Apollo 18

[Izack]

None of these movies, Armageddon, Apollo 18, and so on are supposed to be 100% believable. They are not historical documentaries. They are for entertainment. :facepalm:

True, but throwing in some alternative hardware like Lunar Gemini would definitely add intrigue. :thumbup:

 

[Keatah]

I always wanted to see some things involving the shuttle, adventures to the moon or outer planets.. With the cargo area turned into a party-bus. Or even venus, what with the super-dense atmosphere and everything the shuttle would be like an ultra-light glider with a built-in heatshield... You know stuff like that.

There has always been a lack of creativity on hollywood's part when it comes to portraying the shuttle differently than its intended use.

I thoroughly enjoyed steven baxter's titan novel. it merges a shuttle and apollo capsules, somewhat believably, for a voyage to saturnian space.

 

[Turbinator]

I loved that book.

 

[Codz]

Of course, most people are gullable enough to believe in anything with special effects.

That elitest attitude is what makes people scoff at NASA...:thumbsdown:

 

[Columbia42]

The spacecraft on the cover of that book looks like a cross between the space shuttle and an XR5.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

"Titan" is a pretty good read, but I found it somewhat depressing.

 

[Scruce]

WARNING! spoilers.


The film was great, and I could only see one goof, that LM Pilot Anderson knew how to pilot an LK Lander, but he reveals this as because the LM and LK are "nearly the same".

I have watched the movie, and are willing to debunk earlier posts:

:lol: So far i found a goof:

In this trailer, at 1:23, the CDR is in the passenger seat... that never happened, ever...

Wrong, there is a specific reason these places are switched: The CDR is infected with a virus making him delusional, so the LMP must take over.

True, but throwing in some alternative hardware like Lunar Gemini would definitely add intrigue. :thumbup:

LK Lander not good enough for you! :lol:

Concealing an Apollo-style mission from the public would be a conspiracy of incredible proportions which I doubt could be feasibly carried out. Much more believable would be something similar to the lunar Gemini scheme once considered by NASA as a possibility for rescuing stranded Apollo astronauts. A mission like that would be much more low-key and could possibly be concealed as part of a classified military/DoD program.

There is a good reason the mission was classified, and a lot of it is believable.


First, the mission is to place Early Warning Devices (against Russians) on the moon (or so the astronauts think). The launch is disguised as the Skylab launch. (Skylab never existed and was filmed on a sound stage). The crew discovers a Soviet LK Lander on the Moon, with one dead Cosmonaut in a crater nearby. It is revealed that the DoD knew about Cosmonauts on the Moon all along.

I wont reveal more, because the plot gets really good.

yawn

Absolutely not, this film is a must see.

I noticed that in the first trailer there was a Soviet LK lunar lander and, as far as I could tell, it was fairly accurately portrayed.

Almost perfectly.

It will be accurate so long as they are only attacked by one zombie cosmonaut. :lol:

All I will do here is wink.

It looks like they're trying to achieve the look of From the Earth to the Moon, but some'n else is bugging me: I don't hear the background hum of the fans from the life-support system in either the LM interior or the comms from inside the suits.
That's one of those little subliminal details that makes a big difference to me in terms of realism.

This sound does exist in the movie, but not in the trailers.

---------- Post added at 18:41 ---------- Previous post was at 18:38 ----------

I'm sure it will get a hundred basic things about space flight and the Apollo programme wrong (aside from the obvious one)

Try it and see, you will be wrong.

 

[T.Neo]

Oh well. At least they tried.

Of course, the differences between payloads, fairings, adaptors, and upper stages, is clear:

And the problem of hushing people up when concerning things like stacking in the VAB, vehicle construction, training and launch is still apparent of course.

And I really want to know what effects they would have used on that Skylab soundstage, because all the other microgravity effects totally fail at being believable. :lol:

Of course, this scenario also requires us to believe that the debris that fell between Esperance and Rawlinna was a hoax, along with three Saturn IB launches and a proposal(s) relating to shuttles and teleoperated reboost vehicles...

 

[Scruce]

Oh well. At least they tried.

Of course, the differences between payloads, fairings, adaptors, and upper stages, is clear:

And the problem of hushing people up when concerning things like stacking in the VAB, vehicle construction, training and launch is still apparent of course.

Hiding the SAS, CSM an LM in the fairing?

 

[T.Neo]

Do you see a crew access arm and a white room up against that fairing?

Also, stacking a CSM and LM instead of the Skylab station and its Apollo Telescope Mount would be pretty obvious to a lot of people.

 

[Codz]

Do you see a crew access arm and a white room up against that fairing?

Also, stacking a CSM and LM instead of the Skylab station and its Apollo Telescope Mount would be pretty obvious to a lot of people.

Oh well they put a good effort in and got most tech things right. The story did what it set out to; be entertaining.

 

[T.Neo]

What they got wrong is the notion that a Moon landing could be carried out secretly, which simply isn't true.

Whether this was a good film or not is subjective, but the reviews I've seen have been negative. The film wasn't shown to press before its release, which is generally a bad sign...

 

[Scruce]

Whether this was a good film or not is subjective, but the reviews I've seen have been negative. The film wasn't shown to press before its release, which is generally a bad sign...

Well go and see it then . I thought it was good but that's just me .

 

[Keatah]

Ok, that's it, I've had it! The company that produced this film is calling it an official documentary. And NASA's pissed! That is just plain wrong. I was all ready to go have some fun with it. But now.. I don't think so. I feel like I'd just be encouraging this type of marketing. I'll rent it for a dollar from redbox later on. Or watch it on cable someday.

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But let me get this one thing straight.. The moonlanding hoaxers say we never went to the moon. Right? Ok. And now we have those conspiracy theorists saying we've got apollo 18 and that we never went back to the moon?? What's the real deal folks?

And top it off there's some world-renowned nutjob UFO scientist and researcher saying it is possible to hide a Saturn-V blastoff?? :facepalm:

 

[Ghostrider]

"The Blair Witch Project" was "authentic footage" as well.
If only Apollo 18 could do for the Moon was TBWP did for Burkittsville...

 

[mojoey]

What they got wrong is the notion that a Moon landing could be carried out secretly, which simply isn't true.

Whether this was a good film or not is subjective, but the reviews I've seen have been negative. The film wasn't shown to press before its release, which is generally a bad sign...

Havent seen it, but bugs on the moon sounds like a good horror movie

 

[xlns]

This will be great for the ... conspiracy theorists...

I can't wait to see how will they reconcile this secret mission and it's Russian counterpart, scary aliens, government conspiracy and the fact that we never actually went to Moon Definitely - a must see!

 

[Star Voyager]

Just read the Wiki article on this movie. Call me a sissy, but I'm not going to spend 8$ to see this movie with the depressing ending the article describes.

---------- Post added at 02:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:25 PM ----------

collectSPACE interview with "Apollo 18" technical adviser and ex-flight director Gerry Griffin:

http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-090211a.html

 

[Scruce]

Thanks to jedimaster1214, who uploaded the entire plot that I wrote in a PM to him, onto Wikipedia.

 

[Mantis]

I just got back from seeing this. From an entertainment point of view, it wasn't a bad movie. If you're looking for realism, this movie is not for you. The movie is presented as if it was an editing together of "actual" recovered footage. They don't attempt to explain anything about it including how/when the Russians got there, what anyone knew beforehand about what was on the moon, why the secret mission was attempted, why the NASA, the US military, the Russian space agency and Russian military were evidently cooperating with regards to what was found on the moon. They just present the footage and leave the rest to your imagination. They do throw in a few "heart stoppers" now and then and if you are prone to motion sickness, be sure to take some Gravol before you see it.