First Man

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  • October 13, 2018 at 8:50 pm #92324
    PA Ram
    Participant

    First Man

    8/10

    I thought this was an excellent film overall. Although I was born in the early 60s and would have been in second grade during the moon landing, it was an event I don’t recall as I look back. I collected Matt Mason figures so I know I knew something about it but it wasn’t a moment I remember. So I was really looking forward to this film. I enjoyed “The Right Stuff” and “Apollo 13” and this film fits right in with the others and fills in some gaps.

    This is really Neil Armstrong’s story–the first man on the moon. And that comes with some problems.

    Neil Armstrong was a very introverted sort of person, a quiet man who didn’t seem to have much of a personality. He wasn’t colorful like some other astronauts(Gordon Cooper, Buzz Aldrin, etc.) I didn’t know about the tragedy in his life that may have created some of his distance to other humans–especially combined with the tragedies these test pilots/astronauts lived with as a part of the job. They lived with the uncertainty of their own existence as well as their co-workers and friends. The film shows that part pretty well.

    The special effects are very good and the sense of claustrophobia, of being strapped into this tin can and locked in is something most human beings could not endure. The story is at least vaguely familiar enough to most people but I did learn some things along the way.

    My only negative comments center around the emotion of the film. It is not emotionally gripping because the protagonist is not emotionally gripping. The film is still stunning in its own way, but it lacks the attachment to character that “The Right Stuff” and “Apollo 13” had and there is very little or no humor. I do wish the film had opened up a bit to include a bit more Buzz Aldrin. He seems like he may have been the more interesting character but it isn’t his story and he’s just a minor character in a story which he obviously played a major role.

    Still, it is a fine film–the best I’ve seen this year in terms of drama.

    It’s a long film but I didn’t mind it. I thought it flowed well enough.

    As I said–this is the missing film in the space race trilogy and it was needed.

    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick

    October 14, 2018 at 7:03 am #92333
    nittany ram
    Moderator

    I saw this movie yesterday. I agree completely with your take.


    Here there be spoilers    …………….

    PA Ram wrote:

    My only negative comments center around the emotion of the film. It is not emotionally gripping because the protagonist is not emotionally gripping. The film is still stunning in its own way, but it lacks the attachment to character that “The Right Stuff” and “Apollo 13” had and there is very little or no humor. I do wish the film had opened up a bit to include a bit more Buzz Aldrin. He seems like he may have been the more interesting character but it isn’t his story and he’s just a minor character in a story which he obviously played a major role.

    Still, it is a fine film–the best I’ve seen this year in terms of drama.

    It’s a long film but I didn’t mind it. I thought it flowed well enough.

    As I said–this is the missing film in the space race trilogy and it was needed.

    After seeing the movie, I watched a NASA historian’s take on the film, because like you, I was puzzled by the lack of emotion expressed by Armstrong in the film. I mean, yeah the guy was said to be stoic, but c’mon, how can you not express emotion given what he was experiencing?

    The historian didn’t really like this aspect of the film. SHe says she has read every flight transcript of every NASA mission, including all those with Neil Armstrong, and she said the film overplayed his stoicism, especially while in space. The film also didn’t show the camaraderie that existed among the flight crews. These guys weren’t necessarily friends on earth but in space there was a camaraderie that existed among people whose lives were in each other’s hands. This is evident in the flight transcripts, which show Armstrong joking around with his crewmates.

    The other flaw is the long silent interlude that Armstrong experienced on the moon when he dropped his daughter’s bracelet into the crater. It was a moving scene, but it never could have happened. According to the historian, there was hardly a moment while the astronauts were walking on the moon that their helmet radios wouldn’t have been filled with chatter from Mission Control. They were only going to be walking on the moon for a short period and there were many questions to be answered and a lot of work to get done. The radio chatter was by design. NASA was afraid the astronauts could become overwhelmed by where they were and what they were doing, so they were constantly talking to them to keep them focused and on task.

    On the other hand, my wife saw an interview with Armstrong where he said the decent to the moon in the lander and walking on its surface was rather dull, so… maybe the film does have Armstrong pegged. 🙂

    PS…the historian said the best film that shows what astronauts were like as people and how they interacted with each other remains Apollo 13. She wasn’t sure why First Man chose to depict Buzz Aldren as an insensitive asshole. She said he was/is nothing like that.

    • This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by nittany ram.
    October 14, 2018 at 9:25 am #92338
    PA Ram
    Participant

    Last night I watched a YouTube documentary on Armstrong.

    There were a lot of interviews with family and a couple of friends. I get the sense that he may have been a bit distant as a human being but that he wasn’t entirely cold. The film probably got him mostly right. Armstrong had been dating his first wife for a while before his brother knew anything about it and he said that this was just how Neil was–he didn’t talk about things. He hated the celebrity and tried to run from it later in life.

    I think the film tried to use his daughter’s tragedy to display his inner warmth but he seemed to keep that to himself. I believe he was the type to focus so much into his work so that he didn’t have to feel the pain of his personal world. It may have been his sanctuary of sorts–until the fame took that away. Look at his personal relationship with his sons. So cold. Did he just not allow those doors to be open because of his daughter or was this just who he was? He strikes me as a hyper focused almost obsessive sort of individual who directed that at his work and he was exactly the right man for the job he had to do.

    I agree about Buzz Aldrin too. In interviews Buzz doesn’t come across as that much of an asshole. I’m not sure the film was very fair to him. They certainly downplayed his role in the whole affair. In fact, Armstrong tells a story of how they had problems getting the manned craft off the surface of the moon because of some problem and that Buzz solved it by jamming a pen into something. It felt like a hole in the film to me to not make Aldrin part of the story.

    This film was clearly invested in portraying Armstrong’s distance from others and nothing displayed that more than the final scene of the film. He would eventually divorce his first wife by the way and remarry.

    Humans are complex individuals and biopics are almost certain to be caricatures of the people they represent. In Armstrong’s case, that cool sort of distance was one of the central things that people noticed and the film grabbed on to that because that was the large nose–the big feature. But it hurts creating an engaging film in a lot of ways because no matter the subject matter, plots must be tied to someone, and if that person is difficult to know or understand or is distant–it’s hard as an audience to “feel” during the experience.

    But having said that, I still enjoyed this film.

    I just wonder what I was doing during the moon landing. I remember watching splashdowns on television–or at least the ships getting the astronauts. I just don’t remember the moment Armstrong stepped on the moon. I guess I wasn’t watching.

    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick

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