Apolo 13 (1995)
Christian Ethics and the Movies
“It is better to watch a good movie again than a bad movie once.” DAT
Reviewed by David A. Thomas, Prof. of Rhetoric, Emeritus, University of Richmond
Space Exploration
Apollo 13 (1995)
In 1995, the Academy Awards nominated Apollo 13 for nine Oscars, including Best Picture. It actually won two, for Best Editing and Best Sound. Ron Howard was not even nominated for Best Director. I am among those who believe that the Academy made a major oversight when it passed over Howard and his milestone movie, Apollo 13. Instead, that year, Braveheart won Best Picture, and Mel Gibson won Best Director. Apollo 13 broke new ground for technological achievements, including actual weightlessness in the space flight scenes. It was Ron Howard’s greatest directing achievement up to that point.
The story of Apollo 13 was based on an actual event that took place in the U. S. space program in April, 1970. Astronaut Jim Lovell detailed the botched (some thought a jinxed) mission in his book, Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13.
The movie takes the viewer into the crew’s experiences during their near-fatal space flight. The suspenseful adventure story concerns the ground team’s efforts to bring the disabled space capsule safely back to earth after allowing it to complete an orbit around the moon. It had originally been scheduled as a moon landing flight. The circumstances required them to abort the moon landing, since it became paramount to re-engineer the return of the manned flight crew safely to earth again.
The movie is noted for its special effects, particularly the realistic weightlessness of the trio of pilots throughout the duration of their flight. The reason it seemed so authentic is because the actors were really weightless while filming those scenes. Howard took the actors for over 500 parabolic arc flights in NASA’s KC-135 airplane, nicknamed “The Vomit Comet.” Each of the arcs produced a maximum window of 23 seconds’ worth of zero gravity. (All of these flights were completed in 13 days.)
Although all eyes are focused on the astronauts, space flights are actually controlled by the crew on the ground. Astronauts are essentially technicians who follow their checklists. They do not improvise. Whenever something unexpected occurs, the engineers and scientists maintain total control, not the pilot. Apollo 13, therefore, recounts the story of how the Flight Control Officer, Gene Kranz, kept his cool and led his ground control team to solve a series of seemingly engineering insurmountable problems on board the spacecraft brought Lovell and his flight crew back to earth safely.
In a way, although Tom Hanks is the marquee star of the movie, Ed Harris (playing Gene Kranz) is the real hero of the story. Indeed, Harris was one of the Oscar nominees.
To illustrate, here’s an excerpt from Kranz’s dialogue in the script that shows why he was the true hero in the Apollo 13 story. In the midst of the initial chaos in the Johnson Flight Center, when all the indicator dials on board the craft were plummeting, and the computers were printing out impossible readings, Kranz quieted his assistants and calmly said, “I want everybody to alert your support teams. Wake up anybody you need. Get them in here. Let`s work the problem, people. Let`s not make things worse by guessing.”
Later, he declared, “We never lost an American in space. We`re sure as hell not gonna lose one on my watch. Failure is not an option.” Here’s a final example, as the minutes ticked away during the final descent of the capsule, someone said, “This could be the worst disaster NASA`s ever experienced.” With near-serene determination, Kranz replied, “With all due respect, sir, I believe this is going to be our finest hour.”
The Social Text. The movie used the archetypal image of light and dark as the symbol for the straightforward problem-solving techniques used by the NASA team. Gene Kranz & Company did not yield to their fears and frustrations. At no point did Kranz or any of his team leaders lapse into anger, blaming, or name calling, even when the Apollo craft swung into a communication dead zone and complete darkness in its orbit behind the moon. There were several minutes of blackout with the capsule as it orbited, hidden from earth, with its power shut down to conserve its ebbing batteries.
According to the movie, the entire ground team was costumed in white lab jackets, or white shirts and ties. Kranz himself always wore an ornate white vest which his wife had made for him as a gift. Every time the story called for quiet, concentrated reasoning, the screen showed the scientists and technicians huddling together, clothed if not haloed in pure, bright lights. Kranz himself was the image of Sir Lancelot, the White Knight.
Coincidentally, Oliver Stone’s Nixon was also released that same year of 1995. The light-dark symbols could not have contrasted more between the two movies. According to Stone’s treatment of Nixon’s downfall, at the end of his tragic failed Presidency, Nixon was captured by his own mental dark side. Most of Nixon’s scenes happened at night. Nixon, therefore, was lit in relative gloom rather than in bright daylight. Nixon’s countenance, also, was always blackened by his chronic five-o’clock shadow, further accented by the dark circles under his eyes. His chronic state of mind was reflected by his frowning, and by the deep furrows etched in his brow.
Looking further into Oliver Stone’s biopic, Nixon’s typical responses to the series of frequent crises during his presidency’s latter stages was always an eruption of anger, cursing, and emotional acting-out. Nixon’s final scene showed the doomed President sitting alone in his study, awkwardly erasing that famous incriminating tape’s crucial 18 minutes, while taking deep swigs of whiskey.
How different could two opposite problem-solving approaches be, than to contrast the shadowy Nixon with the bright, optimistic, clear thinking Gene Kranz?
Apollo 13 is an inspiring true story. It is rich with some basic spiritual archetypes, centered on the full moon. The plot follows the monomythic quest formula. Like the ancient mariners who set off on voyages into unknown seas, Apollo 13’s narrative recounts a launch into the depths of space. The astronauts are Everymen, but they have the advantage of being watched over and protected by their guardian angels, the ground controllers.
A key sub-plot in the narrative concerns the vital components of leadership and teamwork. Recall that the original designated Apollo 13 pilot, Ken Mattingly (played by Gary Sinise) became ill at the last moment and had to give up his place on the flight to a substitute, Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon). Rather than scrub the flight, the decision was made simply to replace Mattingly by plugging in Capt. Swigert into Mattingly’s slot. They seemingly took the risk in order to give Jim Lovell his last shot at making a moon walk.
When the accident occurred aloft, this ad hoc trio of astronauts felt much tension, as they worked together on board, though they had never trained together as a unit. The astronauts sorely tested the vital component of trust,. Their working relationship was exacerbated by the fact that Swigert, a bachelor playboy, had a reputation of being a volatile hothead and a dangerous “cowboy” as a pilot.
Again, when the on-board accident occurred. Mattingly, the original member of the astronauts who had been passed over, was quickly called back to the job. They needed him to join in efforts to diagnose the on-board situation and to improvise quick fixes, using whatever limited materials were available in the capsule.
Mattingly unselfishly went back into the flight simulator and tirelessly ran through repeated stress trials with the other engineers. His unsung real-life drama was added to the race against time, as he ran through tedious bench tests, even as the trapped astronauts were sweating out certain death in their disabled space capsule in the event that NASA failed to invent a solution to their unprecedented dilemma.
Current Status of the Space Program. The current year, 2010, is a major transition point in the U. S. space program. The shuttle program is finally being retired. The future of the space program is in transition to some planned new projects that will not come to fruition for several years.
America’s space exploration has been an offshoot of the military’s rocket weapons development, particularly since the 1960s when the USSR’s Sputnik shook up our post-WWII complacency. JFK pledged to regain the “space lead,” and put a man on the moon within a decade. NASA is primarily a peacetime application of rocket technology.
Notable achievements have been the Apollo series of moonshots, the Hubble telescope, and the shuttle system. Several disasters have marred the history of the program, including the tragic Challenger explosion in 1986 (the year after the movie Apollo 13), and the breakup of the Columbia on reentry in 2003.
The total cost of the peacetime space program over the past fifty years has approached $200 billion. Whether the economic and scientific benefits gained have been worth the investment is an open question. Meanwhile, there is little question that the space exploration story line has inspired the world’s imagination. It is become deeply etched into our nation’s mythic consciousne
David Thomas resides in Sarasota, FL and may be reached at davidthomas1572@comcast.net
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