Customer Reviews

Moonwalk One - The Director's Cut

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This film is amazing. The footage makes the launch more exciting than film of any space shot I've ever seen. Besides that, this documentary is a complete time capsule of 1969, a unique year in a unique decade. It's rare to see a momentous event shown in all its context - music, politics, war, hair, psychedelia... Beyond both these feats, the film is art of the highest order. Breathtaking. It should be required viewing for all Americans. In schools, it should be shown for its historic value alone. But students of history, space exploration, film and life will all be enlightened by watching Moonwalk One. Do not miss it.

I first saw this remarkable work when it first came out, almost 40 years ago. It bowled me over, not only for the historic event it so vividly and engrossingly reported but for its cinematic brilliance. This was cutting edge filmmaking, using images, juxtapositions, music, and words in a way I hadn't experienced before. So I was a little afraid to see it again last week, in this new edition. So many films I loved as a kid now seem bland, old-fashioned. But, boy, not this one. Amazingly, it's still cutting edge filmmaking, as fascinating and stirring now as it was then.

I'm pretty sure that I've seen em all, but this one was hidden somewhere the last couple of years to me as an Apollo geek at least.
I discovered this juwel way too late!All of the movies of the last years have some snippets from "Moonwalk one" in it, because there is no material as raw as this. It was filmed, when it al happened and that makes it so unique.
The commentary is the major goody in my eyes, because the director remembers the things you dont see on the screen surrounding the scenes so vividly.
Thats the real treat.Example: We all know the scene when Neil,Buzz and Mike walk towards the Van which brings them to their rocket.
What I didnt know was that the camera man was surrounded by hundreds of bystanders and he had a sign on his back, that said: NASA camera, stay away or I'll kill you!
The whole movie shows you things in detail that you have never seen before, because this movie was forgotten and rested in a shelf of the director.
It was rediscovered and remastered, because when it came out in the early seventies the ppl were fed up with Apollo and it was a major flop.
Thank god things have changed.
An excellent movie, not only for the Apollo nerd.

Moonwalk One is a movie that should require no introduction, when you consider that it was a documentary specifically made to record the events leading up to, during and after the first moon landing. It is ironic therefore, that instead it received almost no recognition after it's initial run and afterwards, faded into obscurity.

That this movie survived the ennui surrounding the space program and was retrieved, restored and finally re-released is a story best told elsewhere and with more words than are available to me here in this short review; so suffice it to say that this truly is a unique example of the space documentary genre, one that not only speaks of where we were going but also of where we had been.

I was three years old when Apollo 11 landed on the moon... but I have a memory of the TV event because I associate it with the family trauma of my father being fired from his job as a grocery store manager. He was fired because he closed the store so that all twenty employees could go home and watch the lunar landing with their families. My father sensed then the grander meaning of that day as a turning point in human history and Moonwalk One captures this sensibility in a wonderful and visually poetic way. It was such an unexpected treasure for me to be able to have a greater understanding of what the Apollo 11 mission meant in the context of the end of the 1960's and to have a new appreciation for my father's determination to allow his coworkers be a part of it. The film feels very much like Kubrick's 2001, but wait, this was REAL!

A remarkable documentary which recalls a unique moment in history. Director Theo Kamecke was granted access to the firing room at NASA mission control and captures unique footage of the launch sequence. Following the astronauts during their training as-well as hearing from the ladies who made the space-suits, this is a well crafted, fascinating documentary, highly recommended.

This amazing film is worth buying just for one amazing scene alone where the Lunar Module blasts off from the moon to rendezvous with the Command Module. This film shows the whole lift off and journey to rendezvous from the Command Module and is just amazing to see its whole journey all from Michael Collins' view orbiting the moon.

This is a visionary film about all of humanity coming together for an event. Way more than a document about the first moonwalk, it's poetry that makes your insides quiver.