First Man

[nickrulercreator]

The Gemini launch was actually pretty accurate. That squeal noise heard just as it begins to launch is a result of the engine's starter cartridge firing up:

I don't know if it'd be that loud in the spacecraft, but that's what it sounded like.

I saw it on Friday and thought it was very very well done. I agree that Neil was made to seem very blah and unemotional, which, with what we know about him, is not entirely accurate, but it was still very good.

The cinematography was beautiful (though a bit shaky). The launch and landing sequence were phenomenal, some of the best I've ever seen in any film, and when they showed the iconic skirt separation in the launch, my mind exploded. They really nailed down those details.

The soundtrack, IMO, was perfect. It really set the tone of triumph, hope, and aspiration, but also made you experience the same dread and hurt that the movie itself portrayed.

Overall, for a nonfiction film, Apollo 13 and this one are tied for me. For nonfiction, interstellar and 2001 still beat this one, but that's because there's more leeway in the story of course.

[raven]

Armstrong never struck me as 'emotionless'. Just someone not great in front of the camera. Some people are like that. Excellent at what he did but not someone who liked the spotlight. And he had this adorable shy smile. If I was a few decades older, I would have had such a crush on him.
Still, I definitively will be seeing this, despite its faults.

[LunarOrbit]

I decided to go see the movie for a second time today, and I enjoyed it a lot more this time.

Neil didn't seem like as much of a "gloomy Gus", and even the sound of the Gemini 8 launch didn't bother me as much.

[bknight]

What is everyone's opinion of this op-ed?

https://www.space.com/42338-which-first-man-neil-armstrong-op-ed.html

[Obviousman]

It does a good job of summarising my opinions.

[Zakalwe]

I agree. Add that to the terrible formulaic camera work and you have a not great movie, IMHO.

[JayUtah]

I wish I'd had more involvement with this film.  But Singer had already solidified the screenplay before my friend Patrick (Elliott See) figured out I was an Apollo authority.  (He actually knows me from my involvement with the Utah arts and theater world.)  Our conversations mostly revolved around the pre-Apollo furor, since that's what he want to talk about for his character.  Honestly I expected Damien Chazelle to make his film poetic, closer to The Right Stuff than to Ron Howard's Apollo 13.  And in that respect I was not disappointed.  Was that Neil Armstrong?  No, not really.  Do rockets make those noises?  No, not really.  That much didn't matter to me because I went into the film expecting that sort of depiction from this team.

I will take credit for one thing, though.  We got talking about Apollo 1, and the thing I mentioned to Patrick was that no one -- not even the many books written or documentaries filmed on Apollo development -- really captures how quickly the accident happened.  We all like to think there was a credible chance to rescue the crew.  There wasn't.  It was all over in 13 seconds.  And it's not too much of a spoiler to say that Chazelle must have somehow got the message:  the depiction of the accident from "Fire in the cockpit!" to the rupture of the CM hatch takes exactly 13 seconds of screen time.  For me, that excuses a lot of the liberties I knew were going to be taken.  If you take nothing away from this film, give him credit for that.

[Dalhousie]

It wasn't bad IMO, good to see the X-15 getting some love.

And I think it is the only depiction of the mission I can recall seeing that shows his descent down the ladder as being tethered.

The scenes with his daughter made me go all misty-eyed......

Some liberties with history (Armstrong's facial injury after his ejection appears to be a shout out to "The right stuff" - as do some of the fuzzy special effects - and he definitely did not go home after his ejection but rather to the office where he carried on with paper work.

A few things made me raise my eyebrows:

The noise and vibration appear to have been exaggerated for dramatic purposes compared to what they actually were.

Were spacecraft interiors really that dimly lit?  Doesn't match photographs from missions.  More a repeat of a trope from everything from Alien to The Expanse (don't get me started).

The grubbiness of the spacecraft interiors does not fit with them being brand new and assembled in clean rooms.

The lunar craters in some shots look like they are from a 1950s movie .

[Zakalwe]

The grubbiness of the spacecraft interiors does not fit with them being brand new and assembled in clean rooms.

Yeah, that stuck out for me too. The interior of the Gemini looked filthy, especially given as they weren't re-used. Put it like this, if that was a used car then I'd be walking away from it.

[JayUtah]

It wasn't bad IMO, good to see the X-15 getting some love.

Richly deserved love, too.  And it makes sense in context since Armstrong remembered his X-15 experience with greater fondness than his Apollo experience.

And I think it is the only depiction of the mission I can recall seeing that shows his descent down the ladder as being tethered.

My experience with advising indicates that while filmmakers love to collect as much detail as possible, there's a limit to the detail they're actually going to show.  It basically all goes into a notebook to be consulted when specific questions of realism come up -- or embodied in an on-set advisor.  It's likely they identified the tether as a detail that few if any previous depictions had mentioned, and possibly something that would make theirs stand out.

The scenes with his daughter made me go all misty-eyed......

Of course; the intent was to make a biography, which is eminently about character -- the human story.  We know we can go to any number of documentary films produced over the decades and get a dispassionate story about the details and events.  I gather the intent was not so much to explore Neil Armstrong as an engineer and pilot so much as Neil Armstrong as a husband and father.  Of course the two are the same man, so you can't simply ignore what makes us curious about his life.

Some liberties with history (Armstrong's facial injury after his ejection appears to be a shout out to "The right stuff" - as do some of the fuzzy special effects...

Indeed.  I went into the film remembering that this is a director who starts his L.A. love story with a production number on a stalled freeway.  I expected it to be a surreal depiction of space exploration in much the same way The Right Stuff was.

Were spacecraft interiors really that dimly lit?

Not usually, but the dark end of the histogram is where people are shooting these days.  It's stylistic of our period.

The grubbiness of the spacecraft interiors does not fit with them being brand new and assembled in clean rooms.

Indeed.  Someone in my party leaned over and said, "Someone needs to get in there with some Windex."

[Glom]

I'd be careful about using The Right Stuff as a benchmark for movies celebrating spaceflight.

I got it on blu-ray a little while ago and my watching of it then was an eye opener. I have come to conclusion it is a reverse Starship Troopers. Everyone watching it has missed the point entirely but that missing the point made them love it rather than hate it.

The Right Stuff is in fact saying that the Mercury astronauts were posers and glorified reality TV stars.

[BDL]

Bart Sibrel, Aulis, and a couple others y’all are likely familiar with had something to say about the movie apparently: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/moon-landing-deniers-first-man-movie_us_5bbfcbd4e4b0bd9ed5584e82

Their responses are pretty much what you would expect.
I think one of them believes that the making of the movie proves that making or “faking” it could be done in the 1960’s.

[BDL]

Bart Sibrel compares it to a Christian seeing a movie about evolutionary biology.
Which is ironic considering the overwhelming evidence concerning both Apollo and the theory of evolution. I wonder if he doesn’t believe in evolution? I’ve heard about him becoming a Christian some time ago but wasn’t sure whether to believe it or not.

[LunarOrbit]

Oh, I don't doubt it. One of his big "proofs" that going to the Moon is impossible is that God doesn't let man get too cocky. Dontcha know that God destroyed the tower of Babel because man tried to reach too high, and sank the Titanic because man said it couldn't be sunk?

[gillianren]

I'd also note that that lets him gloss over the fact that a lot of Christians accept evolutionary biology.  Like the Pope.