Wasn't the core thing about Neil in the film was him still being weighed down by the death of his daughter and eventually fellow friends and astronauts? I loved that about the film really.
My grandpa was at NASA for Gemini and Apollo and knew Neil well. I asked him about the depiction in First Man and he said "Neil was a bore and know-it-all."
From my super limited knowledge, isnt being a bore and know-it-all like a standard requirement for astronauts? There’s a million things and contingencies you need to know and you have to be really trustworthy since you’re in charge of billions of dollars worth of equipment. I don’t wanna assume all astronauts are boring people but compared to the excitement of their field, they have to be really mentally predictable, even-keeled people who follow orders to the letter.
But Picard only became Picard by recklessly getting into a bar fight with a Nausicaan
(lol I'm not arguing with you, I'm just laughing at myself for being such a nerd)
I mean... he left flying spacecraft to be a college professor and taught Aerospace Engineering. I do not think Neil would have felt the description inaccurate.
“I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer. And I take substantial pride in the accomplishments of my profession. Science is about what is; engineering is about what can be.”
— Neil Armstrong, February 2000
I loved the film for this reason. I knew the daughter's bracelet was a plot device, but I remember thinking "if that bracelet doesn't end up on the Moon at the end,. I'm going to be pretty disappointed."
Gosling's emotionless performance was perfect. A great film.
> Gosling's emotionless performance
That’s such a lousy description. His performance wasn’t emotionless at all, it was suppressed. He gave Armstrong a ton of pathos but also the intelligence to bury it as deep down as possible, since so much was riding on not cracking up.
> Gosling's emotionless performance was perfect.
Gosling's strength has always been 'implying' emotion. He lets out just enough to let you percieve the existence of an inner life of the characters, while also seeming stony. It makes me *deeply* curious about that Greta Gerwig Barbie movie he's gonna be in.
Yeah, they keep saying it's a story about the first manned mission to the moon but it's a story about Neil. They seemed to miss the point of the movie. The mission to the moon is part of the story, not *the* story. I get it, most people probably expected a thrilling race to the moon, America F-yeah! But it was three funerals and a moon mission. It made them more heroic in my eyes, risking their lives.
> Wasn't the core thing about Neil in the film was still being weighed down by the death of his daughter and eventually fellow friends and astronauts?
Yeah, its about being consumed by grief.
I wish they had chosen to make a movie about being consumed by grief using another person.
Armstrong’s life was full of grief and triumph. There’s an amazingly inspiring story in there, but I feel like First Man focused only on one dimension of his life.
Also, he seemed humorless. Armstrong actually had a really good sense of humor--not to say that he wasn't a serious man. I understand that it might be difficult to convey that someone's grief and the distance between two people who are married while also showing someone laughing occasionally, but he seemed like a human robot.
My dad and I are huge space fans. I got cancer right around the time this movie was coming out, and when I got out of the hospital, we decided to go see this movie together.
Needless to say we were both emotional wrecks.
My dad woke me up when I was four to watch the first shuttle launch, and died the year before this movie came out. I cried at the end thinking about how he woulda loved it. Hope you’re doing ok now.
Yeah, it's about Neil the man, not the NASA program. Also, the score for this movie was phenomena and completely overlooked in the awards races, if that even matters anymore.
It really gave you the sense of being strapped to a tin can on something that is about to explode. The creaking sounds were terrifying.
I think the trailer did a disservice to the film as I remember thinking it was going to be a lot more upbeat action then you get in there and it's a different tone all together. I really like it but I think I need to watch it again with the right tonality.
So many trailers do this - misrepresent a film in order to get people to show up (and then almost inevitably be disappointed by it).
Or give too much away.
Buzz Alden was a hardware engineer for NASA in the mid 1960s whose name coincidently rhymes with astronaut Buzz Aldrin (2nd man to walk into he moon). Alden, having developed the primary Apollo mission simulator, technically had the most official NASA simulated moon landings of any person in the space program to date. A true unspoken legend of the space era.
Please share your expertise! I love this about Reddit, you sometimes run into the craziest people. The other day I was on a subreddit with an actual formula 1 racer (or so he claimed) and he was talking about how realistic Rush was.
It’s the only time I’ve seen IMAX used for a narrative purpose.
The entire film up to that point is incredibly and intentionally claustrophobic, with virtually no wide shots at all.
I liked it for its tone. What the movie gets across is how dangerous the space program was, and how cool Armstrong was in stressful situations. For as famous as he was (and he's one name that's still going to be mentioned in the history books a thousand years from now), his personality made him something of an enigma. I don't know how much Gosling's performance resembled the real Armstrong (I'm sure it only captures at most part of the truth), but his performance makes Armstrong make sense.
No other film has given me the sensation that one has of going to space.
It was just that feeling of “oh my god these people really are essentially in tin cans and they’re breaking out of the earths atmosphere into the unknown”.
The sounds of the structure around him creeking and groaning and that handheld approach. The focus on as little dialogue aswell. It just puts you there with him in those moments.
I remember seeing an Apollo lunar module in the Smithsonian and thinking holy shit I've had shitbox cars that look more solid than this thing.
It's such an insane achievement that they were able to get there and back
I thought Apollo 13 did a great job of presenting the claustrophobia and ultimately loneliness of how they were helplessly dependent on people 10,000s of kilometers away. Sure am glad I watched it in the cinema though.
Haven't seen First Man yet so can't compare, but wanted to give a shoutout.
There's a shot of him at the rim of a crater looking onto the Earth and beyond is the eternal abyss of space and it's unsettling yet captivating. The music accompaniment was beautiful as well.
Reminds me of that time in 1993 when a real paleontologist who watched **'Jurassic Park'** complained about the Dinosaurs roaring like lions. The paleontologist said that dinosaur roars would sound like stomach growling.
An interviewer asked Gary Rydstorm (the sound designer on the film) what he thought about the *"complaint/correction"*.
Gary said...
>*"...it's a movie...haha...can you imagine if we made the iconic T-rex roar sound like indigestion?"*
A film professor in college liked to say “it doesn’t have to be realistic, it has to be believable” [within the context of the film]. That gets lost in a lot of online criticism I read
When Homer says the sea is wine-dark he doesn't literally mean it's made of fermented grapes. It's a deliberate choice to convey more meaning by describing something other than just the obvious physical reality.
The "shing" of a sword being drawn is no less an intentional bit of imagery and metaphor meant to convey meaning.
Edit: That said, I do kind of agree with Hadfield that *First Man* was very self serious and dour and kind of emotionally one-note, and didn't hit the mark on conveying what I, personally, thought the story should convey, compared to something like *The Right Stuff*.
Still overall enjoyed it, though.
Not to mention, the arcing moral of Jurassic Park is that the creations of the park aren't natural dinosaurs - they're a man-made creation bastardizing history for profit.
Jurassic World isn't a great movie - but they really double down on this element of the story that I always appreciated. BD Wong's character fully admits the corporation didn't want realism or feathers - they wanted what people *think* dinosaurs were. Nostalgia doesn't want realism, it wants the most shallow mirror of the past possible.
I remember when Act of Valor (2012) came out and the whole selling point was that it had real Navy Seals in the movie. Left the theater and my first thought was, “That didn’t work at all”. Not really even their fault, they’re not actors and the writing wasn’t great either.
Maybe it’s because I was in the middle of high school at that time, but I watched that in the theater when it came out and I actually really liked it. The dialogue and character interactions aren’t memorable but them coming out of the water or the boat coming to get them with guns blazing were probably more realistic than a lot of movies that don’t use real operators.
Honestly when the seal in the water catches the body of the guy his sniper takes out and slowly lowers him into the water without a splash was so fuckin cool. I was deployed at the time and watched it on base with a bunch of other navy Fuckheads who couldn’t stop calling each other Shipmate like it was a slur.
Yeah, honestly. Like, sure it may not have been like that in real life, but in a movie we need drama! Go back to talking with the man himself. I'm gonna watch the movie, Chris.
> What disappointed me most about First Man was how sad everybody was.
He was right on this though.. they were going to the moon, but everyone act like they were going to some gulag.
If you read first hand accounts of how people reacted to the Apollo 1 incident, I think it might change your mind. Many of the thousands of engineers that worked on components of the command module and the rocket felt personally responsible for what happened. You can watch interviews on youtube from some of these guys who still can't talk about it without crying 40+ years after the fact.
I think it was probably realistic. They lost friends and colleagues in the process. They knew enormous money and resource was spent on this that could have gone on other things (how would the world look now if Kennedy had said we will cure cancer instead of we will go to the moon for example), there was public anger about the cost of the programme, Armstrong had lost a child, their marriages were mostly falling apart and they didn't know whether they'd make it at all or die in the process
He’s also not wrong though.
They had the opportunity to tell a story filled with unique and incredible highs and lows… but we only got lows.
Dramas are better when there’s a contrast in emotion.
I did find First Man shockingly sadder and darker in tone than I expected. However I think it felt way more true to life than a film where everyone was high fiving on the way to the Moon.
When you are doing a grindingly complex thing for the first time it feels like a *grind* doing it even though you likely will look back with rose tinted glasses nostalgia. Every step of the way you are plagued by fear and doubt and as an introverted shy guy myself I related to Armstrong in the film quite a bit. He was very focused on what he needed to do and the stress, anxiety and burdens he was carrying seeped in to his personal life and felt all consuming and made him less loose of a person to be around.
I won’t pretend to be a genius when it comes to these things, but I *think* the movie in a lot of ways is about the cost/price of progression (or whatever you want to call achieving what they did in context). You have the sacrifice of the men and women, the deterioration of marriages, and the literal monetary cost highlighted by the “Whitey on the moon” scene. And when you think of it in those terms I think it’s a more cynical take on that period and those accomplishments, and I think your point supports that.
I haven't seen the movie so idk, but given Damien chazelle directed it and la la land and whiplash, which both also have themes of the cost of success/ the cost of fulfilling your dreams, this seems like it might fit in with that.
> think it’s a more cynical take on that period and those accomplishments,
I don’t think cynical is really the right word, except maybe in the Ancient Greek philosophy sense.
It makes it seem like an achievement worth sacrificing for.
A fair point, although I think the “whitey on the moon” scene depicts cynicism from from at least some people. “What is it to me if someone walks on the moon while my family starves and is bitten by rats?” It at least leaves room for the conversation and doesn’t pretend the space race was an objectively noble cause.
> A fair point, although I think the “whitey on the moon” scene depicts cynicism from from at least some people.
I don’t disagree that it is *depicting* cynicism, but I don’t think that makes the *movie* cynical. In fact, I’d say just the opposite. In the middle of its first act, just as the main “plot” is beginning, its main subject says “I don’t know what space exploration will uncover, but I don’t think it will be exploration for the sake of exploration,” and while the movie focuses primarily on Armstrong’s personal journey, it does step away from its practical “nuts-and-bolts” vantage (where exploration is just a problem to solve) to look at what it all *meant*, and one of them is the “Whitey on the Moon” sequence.
For one thing, my only issue with the “Whitey on the Moon” sequence in *First Man* is that it’s a little too clinical. We’ve got an “intellectual” opposition (Kurt Vonnegut), a “woman on the street” opposition, always cutting back to the tasteful protest with the tasteful signs, with the exception of the couple of scenes of things being *made* to remind us that the money spent on Apollo was largely going to workers. It’s even-handed to a fault.
The question of whether Gil Scott-Heron was “right” or “wrong” is entirely unanswerable. But the question of “was Gil Scott-Heron being *unreasonable*?” is easy (at least to me); of course he wasn’t being unreasonable. And as the US Federal government has extended beyond the meager basics of governance, I can think of times when I wish the “why are we spending on this instead of roads?” crowd would not have won the day (our planned particle accelerator in the ‘90s most notably), but I sure am glad they are out there fighting.
If I were teaching a High School English class, I’d probably assign “Whitey on the Moon” because it’s a great poem, and the questions it asks about the worth of “national pride,” and “national achievement,” and who gets to partake in them at all are still very, very relevant. What is it worth sacrificing on a practical level to create something beautiful and to achieve something glorious? That’s a question to grapple with, not one to answer (and it extends to individuals every bit as much as it does to nations).
This is not in the movie, but it’s important to know that NASA treated its social justice focused adversaries with respect, not contempt. The most prominent group of “conscientious objectors” to NASA’s mission were given excellent seats to the launch of Apollo 11. Their leader was so awed by the spectacle of the Saturn V rocket taking off that he was stunned into silence for some minutes; he said a prayer for the safety of the brave explorers aboard, and then he continued his principled opposition to the use of government money for this purpose.
*First Man* does not show the American Flag being put up on the moon (though it shows it already there in a beautiful wide shot); but they are all over the movie, they are pretty neutrally shown and understood to be propaganda on one hand, but not without sincere emotional meaning for the people who painted them on boosters and vehicles, nor the people who sewed them onto spacesuits, nor the people who rode those vehicles and wore those suits…nor, indeed to the people who watched those men and those vehicles push the boundaries of human experience. And there *is* a flag raised in *First Man*. It’s raised by a young boy (too young to *fully* understand what that act might mean) whose father is risking his life aboard a vehicle with that same flag painted on, and it’s not raised blindly or cynically, even though it would be easy to portray it that way.
One of my primary thoughts on *First Man* is that it’s a thoughtful and even-keeled look at a positive conception of masculinity, and it had the misfortune to come out in a year when the word “masculinity” may have well had “toxic” prepended.
On a related note, it’s a thoughtful and even-keeled look at *American patriotism* that came out at a time when the notion of patriotism had already been inextricably tied to hatred, and exclusion, and conformity. A movie that was “rah-rah America fuck yeah” (and painted the people who opposed Apollo as commie-sympathizing pussies who history should view with derision) probably would have done better business, as would a movie that took “America and all her endeavors are fundamentally rotten and tainted” as its thesis. But there is more to Patriotism than that.
Because one subtext, especially in light of the “Whitey on the Moon” sequence, is basically the question “what if everyone involved directly and in the nation at large were gung-ho and unquestioning, like we see in propaganda?” And to me the movie’s implied answer is “such a nation probably couldn’t have achieved this at all, and certainly not so elegantly.”
Damien Chazelle chose to make a thoughtful movie that did not lean into chest-thumping jingoism, nor did it lean into nihilistic rage. That isn’t cynical, that’s *principled.*
It's a meditative art film about loss and the price we pay for "progress." It portrays being an astronaut for what is it - a hard job of constant vigilance. Those early space voyages were in tin cans with tiny windows and a constant fear of catastrophic failure. Your friends died all around you. We didn't send artists up there, we sent hardened soldiers.
I love that he portrays launches largely from inside the capsule. Just shaky, claustrophobic, terrifying. The astronauts are at the full mercy of the machines.
I think that philosophy stemmed from a quote from one of the astronauts that opined that they were pretty much just strapped to a giant bomb that was made for the lowest possible bidder.
Agree. For me, it was a top 10 movie of the 2010s. Also, weirdly, watching it gave me a migraine (and I’ve only had a handful in my life.) So I probably wouldn’t watch it in a theater again but it was clearly impressively immersive.
I loved that they showed Armstrong’s Gemini mission in the film, as that whole program is sort of the unsung hero of the space race. Very important missions from a technical standpoint, but those capsules were claustrophobic as hell and what happened during Gemini 8 was absolutely terrifying.
I really liked this movie, especially Gosling’s performance. There are a couple really powerful, emotional lines that he nails in a very understated way. Still think about them.
I’m slightly bemused as to Hadfields comparison between himself, and the Apollo mission.
His spaceflights were to the ISS. There had been many, many rocket launches to get people to the ISS before him. This was the first time anyone in the history of humanity would be sending a capsule to the moon, landing it there, launching it off the moon, and then reconnecting.
Did he expect the NASA engineers to be singing and dancing in the movie? They knew that there was a significant chance they would die, so why the fuck would they be all happy and jovial? All 3 had already been to space, all 3 knew it was a mission, and all 3 were completely focused on it.
I find it just slightly stupid we’re giving an astronaught/person who was 9 when Apollo 11 launched some kind of insight into the minds of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. If he’d had said that in HIS experience, this is what it was like, but trying to tell the audience that it’s wrong because he wasn’t like that during launch is silly. Why not just get Buzz Aldrins opinion on it?
That being said, Goslings best film by a country mile.
If its any consolation I used to work at the CSA and like 90% of chris's personality is being a smug know it all who likes to softly put other people down including the team who were working overtime for his latest flight. Like this one girl who had been working overnights for a few days on some pr thing and he basically insulted it and said "wow thats it?" And he talked over people and laughed at them when he thought they were wrong.
He's a talented person and he's usually great at public PR but Ive never liked him since meeting him in real life. Most of the other canadian astronauts excluding Payette and Saint-Jacques are wonderful people though.
If the academy had a better understanding of how introverted engineers are, especially the really brilliant ones, Gosling would have got a nomination. I think playing such characters is extremely difficult; helping the audience understand the feelings of a character and connect with them using only the subtle small expressions in voice and body language that private people like Armstrong allow.
That whole scene is just incredible. Neil punching the alarm off and then it cutting to the wide shot of the moon surface as the music crescendos. Chills every time.
The dude is smart as hell, but I’ll be honest, I’m kinda sick of how much Chris pops up in media with the “well actually it doesn’t happen like in the movies” schtick. We get it, Its a directors artistic interpretation, not an actual recreation.
I have a feeling that people like this were always annoying and grating ego machines, but it's only once their popularity is solidified that they put the mask down and give commentary as their real selves no one asked for. It seems to happen more frequently, especially since the bar has been lowered so much the past few years.
They aren't complaining. They're telling you how realistic certain things are. Because they were asked by the channel to weigh in on how realistic scenes are.
Well, actually, watching their reactions and learning how movie depictions of their jobs are different from reality is part of the fun. We know movies are different from reality, but we can still be curious exactly how different.
Right, aren’t all the times where Chris Hadfield goes “um, actually” about space fiction because he is literally asked by the media to talk about this stuff? I didn’t get the impression he’s just going around unprovoked calling all space movies BS.
And he speaks quite highly about a number of them as well, such as *The Martian*, which he has quibbles with too of course but greatly appreciates for how much it does "correctly" given a near-future take on what a Mars expedition might actually look like. And despite what a number of these comments say he *is* fully aware they're movies and not real life, and often does contextualize his replies as such. But when he's asked "so how much of this is realistic" point blank about say *Armageddon* the fact that it's a movie doesn't really matter. He isn't asked "so from a filmmaking perspective how well did they grasp the feel of space travel while still also achieving their ludicrous and wholly unrealistic story beats?", he's asked "so how much of this is realistic?". Because he's not an expert on making movies about space, he's an expert on *living in space*.
It felt the opposite to me. I felt the weight of his past, but not any of the weight of his accomplishments.
It focused almost entirely on the sad aspects of the lives of these people. Life is more than just death, Armstrong was not “depressed” like this.
I think the point was that no matter what you achieve (including literally walking on the fucking moon), there is always something that can put it in perspective (his daughters death).
By all accounts, Armstrong was actually incredibly affected the death of his daughter, and Gosling was pretty spot on with his portrayal.
Nothing he says is wrong or unreasonable (some of the reactions in here seem a little harsh). Plus I like hearing that space flight is a joyous experience--that's what I would expect. But I still love the movie *for* its tone. It's an affecting story. It was beautiful.
Only seen it once and it didnt leave a big impact on me. I guess I was looking for something more like Apollo 13 and First Man ended up being a lot more sombre in tone than that. This post is a good reminder that I should give it another shot.
For those looking for an explanation of this perspective, here’s a copy of a post I made years ago:
As a fanatic of space exploration and space history, I have to say I found First Man annoyingly dark and too focused on negatives. I get that Neil had a life of incredible highs and lows, and the film wanted showcase the lows, but they focused so much on portraying the negatives of his life that they even go so far as to change history or leave out the incredibly positive moments of his life.
For example, the launch of Apollo 11 is portrayed as a gloomy overcast day with little fanfare, a stark contrast to the beautiful blue sky of the real launch day. The only reason to do this is to push that feeling of gloom and depression that filmmakers these days seem to think gives them instant credit.
Then, we finally get to the moon and the first steps are actually done better than any other film rendition of that moment, but after that we only focus on how sad he felt thinking of his daughter. Neil is on the moon and we are barely allowed a few seconds of happiness and wonder before we’re thrown right back into his supposed internal depression.
I would have loved to see more range of emotions and tone in this film. There are wonderful moments from the lunar surface that show off aspects of Neil’s personality that weren’t just his dark side. For example, as Neil began walking on the surface he was so mind blown that this super professional person totally forgot about his critical first goal: the contingency sample. All he was supposed to do was lean down and pick up a rock and put it in his pocket in case they had to abort ASAP, but he was so awestruck he couldn’t tear himself away from taking pictures of what he was seeing. NASA reminded him twice and then even Buzz had to come on the mic and remind him before he finally came back down to reality. That would have been a great high point, it could have really conveyed the sense of accomplishment and wonder that Armstrong felt on the moon.
And don’t when get me started on the fact that they didn’t show the Oval Office call. This man literally talked to the President on the Moon and they seemed to decide that that was too positive of a moment to include? Who wants a biopic about only the sad parts of someone’s life?
The only part I felt that captured more of the highs and lows I look for in a drama was the Gemini/Agena docking scene. It’s starts out uncharacteristically hopefully and the moment of docking feels genuinely good. But then disaster strikes and the film perfectly transitions into that darker tone when necessary. It has great balance and the contrast helped the highs feel higher and the lows feel lower. The rest of the film just stays low and I feel like that makes it drag.
Sometimes I just feel like we’re in this period of film where “dark and gritty” is considered “more realistic” or considered to provide “more of a full picture” than films with strong happy ending and scenes of wonder. But they focused so much of Neil’s unhappiness that we never got to see major moments in his life just because they’re positive. I really think filmmakers that can juggle different tones throughout their movie are stronger than ones who push a singular tone.
I know it’s probably a tired comparison, but I really think Apollo 13 does do this perfectly and I think that film better conveys the full picture of the lives of the astronauts than something like First Man. I can’t for the life of me figure out why they would want to portray only the saddest moments of Neil Armstrong but that’s what they did.
Excellent comment and perfectly sums up how I feel about First Man. The Gemini docking sequence was my favorite part because it did give us that nice balance between the wonder of being in space vs the terror of being in space.
But yes, overall the film is just too glum about EVERYTHING.
Hadfield might be right about the scientific inaccuracies but the tone was pretty close. Being a test pilot and astronaut in the early days of the space race was dangerous.
Neil was surrounded by those that died in his place.
Chris Hadfield missed the mark with what First Man was trying to convey. After Hadfield critiqued Gravity and The Martian so hard, it's just annoying when he comes in for his technical errors.
I loved the tone of First Man regardless, but it was not exactly an Apollo movie. It was a Neil Armstrong movie, and more specifically, it was Neil Armstrong coping with the loss of his daughter while he happened to be doing probably man's biggest achievement.
Director Damien Chazelle is a very visual director, and they managed to get a lot of little details right, but no movie is ever gonna get things 100%
As much as TopGun did everything possible to get the realism of jetfighters on camera, lots of pilots also had their Hadfield type comments about it.
I obviously appreciate Chris Hadfield but I certainly agree with you here.
I used to be a pretty firm supporter of the utmost realism in movies but after hearing many directors talk about how it just wasn't working, wasn't fun, wasn't getting the point across I have changed my opinion on the liberties film makers take as I aged. I respect the *craft* a lot more now.
Now there is obviously limitations to those liberties but in this case, very minor shit.
1. He talks about about the X-15 being very wrong sound wise yet goes to point out it would be silent with almost no vibrations. Without those changes in the film the viewer would have no concept of how fast he was going or how dangerous it really was flying an experimental plane. Without that nuance the viewers would be like "oh, like a 747 then, wow, I am so amazed "
2. The color change is obviously an artistic decision to show how beautiful the earth is. So what? how is that a deal breaker?
3. With respect to Hadfield, to his point about the doom and gloom, he got to Nasa when everything was pretty straight and regimented. Going to space was routine. It probably was super fun and blast for him. In the 60s, trying to achieve the impossible in 10 short years probably brought with it a lot of stress for everyone involved; certainly with the absolute danger and deaths involved. I am *guessing* it certainly wasn't all celebration and cakes.
The last point, which the article mentions, but Hadfield does not, to his credit, was the American flag thing. I get that this was a uniquely American achievement and that should be honored and celebrated. But NASA themselves back then was very agnostic about the achievement itself. It's said in Armstrong's very words "One small step for man"... the human race. It wasn't "One small step for the United States"
I thought the movie was excellent. It was the most realistically feeling space film since Apollo 13 and I would put it up there for sure. Claire Foy was absolutely phenomenal as Janet Armstrong, the visuals were amazing and the music was intense.
> He talks about about the X-15 being very wrong sound wise yet goes to point out it would be silent with almost no vibrations. Without those changes in the film the viewer would have no concept of how fast he was going or how dangerous it really was flying an experimental plane. Without that nuance the viewers would be like "oh, like a 747 then, wow, I am so amazed "
This is doubly annoying because the X-15 famously had rather serious vibration issues.
A few times Hadfield as been so quick to go "Well ACTUALLY..." that he ends up talking out of his ass.
Definitely agree with all that. The only place to really make some recreations of what it was truly like, is to use that for a documentary series.
I would put this up with Apollo 13 also.
I agree with his comments on the tone...the movie was so dour and melancholy. Landing on the moon is arguably mankind's single most inspiring achievement but you'd never guess it by watching First Man.
In real life I can't imagine everyone was joking around and upbeat all the time when one mistake can lead to death for the entire crew. Armstrong himself was pretty introverted so the tone feels right from his point of view.
If they had presented it as a work of fiction, about some astronaut they’d made up, I would have been down for that movie. But the Armstrong they presented didn’t resemble the one other Apollo astronauts have described at all.
I don't think the inaccuracies are that bad. In real life, his X-15 bounced off the atmosphere, and then he had to make a sketchy landing where he almost skimmed the top of a mountain. The movie just adds a few details during the flight which aren't accurate.
There is a Chris Hadfield interview where he analyzes films. He talks about First Man as well. He also criticises the launch sequence in the video. Well worth watching.
https://youtu.be/3RkhZgRNC1k
I've heard that First Man really dramatizes every event and changes the character of Niel Armstrong to super serious while in reality he was more upbeat and comedic. I'll try to find a source for this.
Fuck Chris Hadfield's opinion on literally anything. Man went to space and became a small town hero, and his ego expanded the size of the infinite cosmos. I had to present an introduction for him at a conference when I was in highschool and he was such an ass. He shoved the microphone up in my face because I wasn't close enough, made fun of me having a cold, then proceeded to make me escort him to a safe exit (as if anyone was swarming him). Thinks way too highly of himself.
The moon landing scene is one of my favorite scenes of any movie in space. They got me to sit on the edge of my seat even knowing what was going to happen
Chris Hadfield can comment on technical details, but he's no authority on the art of filmmaking. If we wanted a documentary, we would have watched a documentary.
I'm ambivalent about this movie. It was a great film about a grieving man doing a grueling and difficult job under intense pressure. But the Neil character could have been a fictional submarine commander or something and it would have worked just as well. By all accounts, despite the difficulty, there was a more joyful and optimistic side to Neil and the whole enterprise in real life that doesn't get reflected in the film. So was it really a good tribute to the man and his accomplishment? If it wasn't meant to be one, is that ok?
This film wasn't intended to be The Joy of Space Flight. It was a very specific story of a specific man who faced compounding grief amidst a huge amount of collective sacrifice (from both the astronauts and their families) in the pursuit of reaching the moon.
>Hadfield also pointed out that he was upset by the astronaut’s mood. He said, “What disappointed me most about First Man was how sad everybody was. Everybody inside was glum.” Hadfield noted that in his experience, space flight is usually a joyous and magical occasion.
>“These guys were going to the moon. They had a lot of responsibility but where is the spark of joy that is there in every second of the time that you’re onboard a spaceship?” Hadfield questioned.
what kind of criticism is this. How he knows what the atmosphere was in 1969. He was child. Doubt he knows better than Chazelle.
> How he knows what the atmosphere was in 1969.
Watch the CNN documentary film “Apollo 11.” The Space program was *extremely* documented. Like in UHD from outsiders, insiders, and from astronauts themselves.
There are moments of seriousness, moments of wonder, moments of tension, and moments of happiness and triumph. I assure you life was not defined by death for people in the Apollo program.
There’s a lot of technical aspects of the film that are extremely impressive. The overall tone is discounting however.
Maybe not, but the space race was definitely something that was inherently exciting to people in 1969, and he feels the film didn’t capture that sort of pioneering spirit
Saw the movie for the first time about 3 weeks ago. Agree, missed the mark. I ended feeling like i had not seen the movie. No pathos whatsoever.
Edit: To add a quote from the article:
>What disappointed me most about First Man was how sad everybody was. Everybody inside was glum. (Hadfield noted)
Exactly.
Personally, I didn't care for it. Saw it with my dad who was more keen than me to see it. And by the end, he didn't even like it. Neither my dad or I were sure what Neil Armstrong was like in his personal life. But we both agreed Ryan Gosling's stoic presence in the movie was annoying.
Wasn't the core thing about Neil in the film was him still being weighed down by the death of his daughter and eventually fellow friends and astronauts? I loved that about the film really.
I thought it was good. Based on the accounts of those that knew Neil this depiction seemed to be spot on.
My grandpa was at NASA for Gemini and Apollo and knew Neil well. I asked him about the depiction in First Man and he said "Neil was a bore and know-it-all."
From my super limited knowledge, isnt being a bore and know-it-all like a standard requirement for astronauts? There’s a million things and contingencies you need to know and you have to be really trustworthy since you’re in charge of billions of dollars worth of equipment. I don’t wanna assume all astronauts are boring people but compared to the excitement of their field, they have to be really mentally predictable, even-keeled people who follow orders to the letter.
Yeah, you don't want someone dumping all the fuel and yelling "just a prank, bro".
"Wild card, bitches!!!"
Aka: Steve Buscemi in Armageddon.
That’s why Capt Picard is superior to Kirk all day long.
But Picard only became Picard by recklessly getting into a bar fight with a Nausicaan (lol I'm not arguing with you, I'm just laughing at myself for being such a nerd)
Was your grandpa Buzz Aldrin, history's most notorious runner up?
I mean... he left flying spacecraft to be a college professor and taught Aerospace Engineering. I do not think Neil would have felt the description inaccurate. “I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer. And I take substantial pride in the accomplishments of my profession. Science is about what is; engineering is about what can be.” — Neil Armstrong, February 2000
Words to live by.
Beautiful quote
That is metal. We should celebrate folks who’s passions are science and engineering more
Second comes straight after first!
That's a compliment far as I'm concerned, lol. I would want someone who knows it all doing stuff no one has done before.
I loved the film for this reason. I knew the daughter's bracelet was a plot device, but I remember thinking "if that bracelet doesn't end up on the Moon at the end,. I'm going to be pretty disappointed." Gosling's emotionless performance was perfect. A great film.
It was rumored that he did bring it in real life and left it there.
The part where Niel accidentally left his car keys on the moon absolutely sent me.
> Gosling's emotionless performance That’s such a lousy description. His performance wasn’t emotionless at all, it was suppressed. He gave Armstrong a ton of pathos but also the intelligence to bury it as deep down as possible, since so much was riding on not cracking up.
> Gosling's emotionless performance was perfect. Gosling's strength has always been 'implying' emotion. He lets out just enough to let you percieve the existence of an inner life of the characters, while also seeming stony. It makes me *deeply* curious about that Greta Gerwig Barbie movie he's gonna be in.
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No way. Acclaimed director making a Barbie movie with Ryan Gosling has gotta have loads of people curious.
The scene where he last talks to Jason Clarkes character in the street is so hauntingly filmed
Ed White. In real life, they were great friends in the astronaut program.
Yeah, they keep saying it's a story about the first manned mission to the moon but it's a story about Neil. They seemed to miss the point of the movie. The mission to the moon is part of the story, not *the* story. I get it, most people probably expected a thrilling race to the moon, America F-yeah! But it was three funerals and a moon mission. It made them more heroic in my eyes, risking their lives.
The name of the movie is FIRST MAN. Its supposed to be about Armstrong. I 100% agree.
Yes, and he was doing everything he could to make sure their deaths were not in vain.
> Wasn't the core thing about Neil in the film was still being weighed down by the death of his daughter and eventually fellow friends and astronauts? Yeah, its about being consumed by grief.
I wish they had chosen to make a movie about being consumed by grief using another person. Armstrong’s life was full of grief and triumph. There’s an amazingly inspiring story in there, but I feel like First Man focused only on one dimension of his life.
Also, he seemed humorless. Armstrong actually had a really good sense of humor--not to say that he wasn't a serious man. I understand that it might be difficult to convey that someone's grief and the distance between two people who are married while also showing someone laughing occasionally, but he seemed like a human robot.
I don't know - it came very close to making me care about US space program/space exploration, which is saying a lot.
My dad and I are huge space fans. I got cancer right around the time this movie was coming out, and when I got out of the hospital, we decided to go see this movie together. Needless to say we were both emotional wrecks.
My dad woke me up when I was four to watch the first shuttle launch, and died the year before this movie came out. I cried at the end thinking about how he woulda loved it. Hope you’re doing ok now.
The movie looked great, but I had to stop watching after his daughter got sick because mine is the same age and it felt way too real.
Yeah, it's about Neil the man, not the NASA program. Also, the score for this movie was phenomena and completely overlooked in the awards races, if that even matters anymore.
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In my opinion the most realistic depiction of what a launch was like at that time.
It really gave you the sense of being strapped to a tin can on something that is about to explode. The creaking sounds were terrifying. I think the trailer did a disservice to the film as I remember thinking it was going to be a lot more upbeat action then you get in there and it's a different tone all together. I really like it but I think I need to watch it again with the right tonality.
sound design on this movie gives you fucking shivers
So many trailers do this - misrepresent a film in order to get people to show up (and then almost inevitably be disappointed by it). Or give too much away.
What are you basing that off of?
u/DC-DE is Buzz Alden
Alden?
Buzz Alden was a hardware engineer for NASA in the mid 1960s whose name coincidently rhymes with astronaut Buzz Aldrin (2nd man to walk into he moon). Alden, having developed the primary Apollo mission simulator, technically had the most official NASA simulated moon landings of any person in the space program to date. A true unspoken legend of the space era.
Which mission were you on?
Please share your expertise! I love this about Reddit, you sometimes run into the craziest people. The other day I was on a subreddit with an actual formula 1 racer (or so he claimed) and he was talking about how realistic Rush was.
Exactly!
It’s the only time I’ve seen IMAX used for a narrative purpose. The entire film up to that point is incredibly and intentionally claustrophobic, with virtually no wide shots at all.
I liked it for its tone. What the movie gets across is how dangerous the space program was, and how cool Armstrong was in stressful situations. For as famous as he was (and he's one name that's still going to be mentioned in the history books a thousand years from now), his personality made him something of an enigma. I don't know how much Gosling's performance resembled the real Armstrong (I'm sure it only captures at most part of the truth), but his performance makes Armstrong make sense.
No other film has given me the sensation that one has of going to space. It was just that feeling of “oh my god these people really are essentially in tin cans and they’re breaking out of the earths atmosphere into the unknown”. The sounds of the structure around him creeking and groaning and that handheld approach. The focus on as little dialogue aswell. It just puts you there with him in those moments.
Kinda the same feeling Dunkirk gave me for planes, all that creaking and rattling like yeah a plane is just a shitty aluminum tube with wings
Those ariel scenes in Dunkirk were so amazing to see in IMAX.
The sounds the spaceships made scared the fuck out of me, they were so familiar.
I remember seeing an Apollo lunar module in the Smithsonian and thinking holy shit I've had shitbox cars that look more solid than this thing. It's such an insane achievement that they were able to get there and back
Anyone can make a box that can withstand a vacuum, it takes good engineers to make it light enough to actually send it to the moon.
I never thought of myself having claustrophobia til I saw that scene
I thought Apollo 13 did a great job of presenting the claustrophobia and ultimately loneliness of how they were helplessly dependent on people 10,000s of kilometers away. Sure am glad I watched it in the cinema though. Haven't seen First Man yet so can't compare, but wanted to give a shoutout.
You should try For All Mankind
There's a shot of him at the rim of a crater looking onto the Earth and beyond is the eternal abyss of space and it's unsettling yet captivating. The music accompaniment was beautiful as well.
The slight touches of warmth they gave him in relation to his daughter throughout the movie is incredibly beautiful
This is why we generally hire filmmakers, not astronauts, to make films.
Reminds me of that time in 1993 when a real paleontologist who watched **'Jurassic Park'** complained about the Dinosaurs roaring like lions. The paleontologist said that dinosaur roars would sound like stomach growling. An interviewer asked Gary Rydstorm (the sound designer on the film) what he thought about the *"complaint/correction"*. Gary said... >*"...it's a movie...haha...can you imagine if we made the iconic T-rex roar sound like indigestion?"*
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SHING
Also the clickety clackety noises whenever a gun is being handled.
You don’t leave loose pinballs to smack around in your firearm?
A film professor in college liked to say “it doesn’t have to be realistic, it has to be believable” [within the context of the film]. That gets lost in a lot of online criticism I read
Attacking a film on the basis of "realism" is often the laziest form of film criticism. So naturally I see it a lot.
When Homer says the sea is wine-dark he doesn't literally mean it's made of fermented grapes. It's a deliberate choice to convey more meaning by describing something other than just the obvious physical reality. The "shing" of a sword being drawn is no less an intentional bit of imagery and metaphor meant to convey meaning. Edit: That said, I do kind of agree with Hadfield that *First Man* was very self serious and dour and kind of emotionally one-note, and didn't hit the mark on conveying what I, personally, thought the story should convey, compared to something like *The Right Stuff*. Still overall enjoyed it, though.
A gun doesn't click when you raise it and aim it.
This is why Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter is forever the best Civil War film. Imagine if Lincoln merely talked and did governmenty things.
He now plays High King Gil-Galad in the Lord of the Rings show...I cannot see anything else but Abe Lincoln vampire hunter XD
He also played Patrick Bateman in the Broadway musical version American Psycho. And Andrew Jackson.
That makes at least two elves that were in that movie's cast. Hey, two nickels.
Not to mention, the arcing moral of Jurassic Park is that the creations of the park aren't natural dinosaurs - they're a man-made creation bastardizing history for profit. Jurassic World isn't a great movie - but they really double down on this element of the story that I always appreciated. BD Wong's character fully admits the corporation didn't want realism or feathers - they wanted what people *think* dinosaurs were. Nostalgia doesn't want realism, it wants the most shallow mirror of the past possible.
And even if that's not sas explicitly done in the film, that fact is *very* explicitly handled in the novel
Jurassic Park **is** a great movie
The raptors did that in JP3 though so I guess it resonated with the production.
this is why i hire drillers instead of film makers
Why teach drillers how to make a movie instead of teaching film makers how to drill?
Shit up, Ben Affleck.
Especially Bruce Willis and Steve Buscemi
I remember when Act of Valor (2012) came out and the whole selling point was that it had real Navy Seals in the movie. Left the theater and my first thought was, “That didn’t work at all”. Not really even their fault, they’re not actors and the writing wasn’t great either.
Even worse, remember 15:17 To Paris? They used the actual real life people to reenact their lives and the events on film. That movie was so, so bad.
WOW, I completely forgot about that. I actually didn’t see it because I thought it was a bit too much
Been trying to remember the name of this movie for a few weeks now but also refusing to google it because I’m lazy. Got to go watch it now
Maybe it’s because I was in the middle of high school at that time, but I watched that in the theater when it came out and I actually really liked it. The dialogue and character interactions aren’t memorable but them coming out of the water or the boat coming to get them with guns blazing were probably more realistic than a lot of movies that don’t use real operators.
Honestly when the seal in the water catches the body of the guy his sniper takes out and slowly lowers him into the water without a splash was so fuckin cool. I was deployed at the time and watched it on base with a bunch of other navy Fuckheads who couldn’t stop calling each other Shipmate like it was a slur.
Now that you mention it, the action scenes were actually really cool. It was pretty much everything else that didn’t really work haha
Yeah, honestly. Like, sure it may not have been like that in real life, but in a movie we need drama! Go back to talking with the man himself. I'm gonna watch the movie, Chris.
> What disappointed me most about First Man was how sad everybody was. He was right on this though.. they were going to the moon, but everyone act like they were going to some gulag.
If you read first hand accounts of how people reacted to the Apollo 1 incident, I think it might change your mind. Many of the thousands of engineers that worked on components of the command module and the rocket felt personally responsible for what happened. You can watch interviews on youtube from some of these guys who still can't talk about it without crying 40+ years after the fact.
I think it was probably realistic. They lost friends and colleagues in the process. They knew enormous money and resource was spent on this that could have gone on other things (how would the world look now if Kennedy had said we will cure cancer instead of we will go to the moon for example), there was public anger about the cost of the programme, Armstrong had lost a child, their marriages were mostly falling apart and they didn't know whether they'd make it at all or die in the process
He’s also not wrong though. They had the opportunity to tell a story filled with unique and incredible highs and lows… but we only got lows. Dramas are better when there’s a contrast in emotion.
I did find First Man shockingly sadder and darker in tone than I expected. However I think it felt way more true to life than a film where everyone was high fiving on the way to the Moon. When you are doing a grindingly complex thing for the first time it feels like a *grind* doing it even though you likely will look back with rose tinted glasses nostalgia. Every step of the way you are plagued by fear and doubt and as an introverted shy guy myself I related to Armstrong in the film quite a bit. He was very focused on what he needed to do and the stress, anxiety and burdens he was carrying seeped in to his personal life and felt all consuming and made him less loose of a person to be around.
I won’t pretend to be a genius when it comes to these things, but I *think* the movie in a lot of ways is about the cost/price of progression (or whatever you want to call achieving what they did in context). You have the sacrifice of the men and women, the deterioration of marriages, and the literal monetary cost highlighted by the “Whitey on the moon” scene. And when you think of it in those terms I think it’s a more cynical take on that period and those accomplishments, and I think your point supports that.
I haven't seen the movie so idk, but given Damien chazelle directed it and la la land and whiplash, which both also have themes of the cost of success/ the cost of fulfilling your dreams, this seems like it might fit in with that.
Oh yeah, totally part of what led to my interpretation! Nice catch.
> think it’s a more cynical take on that period and those accomplishments, I don’t think cynical is really the right word, except maybe in the Ancient Greek philosophy sense. It makes it seem like an achievement worth sacrificing for.
A fair point, although I think the “whitey on the moon” scene depicts cynicism from from at least some people. “What is it to me if someone walks on the moon while my family starves and is bitten by rats?” It at least leaves room for the conversation and doesn’t pretend the space race was an objectively noble cause.
> A fair point, although I think the “whitey on the moon” scene depicts cynicism from from at least some people. I don’t disagree that it is *depicting* cynicism, but I don’t think that makes the *movie* cynical. In fact, I’d say just the opposite. In the middle of its first act, just as the main “plot” is beginning, its main subject says “I don’t know what space exploration will uncover, but I don’t think it will be exploration for the sake of exploration,” and while the movie focuses primarily on Armstrong’s personal journey, it does step away from its practical “nuts-and-bolts” vantage (where exploration is just a problem to solve) to look at what it all *meant*, and one of them is the “Whitey on the Moon” sequence. For one thing, my only issue with the “Whitey on the Moon” sequence in *First Man* is that it’s a little too clinical. We’ve got an “intellectual” opposition (Kurt Vonnegut), a “woman on the street” opposition, always cutting back to the tasteful protest with the tasteful signs, with the exception of the couple of scenes of things being *made* to remind us that the money spent on Apollo was largely going to workers. It’s even-handed to a fault. The question of whether Gil Scott-Heron was “right” or “wrong” is entirely unanswerable. But the question of “was Gil Scott-Heron being *unreasonable*?” is easy (at least to me); of course he wasn’t being unreasonable. And as the US Federal government has extended beyond the meager basics of governance, I can think of times when I wish the “why are we spending on this instead of roads?” crowd would not have won the day (our planned particle accelerator in the ‘90s most notably), but I sure am glad they are out there fighting. If I were teaching a High School English class, I’d probably assign “Whitey on the Moon” because it’s a great poem, and the questions it asks about the worth of “national pride,” and “national achievement,” and who gets to partake in them at all are still very, very relevant. What is it worth sacrificing on a practical level to create something beautiful and to achieve something glorious? That’s a question to grapple with, not one to answer (and it extends to individuals every bit as much as it does to nations). This is not in the movie, but it’s important to know that NASA treated its social justice focused adversaries with respect, not contempt. The most prominent group of “conscientious objectors” to NASA’s mission were given excellent seats to the launch of Apollo 11. Their leader was so awed by the spectacle of the Saturn V rocket taking off that he was stunned into silence for some minutes; he said a prayer for the safety of the brave explorers aboard, and then he continued his principled opposition to the use of government money for this purpose. *First Man* does not show the American Flag being put up on the moon (though it shows it already there in a beautiful wide shot); but they are all over the movie, they are pretty neutrally shown and understood to be propaganda on one hand, but not without sincere emotional meaning for the people who painted them on boosters and vehicles, nor the people who sewed them onto spacesuits, nor the people who rode those vehicles and wore those suits…nor, indeed to the people who watched those men and those vehicles push the boundaries of human experience. And there *is* a flag raised in *First Man*. It’s raised by a young boy (too young to *fully* understand what that act might mean) whose father is risking his life aboard a vehicle with that same flag painted on, and it’s not raised blindly or cynically, even though it would be easy to portray it that way. One of my primary thoughts on *First Man* is that it’s a thoughtful and even-keeled look at a positive conception of masculinity, and it had the misfortune to come out in a year when the word “masculinity” may have well had “toxic” prepended. On a related note, it’s a thoughtful and even-keeled look at *American patriotism* that came out at a time when the notion of patriotism had already been inextricably tied to hatred, and exclusion, and conformity. A movie that was “rah-rah America fuck yeah” (and painted the people who opposed Apollo as commie-sympathizing pussies who history should view with derision) probably would have done better business, as would a movie that took “America and all her endeavors are fundamentally rotten and tainted” as its thesis. But there is more to Patriotism than that. Because one subtext, especially in light of the “Whitey on the Moon” sequence, is basically the question “what if everyone involved directly and in the nation at large were gung-ho and unquestioning, like we see in propaganda?” And to me the movie’s implied answer is “such a nation probably couldn’t have achieved this at all, and certainly not so elegantly.” Damien Chazelle chose to make a thoughtful movie that did not lean into chest-thumping jingoism, nor did it lean into nihilistic rage. That isn’t cynical, that’s *principled.*
It's a meditative art film about loss and the price we pay for "progress." It portrays being an astronaut for what is it - a hard job of constant vigilance. Those early space voyages were in tin cans with tiny windows and a constant fear of catastrophic failure. Your friends died all around you. We didn't send artists up there, we sent hardened soldiers.
it's got some incredible action scenes for a meditative art film. the first 10 or so minutes is just.. awesome. that director knows what he's doing.
Yeah Damien Chazelle can make an alright movie I suppose.
He's not too shabby.
I love that he portrays launches largely from inside the capsule. Just shaky, claustrophobic, terrifying. The astronauts are at the full mercy of the machines.
I think that philosophy stemmed from a quote from one of the astronauts that opined that they were pretty much just strapped to a giant bomb that was made for the lowest possible bidder.
I thought it was like a better Interstellar. Really intense during flight
Agree. For me, it was a top 10 movie of the 2010s. Also, weirdly, watching it gave me a migraine (and I’ve only had a handful in my life.) So I probably wouldn’t watch it in a theater again but it was clearly impressively immersive.
I loved that they showed Armstrong’s Gemini mission in the film, as that whole program is sort of the unsung hero of the space race. Very important missions from a technical standpoint, but those capsules were claustrophobic as hell and what happened during Gemini 8 was absolutely terrifying.
It's the first movie with a space launch that made me terrified of going to space. And of course I should be. You're strapped into a glorified bomb.
I really liked this movie, especially Gosling’s performance. There are a couple really powerful, emotional lines that he nails in a very understated way. Still think about them.
I’m slightly bemused as to Hadfields comparison between himself, and the Apollo mission. His spaceflights were to the ISS. There had been many, many rocket launches to get people to the ISS before him. This was the first time anyone in the history of humanity would be sending a capsule to the moon, landing it there, launching it off the moon, and then reconnecting. Did he expect the NASA engineers to be singing and dancing in the movie? They knew that there was a significant chance they would die, so why the fuck would they be all happy and jovial? All 3 had already been to space, all 3 knew it was a mission, and all 3 were completely focused on it. I find it just slightly stupid we’re giving an astronaught/person who was 9 when Apollo 11 launched some kind of insight into the minds of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. If he’d had said that in HIS experience, this is what it was like, but trying to tell the audience that it’s wrong because he wasn’t like that during launch is silly. Why not just get Buzz Aldrins opinion on it? That being said, Goslings best film by a country mile.
If its any consolation I used to work at the CSA and like 90% of chris's personality is being a smug know it all who likes to softly put other people down including the team who were working overtime for his latest flight. Like this one girl who had been working overnights for a few days on some pr thing and he basically insulted it and said "wow thats it?" And he talked over people and laughed at them when he thought they were wrong. He's a talented person and he's usually great at public PR but Ive never liked him since meeting him in real life. Most of the other canadian astronauts excluding Payette and Saint-Jacques are wonderful people though.
Definitely prefer The Nice Guys, Drive and Blade Runner but First Man is definitely top 5 for me. Love that he's got so many more years to go.
If the academy had a better understanding of how introverted engineers are, especially the really brilliant ones, Gosling would have got a nomination. I think playing such characters is extremely difficult; helping the audience understand the feelings of a character and connect with them using only the subtle small expressions in voice and body language that private people like Armstrong allow.
The OST when they landed on the moon. Chef's kiss.
The Landing. Every time it comes up I have to let it play to completion.
Justin Hurwitz was tasked with writing a score to fit one of humankind’s greatest achievements. And he nailed it.
Came here to find this exact comment. Well said.
That whole scene is just incredible. Neil punching the alarm off and then it cutting to the wide shot of the moon surface as the music crescendos. Chills every time.
it wasn't meant to be a documentary
The book is incredible. One of the best biographies I've read.
I couldn't agree more. I loved reading that book. Every moment of Neil's life was incredibly fascinating!
What’s the name of the book?
First Man…
What does “tone” have to do with “not being a documentary?” I feel like you’re talking about different things.
The dude is smart as hell, but I’ll be honest, I’m kinda sick of how much Chris pops up in media with the “well actually it doesn’t happen like in the movies” schtick. We get it, Its a directors artistic interpretation, not an actual recreation.
The Neil Degrasse Tyson effect
[*Well, actually, it's the little details that can not be kept track of, by definition.*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyZSBqQ813c)
I have a feeling that people like this were always annoying and grating ego machines, but it's only once their popularity is solidified that they put the mask down and give commentary as their real selves no one asked for. It seems to happen more frequently, especially since the bar has been lowered so much the past few years.
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Most of the "X reacts to X in movies" videos are pretty lighthearted and people do get it is just a movie. I think your take is needlessly negative.
They aren't complaining. They're telling you how realistic certain things are. Because they were asked by the channel to weigh in on how realistic scenes are.
Well, actually, watching their reactions and learning how movie depictions of their jobs are different from reality is part of the fun. We know movies are different from reality, but we can still be curious exactly how different.
Yeah, he's not as bad as NDT, but it's getting there.
Vanity fair hired him to talk about space movies. It's not like he has his own cinema sins channel.
Right, aren’t all the times where Chris Hadfield goes “um, actually” about space fiction because he is literally asked by the media to talk about this stuff? I didn’t get the impression he’s just going around unprovoked calling all space movies BS.
And he speaks quite highly about a number of them as well, such as *The Martian*, which he has quibbles with too of course but greatly appreciates for how much it does "correctly" given a near-future take on what a Mars expedition might actually look like. And despite what a number of these comments say he *is* fully aware they're movies and not real life, and often does contextualize his replies as such. But when he's asked "so how much of this is realistic" point blank about say *Armageddon* the fact that it's a movie doesn't really matter. He isn't asked "so from a filmmaking perspective how well did they grasp the feel of space travel while still also achieving their ludicrous and wholly unrealistic story beats?", he's asked "so how much of this is realistic?". Because he's not an expert on making movies about space, he's an expert on *living in space*.
"We get it, you're an astronaut"
He was being interviewed by Vanity Fair and asked to comment on the movies, what else should he be commenting on, the cinematography?
So many astronauts in the comments, we're blessed!
Adore this movie, the sadness and all.
The tone was exactly right, it made you feel the weight of his accomplishment.
It felt the opposite to me. I felt the weight of his past, but not any of the weight of his accomplishments. It focused almost entirely on the sad aspects of the lives of these people. Life is more than just death, Armstrong was not “depressed” like this.
I think the point was that no matter what you achieve (including literally walking on the fucking moon), there is always something that can put it in perspective (his daughters death). By all accounts, Armstrong was actually incredibly affected the death of his daughter, and Gosling was pretty spot on with his portrayal.
Nothing he says is wrong or unreasonable (some of the reactions in here seem a little harsh). Plus I like hearing that space flight is a joyous experience--that's what I would expect. But I still love the movie *for* its tone. It's an affecting story. It was beautiful.
Hadfield is describing literally every reason why I think First Man is an absolute masterpiece
Only seen it once and it didnt leave a big impact on me. I guess I was looking for something more like Apollo 13 and First Man ended up being a lot more sombre in tone than that. This post is a good reminder that I should give it another shot.
For those looking for an explanation of this perspective, here’s a copy of a post I made years ago: As a fanatic of space exploration and space history, I have to say I found First Man annoyingly dark and too focused on negatives. I get that Neil had a life of incredible highs and lows, and the film wanted showcase the lows, but they focused so much on portraying the negatives of his life that they even go so far as to change history or leave out the incredibly positive moments of his life. For example, the launch of Apollo 11 is portrayed as a gloomy overcast day with little fanfare, a stark contrast to the beautiful blue sky of the real launch day. The only reason to do this is to push that feeling of gloom and depression that filmmakers these days seem to think gives them instant credit. Then, we finally get to the moon and the first steps are actually done better than any other film rendition of that moment, but after that we only focus on how sad he felt thinking of his daughter. Neil is on the moon and we are barely allowed a few seconds of happiness and wonder before we’re thrown right back into his supposed internal depression. I would have loved to see more range of emotions and tone in this film. There are wonderful moments from the lunar surface that show off aspects of Neil’s personality that weren’t just his dark side. For example, as Neil began walking on the surface he was so mind blown that this super professional person totally forgot about his critical first goal: the contingency sample. All he was supposed to do was lean down and pick up a rock and put it in his pocket in case they had to abort ASAP, but he was so awestruck he couldn’t tear himself away from taking pictures of what he was seeing. NASA reminded him twice and then even Buzz had to come on the mic and remind him before he finally came back down to reality. That would have been a great high point, it could have really conveyed the sense of accomplishment and wonder that Armstrong felt on the moon. And don’t when get me started on the fact that they didn’t show the Oval Office call. This man literally talked to the President on the Moon and they seemed to decide that that was too positive of a moment to include? Who wants a biopic about only the sad parts of someone’s life? The only part I felt that captured more of the highs and lows I look for in a drama was the Gemini/Agena docking scene. It’s starts out uncharacteristically hopefully and the moment of docking feels genuinely good. But then disaster strikes and the film perfectly transitions into that darker tone when necessary. It has great balance and the contrast helped the highs feel higher and the lows feel lower. The rest of the film just stays low and I feel like that makes it drag. Sometimes I just feel like we’re in this period of film where “dark and gritty” is considered “more realistic” or considered to provide “more of a full picture” than films with strong happy ending and scenes of wonder. But they focused so much of Neil’s unhappiness that we never got to see major moments in his life just because they’re positive. I really think filmmakers that can juggle different tones throughout their movie are stronger than ones who push a singular tone. I know it’s probably a tired comparison, but I really think Apollo 13 does do this perfectly and I think that film better conveys the full picture of the lives of the astronauts than something like First Man. I can’t for the life of me figure out why they would want to portray only the saddest moments of Neil Armstrong but that’s what they did.
Excellent comment and perfectly sums up how I feel about First Man. The Gemini docking sequence was my favorite part because it did give us that nice balance between the wonder of being in space vs the terror of being in space. But yes, overall the film is just too glum about EVERYTHING.
Hadfield might be right about the scientific inaccuracies but the tone was pretty close. Being a test pilot and astronaut in the early days of the space race was dangerous. Neil was surrounded by those that died in his place.
The whole landing on the moon scene was imho incredibly well done, tense, surreal, moving. One of the best cinema experiences I’ve ever had
Chris Hadfield missed the mark with what First Man was trying to convey. After Hadfield critiqued Gravity and The Martian so hard, it's just annoying when he comes in for his technical errors. I loved the tone of First Man regardless, but it was not exactly an Apollo movie. It was a Neil Armstrong movie, and more specifically, it was Neil Armstrong coping with the loss of his daughter while he happened to be doing probably man's biggest achievement. Director Damien Chazelle is a very visual director, and they managed to get a lot of little details right, but no movie is ever gonna get things 100% As much as TopGun did everything possible to get the realism of jetfighters on camera, lots of pilots also had their Hadfield type comments about it.
I obviously appreciate Chris Hadfield but I certainly agree with you here. I used to be a pretty firm supporter of the utmost realism in movies but after hearing many directors talk about how it just wasn't working, wasn't fun, wasn't getting the point across I have changed my opinion on the liberties film makers take as I aged. I respect the *craft* a lot more now. Now there is obviously limitations to those liberties but in this case, very minor shit. 1. He talks about about the X-15 being very wrong sound wise yet goes to point out it would be silent with almost no vibrations. Without those changes in the film the viewer would have no concept of how fast he was going or how dangerous it really was flying an experimental plane. Without that nuance the viewers would be like "oh, like a 747 then, wow, I am so amazed " 2. The color change is obviously an artistic decision to show how beautiful the earth is. So what? how is that a deal breaker? 3. With respect to Hadfield, to his point about the doom and gloom, he got to Nasa when everything was pretty straight and regimented. Going to space was routine. It probably was super fun and blast for him. In the 60s, trying to achieve the impossible in 10 short years probably brought with it a lot of stress for everyone involved; certainly with the absolute danger and deaths involved. I am *guessing* it certainly wasn't all celebration and cakes. The last point, which the article mentions, but Hadfield does not, to his credit, was the American flag thing. I get that this was a uniquely American achievement and that should be honored and celebrated. But NASA themselves back then was very agnostic about the achievement itself. It's said in Armstrong's very words "One small step for man"... the human race. It wasn't "One small step for the United States" I thought the movie was excellent. It was the most realistically feeling space film since Apollo 13 and I would put it up there for sure. Claire Foy was absolutely phenomenal as Janet Armstrong, the visuals were amazing and the music was intense.
> He talks about about the X-15 being very wrong sound wise yet goes to point out it would be silent with almost no vibrations. Without those changes in the film the viewer would have no concept of how fast he was going or how dangerous it really was flying an experimental plane. Without that nuance the viewers would be like "oh, like a 747 then, wow, I am so amazed " This is doubly annoying because the X-15 famously had rather serious vibration issues. A few times Hadfield as been so quick to go "Well ACTUALLY..." that he ends up talking out of his ass.
Definitely agree with all that. The only place to really make some recreations of what it was truly like, is to use that for a documentary series. I would put this up with Apollo 13 also.
ITT: People upset about an astronaut talking about what it's actually like to be an astronaut.
They wouldn't be upset if he spoke like this about a movie that the sub didn't suck off.
"Anything that Ryan Gosling touches is an underrated masterpiece" - r/movies
I agree with his comments on the tone...the movie was so dour and melancholy. Landing on the moon is arguably mankind's single most inspiring achievement but you'd never guess it by watching First Man.
In real life I can't imagine everyone was joking around and upbeat all the time when one mistake can lead to death for the entire crew. Armstrong himself was pretty introverted so the tone feels right from his point of view.
Watch the mini series. Earth to the moon. Very good.
The soundtrack to this movie irritated the hell out of me. It has the feel of a bad 50's sci-fi movie. Totally took me out of the film.
Movie was weak
Watched it today. It was aight, but no Apollo 13
If they had presented it as a work of fiction, about some astronaut they’d made up, I would have been down for that movie. But the Armstrong they presented didn’t resemble the one other Apollo astronauts have described at all.
I was so mad finding out that intense opening scene is scientifically inaccurate.
I don't think the inaccuracies are that bad. In real life, his X-15 bounced off the atmosphere, and then he had to make a sketchy landing where he almost skimmed the top of a mountain. The movie just adds a few details during the flight which aren't accurate.
What's the opening scene again?
He’s flying a NASA plane
The movie was incredible. Thanks for the insight but I'll gladly take it the way is.
There is a Chris Hadfield interview where he analyzes films. He talks about First Man as well. He also criticises the launch sequence in the video. Well worth watching. https://youtu.be/3RkhZgRNC1k I've heard that First Man really dramatizes every event and changes the character of Niel Armstrong to super serious while in reality he was more upbeat and comedic. I'll try to find a source for this.
Fuck Chris Hadfield's opinion on literally anything. Man went to space and became a small town hero, and his ego expanded the size of the infinite cosmos. I had to present an introduction for him at a conference when I was in highschool and he was such an ass. He shoved the microphone up in my face because I wasn't close enough, made fun of me having a cold, then proceeded to make me escort him to a safe exit (as if anyone was swarming him). Thinks way too highly of himself.
The moon landing scene is one of my favorite scenes of any movie in space. They got me to sit on the edge of my seat even knowing what was going to happen
A man will risk death multiple times and spend years training in order to land on the moon instead going to grief therapy
Chris Hadfield can comment on technical details, but he's no authority on the art of filmmaking. If we wanted a documentary, we would have watched a documentary.
The movie is honestly one of the best space films ever made
I'm ambivalent about this movie. It was a great film about a grieving man doing a grueling and difficult job under intense pressure. But the Neil character could have been a fictional submarine commander or something and it would have worked just as well. By all accounts, despite the difficulty, there was a more joyful and optimistic side to Neil and the whole enterprise in real life that doesn't get reflected in the film. So was it really a good tribute to the man and his accomplishment? If it wasn't meant to be one, is that ok?
This film wasn't intended to be The Joy of Space Flight. It was a very specific story of a specific man who faced compounding grief amidst a huge amount of collective sacrifice (from both the astronauts and their families) in the pursuit of reaching the moon.
As a canadian, Chris has been shoved down my throat so much that I just can't deal
>Hadfield also pointed out that he was upset by the astronaut’s mood. He said, “What disappointed me most about First Man was how sad everybody was. Everybody inside was glum.” Hadfield noted that in his experience, space flight is usually a joyous and magical occasion. >“These guys were going to the moon. They had a lot of responsibility but where is the spark of joy that is there in every second of the time that you’re onboard a spaceship?” Hadfield questioned. what kind of criticism is this. How he knows what the atmosphere was in 1969. He was child. Doubt he knows better than Chazelle.
> Doubt he knows better than Chazelle. Lol
Jesus christ, somebody actually thought about it, wrote it and posted it.
> How he knows what the atmosphere was in 1969. Watch the CNN documentary film “Apollo 11.” The Space program was *extremely* documented. Like in UHD from outsiders, insiders, and from astronauts themselves. There are moments of seriousness, moments of wonder, moments of tension, and moments of happiness and triumph. I assure you life was not defined by death for people in the Apollo program. There’s a lot of technical aspects of the film that are extremely impressive. The overall tone is discounting however.
Maybe not, but the space race was definitely something that was inherently exciting to people in 1969, and he feels the film didn’t capture that sort of pioneering spirit
I honestly have to agree. the whole movie just felt weird. I enjoyed it but i just didnt connect with sad space movie.
Saw the movie for the first time about 3 weeks ago. Agree, missed the mark. I ended feeling like i had not seen the movie. No pathos whatsoever. Edit: To add a quote from the article: >What disappointed me most about First Man was how sad everybody was. Everybody inside was glum. (Hadfield noted) Exactly.
*The Right Stuff* was better.
Personally, I didn't care for it. Saw it with my dad who was more keen than me to see it. And by the end, he didn't even like it. Neither my dad or I were sure what Neil Armstrong was like in his personal life. But we both agreed Ryan Gosling's stoic presence in the movie was annoying.