Apollo 13 (1995) Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, written by James Lovell, directed by Ron Howard
NASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage putting the lives of the three astronauts on board in jeopardy.
I was alive and aware during the actual events but wasn’t following the news then and didn’t know much about it until this film was released. I saw this film on its initial release but forgot a lot of it since then. Now on my second viewing I found that It’s not that exciting due to knowing the final outcome but some parts stand out.
The film is based on Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell’s book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13. He never flew in space again and so never walked on the moon. He died in August this year.
The most striking scene to me was with the astronauts talking privately among themselves on their way back from the moon and speculating that they were in fact doomed and that ground control was lying to them. They thought their angle of entry was wrong and they would “skip off” the atmosphere and be forever lost in space. This seemed to me true-to-life and chilling.
Another standout scene was when they circled the moon knowing they would never land. Lovell had named one of the mountains “Mount Marilyn” for his wife when he first circled the moon on Apollo 8. Now when they passed it again one of them spoke up and said “Jim, there’s Mount Marilyn”, he replied “I’ve seen it”.
Recommended. I streamed it on Starz.
NASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage putting the lives of the three astronauts on board in jeopardy.
I was alive and aware during the actual events but wasn’t following the news then and didn’t know much about it until this film was released. I saw this film on its initial release but forgot a lot of it since then. Now on my second viewing I found that It’s not that exciting due to knowing the final outcome but some parts stand out.
The film is based on Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell’s book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13. He never flew in space again and so never walked on the moon. He died in August this year.
The most striking scene to me was with the astronauts talking privately among themselves on their way back from the moon and speculating that they were in fact doomed and that ground control was lying to them. They thought their angle of entry was wrong and they would “skip off” the atmosphere and be forever lost in space. This seemed to me true-to-life and chilling.
Another standout scene was when they circled the moon knowing they would never land. Lovell had named one of the mountains “Mount Marilyn” for his wife when he first circled the moon on Apollo 8. Now when they passed it again one of them spoke up and said “Jim, there’s Mount Marilyn”, he replied “I’ve seen it”.
Recommended. I streamed it on Starz.
Statistics: Posted by Nicolas — Tue Oct 07, 2025 5:51 pm — Replies 14334 — Views 2883176