  And these days, that's a huge relief.

Doug, I hear what you're saying, and I'm glad you've presented it here.

But I must disagree with you on the idea that most people in the US did not know what was going on in their own communities and in the world around them in 1970.  That simply isn't the case.  

The Beatles are not really the issue here, although they were immensely popular.  The breakup of the Beatles in 1970 was seen as the end of an era, in many ways the end of an innocence for many people, who thought that band would go on forever.  This was not just a matter of a teenage girl throwing a tantrum in her room - it was a reflection of how that band had evolved from its early skiffle days to a much more complicated band, and a reflection of how the pressures involved drove the guys away from each other.  But again, this is a side-issue.

It's more crucial to know that there was a strong and common awareness of what was going on in Vietnam in 1970, because the news was on everyone's television every night.  It was a strong, polarizing issue between people who wanted us out of there, and people who backed first the Johnson plans there and then the Nixon approach.  And this debate went beyond just what was happening in Vietnam - it was a conflict between people who were just coming of age and rebelling against "the establishment" and people who were just as vigorously backing the Nixon Administration.  The whole idea of "antidisestablishmentarianism" is actually a pretty good summary of the most fervent Nixon supporters, for obvious reasons. 

You could argue that the astronauts lived in a kind of bubble where they didn't see what was going on around them, or didn't understand it.  But I give them more credit than that.  This was serious business, and people died over it.  I brought up the deaths at Kent State specifically for that reason.  The irony pointed out by critics like John Powers  (and his review is much harsher than what I have mentioned), is that while the NASA team was properly motivated to get these 3 guys home, their safe return happened in the shadow of many deaths overseas of guys the same age or younger than the ones in the capsule.

I brought up Gil Scott-Heron as a cultural reference, although I understand that many people did not listen to his songs.  But his song about the moon landings was well known.  I won't quote the title here, but if you google him, it'll be clearer. 

That said, I'm glad you brought up this point of view.  Many reviewers of this film had the same reaction to it that you do, and have similar views of what was happening in 1970.  So I don't want you to think I'm dismissing your post.  We just have different views, and that's what makes the Forum go round.

Felix, I honestly didn't see a major DNR or contrast problem with the picture here.

But I acknowledge that I am watching the Blu-ray on a 40" HDTV.  It is entirely possible that on a larger set, you may see some issues becoming more obvious.

Can you tell me where you were seeing the most egregious examples of this, and I'll go back and check them?

Felix, don't worry about "thread crap" issues.  If there is a problem with the video that is popping up on larger displays, we'd all like to know about it.  My only concern is that I think you're saying you may be basing your opinion on screencaps from an online forum and that you're returning your Blu-ray unopened.  Are you saying that you haven't actually watched the Blu-ray? 

Nelson, I hear you.  But the movie goes beyond just the mission in a few places, particularly in showing the Lovells at home.  There are also several key places where the film goes beyond "just the facts" and begins inventing scenes or changing situations to either simplify them or make them more dramatic.  I wish the film could just rely on the factual argument, but once Ron Howard admitted to making changes and creating scenes out of whole cloth, he gave up that ground.

Felix, thanks for the clarification.   I would love to hear from you or anyone else here who has both the HD-DVD and the Blu-ray, and a large screen for comparison.  (92 inches!!!  Wowza.)

Doug, again I appreciate your input here.  I think I've seen that book, but I can't remember the details.  (I have a different book about the 1980s called "The Clothes Have No Emperor" that rather concisely sums up the sillier parts of that later decade, but I digress.)   Your response definitely helps clarify things here vis a vis 1970.  I was born in 1969, so I will openly state that I cannot tell you for a personal and direct fact that people were aware of what was going on around them, or were involved in it.   I can tell you that my own parents were quite aware and discussed these matters openly, with each other and with their friends and community.  I remember watching the news, 60 minutes and PBS shows with them as early as 1973, when there were huge debates going on about the behavior of the Nixon Administration.

If you were to ask my parents, as well as their friends (all of whom were just hitting 30 as of 1970), as well as the teachers I had both in grade school and in college, you get an answer that people were quite aware of the seriousness of the Vietnam War.  My history teachers in high school went into some depth about what happened with this.  I have never heard of anyone seriously disputing that Vietnam was the first situation where an armed US conflict was played out on America's TV screens every night.  I'm sure that some people simply didn't (and don't) watch the news, but everything I've learned indicates this was a big deal.   People that supported US involvement were vocal then and now that the constant coverage was a major part of turning US public opinion against the war.  Rather than a situation where most people were unaware of what was going on, my understanding is that there was a groundswell of dissatisfaction with what was happening, and this led Nixon to campaign the way he did in 1968 and 1972.

I think in saying that you weren't hearing about these issues on TV or at school, you're talking about 1975 and afterward.  I remember that time being a period when NOBODY wanted to talk about Vietnam.  It was very hard to get people to go there.  Bit by bit, movies and TV shows began to deal with it - including Coming Home and The Deer Hunter.  MASH, of course, dealt with the whole thing through the prism of the Korean War. (And of course the Altman film came out in 1970...)  I remember it was a big deal that Magnum P.I. was a Vietnam veteran, because it was considered a groundbreaker for the lead character of a TV series to be a vet.  I think the floodgates really didn't open until Platoon, at which point it was considered "safe" to talk about it again, and you saw everyone making movies and TV shows about it.

These kinds of issues could not be found directly on television or in movies in the 60s, as there were some pretty tight self-controls on that sort of thing.  If you read the materials about the making of the Twilight Zone and Star Trek television series, you see references to the fact that the writers could not directly address Vietnam.  So people like Gene Roddenberry would find other ways to say the same thing - just an indirect manner.   And if you look at the movies of the time, there's a major indication that things are changing in a big way in Midnight Cowboy.  That is not the film of a 1950s mentality.  (I should also mention that I still remember one of my high school teachers noting that the 1950s themselves were not the idyllic time that people today think they were.  He remembered the 50s as a time of extreme conformity.)

From everything I have read, seen and studied, the 1960s were not a radical decade for everyone - but they were a major turning point because the children of the Baby Boom generation were all coming of age at the time.  This was when that very large group went to college, and many of them began questioning the values of their parents and the establishment.   Regardless of which group anyone would prefer, there was a definite conflict - which manifested in a lot of ways.  A major indicator of this was the events that happened at UC Berkeley, which is where I went to college.  (And where many of the former protestors of the day still live)  The Free Speech Movement was big news at the time, and I believe it inspired students on other campuses to do the same thing.  The marches on Washington during the 60's, particularly the anti-war ones, were major events.  Had the counterculture just been a niche thing that nobody knew about, it would never have been an issue.  As I understand it, things came to a head between a growing number of people who were challenging the ideas of their parents, and a large number of people on the other side of the issues. 

I agree with you that the 1960s were not a complete decade of rebellion, but I think it goes too far the other way to say that most people had no idea what was going on either at home or abroad.  I think a big part of the problem with Apollo 13 is that in ignoring this, it creates a false sense that 1970 was like the idyllic view of the 1950s - and this serves neither the film nor history.

Thanks for your contributions here - this is a fascinating conversation.

Thanks Doug. 

This has been a really interesting exchange, and it has some relevance to the film at hand - in that we're talking about the culture and environment in which the story occurs.  It's also a basic part of the criticism of the film, and our exchange illuminates different perspectives about that.