A "fictional documentary" seems to have been what they intended and indeed what they got. It's pretty boring though, even if you're from this era. It also looks so realistic that when they try to be dramatic, it often comes across as extremely fake, despite having excellent actors.
The movie also seems nearly pointless after the Apollo 13 film, which dealt with a very dramatic and very real situation. And, curiously, this was released after the first two actual manned moon landings.
The film is strikingly gorgeous, however, with a luxurious level of detail that's constantly visible. It may well be worth watching just to appreciate that. The fx are mostly fantastic, although some important bits near the end unfortunately look really bad.
It just occurred to me, the movie is almost, and ironically, like a very good looking movie star that acts stiff as a board.
Though, the Earth looks very strange, very green and gray, and this is rather distracting because there's a LOT of it. I presume they simply didn't have enough real quality photos of the Earth from orbit to know what it really looks like, and 2001: A Space Odyssey also has an odd looking Earth. I think it's way worse here, though. In 2001, it just looks too washed out, like maybe way too much cloud cover. Also, 2001 took place in the then 30 year future, perhaps depicting an expected different Earth atmosphere.
Stanley Kubrick famously tried to buy insurance for 2001 in case aliens were discovered before its release, ruining the films impact. Seems like this production should have tried something similar. It's really curious why they thought this would work in the middle of the real thing, which was dramatic as life gets. 2001 had a vastly broader story, with (probable) alien life and realistic space travel as merely a mundane backdrop.
As other reviewers have noted, this movie is all but forgotten for these reasons. I'm old enough and like sci-fi enough, I should have seen this decades ago, and yet never even heard of it until it showed up as a Prime recommendation.
The film is just mind numbingly slow and boring. Yes, that's "realistic". When astronauts and NASA are doing a mission, they are not bored because they are doing a job with the astronauts in a high risk environment. But for most viewers, watching endless footage of a mission is like watching paint dry, and that's how this movie is for very long sequences. Did we really need to see them launch?
You could make a twelve hour movie of a 747 flying across the Pacific, with all the details, but would you want to watch that? That's "realistic" too.
The movie also seems nearly pointless after the Apollo 13 film, which dealt with a very dramatic and very real situation. And, curiously, this was released after the first two actual manned moon landings.
The film is strikingly gorgeous, however, with a luxurious level of detail that's constantly visible. It may well be worth watching just to appreciate that. The fx are mostly fantastic, although some important bits near the end unfortunately look really bad.
It just occurred to me, the movie is almost, and ironically, like a very good looking movie star that acts stiff as a board.
Though, the Earth looks very strange, very green and gray, and this is rather distracting because there's a LOT of it. I presume they simply didn't have enough real quality photos of the Earth from orbit to know what it really looks like, and 2001: A Space Odyssey also has an odd looking Earth. I think it's way worse here, though. In 2001, it just looks too washed out, like maybe way too much cloud cover. Also, 2001 took place in the then 30 year future, perhaps depicting an expected different Earth atmosphere.
Stanley Kubrick famously tried to buy insurance for 2001 in case aliens were discovered before its release, ruining the films impact. Seems like this production should have tried something similar. It's really curious why they thought this would work in the middle of the real thing, which was dramatic as life gets. 2001 had a vastly broader story, with (probable) alien life and realistic space travel as merely a mundane backdrop.
As other reviewers have noted, this movie is all but forgotten for these reasons. I'm old enough and like sci-fi enough, I should have seen this decades ago, and yet never even heard of it until it showed up as a Prime recommendation.
The film is just mind numbingly slow and boring. Yes, that's "realistic". When astronauts and NASA are doing a mission, they are not bored because they are doing a job with the astronauts in a high risk environment. But for most viewers, watching endless footage of a mission is like watching paint dry, and that's how this movie is for very long sequences. Did we really need to see them launch?
You could make a twelve hour movie of a 747 flying across the Pacific, with all the details, but would you want to watch that? That's "realistic" too.