For most of the early astronauts, later life was one big letdown.
For most of the later astronauts, later life was one big layoff. NASA had about 140 astronauts at the peak of the Shuttle program. They now have about 40, and no manned space capability. Maybe next year, when Space-X launches.
I was a bit disappointed recently watching First Man. I get that Neil was a private person, but it was a little too over-dramatic (towards his personal life, not the space program) in my opinion. It seemed like an extrovert's wild speculation as to what's going on in an introvert's head. I think he was just a stoic, analytical type, which doesn't mean you need to be completely incapable of communicating emotionally with your kids or SO.
I absolutely loved the film and thought it was an incredible piece of art and a piercingly realistic depiction of a certain VERY REAL type of masculinity. You're lucky that you find it unbelievable / overdramatic.
Anyway, when I was a kid I used to love seeing those burnt capsules in the Science Museum in London. So crazy to see the story rendered to beautifully, along with the politics, the oxygen fires, the bouncing off the atmosphere... I couldn't have asked for anything more.
I thought his portrayal was a realistic vision of the pitfalls of masculinity, and not melodramatic at all. My dad's like that, except he smiles instead of having the blank Gosling face. My dad didn't cry even at his own mother's funeral.
Seeing Gosling/Armstrong closing up the notebooks where he'd been trying to figure out how to cure his daughter's brain cancer, seeing him cover his face to cry silently, seeing him snap at his friend "Do you think I left there because I wanted to talk?", his fear of his emotions... It was just so true to life. I cried multiple times in that film. Of course films are always a bit romanticised - I have to say at no point was the illusion broken for me.
I think that film gets into my top 3 films along with Gattaca and The Matrix.
I love Drive but it was really Blade Runner 2049 that made me realise that his "silent" roles are actually a deceptively simple comment of the state of masculinity, kind of like American Psycho (film > book IMO - interestingly the screenwriter of the film was a woman and the directory of the film was a woman, and the film & book are a critique of that version of masculinity).
Also Ryan's performance in The Big Short made me realise that he is CHOOSING to do his "silent" stuff when he does. He's a very talented actor.
Some of us can spot it. In the Apollo 13 movie, I could tell the real dialog (recorded in history) from the fake dialog.
The big failure was right after the explosion. There was a desire to show the level of stress at that time, so the script writers had the astronauts be antagonistic toward each other and generally unproductive. As I watched that, I instantly saw a bunch of wimpy unstable Hollywood types instead of carefully screened professional test pilots.
The intro dialog was also really forced, and the historical dialog contradicted the direction that rockets were fired when returning.
Makes sense. I didn't even think about how real test pilots might react after the explosion. Guess it would have been too cold for general viewing. The grandparent comment would have found it even more unbelievable I guess.
I don't dispute that the film fudged reality to get to a more relatable emotional truth - I actually like that kind of thing.
I see where you're coming from, but personally I really appreciated the depiction of an introverted main character. Also both of his sons were consultants on the film and apparently supplied part of the dialogue and tone for the scene where he talks to them before leaving for Apollo 11 [1], so that part of his relationship to his family, at least, seems pretty accurate to me.
One thing I remain curious about is how serving in the Korean War shaped the psychology of that first crop of astronauts. And I would LOVE to watch a movie with the budget and talent of First Man, but about Yuri Gagarin or Valentina Tereshkova.
I think the movie overall was okay but I just could not stand the overuse of shaky-cam in it. It's like they edited it specifically to be shown in those D-Box seats. Like, I understand that rocket launches are pretty shaky endeavors, but to be using the shaky cam in the _kitchen_ was just way over the top.
Overall production was great. There was very little noticeable CGI, they used miniatures extensively and all the in-aircraft shots were filmed in motion-simulators in front of a massive LED wall that apparently made most of the crew ill. Gosling was even coached by an X-15 pilot on what buttons to push during filming.
As much as Indianapolis feels a bit like a backwater, having one of the few true IMAX theaters has been such a great experience. Being able to see Dunkirk on that screen would have been worth driving hours for.
It seems like Armstrong just isn't that interesting of a movie character. There is nothing wrong with that and isn't meant to take anything away from his accomplishments. No one lives their life with a goal that their biopic will be interesting. It just makes me wonder why this movie needed to exist in the first place. There are plenty of better stories to tell about the space program if you are determined to make a movie about that.
Re: "It seems like Armstrong just isn't that interesting of a movie character."
He was chosen for the mission in a large part for his lack of emotions: stress didn't seem to phase him when in precarious situations.
Buzz Aldrin was a bit more emotional in comparison, but still a rather mellow person. Buzz was chosen for his MacGyver-like abilities to improvise. He did end up dissecting a ball-point pen to trigger a damaged switch. A fully-inflated space suit ended up bigger than drafted, and they had a hard time getting out of the hatch, brushing up against instrument panels in the process. Good thing they didn't bump the "launch" button :-)
I agree, but First Man is not a story about landing on the moon. It is a story about Neil Armstrong. The movie focuses on a piece of the story that is inherently less interesting than the stuff going on in the periphery.
I'm sure there were some interesting office politics and battle-of-wills going on in the general space program during the stress to reach Kennedy's "decade" goal.
There have been countless movies, TV specials, books and whatnot about men going into space and landing on the moon. It's interesting to finally hear the backstories of who these men really were. "First Man" hadn't really showed up on my radar until today but after reading some of the comments here it's shot straight to the top of my "to watch" list!
I disagree that "Armstrong the human being" is less interesting. It's just differently interesting. I felt the movie gave great insight into the man (acknowledging that his family were consulted), and also into how particular personality types are more suited to certain jobs than you might at think at first glance.
Strictly speaking, Aldrin punched the lunatic because he wouldn't stop harassing him in the street, even though multiple people tried to intervene. I can't imagine Aldrin cared too much about the guy's conspiracy theories.
Perhaps in contrast, First Man (the book) relates that Armstrong hid in a college bathroom when some autograph seekers came by the college where he taught.
> I get that Neil was a private person, but it was a little too over-dramatic
I don't know. My granddad [0] told me a story about being pinned against a wall and screamed at by Armstrong because he allowed little kids to hang around and ask for autographs at a NASA event. Armstrong was not only overly private, he was also apparently really bothered by the small industry that developed selling things that he (Buzz Aldrin / Mike Collins) signed.
In contrast, others like Jimmy Doolittle, would supposedly talk to you for hours on end about NASA/WWII/whatever.
When he visited the Uk base of a company (Eaton - where my dad worked) he was a director - there where instructions not to talk to him about his time in NASA.
That just seems like the only role Ryan Gosling ever plays - I don't think he ever has more than a page of dialog in any of the movies I've seen with him (though the love interests are always throwing themselves at him anyway).
It was an incredible comedic performance. (By his co-stars too, btw, but he carried a lot of the film, I felt.). Also an overall very funny movie.
I'm not sure exactly how much of Graham Norton is scripted, but he's had at least a couple of amazing appearances on that. (It's a bit of an edge case, but I'd argue that it qualifies as 'acting' even if only slightly so.)
EDIT: I gained a lot of respect for him -- as an actor -- after NG. I'm told comedy is one of those things that it's really hard to do well.
You could watch Crazy, Stupid Love (very funny movie with ensemble cast), you could watch The Big Short (again, ensemble cast), you could watch The Place Beyond The Pines...
One can easily see why they picked him to play a replicant in the Blade Runner remake.
Apparently you can also pretend he's a replicant in all his other movies, and it often works out pretty well. Drive for example would make perfect sense with his character being an unwitting replicant.
Recently watched and enjoyed it though I had some issues with it. 1) shaky cam was very annoying. 2) I thought there was way to much focus on his wife and would have rather more focus on the space program.
I haven't watched it yet, though being from Clear Lake, I have a particular interest in space fact and fiction.
I was disappointed to see Ryan Gosling associated with the project; it looked like he was playing his character from "Drive" as an astronaut. He does "super quiet person" really well, but it didn't look like Neil Armstrong, it looked like Ryan Gosling goes to space.
I thought he did a good job in First Man. There is definitely some nuance between his character in Drive and First Man. Gosling is a really good actor, imo.
Isn't the story that the script he was given was to say "one small step for a man", but on the day he flubbed his line and actually did say "one small step for man"
NASA trusted those guys enough to give them carte blanche with stuff like that, which is why Pete Conrad said "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me" in order to win a bet (and because it was funny).
This has turned into a discussion about First Man rather than the article, so I may as well contribute:
I think Damien Chazelle intended to frame the movie as a war movie, even toeing towards a parallel between the Apollo missions and the Vietnam War. The idea that we actively gambled with these men's lives, somehow collectively desensitized ourselves to human loss, that we are all boys pretending to have protocol- obvious parallels to war, in that a bureaucratic borg overlooks human lives in a competition the borg itself created.
But the thing is- its pretty hard to not lean into the inherent heroism of landing on the moon, especially since the studio clearly gave Chazelle a blank check to recreate the moon landing as immaculately as possible.
So its a little hard to parse the final message. The movie is the inverse of Apollo 13, pessimistic where 13 is optimistic, even though First Man is about the successful one. To some extent, Mission Control are the villains in this movie.
It isn't not going be a loved movie, like his last two (Whiplash and La La Land.) The characters are constantly aware of their mortal peril, which in turn makes them coarse and hard to like. But its such an interesting take on the Moon missions.
For most of the later astronauts, later life was one big layoff. NASA had about 140 astronauts at the peak of the Shuttle program. They now have about 40, and no manned space capability. Maybe next year, when Space-X launches.