Apollo 11 [Blu-ray]

Apollo 11 is a 2019 documentary based on the rocket flight of the same name. Anyone familiar with history knows that this flight was the first to feature a moon landing, an amazing accomplishment for humankind. The film was directed, edited and produced by director Todd Douglas Miller. The film is ninety three minutes long and consists solely of real archival footage from the Apollo 11 flight. This film throws out every standard set by previous documentaries and features absolutely no narration or interviews. None whatsoever. It is quite literally the story of the three legendary astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Neil Armstrong on their trip to and from the moon using cleaned up footage and some rare never before seen 70mm film. To say that Apollo 11 is an absolute treat on the eyes is an understatement. To see all this footage (which we've all seen many times) in such high quality made me speechless. The detail makes the film look quite surreal, like you're not actually watching real launch footage. This is because of the clarity of the whole thing. Most of the footage looks like it could have been shot at a landing in the digital era. The amount of detail on the pad, the tower and the rocket itself is impressive and brings everything forward in time. My favourite part of the film is lift off. The colourful and beauty behind the powerful explosion looks immense. But also the tension in the group landing on Earth and mission control waiting to hear if they had made it. Utterly fantastic. The pacing of the movie is something I was extremely impressed with. I'm a fan of space movies and Apollo 13 is a big favourite of mine. I was surprised that the film flowed very much like that piece of fiction. The build up to launch, shooting up to orbit, flying around and landing on the moon to the trip home. It all went by VERY quickly and I didn't realise how much time had past until the three astronauts were ready to head back home. The lack of narrator really lets the visual element pop. It tells a story perfectly and is a great example of why modern cinema's desire to tell the plot at every given opportunity just isn't required here or in any other movie. It even made me feel nervous as we waited for the astronauts to touch down in the sea. I knew what happened, I've seen it many times but the way the film drags you in, it made you forget you were watching something you've already seen dozens of times before. As someone who has always enjoyed watching archival space launch footage and always took the time to watch the shuttles go up, I appreciate the effort that has went into this film. It clearly had a lot of love put into it and should be archived itself. It's a beautiful documentary that is a testament to what these three men and all the amazing people involved achieved. If you're a spaceman at heart like myself, this is a must buy.

The quality of the vintage 70mm footage is incomparably excellent. Seeing such a crisp rendition of the Apollo 11 launch (and preparatory footage) is astonishing after having seen only muddy and damaged prints in the past! As well as the stunning hi-res, there are extended lower resolution segments featuring footage captured in (oddly enough) lower resolution formats - this film isn’t all mega-high quality. A great surprise, however, was the simply wonderful effort that the film collators put in to link long-ignored NASA audio records with 16mm (etc) film sequences. So, movie material which was shot with no audio track has now been reproduced with the best possible sound quality. This adds immensely to the production! I found, however, the rostrum camera shots of still images and their framing with CGI spacecraft parts to be clumsy and a bit of a waste of effort. This is a minor complaint compared to the outrageous wide angle HD footage and to the uniquely good efforts on the sound recovery front. This film made my purchase of a 4K projector worthwhile!

Very nice

Released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, director Todd Douglas Miller has edited and directed a pristine film effort. This is truly a magnificent achievement with the increase in quality of film stock from the archives of 65mm and 16mm, and carefully sourced audio to allow the viewer to experience the mission as it unfolds. The first 40 minutes especially of newly unearthed and restored film footage of the sight of the colossal launch-pad transporter inching its way into position, a Saturn V rocket burning through azure skies. The gatherings of the crowds of people to watch the event before lift-off with cameras, binoculars, cars and caravans for the happening of a lifetime; then you have the rows and rows of NASA technical staff, with their banks of computers and equipment, there to perform each function and role assigned to them, showing the amazing team effort that went into the mission: to take men to the moon, land on the moon and bring them safely back. The newscasts of Walter Cronkite imbue the astronauts' journey with a mythic quality. The only other communications are between Mission Control and the astronauts. Everything is shown in the present, so no analysis or voice-overs are allowed: you are to draw your own conclusions. As with Joyce’s Ulysses you need a technical language primer to decipher the code. The split-screen visuals certainly compress a lot of what is going on before getting to the moon. If I have a criticism, it is of the immaculate technical achievement of getting the rocket into space, and the Command and Lunar Module to the moon and back and quick stream, of the parachute of the capsule into the sea and getting the men back to base and quarantine, without once savoring any of the humanity that it was supposedly done for, not only for mankind but of the astronauts as individual presences in their own right: the fact that they are professional technicians who have to follow rigorous procedures goes with the territory; they couldn’t complete each task in the daisy-chain if they were poets or philosophers, but the initial sped-up delivery of their stories from children to astronauts in flashed-past images is almost too brutal. They were humorous at certain vital stages, and not even Shakespeare could have come up with Armstrong’s appropriate words-“one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. There were other vital moments like the tension and need to depressurize to zero before opening the hatch and the problem of opening the hatch; the big drop from the bottom of the ladder to get onto the moon’s surface; the circuit-breaker switch that they’d knocked off, that would be needed for take off from the moon surface, and their solution to it; mostly their time on the moon is an anti-climax (a few still photographs), and pictures of their time in the capsule, movements, interactions. Then, the lonely Collins in the command module., wanting to get back to Earth. This is all squeezed out. The most remarkable pictures are of the two crafts, Columbia and Eagle undocking and docking, especially after the Eagle has taken off from the moon and has angled its way back and turned around to re-dock with the mother ship. The long shots and slow movement of the crafts towards each other, worthy of Stanley Kubrick in 2001. Admittedly the present space race has evolved into unmanned robotic machines, say, on Mars, supposedly looking for life: technology has displaced psychology as man has been erased from the equation: it’s all prefigured in this film. Those ghostly images of astronauts moving about on the moon surface conveyed more of the poetry of this 1st moon flight to the world’s masses of people. Collin s, although admitting that he’d have liked to walk on the moon, was immensely proud to be part of the triumvirate that went to the moon. He said he appreciated the fragility of the earth, the wispy-clouded blue sphere floating in the blackness of space. Armstrong’s being an ace pilot could put his skills to use in taking over manual control of the lunar module and repark it into a better place as the fuel rapidly ran out. Aldrin’s description of ‘magnificent desolation’ of the moon’s surface.

Impresionante parece grabado actualmente en 4k.

This incredible documentary makes use of old 65mm film that was found in pristine condition and scanned to 4k. It's absolutely amazing. The 60s come through in amazing resolution, and the work of NASA's cameramen and of Armstrong and Aldrin gives views that we've never seen before of the first manned mission to the moon.

新型コロナ対応で在宅ワークとなり、外出も控えており、映画三昧の日々を送っています。Amazonプライムのおかげでいろいろな作品を発見。その中で見つけたこの作品。タイトルだけではなんだ？アポロ１３のなんちゃってB級作品か、テレビ番組の映像作品？と思いましたが、評価★が4.5とかなり高いのに気づきました。作品説明を読んで、一気に期待が高まり、鑑賞。素晴らしい観たことのないアポロ11号の記録映像が、信じられないほどの高画質。かつ変なナレーションなんかなく、実音声とサラウンド音響そして効果的な音楽。２/３まで観たところで停止。検索するとちゃんとUHD-BDがある。早速オーダーしました。翌日に到着。最初から鑑賞し、堪能しました。素晴らしい高画質さはプライムで予想した通り。しかしプライムでは見えていたところが、精細すぎて見えにくくなっているところも。例えば冒頭の打上げを待つ海岸の人々の上をヘリコプターが上空から撮影するシーン。プライムではみんながヘリに向かって手を振ったり、気分が上がっている様子が見えたのが、UHDでは逆に暗部に潰れ気味で見えにくく。モーションドライブなどプロジェクターの設定を細かく調整して納得。いやあ調整しがいのあるソフトでもあることが分かりました。 C・ノーラン監督が多用するIMAXカメラと同等の70ｍｍカメラの記録フィルムを発見したことが大きいですね。多くの過去映像のスキャンから４K、8Kリマスターはそういう高画質マザーのポテンシャルを最大化しつつ、ゴミ、キズの補修もできるという最新技術との連携のおかげです。 でもそれだけでなく冒頭に書いたようにナレーションを入れない、補修はしてもCGで創らず、高度な編集とディレクション技能に敬服です。ハリウッドマネジメントならきっとアポロ１３のT・ハンクスとかファーストマンのR・ゴズリングをナレーターに据えて様々語らせそうです。乗り越えたマネジメントとディレクションは歴史的作品に仕上げた表彰すべき功労者だと思います。本来はIMAXシアター公開作。ぜひ大画面で堪能してください。

Se siete appassioanti della conquista della Luna qui trovate il film/documentario perfetto. Un lavoro di restauro straordinario a livello di immagine e suoni. Viene ripercorsa l'intera missione Apollo 11 attraverso filmati e conversazioni radio originali dell'epoca, a partire dalle fasi precedenti al lancio fino al ritorno sulla Terra. Qui e là vengono aggiunti dei brani davvero bellissimi, senza però essere invasivi: lo spazio per le voci e i silenzi c'è tutto. L'effetto grana ogni tanto è davvero evidente ma non me la sento di lamentarmi in quanto sono pur sempre riprese di fine anni '60. Non ci sono purtroppo i sottotitoli in italiano, cosa che obiettivamente può togliere un po' di gusto in alcune conversazioni. Da acquistare a occhi chiusi! Emozioni assicurate dato che ad ogni visione riesco pure a commuovermi. In fondo è "solo" la più grande impresa dell'uomo!

Ce film documentaire apporte pour ceux comme moi qui avons vécu l’évènement en direct, une nouvelle dimension . En effet ce film exploite des enregistrements d’époques archivés, réalisés sur pellicule 65 mm ce qui se traduit par une définition 4K digne des meilleures réalisations actuelles. Cela permet entre autre de saisir des expressions sur les visages des astronautes passées inaperçues jusque-là ( telle une certaine forme d’angoisse / d’interrogation lors de l’embarquement avant le départ …) A noter également la réalisation et l’enchainement des différentes séquences qui nous fait vivre l’événement de sa préparation jusqu’au retour triomphant des 3 astronautes. Côté son la réalisation est également, exemplaire les bruits environnants étant particulièrement présents. En conclusion: À tous niveaux certainement le meilleur documentaire sur le sujet réalisé à ce jour . Fortement recommandé à tout passionné d’histoire et d’Espace possédant une installation 4K ( le sentiment de participer activement à la mission est réellement intense tant le documentaire est réaliste )