The First Man
Jan. 23rd, 2019 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiIt's been a while since anything at Reading Film Theatre caught my eye; last night, after dealing with the aftermath of an afternoon snowfall on my car at the station car park, I headed in to see First Man. It was billed as a biopic of Neil Armstrong, but really, whilst he is the central character, there's more to it than that. The film opens with one of Armstrong's NASA X-15 flights, in which he barely controls the aircraft at the edge of space, bouncing around the top of the atmosphere. But the action returns firmly to earth with his family life, and the death of his daughter; seeing the opportunity for a fresh start, he applies to join NASA's Gemini project.
There's a slight air of disbelief as the USSR beats them to one milestone after another in the early years of the space race, but Armstrong and the other recruits plough on with the training program, wondering who will get to do what, and whether they'll get to the ultimate prize. Armstrong's flight, Gemini 8, suffers a critical malfunction after successfully completing its docking test; later, the crew of Apollo 1 die in the spacecraft as a result of a fire during testing, and Armstrong is injured when he ejects from a test lunar lander vehicle. All of this weighs heavily on his family, but he remains dedicated to the mission. Both sides of this aspect of the film seemed a bit wooden, as though unconvincingly trying to make a point about his domestic life. There's also a rising background through this period of political questioning NASA's funding (which has continued to be an ongoing sore over the decades), and also of anti-space program protests (which look like a mixture of civil rights, anti-war and anti-austerity protests) which question the program's value.
Of necessity there's a fair bit of fast-forward in the film, so we jump to the successful Apollo 10 mission and finally, Apollo 11. I was impressed by the effects used to show weightlessness; on a lighter note, also by the importance of having a large allen key or socket to open and close the doors. You don't see that in Star Trek.
There's a slight air of disbelief as the USSR beats them to one milestone after another in the early years of the space race, but Armstrong and the other recruits plough on with the training program, wondering who will get to do what, and whether they'll get to the ultimate prize. Armstrong's flight, Gemini 8, suffers a critical malfunction after successfully completing its docking test; later, the crew of Apollo 1 die in the spacecraft as a result of a fire during testing, and Armstrong is injured when he ejects from a test lunar lander vehicle. All of this weighs heavily on his family, but he remains dedicated to the mission. Both sides of this aspect of the film seemed a bit wooden, as though unconvincingly trying to make a point about his domestic life. There's also a rising background through this period of political questioning NASA's funding (which has continued to be an ongoing sore over the decades), and also of anti-space program protests (which look like a mixture of civil rights, anti-war and anti-austerity protests) which question the program's value.
Of necessity there's a fair bit of fast-forward in the film, so we jump to the successful Apollo 10 mission and finally, Apollo 11. I was impressed by the effects used to show weightlessness; on a lighter note, also by the importance of having a large allen key or socket to open and close the doors. You don't see that in Star Trek.