posted 08-18-2004 02:23 AM            

Hanks lined up quite a crew of experts to pull off a state of the art series.

I've always wondered during the Apollo 12 chapter they show the crew in quarantine smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. Was that artistic license or did they really do that in quarantine?

That chapter along with "Spider" were a couple of my favorite ones.

posted 08-18-2004 03:48 AM               

The Apollo 12 chapter is also my favourite, with several funny moment from Conrad telling his crew to go and poop, Beano with (both) cameras and Gordon getting his own back getting Conrad and Bean to strip after docking from the moon.

posted 08-18-2004 11:07 AM               

I think most on here will agree that the whole series was great. Whether it transcends into the regular population is questionable though. There were a couple of flat episodes, Apollo 13 in particular. That was a tough one as the movie covered it very well, so they did this episode focused on the journalistic coverage of the mission.

posted 08-18-2004 01:01 PM               

If you watch the Apollo 1 episode, look carefully... there's a point during the investigation where the actor who portrays the guy from the Bureau of Mine Safety, the line comes out, "the fire was caused by frayed wiring?" although his lips say "faulty wiring" probably to avoid a lawsuit by Rockwell?

posted 08-18-2004 08:55 PM               

I just finished Andy Chaiken's book for the second time. Reading about how hard Dave Scott prepared for that mission is downright inspiring.

posted 08-18-2004 11:43 PM               

I've enjoyed many of the episodes enough to make them my "favorite" for a time, but (oddly enough) I've been quite fond of the one about the Astronaut's wives most recently. Part of it, I suppose, is that they have taken a bunch of beautiful and talented contemporary actresses and had them portray women from an era that looked upon women in a much different way than we do now. (My congratulations to Sally Fields on a terrific job.) Also, I think it's one of the biggest travesties of the space race that so many of the astronauts' families were hurt so badly by it. The scenes portraying the Bormans and Lovells were, I think, wonderful.

posted 08-20-2004 09:34 PM               

I highly recommend this series to those who are not familiar with the space program and to those under 35 who didn't have the chance to witness it live.

posted 06-22-2005 12:19 AM               

We have official details for you on HBO's updated From The Earth To The Moon: The Signature Edition (due 9/20 - SRP $99.98). The 5-disc set will include all 12 episodes in anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 EX audio. The extras look to be mostly the same as what was available on the original DVD release (although some of contents that were previously ROM based MAY now be available on the set-top side). The extras will include the HBO First Look behind-the-scenes featurette, a special effects featurette, information on Famous Astronomers, History of the Moon and The Space Race timelines, video of President Kennedy's historic speech to Congress on May 25, 1961, an interactive tour of the solar system and other space phenomena, promotional trailers for the mini-series and more. There MAY be a bit of new material as well - we should know more soon.

posted 03-27-2006 02:44 PM               

I couldn't get my kids to read Chaikin's book, but they enjoyed the series. After watching the Guenter Wendt characterization on the Apollo 7 episode, I showed them my autographed photo of Wendt clowning around with Shepard and Mitchell in the Apollo 14 white room. They said, "Wow, he's just like on the TV show!"

This series, combined with the IMAX "Magnificent Desolation - Walking on the Moon in 3D," are about as close as we're going to get at the moment to experiencing what it was like to be there.

posted 04-13-2006 07:41 AM               

In the scene of Gus Grissom's funeral at Arlington, some archive footage is used. Some children are shown, and one is a blonde girl.

posted 04-13-2006 04:50 PM               

Its strange that many of the series' actors were also in Apollo 13 although playing different roles!

• FTETTM actor who plays Frank Borman plays Pete Conrad in Apollo 13

• FTETTM actor who plays Dave Scott plays Jack Lousma in Apollo 13

• FTETTM actor who plays Bob Parker plays Deke Slayton in Apollo 13

• FTETTM actor who plays Roger Chaffee plays John Young in Apollo 13

posted 04-13-2006 10:24 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by TLI:
FTETTM actor who plays Bob Parker plays Deke Slayton in Apollo 13

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posted 09-22-2006 12:50 AM               

Did they feel they were accurately portrayed or were there inaccuracies?

posted 09-23-2006 09:05 PM               

I must say, though, that the statement was made with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye--both qualities that I suspect are very common with astronaut Bean.

I personally suspect that Al was "much better than that" but that he has a wonderful, self-deprecating sense of humor. In any event, the episode is an absolute classic and one to be treasured.

posted 11-05-2006 01:41 PM               

In the first episode, astronaut Pete Conrad is played by two different actors. Peter Scolari plays the role for most of the episode, but in the final "all hands meeting" scene, Paul McCrane takes over the role. (McCrane plays Conrad again in Episode 7.)

posted 11-08-2006 10:43 PM            

But all the mistakes that were made with the SFX of Apollo 13 makes it unwatchable for me anymore. They only did marginally better with FTETTM.

I'm a special effects modeller - I've dealt with changing deadlines, producer/director pressure, etc. And I know that the SFX schedule for Apollo 13 was cut by Universal who wanted to get the movie released a few months earlier than originally scheduled.

But even taking these facts into account, the SFX crew at Digital Domain could have actually looked at pictures of an actual Saturn V instead of painting the Revell Germany Saturn V they bought like the totally inaccurate picture on the box. The Digital Domain SFX crew stated in the "Making of Apollo 13" article in Cinefex Magazine that they used had gotten piles of reference material to work with, and from the shots they made obviously never actually looked at any of it. With all the time the production crew spent filming zero-g sequences in the Vomit Comet based at Ellington, it wouldn't have taken a whole lot of effort to go to JSC and actually look at a real Saturn V. In the first scenes in the movie on the MOCR set, they have a picture of an actual Saturn V on the pad at KSC on the big screen.

FTETTM inherited some of the models from Apollo 13, and they were repainted to be more accurate. But for the majority of the shots showing the Saturn V in flight, they modified another 1/96th scale Revell Germany Saturn V, and still didn't take the time to get the details right. They didn't correct the innacurate markings on the S-IC, the S-II stage details are wrong, and there is no excuse for it - all the resources they could possibly need to build an accurate Saturn V were easily available online at the time.

I won't go in to all the inaccuracies of the Wally Schirra/Apollo 7 episode - there are way too many. They made the ultimate (well, to me anyway) sin of showing footage from the launches of two different types of launch vehicle (Saturn 1-B and the Saturn V) to depict the Apollo 7 launch.

It was great that some of the stories of the Apollo era that hadn't been given a lot of general public exposure got told.

Sure they had Dave Scott and others who actually were part of Apollo as technical advisers. I would hope that someone acting in that capacity spoke up and said that the models weren't accurate. More than likely they were thanked for their input and were told that it would be it was too late/too expensive to correct the shot, the shot won't be on the screen long enough for anyone to tell the difference, we'll CGI it later, insert cliched industry excuse for not doing the right thing here.

posted 11-09-2006 08:03 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by spacecraft guy:
They made the ultimate (well, to me anyway) sin of showing footage from the launches of two different types of launch vehicle (Saturn 1-B and the Saturn V) to depict the Apollo 7 launch.

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When I was producing the Saturn 1 and 1B and Saturn V disc sets, I got dubs of the material that was transferred by Marshall for the FTETTM folks. In the middle of the Apollo 7 reels was this one shot (the one used) of a Saturn V liftoff. It was given to the producers as part of the Apollo 7 material.