Blu-ray Review HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Apollo 13: 15th Anniversary Edition (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

Kevin, you're right. The film does have some contrived scenes to add drama or to make a point or to add some excitement. I mostly listen to Lovell's commentary because I wanted to hear what was real and what wasn't. I recall listening to Howard's commentary only once.

I looked at 2 of those screen caps. That's a huge difference. And to my eye, unless Howard's original intent was for a softer look, I think the blu-ray wins. Colors are different, but again, I don't know the original intent. Felix, I think you ought to see the blu ray to be sure.

Hmm, in 1970, I was 9. I loved the space program! I watched every lift-off and mission. I heard of Viet Nam, but it didn't mean anything. I knew of the Beatles, but I didn't have any of their records. All I cared about was what every 9 year old cared about!

 

[Felix Martinez]

Originally Posted by Kevin EK
...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?

No cause for concern I am indeed returning the Blu-ray unopened, so right now I can't compare on my 92 in screen. I'm going to go ahead and Netflix the BRD and compare it with the HD-DVD when I get a chance. My only point is that the Blu-ray has been digitally "enhanced," and that potential Blu-ray buyers may want the heads up in case they have the HD-DVD and are about to unload it.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Felix Martinez




I don't believe there is an argument that the audio is superior on the Blu-ray. Unfortunately, when compared to the HD-DVD, the Blu-ray image is DNR'd and contrast-boosted to (IMHO) an unacceptable level. This is totally unnecessary and disappointing. The Blu-ray should have been a home run.

So you've seen and heard both, the HD DVD and BRD of this title?





Crawdaddy

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Felix Martinez




No cause for concern I am indeed returning the Blu-ray unopened, so right now I can't compare on my 92 in screen. I'm going to go ahead and Netflix the BRD and compare it with the HD-DVD when I get a chance. My only point is that the Blu-ray has been digitally "enhanced," and that potential Blu-ray buyers may want the heads up in case they have the HD-DVD and are about to unload it.

So you answered my question in my previous post.





Crawdaddy

 

[Felix Martinez]

Originally Posted by Robert Crawford




So you answered my question in my previous post.





Crawdaddy

Hi Robert, I thought my post #15 was pretty clear and forthcoming, and I'm actually not ruling out getting the BRD at some point in the future. I'm not recommending that others do what I'm doing, but I will say to those that still have the HD-DVD, that it's probably worth keeping.

 

[Kevin EK]

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.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Kevin,

Interesting perspective. I suspect that my parents were probably about 10 to 15 years older than yours, and were supporters of the war. I also suspect that where you lived had a great deal to do with how much exposure you had to "radical" and or anti-war movements of the day. If you were in California or New York you probably ran into it just about every day. If you were in the mid west, or the southwest as my family was, I suspect you would very rarely run into it. In fact where I'm from, Phoenix, the whole counter culture activity was almost completely restricted to a one mile section of one street called Mill Ave that ran past Arizona State University. You never saw a "hippie" anywhere else in town. In fact even as late as the mid 70s if you had hair longer than your collar, people would ask you when you were going to get a haircut.

As for the war being on the news, it was my family's tradition to watch the evening news as we ate dinner. We watched the news every night, and I never remember seeing a story about the war. I'm not saying they weren't there, but they surely didn't dominate the news the way an event like the Apollo 13 incident did which I remember clearly. I also remember huge coverage of Water Gate, but little to none about Vietnam. Again I was not aware of the Vietnam War until I was 10 or 11.

You are correct that popular media was starting to explore the idea of Vietnam. But I must say that MASH is another great example. They couldn't make the movie about Vietnam, they had to dress it up as Korea. Interestingly this is also about the time that my parents stopped going to movies because they didn't like what my mom called "message" movies. In fact I think the only movie they went to that year was Airport. By far the most popular radio station in town was KOY, which played a mix of popular music and country. You would hear Do You Know the Way to San José by Dionne Warwick followed by The Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. Most of what people think of as 60s music, ie Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, I was not exposed to until almost 10 or 15 years later in the late 70s and early 80s. You just didn't hear it much here.

Sorry guys if we have gone a little far afield from Apollo 13 here, I just find the differing perceptions of the era interesting.

Doug

 

[Kevin EK]

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.

 

[Rick Thompson]

I went to college in the 60s (graduated May 1970), and the fact is that most of us had nothing to do with the campus radicals, and had no interest in joining them. If you pressed us for an answer, we considered them nutcases. We were more concerned with actually going to class and graduating. Many of us paid our own way; you couldn't spend your time demonstrating if you also went to class and worked at a job.

The networks loved the demonstrators, and why wouldn't they? Then, as now, they provided great visuals. Riots and demonstrations always lead because of the visuals. If they're violent, so much the better. Just like newspapers, "If it bleeds, it leads."

As for "Apollo 13" needing the sociological background or psychological examination of the characters, puh-leeze. They were irrelevant to the story, which was how the astronauts, their families and the men on the ground got them home. We could relate to them.

Any wife can imagine what she would think if that were her husband up there. Any man can imagine how he'd feel faced with that. Any of us faceless guys with pocket protectors can imagine the triumph he would feel when his team of overweight balding guys solves the carbon dioxide problem and one of the astronauts shakes his hand and says, "You are a steely-eyed missle man!"

The point is, we can provide the psychology. Anything Ron Howard might have thrown in would just get in the way.

 

[Chad R]

This discussion about the cultural impact of the 60s and 70s is interesting. But I'm still not sure why it's assumed that because historically it was a turbulent time, that they should have been reflected more in the story of Apollo 13.

I'm sure in time, history will portray our current time as pretty turbulent. The worst econominc climate since the great depression, protests against the gvernment, etc. And these events are very much on my mind every day. But my home life has continued unabated the way it did before. At work, we don't discuss it because it's accpeted that you don't discuss politics at work. Politics are very polarizing. It's like discussing religion, you just don't do it.

So I agree that at work, these guys would discuss work. That's what I do. And this film is pretty much about this job.

And I think that job was pretty damn amazing. What Howard wanted to do with this film was delve into elements of the human experience that transcend the time. This story is about the triumph of will; the strength of character in a crisis; the bonds of family; and how much we value life itself. These are all worthy themes that date back thousands of years in literature, but continue to ring the bells of our souls today.

When Marilyn and Barbara are arguing about the Beatles, it's not supposed to be about the world going on outside of the home. It's about a mother and daughter fighting. They're usually shown fighting as mothers and daughters often do through all cultures. And then, at the end, when communication does not return after the re-entry blackout period, Barbara melts into her mother's arms at the thought her father might be dead. It's about family.

Apollo 13 is the story of these people, not the times. If you wanted to make a film about the Apollo missions and their impact on culture, you would do Apollo 8. After a VERY turbulent year that included riots and assasinations, man orbited the moon on Christmas Eve 1968. And a woman wrote them a very simple thank you letter on their return voyage home, "You saved 1968".

But Howard wanted to tell a story about people. So he chose to tell the story of Apollo 13.

 

[nolesrule]

Originally Posted by Chad R

Apollo 13 is the story of these people, not the times. If you wanted to make a film about the Apollo missions and their impact on culture, you would do Apollo 8. After a VERY turbulent year that included riots and assasinations, man orbited the moon on Christmas Eve 1968. And a woman wrote them a very simple thank you letter on their return voyage home, "You saved 1968".

Exactly, and the From the Earth to the Moon episode 4 entitled "1968" sets the stage for the Apollo 8 story in exactly that manner...and you probably knew that when you wrote it.

And I agree with everything you wrote that I snipped out to save space.

 

[Nelson Au]

Great discussion, yes and some great posts.

As I said above, I grew up in the 60's and 70's. It was great period and my strongest memories are the space program, the Kennedy assassinations, Star Trek and my Hot Wheels and Matchbox collections. There are other things from the era too, like when my Dad bought a 1967 Mustang, which I still own! So I enjoy learning more about the period.

Back to the film, I watched the rest of the film last night, from the beginning to the end. I have to say again, it really looked great! If there was DNR, please tell me where to look! And I forgot how integral and well done the James Horner score is. Though I'd flash to Titanic when there was choral cues used.

Oh yeah, there was a line early the film, I remember hearing back in the day, Lovell to his son: "Get a haircut!"

 

[Kevin EK]

Rick, I really appreciate your perspective here. You're the first person to contribute here who was actually of age at the time of the events of this film. I have a feeling many people share your perspective, particularly given the hit this film was in 1995. On the other hand, there were many people who were also in college at the same time who may have had a very different impression of the protests and what was happening. The problem I have with the lack of sociological background is that it makes 1970 appear to be something like the idyllic vision of the 1950s that many people cling to. And that simply isn't true to the history of the time by any means. As for the idea of not needing to know more about the characters, I'll just say that I would have been interested to learn more about what made these guys tick, just because otherwise we're trapped in a capsule with three men we never really understand. I'll add to that the other problem - that Ron Howard tried to insert drama into the capsule scenes by inventing the doubt in Jack Swigert which never existed in the real mission. He could have taken the same time to show how the mission failure was eating away at the guys, not to mention the primal fear of what could have happened. Your point about the audience reading its own psychology into the situation is well-taken, so I'll cite another example where the audience was able to do so: 2001: A Space Odyssey. In that case, you have a philosophical meditation on what happens to man in space, among other things, and you can read whatever you want into the characters. And this could have been an interesting approach here too, I agree.

Chad, I hear you too. And I'd be fine with the idea that Ron Howard wanted to make a movie about the people involved with this mission. Except that he admits he changed things to make it more dramatic for himself. Once he started inventing scenes (like the Marilyn/Barbara conflict which did not exist in the real Lovell house, as the Lovells laugh through in their commentary), he lost the ground to say that this was the point of his movie. My point about the social background of the time is that a film about Apollo 13 that ignores the Earth the men launched from seems like a pretty big abstraction to me. It's not a matter of making the film about what's outside the mission - it's more a matter of acknowledging that something is happening. (I think Ron Howard could have easily done this just in the sequence wherein we find out that the Apollo 13 capsule transmission wasn't broadcast on TV - all he had to do was ask why, and he chose not to do that.) The problem with the invented Marilyn/Barbara conflict is that it's clear that Ron Howard had no idea that Marilyn's pat dismissal of her daughter, followed by the daughter straightening up in the crisis, would be interpreted as Barbara conforming to her parents, just as she might have done in the 1950s. (One review I read made the comment "I guess she didn't hear what the dormouse said.") Ron Howard thought he was just showing a funny/touching mother/daughter arc by inventing these scenes, but the fact that he didn't see how they wind out playing when he cut them together is indicative of a deeper problem that runs through his film work.

I'll say again that the movie is a good movie. I would not have given it the rating I did if I thought it was poor in some way. My problem with it has to do with a consistent faultline that recurs throughout Howard's directorial career. And the problem here is far smaller than the ones that plagued A Beautiful Mind, where the true story got so simplified and homogenized that it lost its point. Or in Frost/Nixon, where he repeated and compounded those errors to the point that that film could only be viewed as a fantasy rather than a dramatic examination.

Thank you both for your great posts and a continuing expansion of our discussion. (And I agree that Apollo 8 would be an interesting frame for a film, given when it happened.)

 

[Kevin EK]

Sorry, Nelson, didn't see your post. Thanks for your perspective on the times as well.

Thanks also for reminding me of an aspect of Horner's score that I had meant to include in the review. You're right that the score presages what he would do on Titanic 2 years later. But it also is very reminiscent of the score and choral material he had written for Brainstorm in 1983. Some of the cues are very close to those from the earlier film. As a soundtrack buff (and a collector of 10 James Horner scores and cue collections), my ears tend to perk up when I hear familiar cues popping up. (As another example, I still remember watching Amistad and muttering to myself during the John Quincy Adams scenes, "Hey, that 's the Smallville music from Superman!")

 

[Nelson Au]

No worries Kevin! You're very enthusiastic about the topic! I forget that I live down the peninsula some 18 miles during the Summer of Love in 1968 from the Height Ashbury district and the hippies.

I don't own as many Horner scores as you do! I looked him up and I hadn't realized he has done so many film scores. I did think during Aliens that some its score reminded me of his Star Trek 2 score. You must have the newest Star Trek 2 score issued last year by Film Score Monthly.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Originally Posted by Nelson Au

There are other things from the era too, like when my Dad bought a 1967 Mustang, which I still own!

You lucky dog!!!!

 

[Douglas Monce]

Kevin,

I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I think the point some of us are trying to make is that the events and movements you are talking about, were just not a part of most people's lives at the time and frankly most people were ignoring them. The importance of them in people's everyday lives has been vastly over blown by those who write the history and seem to have idolized the counter culture. Honestly I think any addition of that subject would be seriously out of place in this film, and would have negatively effected the audience reaction to the film. Thats just not what the film is about. The theme of the film is not the times, but rather how these people took a nearly impossible situation, and turned it into a triumph. There is just no place for an analysis of of the counter culture and its reflection on the space program, because there just wasn't any.

First of all everyone depicted in the film was either a military pilot, or an engineer. These people are going to have NOTHING to do with the counter culture if it even shows up as a blip on their radar. Secondly the Earth bound scenes are set in Huston, a city that isn't going to be a hot bed of radicals. With a few exceptions, protests and sit ins and things of that nature were mostly happening on the coasts. It just didn't happen all that much in middle America.

As to the dramatized argument between the mother and daughter, I believe that The Lovell's say in their commentary, that while that specific argument didn't take place, those kinds of conflicts did take place in their house just as they did in almost everyone's house. So even if the actual argument is made up, the spirit of it is true. The really interesting thing about this conflict between mother and daughter, is what its actually about. At least the first one we see, the daughter wants to wear a "hippie" costume out of the house, and the mother is saying absolutely not. If that doesn't say something about the times I don't know what would, at least in the context of this film. What I find interesting is that the one event that most critics charge as being overly dramatic, Marilyn losing her ring down the drain, actually did happen as depicted.

Doug

 

[Nelson Au]

I'm a very lucky dog, Doug!

 

[Rick Thompson]

Originally Posted by Kevin EK

I'll cite another example where the audience was able to do so: 2001: A Space Odyssey. In that case, you have a philosophical meditation on what happens to man in space, among other things, and you can read whatever you want into the characters.

2001 was a completely different type of film. It was all about philosophical meditation. When I saw it, I was -- Luddite alert! Luddite alert! -- I was bored silly. It struck me as slowly-paced pretentious navel-gazing, albeit beautifully photographed slowly-paced pretentious navel-gazing. Maybe I needed to be high.

Perhaps I'd have a different opinion today, but if anything I've grown even less tolerant of slowly-paced pretentious navel gazing than in my misspent youth.

All that is beside the point, which is that 2001 was a philosophical meditation. Apollo 13 is a different breed of cat, which is why it needed no philosophy thrown in. I can see your point about possibly giving us some background about these guys, but there's only so much time and something has to go. Otherwise, the film would have been way too long. As it was, Apollo 13 runs two hours 20.

I can't help but think of George Roy Hill, as quoted by William Goldman: "If you can't tell your story in under two hours, you better be David Lean."

 

[Kevin EK]

Doug, thanks for your response.

I should try to be a little clearer. I don't mean to say that the film should have made the counterculture or the major issues that were happening in 1970 the focus of a film about the events of the Apollo 13 mission. My point is that to set the film like this, in what appears to be a nostalgic view of the world where things appear to be as they were in the 1950s, badly misses the context and really any historical perspective about what was happening.

I don't doubt that Houston was mostly a conservative city, and that the astronauts were fairly conservative. And certainly their community was a conservative one. But given what we know about the events of the day, it's a strange act to ignore the exteme irony that while people were concerned about getting these 3 men home, there were men dying every day in Vietnam, and many people in the U.S. were not only aware of this but quite vocal about it. A different director would have noticed this, and could have included that irony without it interrupting the issues in the capsule. I should also note that while the astronauts were working long days in training, etc, they were also really smart guys. They read the newspapers and knew what was happening in the world around them. So I'd think they were more aware than the average person about the issues here. It's also strange to dismiss the real debate that was happening about the space program as a rumbling among suits. (Although giving that material to Roger Corman does seem oddly appropriate...) The point that people like Gil Scott-Heron were making was "why are we spending millions and millions to send people to the moon when we have people starving at home?" The problems that happened during the Apollo 13 mission only underscored this concern and added fuel to the fire. It's very strange to me that even Capricorn One acknowledged this in an early Hal Holbrook speech, but it does not present an issue to Ron Howard here.

And I wouldn't want you to think this is a matter of idolizing the counterculture. For myself, I see the problem as a matter of understanding what was going on at the time. I wouldn't want to raise an opinion in either direction - just to note that the conflict existed, at the same time that many Americans were seeing the war on their televisions to a much greater extent than we have seen images from our more recent conflicts. I agree with you that some people in the media have a nostalgia for the counterculture that defies what actually happened with that group, but there are plenty of media outlets that take the opposite point of view.

There are several moments in the film that allowed for some level of perspective - not the least of which involve the Lovell family. An obvious opportunity that got lost is where the astronauts' capsule transmission is not broadcast by anyone. Ron Howard's depiction of this glosses over the reasons for this - saying only that the mission only becomes news when it gets into trouble. It only takes the question why, and Howard was not interested in the answer to that question.

As for the Marilyn/Barbara conflict, the scene was an invention of Ron Howard's based on conflicts he would see at home between his wife and daughter. The Lovells' commentary on the Halloween costume scene indicates that Jim found Barbara to be over-dramatized, while they thought that younger Susan was actually "perfect". (They also go on to acknowledge that the following scene where Jim tells his wife he'll be going somewhere farther than Acapulco is another bit of dramatic license, since it actually happened with regard to the Apollo 8 mission...) I'm sure that conflicts like this may have happened in their house, but they don't discuss it to my knowledge in the commentary, so I can't be sure that the spirit really is true. The problem with the invented scene is that while it satisfies Howard's need to generate more conflict that he can recognize, it actually can be seen as dismissive, which is how many critics viewed it at the time. Howard's inability to see this problem only exacerbates it.

You're absolutely right about the bit with the wedding ring down the shower. I enjoyed Howard's rueful comments in the featurette where he talked about how everyone thought he made that up, when that was one thing that really DID happen.

You're also absolutely right that this film is a fine one, made well with good performances and solid work all around. As a simple story unto itself, I think it's a fine piece of work, just as I can enjoy A Beautiful Mind or Frost/Nixon. But if we try to view any of these pieces as serious filmmaking, with any kind of deep thinking, they simply come apart. Apollo 13 is certainly more genial than the other two, so its issues do not affect my ability to enjoy its virtues. But all three films show a lack of understanding of the basic underpinnings of their stories.