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DVD Apollo 13 (Widescreen 2-Disc Anniversary Edition)
NASA's worst nightmare turned into one of the space agency's most heroic moments in 1970, when the Apollo 13 crew was forced to hobble home in a disabled capsule after an explosion seriously damaged the moon-bound spacecraft. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton play (respectively) astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise in director Ron Howard's intense, painstakingly authentic docudrama. The Apollo 13 crew and Houston-based mission controllers race against time and heavy odds to return the damaged spacecraft safely to Earth from a distance of 205,500 miles. Using state-of-the-art special effects and ingenious filmmaking techniques, Howard and his stellar cast and crew build nail-biting tension while maintaining close fidelity to the facts. The result is a fitting tribute to the Apollo 13 mission and one of the biggest box-office hits of 1995. --Jeff Shannon
Review(s): DVD Apollo 13 (Widescreen 2-Disc Anniversary Edition)
Saved From the Jaws of a Space Disaster
As someone who has been fascinated with space flight since childhood, and who well remembers the real Apollo 13 from his teenage years, I found this movie a fascinating reminder of history. It even includes clips from old TV newscasts.
There are only minor omissions and inaccuracies in the film. The first critical burn of the lunar module's descent engine, done some six hours after the explosion and designed to change the hybrid trajectory back into a free-return trajectory, is not shown at all. The lunar landing is portrayed as doomed when the decision was made to (irreversibly) shut off the remaining fuel cells in the (incorrect) supposition that the oxygen leak was originating from the fuel cells. In actuality, the lunar landing itself was doomed the moment the main Bus-B under volt occurred, indicating that the first fuel cell had died. (Mission rules forbid a lunar landing if only one fuel cell becomes inoperable, even if nothing else is wrong).
The movie captures the drama of ground control trying to figure out what went wrong. Simulations had allowed for the failure of one oxygen tank or perhaps one or at most two fuel cells, but no one imagined the loss of both main oxygen tanks and all three fuel cells, leaving the Odyssey itself with only several hours of remaining oxygen, water, and electricity. The initial belief was that a meteoroid must have hit the ship. This one-in-a-million possibility was soon discounted, and the real culprit was later identified: A short circuit inside an oxygen tank leading to a fire, followed by an explosion that not only shattered the oxygen tank, but also ripped off the entire side off of the service module and which punctured the remaining main oxygen tank. With no oxygen to support them, all three fuel cells started dying.
The movie captures the decision not to attempt to fire the service module engine in order to reverse the flight direction in a deep-space abort. But this lengthened the return trip and led to the realization that the lunar module had insufficient electricity and other consumables to support the crew of three all the way back home. This led to the decision to power everything down--a strategy that worked, just barely.
The severe cold aboard the ship, a secondary consequence of the powering down of all nonessential equipment, is well illustrated. The astronauts had a frosty breath. Some got urinary infections. They had a hard time getting comfortable enough to sleep.
The astronauts were slowly being poisoned by their own carbon dioxide. This was solved by the jury-rigging of the lithium hydroxide "scrubbers" of the command module to get them to fit into the circulation system of the lunar module.
The astronauts were not out of the woods even when they were finally close enough to earth for re-entry. The movie shows the remaining danger points: Could the electronics of the command module be functionally revived in spite of the dormancy and the cold? Did the heat shield of the command module get cracked during the explosion? Could the cold have immobilized the thrusters, making it impossible to orient and steer the command module during re-entry? And, finally, is it possible that the parachutes had been frozen together by the cold? For those unfamiliar with the ending, I will not reveal it in order to maintain the suspense for the reader who wants it.
How Some Respond To The Risks of Exploration
The movie is remarkable at communicating these ideas and emotions: The intent was not to send a man to the moon; rather, it was to send mankind to the moon. It was to go where no man had gone before. It was to put priority and real action into a charactericstic that defines humanity: curiosity. And when most of mankind stopped caring about the adventurers we put at risk to pursue those goals, there were a few people who cared enough to never stop trying to find new and adaptive ways to get those adventurers out of harm's way.
The best DVD I have in my collection
There's little to say about this movie, since I assume that people interested in buying this item have already seen it already. But the amount and quality of extras that this DVD has is just breathtaking. To say the least, Disc 2 has the IMAX version of the film, which at the time of this writing is not documented here in Amazon. The IMAX version is, well :), a shorter version of the film (1h55' versus the 2h20' of the regular) in an aspect ratio of 1:66. So if you were unsure as to buy the Widescreen or FullScreen versions, I suggest buying the Wide, since you will get (sort of) a full screen version in the IMAX one present on Disc 2.
Then there is this documentary "The conquest of space" which is rather dull, "The astronauts story" a very short but interesting clip, the excellent "making of" and the juicy commentary by Jim Lovell, pinpointing hits and misses of the film compared to the real thing.
At $9.90, how can you NOT buy this jewel?
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