It's a sign of a fantastic film when you are kept on the edge of your seat despite knowing how it ends.

I think this movie should have won a best picture Oscar. It's so good and I appreciate it depicting real people and a real event. The mom in the nursing home is played by Ron Howard's mother Jean, the little guy with the heavy glasses at NASA control is his brother Clint, and the reverend that is at their home during the coverage of this event is his father Rance. The dramatic license taken with telling this story was the freaking out and arguing, they said that didn't happen, they don't get to be astronauts without being able to handle pressure.

Men walked on the moon from Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17. That's six times. Would have been 7 but for Apollo 13 not landing. I'm sorry I wasn't alive to see any of those landings, but I became fascinated with the Space Race as a boy, from the dog Laika in Sputnik 2 (which I always felt sorry for as there was no coming back) to the space shuttle, I read about it all. I was always particularly fascinated by Apollo 13, years before they made a film of the events, I think I already knew everything that happened. The telling was spot on, not a detail missed that I remember reading.

A number of Apollo missions landed on the moon - 11 thru 17 (without 13). I attended Cpt. Lovell’s book lecture re: Lost Moon. He was asked about the amount of Hollywood exaggeration. He replied that there was a little, but most was right on. The biggest exaggeration was about Swigert being a “rookie.” He said Jack was right on the money every single time.

I just noticed that the captain (or whatever rank) that greeted Tom Hanks when he landed safely, was the actual commander of Apollo 13, Jim Lovell, that Tom Hanks portrayed. Awesome detail that I didn't notice in the many other watches of this amazing movie. Thanks for the reaction!

23:20 They actually _had_ considered doing so. The issue with that was that one tended to perspire a lot in those suits; the suits were lined with neoprene, a plastic bladder. That was the pressure vessel. With no power to circulate air in the suits, they would have quickly perspired and soaked their clothes. They'd be both cold _and_ wet, and that was a recipe for pneumonia.

You know a movie is good when even though many of us know the outcome, we were all stressed and excited while watching. Kudos to the director and the actors.

I was 16 when this happened. I remember my Dad & I watching this on tv, holding our breath.

In my personal opinion. This movie, is an A+

This is even more amazing when you consider the phones in our pockets have more computing power than the rocket/vehicle they were riding in. Pretty brave guys.

11:06 So many people asked about that vest it was placed in the Air and Space Museum in D.C. My dad cried watching this movie (it is very accurate) He is a electrical engineer

I was in the 5th grade when this happened. As students, we watched many space launches and "splashdowns" on a TV in our classroom. I remember when they went passed the 3 minute blackout. I thought they had burned up and died. Then we saw the capsule on TV with the 3 parachutes open. We all cheered!!

In the end the commader with the White hat talking to Tom Hanks was the real Jim Lovell who flew that mission.

On the back of the success of this Tom Hanks managed to get the financial backing as co-producer to make a TV series on the story of the Space race called 'From Earth to the Moon'. As you enjoyed this and love the space program it's well worth seeking out.

Corvettes like the ones Lovell & Ken had were pretty much THE cars for astronauts. a former racer turned dealer worked out a promotion where if you were serving in the astronaut corps you could get a Corvette lease for practically nothing, rack up a few thousand miles on the car & then buy it outright as used.

BTW, towards the end, the guy Tom Hanks shakes hands with on the aircraft carrier was the real Jim Lovell.

There's a museum dedicated to Gus Grissom very close to where I live in Indiana (his hometown was a small town called Mitchell). Gus Grissom was the first man to go into space twice, and had he not died in the Apollo 1 fire, he might have been the one to command Apollo 11 and set foot on the moon.

Wow! Nobody has brought this up yet; so I will. Hanks’ previous move was Forrest Gump, also starring Gary Sinese as Lieutenant Dan. There’s a scene in the bar when Forrest tells Lieutenant Dan that he’s going to be a shrimping boat captain. Lieutenant Dan then replies “The day you’re a shrimping boat captain, I’ll be an astronaut.” Well, Forrest became a shrimping boat captain and, in the next movie, Lieutenant Dan became an astronaut.

The reason Swigart didn't pilot during the course correction burn is that he was trained in the command module, not the lunar excursion module which they used for the burn.. that's why Lovell and Haise did the navigation, they trained in it to operate it

9 missions have travelled to the moon, and 6 of them have landed on the moon. 24 men have travelled to the moon, and 12 have walked on it.

Awesome Movies: "...we love your little Duck Walk." Me: "...aaaaannd someone is offended in t-minus 3, 2..." 😂

We didn't only go to the moon once. A total of 12 men walked on the moon during six separate moon landing missions.

*This* is a movie that very well deserves the term, "awesome"!

Speaking of moon shot programs, I love that the current program is called Artemis, since she was the twin of Apollo in Greek mythology!

The fire combined two issues. 1) they had VERY oxygen rich atmosphere, which let the fire grow insanely fast. 2) the doors opened inward, in which case the increased pressure caused by the expanding fire sealed the doors shut. They reduced the oxygen level to normal atmospheric levels and redesigned the doors so they open outward to avoid a repeat.

I graduated from high school at the time of the events of Apollo 13. I watched them on TV. The engineers did a great job bringing out astronauts home safely.

This movie was amazing. All the anti gravity scenes were really done in an airplane called the vomit comet. Also you know that scene where his son asked him about the fire. And Tom Hanks said that won't happen again. I totally would have told him yes. That could happen again. Because we all die, it's what we choose to live doing.

There were a total of 6 landings on the Moon, with 12 individuals walking on the surface while a third member of each crew remained in the orbiting capsule. A fascinating documentary was made in 2007 and Ron Howard was involved and on the DVD copies, he has a wonderful introduction. It spends time explaining about the fire in 1967 which killed the 3 astronauts meant for Apollo 1. The documentary is mostly interviews with the living astronauts and is unique since it is from their personal perspectives. The DVD bonus features also includes a piece on the paintings by Alan Bean who was on Apollo 12. After he retired, he spent his time making paintings and incorporated mementos from the Moon, from imprints of his boots in the paint, to specks of fabric from his spacesuit, etc. The documentary is very inspirational. It focuses mostly on the events leading up to Apollo 11 but includes footage from all of them. Well-worth a watch! 🌙

Another great movie is The Right Stuff. It's about the Space program from the beginning

I believe the problem with the door is that there was no way to open it from the inside so astronauts became trapped inside as it burned.

We landed on the moon 6 times, Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. They cancelled Apollo 18 due to budget cuts.

“Kevin Bacon, from Footloose, and A Few Good Men, … and I think from something else, too”. I laughed so hard at this. There’s a party game that was super popular there for a while, called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. You name any actor/actress, and then using films they’ve been in together with another actor/actress, you create a chain that must end at Kevin Bacon. The goal is fewer than 6 steps, which is not as difficult as it sounds. Because he’s been in soooooo many movies.

Great reaction James to a true classic Im glad you enjoyed it big thumbs up

Around 34:50, the captain of the ship who shakes the hand of Tom Hanks (playing Jim L.) is the real Jim L. that Tom is portraying. It's a wonderful cameo of a legend.

Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 all landed on the moon. Apollo 18 is either the reason why we've never returned to the moon, if you believe the movie, or the TMBG album with I Palindrome, I on it.

Allegedly, thr set design for mission control was so good that consultants from NASA would forget it WAS a set, and make a muscle mempry turn to where elevators should've been, only to hit a dead end!

Fun Fact: Jack Black's (yes, THAT Jack Black) mother, Judith Love Cohen, was one of the engineers that helped design the Abort Guidance System that helped save Apollo 13.

In case nobody answered your question, The "MCA" in MCA Universal stands for Music Corporation of America!!!

The Lovells lived near NASA Ground Control in Houston, the mission launches were in Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Florida. The 12 part HBO mini series *From the Earth...To the Moon* that details all the manned Apollo missions along with a recap of the Mercury and Gemini programs is absolutely fantastic! Produced by Ron Howard and Tom Hanks and each episode bookended by Hanks, the final episode directed and starring Hanks. This is a series I can't recommend highly enough!

You wondered about the astronauts living situation...and yes, almost all of them did live far from the launch pads at Cape Canaveral. Most of the astronauts called the Houston area home, since the location where pretty much all their training happened was the Johnson Space Center, while the launches all happened in Florida...that is why Marilyn Lovell was staying in a motel in Florida.👍

Those big camera rigs were based off the moving gun turrets on ww2 bombers. They used those cameras for tracking shots of it going up

You might want to add Sully (with Tom Hanks) to your watch list. It's the true story of the Miracle in the Hudson. Also highly recommend Hanks in yet another true story, Bridge of Spies - with the remarkable Mark Rylance (who won BOTH the Oscar and the BAFTA for his role in that...

17:46 We did go back to the moon. Apollo missions 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 all landed on the moon. In total 12 people have walked on the moon.

The LEM was about the size of two typical airline lavatories put together. The reason that the filter on the command module and the filter on the LEM were different was because they were built by two different companies. And the walls of the LEM were only about as thick as a sheet of heavy duty aluminum. You could easily punch your way through the wall.

27:48 the Lunar Module was Haise responsability (Paxton). And, according to the procedure, the mission commander (Lovell/Hanks in this case) is the one that, if necessary, drive the Lunar Module manually. Swigert (Bacon) was the Command Module pilot, that at that point is shut off, so the role ripartition during the maneuvre makes sense.

James, just in case no one else has explained it...the reason there was a delay in the 13 crew responding to Mission Control after making it thru the re-entry was due to the fact that they wanted to make sure the chutes deployed before risking using anymore extra power from the beleaguered batteries before they were assured of having chutes. They just didnt warn Mission Control of their intention to do that.

The problem with the door (aka the hatch) on Apollo 1, that caused the deaths of Grissom, White and Chaffee, was the hatch opened inwards, meaning it couldn't be opened against the internal pressure, and even less with the increased pressure from the fire.

I’ve been obsessed with early nasa since a kid, and know all kind of fun/weird facts: -the first American in space peed himself on the launchpad -the black and white caps are based on snoopy (hence, called snoopy caps) -the 3rd man on the moon, Pete Conrad, was the shortest astronaut. His first words on the moon were “Whoopie! that may have been a small step for Neil, but it was a big one for me!” -Apollo 12 astronauts had porn on the moon. It was a joke put there by the other astronauts

I’m sure a lot of people brought this up, but it’s LIEUTENANT, Dan not Sergeant Dan 😂

Sweigert was not out of the loop,he was fully trained and competent.there was never any friction between the crew.Ron Howard put that in there for some extra drama (as if it needed more drama!)

Yes they did film all the weightless floating scenes on the "vomit comet" plane. We landed on the moon 6 times.. Apollo 11,12,14,15,16,17. 12 people have been on the moon.

3:08 "Who's MCA?" They're a record company, Lynyrd Skynyrd actually was one of the musical artists that were contracted to them, and they'd performed the song "Working For MCA"

Marilyn Lovell had been to two launches before Apollo 13. He had been on a Gemini flight and had orbited the moon earlier in the Apollo project. That’s was when he named the crater after Marilyn.

It will forever be a mystery to me that this REALLY HAPPENED and yet it's rarely talked about nowadays. To me this is THE greatest space adventure mankind has ever face, even more so than actually walking on the moon.

I liked that it had the real Jim lovell on the aircraft carrier giving them all a hand shake.

Great choice for a movie to watch. I've seen this movie over a dozen times and I still get anxious from it even though I know the outcome. It's just so well done and every character feels authentic. It doesn't feel like anyone is "acting" -- it truly feels like watching a moment in time with how people really would act in the moments (both leading up to the launch and during the disaster). I love this movie. Great hoice.

It was amazing how many things had to right for them to come home. And it did. There was a Chevrolet dealer that gave each astronaut a new corvette in the Apollo mission. I think there was 6 human missions that landed on the moon.

The white-haired officer Tom Hanks shakes hands with on the carrier is the actual Jim Lovell.

The Apollo programme went to the moon 9 times (Apollo 8, 10, and 11 - 17). With the exception of Apollo 13, all the missions from 11 onwards landed. This year, the Artemis project sent a spacecraft capable of carrying humans (though it was uncrewed for the test flight) around the moon, with the aim of having Artemis 2 repeat the feat soon, except with humans aboard, and that will hopefully lead to Artemis 3 landing people on the moon for the first time since the 1970s.

the real Lovell played the captain on the ship at the end and his wife also made an appearance.

The Apollo 1 fire door issue was tragic irony. During a prior mission the emergency door explosives went off accidentally upon splashdown and the capsule sunk. So they removed the feature for safety reasons. The astronaut that happened to was in Apollo 1. Also, it was discovered Velcro becomes an explosive in a pure oxygen environment. There was limits on the amount of Velcro used in spaceships after that.

Actually after the first to land on the moon ( Apollo 11 ) Apollo's 12, 14, 15, 16 & 17 also landed astronauts on the surface of the moon.. 👍

There were nine Apollo missions that went to the Moon, comprising 24 astronauts (all Americans). In all, 12 men walked on the moon. There were several missions to the moon before this and several after it (which is why the media stopped covering these missions... claiming it had become boring).

So Ron Howard involved his whole family. His brother Clint was the one at mission control that said to shut down the fuel cells. His mom played Blanche and his dad was there priest on the couch in the Lovell home when they were returning

Just a quick correction-you said we had never been back after this, or maybe once, but there were 4 more Apollo missions that landed on the Moon - 14, 15, 16 and 17. Numbers 18 19 and 20 were in the planning stage but funding was stopped, so 17 was the last. In 2005, funding from both national and international sources was made available for the Artemis project to return to the Moon, and stay for longer periods and begin the process of creating scientific establishments that would remain on the Moon. The first Artemis mission was without any people onboard and was done last December.

My favorite scene is when Jim's mother says -If they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it.

Kevin Bacon has been in like a hundred movies lol. Stir of Echoes is one of the best. You should check it out. Gary Sinise (pronounced Sin eese) was LIEUTENANT Dan. He and Tom Hanks were both in Forest Gump, The Green Mile and Apollo13). All are excellent films.

Nominated for 9 Oscars in 1995: Best Picture Best Supporting Actor - Ed Harris as Gene Kranz Best Supporting Actress - Kathleen Quinlan as Marilyn Lovell Best Adapted Screenplay Best Film Editing (won) Best Original Score Best Art Direction Best Sound (won) Best Visual Effects Many people (myself included) thought it should have won Best Picture, but without a Best Director nomination, it was unlikely. To that point, only three films had won Best Picture without a nomination for directing.

We have been to the moon more than once for sure.. here are all the times we went : As of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, twelve astronauts from the United States have walked on the moon. These missions were part of NASA's Apollo program. The missions were: Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (July 1969) Apollo 12: Pete Conrad and Alan Bean (November 1969) Apollo 14: Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell (February 1971) Apollo 15: David Scott and James Irwin (July-August 1971) Apollo 16: John Young and Charles Duke (April 1972) Apollo 17: Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt (December 1972)

Great reaction james! I think you should do hidden figurines its also based on a true story. 😁

16:30 The actor who played this mission control member is actor Clint Howard, Ron Howard's brother

They lived in Houston, but they launch out of Florida

Some trivia... the real Ken Mattingly was not the only one that put the power up procedure together. Also...director Ron Howard used his mom Jean to play Jim's mother Blanche. His brother Clint played the NASA team member that makes the crack about the IRS getting on Swaggert's case about failing to pay his taxes on time (the irony of that is Clint Howard has a history of problems with the IRS). Ron's father Rance also played the minister.

If you want a great read, "Failure is not an option" is fantastic. It isn't just about this flight.

OMGoodness, I just can't stop! 31:50 I totally agree! Humanity needs a shared goal; heck, a FRIENDLY rivalry got us to the moon!

You asked "why didn't they let the pilot fly?" Jack Swigert was the Command Module Pilot, he flew the Odyssey. Fred Haise was Lunar Module Pilot, he flew Aquarius. This is also a bit of a misnomer, because the Commander flew both. CMP was basically Navigator and LMP was Engineer,... But these were test pilots. None wanted to be anything but "Pilot" lol This began with the two-man Gemini spacecraft. Originally the positions were titled "Pilot" and "Co-Pilot", and NONE of the test pilot astronauts wanted to be called "Co-Pilot", so NASA kinda threw up their hands and said "Commander" and "Pilot", even though the Commander flies and the Pilot navigates and relays information.

15:42 They did indeed film the weightless scenes aboard the "Vomit Comet"

The woman that plays Jim Lovell's mom is actually Ron Howard's mom and the captain shaking Jim Lovell's hand at the end is actually Jim Lovell.

10:13 Typically astronauts lived near Huston's mission control, the launch was made from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Cool little personal fact: my birthday was the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 13 launch. Not sure if that makes me lucky or unlucky.

GM would give mission astronauts free Corvettes back then.

10:36 it was in the P-trap. The hotel management got it out for her, immediately. They knew who they were. Even astronauts in this area, it their car broke down, they could go to a dealership and get a free lease 🤣. They all drove free cars while in Florida.

Mission Control is in Houston, Texas and the astronauts train and live there. The rockets are launched from Florida so they can get over water right away. When all of the astronauts were test pilots they would fly themselves to the launches. I don’t know how common that is today.

35:04 "Did We Go Back To The Moon?" Apollo 17 was the last mission to the Moon

The only thing that is dramatic licence is the rowing and arguments amongst the crew. If you actually listen to the crew recordings it's scary just how calm and methodical they remained despite their circumstances. Credit to the NASA selection process and training.

For those of you who don't know: at the last scene on that Carrier there is this Admiral, shaking hands with Tom Hanks at 34:48. That would be the real Jim Lovell.

Lol, we'd been to the moon twice at that point. You forgot Apollo 12. 11 & 12 and 14 - 17 were moon landings. My grandfather was a contractor for 16 and 17.

Yes, they filmed in a plane.

The little bald guy with the black glasses is played by Ron Howard's younger brother Clint.

The early history of the US space program is covered very well in “The Right Stuff” (1983). Then, after the “Apollo 13” film, Tom Hanks produced a miniseries called “From the Earth to the Moon”, which covers the whole Apollo program. There are so many good stories in addition to Apollos 11 and 13.

Every single employee at NASA was called in during the crisis, all the way down to janitors. People slept in hallways and offices.

"We've been to the moon only one time" Are you sure about that ? ? ? We made a few more trips than that ✌️🙂

So the problem with the hatch on Apollo 1 stems from the following issues. During a flight the pressure in the capsule is trying to escape. With an inward opening hatch like the one on Apollo 1 that pressure helps keep the door sealed and the pressure in - that’s a very good thing. The bad thing is to open the hatch you have to equalize pressure with the outside otherwise there’s 100’s of lbs of force keeping the hatch closed due to the pressure differential. The Apollo 1 hatch on the pad required the crew to open a pressure equalization valve, wait for the pressure to equalize, then remove the inner hatch and push open the middle thermal hatch which also pushed open the outer aero hatch. It took 60-90 seconds for the crew to egress. Apollo 1 had a high pressure pure oxygen environment on the day of the fire. They had less than 20 seconds (a lot less) to egress which wasn’t possible with that design. The pressure from that fire meant there was no way to open the hatch once it started burning. Following the fire they went to an outward opening hatch design that combined the old inner and middle hatches which required adding a complicated and heavy latch train to keep the door closed against pressure inside the cabin. It could be opened in 3 seconds with crew egress only taking 30 seconds. Much safer in a fire. They also changed the design so it didn’t require high pressure pure oxygen.

A terrific quote I encountered recently has to do with Apollo 13..."NASA is absolutely not superstitious, but you can bet they will never launch anything numbered "13" ever again." Not sure if that is a real quote...but it definitely seems to be a real thing. Also...fun fact "consolation prize"...since they did not go into orbit around the Moon on their free return trajectory, Apollo 13 traveled a bit further away from Earth than all of the other flights to the Moon. So to this day, Lovell, Haise, and Swigert hold the record for the farthest distance from Earth people have ever traveled.

Kathleen Quinlan is one of my favourite actresses. Hugely talented and very beautiful.

15:09 Fun Fact, James: The Actress who played Jim Lovell's mother was the director Ron Howard's mother

The radio blackout on re-entry is still an issue to this day. Not one we're likely to crack any time soon unless we come up with an entirely new form of communication. The craft is surrounded by ionized atmosphere... literally plasma, and radio waves just don't go through it. So until they come out of the high speed portion and the plasma dissipates no comms. SpaceX Dragon capsules deal with this routinely. Though we've gotten extremely good at building ships that can handle that sort of thing.

We've been to the moon more than once. There are 12 astronauts who have been on the moons surface. So that's either 4 or 6 moon missions, depending on the size of each crew, and how many of each actually landed on the moon.

Up until the last person to walk on the moon in 1972 there have been 12 people that have walked on the moon

Ron Howard did a good job of sticking (mostly) to the truth _and_ making a really good movie. It's a bar argument what the biggest deviation from literal truth is, but my position is this: It's the CO2 filter scenes. NASA did not figure it out on the fly; they'd actually thought about it in advance, which for my money is even more impressive. But I understand why he did it this way for the movie, and I like it. (And the reason the cartridges were different is quite simple: Different contractors built the LEM and the Command Module. Spreading the contracts around helped get the funding through Congress.)