In the Shadow of the Moon

I first learned of the film this summer when Entertainment Weekly reviewed the film and highly recommended it to its readers. Later in the fall, trailers for the movie appeared on virb.com (the hipster's myspace).

This film is not exactly one I would have known about prior to dating my boyfriend, an expert on all things Apollo, but I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was refreshing to focus on a screen portraying history and the remarkable feats of scince instead and tuning to VH1 to see which trashy woman the d-list star rejected this week. The documentary, a Ron Howard production, illustrates the space race of the 1960s with particular emphasis on the United States' NASA's Apollo missions. The film combines footage of astronaut training, world news reels, and actual video footage of space with current interviews with the men who lived it all. The former astronauts speak candidly about their experiences with the Apollo program, including botched trials, dangerous situations, and how it feels to be in the expanse of space. The focus surrounds the twenty-four men who flew to the moon and their crews at NASA.

It was interesting to see footage of various Apollo happenings without completely focusing on the famous Apollo 11 mission. I think most Americans see Apollo 11 as the only successful mission to the moon, and even then tend to forget that two men other than Neil Armstrong were also on the flight (Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins). Mike Collins was actually one of my favorites in the film. Collins stayed behind in the ship while Armstrong and Aldrin walked the surface of the moon.

I enjoyed the footage of Apollo 8, the first mission to completely orbit the moon. This flight was manned by Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Will Anders. It is famous for capturing the Earth's rise over the moon while the ship was in lunar orbit. As the Earth rose in space, the astronauts read parts of the Creation story from the Bible.

The film does lack information about what the men did with their lives after their trip to the moon and back. After the hour and forty minutes, I was left wondering why society's moonman, Neil Armstrong, was not in the film. Everyone else, however, did make an appearance: Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell, Al Bean...but Neil was only discussed in commentary.

Overall, I thought In the Shadow of the Moon was an amazing film, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the space program, science, or knowledge in general.