Relaxing after work yesterday I watched an old video, Capricorn One. With an air of the mounting tension in All The President's Men, the movie is a conspiracy theorist's dream, telling the story of the Capricorn One crew's journey to Mars. The opening footage of a Saturn V ready for launch on the LUT at sunrise are very evocative of the whole 1970's Apollo project. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, a sort of cold war counterpoint to the historic final flight of the Shuttle Atlantis actually taking place this week. Anyone else like the movie?
It was on TV a few months back. I'd never seen it before and it was pretty good. Very good ending.
ReplyDeleteI like it lots. But whenever I watch it I get the nagging feeling there are people who see this movie as vindication of their Moon-Landing-conspiracy nonsense.
ReplyDeleteI'm with philotoadia re not wishing any aid or comfort to the "Moon landing was a hoax" crowd.
ReplyDeleteThe other major problem I have with the film is the idea of mounting a Mars expedition with Apollo hardware and every single subsequent thing depicted as being part of the supposed mission. And it's not that it's impossible on purpose, because everything we're shown is meant to be believable as part of the mission as it would have proceeded, and no one is supposed to spot anything wrong. The Mars mission as presented is impossible -- just one more example of Hollywood deciding that one half-hour's research is too much trouble because only a bunch of brainiacs would know the difference.
Those two points aside, I remember it having a great cast and the chase scenes being well-directed and suspenseful.