For All Mankind Is For Everyone

By: Dennis Rayburn
07/30/2009

As you have probably noticed, Thursdays are normally reserved for items in science fiction history, or dealing with a historic moment in man's conquest of space. I'm going to continue this, but I felt we needed just a little variance from history as, quite frankly, the onslaught of radio, TV, and printed media coverage of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 has quite possibly given us all a bit of a historic overdose! Therefore, from time to time, I will stray just a bit off the historic path to look not at a specific event in history, but talk about a book or DVD that covers science fiction or space history.

A couple of weeks ago, the Criterion Collection released a new DVD of a movie made in 1989 about the Apollo program, entitled For All Mankind. This movie, produced and directed by Al Reinert, a noted correspondent who covered the space program, takes a most unique approach to the subject he covers. While most movies focus on one specific flight, or on each flight individually, this one combines all of the missions that went to the moon, and causes it to become one mission.

In this film you start with President Kennedy's historic address at Rice University, where he proclaims that the USA is going to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard. From there, you see the film as you would if it was one great mission to the moon and back. You experience the liftoff, earth orbit, the Trans Lunar Injection burn (TLI), the flight to, and starting to orbit the moon, and most importantly landing and exploring the moon. During the journey to the moon, you do experience a segment of crisis, but it is resolved where the mission continues, unlike the Apollo 13 mission where the landing was aborted, and the crew made it home safe.

The scenes of the moon exploration are quite remarkable. These scenes are not from the TV cameras that covered the astronauts for NASA and the television media. For this movie, producer Al Reinert was given unprecedented access to NASA's film vault where he was able, by his admission, over the period of several years, to view segments of film taken on the moon that have never been seen by the public. With NASA's cooperation, Reinert has taken this never before scene footage, combined it with narration by many of the astronauts who made the lunar journeys, and made a documentary that has stood the test of time.

Only one thing bothered me about the movie. The movie is advertised to be made up totally of film shot during the nine Apollo missions that went to the Moon, but it was not. During the segment dealing with the time in Earth orbit before launching from it toward the moon, some of the film clips were not from Apollo missions, but from the Gemini program. You can tell by the shape of the window, which was unique to the Gemini spacecraft, the distinct nose cone which was only used in Gemini, and the fact that some of the footage is of Ed White's spacewalk on Gemini 4. I would respectfully suggest that in the future, be honest with your audience, as things like this don't get past everyone.

Like any DVD, one of the selling points is the extras that comes with it and For All Mankind is no exception. Along with the movie having been restored, the DVD comes with two short films, one on the making of the movie, and a second with video interviews with many of the Apollo astronauts. There is also a feature on Apollo 12 astronaut Al Bean who paints beautiful paintings of scenes from photos and his memories of the moon. The DVD tops off it's extras by having film clips of the four rockets being launched that have carried man from Mercury through Apollo, and a collection of audio clips that many people remember from those exciting times.

This is a good DVD and one that everyone in the family can enjoy. If you decide to by it, I must caution you to get the one with two distinct features on the cover. The first one is the front cover having a scene of an astronaut walking on the moon, and the second being a 2009 copyright notice on the back side of the package. These markings separate the new release from the last one in 2000.

This is a very unique film that presents what a mission to the moon was like back in the heady years of the Apollo program. Thanks to the unique style in which it was made, one can sit back, watch and get a feeling of what it would be like to have been there with the astronauts, and to imagine what we will see when men return to the moon in a few years.

Think about it.

Photos:  BarnesAndNoble.com, Flickr.com

Author: Dennis Rayburn

Dennis Rayburn is a columnist for Roddenberry.com. His column, "Two Strips of Latinum" appears every Sunday through Thursday.
Contact: drayburn@roddenberry.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/drayburn

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