October 21, 2007 -- “In the Shadow of the Moon” is a film that reminds Americans that one time in the last century we were a great nation that did fantastic things, like put men on the moon. There was a time when the moon shots united the world in a way it never was before, or since. Now, we can't even build bridges that stay up and our rickety old space shuttles are falling apart. We are way past our glory days, but “In the Shadow of the Moon” brings us back to those glory days for 100 precious minutes. It shows how great we were, once upon a time.

“In the Shadow of the Moon” is a documentary about the Apollo space program which shot nine American spacecraft to the Moon and put 12 Americans on the moon's surface. There have been other documentaries about these stunning achievements, but this film has two things going for it those other films did not. The first is that it puts a very human face on the Apollo program with in-depth, heartfelt interviews with astronauts who tell what it was really like to experience spaceflight and walking on another world. The second thing it has going for it is some previously unseen footage from space gleaned from NASA's archives. Filmmakers looked through NASA's archives, examining some film canisters that hadn't been opened in 30 years. They found 16mm film of mission control and shots taken by cameras on all five stages of the massive Saturn V rockets used for all the moon shots. The mission control footage has been remastered and re-synched with audio taped during the missions.

The result is an unprecedented view of the Apollo missions coupled with eloquent and heartfelt testimony by those who experienced this great adventure. One thing that was striking about the Apollo missions was how they were followed by the entire world and how all of humanity shared in the triumph of the moon landing. Another striking thing about the film was the unheeded warnings about exposed wiring in the early space capsules, combined with the extreme fire hazard of a pure oxygen environment. The result was the tragic death of three astronauts during an early Apollo ground test. Astronaut John Young revisits that tragedy, illustrating how he was initially unable to comprehend the extent of the tragedy when he first learned of it. “What do you mean they're lost?” he remembers asking at that time. Similar warnings went unheeded prior to the Challenger disaster.

Much of this basic story has been told before in the films “The Right Stuff,” “Apollo 13” and the TV miniseries “From Earth to the Moon.” This is a worthy addition to those earlier efforts and it adds those two missing ingredients, the previously unseen archival footage, and the very revealing interviews with the surviving Apollo astronauts. They are heroes all, not just for America, but for the whole world. Maybe some day, someone will make a movie about those early cosmonauts from the old Soviet Union. They also have a story to tell. This movie rates an A.

I saw this film at the Fox Cinema in Laramie and was somewhat disappointed in the presentation. It took about 10 minutes for the projectionist to get the picture in focus, after a lot of fiddling around with the projector. At the end of the film, the sound of the film was cut off and the sound from the commercials started running instead of the interviews still on screen. I could see the people's mouths moving, but could not hear what they were saying. Is it too much to ask that the commercials wait until the movie is over? They should not intrude into a feature film.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2007 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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