Apollo 11, the Movie

I've been a space nerd ever since childhood. I grew up on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, and watched the first moon landing on my parent's black-and-white TV.  Yesterday, I saw the new documentary, Apollo 11, in an IMAX theatre and was transported back to that hot July 50 years ago.

The movie was assembled by director Todd Douglas Miller (Dinosaur 13) and archivist Dan Rooney from previously unseen footage, much of it in large-format 65 mm. (Cinemascope), shot by an MGM film crew for a documentary that was never made. Along with that came several thousand hours of audio of the crew and mission controllers. Rolling Stone has some details on the genesis of the movie.

Apollo 11 originated with the filmmaker’s interest in a project about the last Apollo mission, 17. In search of better-quality footage than had been publicly seen, he reached out to NASA and the National Archives in spring 2017. Some 11 clips were used in a little-seen 1972 doc, Moonwalk One, but most of it — 279 reels, much of it large-format 65 mm — sat in their original metal canisters at a National Archives storage facility in College Park. Thanks to climate-controlled rooms, the footage appeared to be in good condition, but discerning what was on those government-shot reels was a challenge. “We were initially confused about some of the markings,” says Dan Rooney, head archivist at the National Archives. “Some would just say ‘Apollo 11.’ There were limited instances of another word on the can, like ‘Apollo 11 recovery.’ They were not well described.” At NASA offices in Houston, Miller also unearthed nearly 20,000 hours of audio from Mission Control and inside the capsule, capturing both the sounds of the technicians and the astronauts as they toiled away, gossiped and worked through problems. Now they just had to overcome the hurdle of actually digitizing footage that only existed on old reels.

The footage is spectacular. There are breathtaking shots of the crowds on the beach waiting for the launch (can you spot Isacc Asimove?), the seemingly endless rows of mission controllers at their consoles, and the launch itself (mixed loud enough to rattle  the screws in the auditorium). Armstrong's first steps on the moon aren't shown from the usual low-quality video feed but from an alternate angle, filmed by Aldrin from the LEM.

Miller makes good use of the audio, overlaying the voices of the controllers and crew and news coverage, some of it narrated by the late (and much missed) Walter Cronkite. There are no contemporary interviews or voice overs - it's all from the original footage. It's a great example of cinema-verité film making.

I've seen many documentaries about the space program and the Apollo missions. This may be the best. If you can't catch it at an IMAX theatre (it's in a limited run that ends today), see it at the biggest theatre you can find.