Production
[edit]Pre-production and props
While preparing for the shooting of the film, director
Ron Howard decided that every shot of the film would be original and that none of the actual footage from the original mission, or any other mission would be used.
[4] The spacecraft interiors were constructed by the
Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center's Space Works, who also restored the actual
Apollo 13 Command Module. Two individual
lunar modules and two command modules were constructed for filming. While each was a replica, composed of some of the original Apollo materials, they were built so that different sections were removable, which enabled filming to take place inside the diminutive interior space of the capsules. Space Works also built modified command and lunar modules for filming inside a
Boeing KC-135 Reduced gravity aircraft. Additionally, Space Works made the pressure suits worn by the actors, which are exact reproductions of those worn by the Apollo astronauts, right down to the details of being airtight. When the actors put the suits on with their helmets locked in place, oxygen was pumped into the suits to cool them down and allow them to breathe, in the exact manner of real astronauts.
[5]The real
Mission Control room is located on the third floor of a building in
Houston, Texas.
NASA offered the use of the actual control room for filming but Howard declined, opting instead to make his own replica from scratch.
[4] Production designer Michael Corenblith and set decorator Merideth Boswell were in charge of the construction of the Mission Control set at Universal Studios. Built to within six inches of the specifications of the real Mission Control in Houston, the set was equipped with giant rear-screen projection capabilities and a complex set of computers with individual video feeds to all the flight controller stations. In addition, the actors playing the flight controllers were able to communicate with each other on a private audio loop to better simulate reality.
[5] The Mission Control room built for the movie was on a ground floor.
[4] One NASA employee who was a consultant for the film said that the set was so realistic that he would leave at the end of the day and look for the elevator before remembering he was not actually in Mission Control. By the time the film was made, the
USS Iwo Jima had been scrapped, so her sister ship, the
USS New Orleans, was used as the recovery ship instead.
[4][edit]Cast training and filming
| "For actors, being able to actually shoot in zero gravity as opposed to being in incredibly painful and uncomfortable harnesses for special effects shots was all the difference between what would have been a horrible moviemaking experience as opposed to the completely glorious one that it actually was.” |
| —Actor Tom Hanks[5] |
To prepare for their roles in the film,
Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and
Kevin Bacon all attended the
U.S. Space Camp in
Huntsville, Alabama. While there, astronauts Jim Lovell and
David Scott, commander of
Apollo 15, did actual training exercises with the actors inside a simulated
Command Module and
Lunar Module. The actors were also taught about each of the 500 buttons, toggles, and switches used to operate the spacecraft. The actors then traveled to
Johnson Space Center in Houston where they flew in NASA's KC-135
Reduced gravity aircraft to simulate weightlessness in outer-space. While in the KC-135, filming took place in bursts of 25 seconds, the length of each weightless period that the plane performed. The filmmakers would eventually fly 612
parabolas which added up to a total of 3 hours and 54 minutes of weightlessness. Parts of the command module, lunar module and the tunnel piece that connected them were built by production designer Michael Corenblith, art directors David J. Bomba and Bruce Alan Miller and their crew to actually fit inside the KC-135 airplane. Filming in such an environment, while never done before for a movie, was a tremendous time saver. In the KC-135, the actors moved wherever they wanted, surrounded by floating props; the camera and cameraman were weightless so filming could take place on any axis from which a shot could be set up. In
Los Angeles, all the actors, including Ed Harris and the others who comprise Mission Control, enrolled in a Flight Controller School led by
Gerry Griffin, an Apollo 13 flight director, and flight controller Jerry Bostick. The actors studied actual audiotapes from the mission, reviewed hundreds of pages of NASA transcripts and attended a crash course in
physics.
[4][5]Ron Howard stated that, after the first test preview of the film, one of the comment cards indicated "total disdain"; the audience member had written that it was a "typical Hollywood" ending and that the crew would never have survived.
[7][edit]Soundtrack
The score to
Apollo 13 was composed and conducted by
James Horner. The
soundtrack was released in 1995 by
MCA Records and has seven tracks of score, eight period songs used in the film, and seven tracks of dialogue by the actors at a running time of nearly seventy-three minutes. The music also features solos by vocalist
Annie Lennox and Tim Morrison on the trumpet. The score was a critical success and garnered Horner an
Academy Award nomination for
Best Original Score.
[8]- "Main Title" (1:31) - score
- "One Small Step" (0:42) - dialogue
- "Night Train" (3:27) - performed by James Brown
- "Groovin'" (2:26) - performed by The Young Rascals
- "Somebody to Love" (2:55) - performed by Jefferson Airplane
- "I Can See for Miles" (4:09) - performed by The Who
- "Purple Haze" (2:48) - performed by Jimi Hendrix
- "Launch Control" (3:28) - dialogue
- "All Systems Go/The Launch" (6:39) - score
- "Welcome to Apollo 13" (0:38) - dialogue
- "Spirit in the Sky" (3:50) - performed by Norman Greenbaum
- "House Cleaning/Houston, We Have a Problem" (1:34) - dialogue
- "Master Alarm" (2:54) - score
- "What's Going On?" (0:34) - dialogue
- "Into the L.E.M." (3:43) - score
- "Out of Time/Shut Her Down" (2:20) - dialogue
- "The Darkside of the Moon" (5:09) - score performed by Annie Lennox
- "Failure is Not an Option" (1:18) - dialogue
- "Honky Tonkin" (2:42) - performed by Hank Williams
- "Blue Moon" (4:09) - performed by The Mavericks
- "Waiting for Disaster/A Privilege" (0:43) - dialogue
- "Re-Entry & Splashdown" (9:05) - score
- "End Titles" (5:34) - score performed by Annie Lennox
[edit]Release
[edit]Box-office performance
The film was a box-office success, gaining $355,237,933 worldwide,
[2] which easily covered its production budget. The film's widest release was 2,347 theaters.
[2] The film's opening weekend and the latter two weeks placed it at #1 with a domestic gross of $25,353,380, which made up 14.7% of the total domestic gross.
[2]Apollo 13 box office revenue
| Source | Gross (USD) | % Total | All time rank (unadjusted) |
|---|
| Domestic | $173,837,933[2] | 48.9% | 126[2] |
| Foreign | $181,400,000[2] | 51.1% | N/A |
| Worldwide | $355,237,933[2] | 100.0% | 140[2] |
[edit]Reception
Apollo 13 garnered critical acclaim and at
Rotten Tomatoes, based on 51 reviews collected, the film has an overall approval rating of 97%, with a
weighted average score of 8/10.
[9] Among Rotten Tomatoes's
Cream of the Crop, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs,
[10] the film holds an overall approval rating of 88 percent.
[11] By comparison,
Metacritic, which assigns a
normalized 0–100 rating to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 85 from the seven reviews it collected.
[12] Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times praised the film in his review saying, "A powerful story, one of the year's best films, told with great clarity and remarkable technical detail, and acted without pumped-up histrionics."
[13] Kenneth Turan of
Los Angeles Times gave a somewhat positive review of the film saying, "Ron Howard, is certainly well-suited to the kind of sentimental, middle-of-the-road filmmaking of which
Apollo 13 is the epitome. And because the material to a certain extent cries out for this kind of worshipful treatment, the picture stands as Howard's most impressive to date. As noted, genuine courage was involved, and Howard is effective at putting the tension and bravery of that mission on screen."
[14] Richard Corliss from
Time Magazine highly praised the film saying, "From lift-off to splashdown, Apollo 13 gives one hell of a ride."
[15] Edward Guthmann of
San Francisco Chronicle gave a somewhat negative review and wrote, "I just wish that
Apollo 13 worked better as a movie, and that Howard's threshold for corn, mush and twinkly sentiment weren't so darn wide."
[16] Peter Travers from
Rolling Stone Magazine praised the film and wrote, "Howard lays off the manipulation to tell the true story of the near-fatal 1970 Apollo 13 mission in painstaking and lively detail. It's easily Howard's best film."
[17] James Berardinelli from
Reelviews highly praised the film saying, "While the events of this motion picture may not depict NASA's finest hour, the release of Apollo 13 represents Ron Howard's."
[18] [edit]Home media
A 10th-anniversary
DVD of the film was released in 2005; it included both the theatrical version and the IMAX version, along with several extras.
[19] In 2006,
Apollo 13 made its way into
high-definition video formats with its release on
HD DVD, and on
Blu-ray disc on April 13, 2010, the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 13 accident (
Central Standard Time).
[19][edit]Re-release
In 2002 the film was re-released in
IMAX. It was the first film to be digitally remastered using
IMAX DMR technology.
[20] The film was shortened by 24 minutes, and some vulgar language was removed.
[edit]Awards and nominations
1996 Canadian Cinema Editors (Eddies)[21] - Nominated – Best Edited Feature Film – Mike Hill, Daniel Hanley
- Nominated – Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases – Dean Cundey
- Won – Best Production Design – Michael Corenblith
- Won – Outstanding Achievement in Special Visual Effects – Robert Legato, Michael Kanfer, Matt Sweeney, Leslie Ekker
- Nominated – Best Cinematography – Dean Cundey
- Nominated – Best Editing – Mike Hill, Daniel Hanley
- Nominated – Best Sound – David MacMillan, Rick Dior, Scott Millan, Steve Pederson
- Nominated – Best Casting for Feature Film, Drama – Jane Jenkins, Janet Hirshenson
- Won – Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures – Ron Howard, Carl Clifford, Aldric La'Auli Porter, Jane Paul
- Won – Studio Crystal Heart Award – Jeffrey Kluger
- Nominated – Best Male Performance – Tom Hanks
- Nominated – Best Movie
- Won – Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award – Brian Grazer, Todd Hallowell
- Won – Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role – Ed Harris
- Won – Outstanding Performance by a Cast
- Nominated – Best Screenplay Adapted from Another Medium – William Broyles Jr., Al Reinert
- Nominated – Best Family Feature – Drama
- "Houston, we have a problem." 50th place
[edit]Technical and historical accuracy
The film is notable for its technical accuracy; principals reported that the film is reasonably faithful to the facts of the mission but adds some tension between the astronauts for dramatic effect.
The dialogue between ground control and the astronauts was taken verbatim from actual transcripts and recordings, with the notable exception of one of the taglines of the film, "Houston, we have a problem." (This quote was voted #50 on the list "
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes".) The actual words uttered by Jack Swigert were "Ok, Houston, we've had a problem here." Ground control responded by saying "This is Houston, say again please." Jim Lovell then repeated "Ah, Houston, we've had a problem."
[24] The script changed the quote deliberately, as Lovell's actual words suggested something happening in the past rather than the present.
A dramatic event in the film occurs when Mrs. Lovell drops her wedding ring down a shower drain. According to Lovell, this actually did occur (the Lovells refer to the incident in an interview on the DVD version of the film ), however the drain trap caught the ring and Mrs. Lovell was able to retrieve it.
Another tagline from the film, "Failure Is Not An Option", as stated by the Gene Kranz character, also became very popular but was not taken from the historical transcripts. As to the origin of the phrase, the following story was given, citing an email by Apollo 13
FDO Flight Controller Jerry Bostick:
- "As far as the expression 'Failure is not an option', you are correct that Kranz never used that term. In preparation for the movie, the script writers, Al Reinart and Bill Broyles, came down to Clear Lake to interview me on 'What are the people in Mission Control really like?' One of their questions was 'Weren't there times when everybody, or at least a few people, just panicked?' My answer was 'No, when bad things happened, we just calmly laid out all the options, and failure was not one of them. We never panicked, and we never gave up on finding a solution.' I immediately sensed that Bill Broyles wanted to leave and assumed that he was bored with the interview. Only months later did I learn that when they got in their car to leave, he started screaming, 'That's it! That's the tag line for the whole movie, Failure is not an option. Now we just have to figure out who to have say it.' Of course, they gave it to the Kranz character, and the rest is history."[25]
Unlike the movie, the book, and many first person accounts, the official accident investigation report did not conclude that the oxygen tank exploded. Instead, the report described in detail the multiple safeties like pressure relief valves and rupture discs specifically designed so that the spacecraft pressure vessels would not explode. This ubiquitous misunderstanding is explained further in the
Apollo 13 article. However, this remains controversial as most people, including Lovell, continue to characterize the failure as an
explosion.
The film depicts the oxygen tank "explosion" as occurring almost immediately after the tank-stir switch was thrown; in fact there was a delay of 93 seconds between the stir command and the tank failure.
[26]
Jim Lovell fantasizes about his lost Moon landing
A
DVD commentary track, recorded by Mr. and Mrs. Lovell and included with both the original and 10th-anniversary editions,
[19] mentions several inaccuracies included in the film, all done for reasons of
artistic license:
- In the film, Mattingly plays a key role in solving a power consumption problem that Apollo 13 was faced with as it approached re-entry. Lovell points out repeatedly in his commentary that in this case Mattingly was a composite of several astronauts and engineers—including Charles Duke (whose rubella led to Mattingly's grounding)—all of whom played a role in solving that problem. Also, Ken Mattingly did not watch the launch at Cape Canaveral as depicted in the film, but from the command center in Houston.
- When Jack Swigert is getting ready to dock with the LM, a concerned NASA technician says, "If Swigert can't dock this thing, we don't have a mission." Lovell and Haise also seem worried. In his DVD commentary, the real Jim Lovell says that if Swigert had been unable to dock with the LEM, he or Haise could have done it. He also says that Swigert was a well-trained Command Module pilot and that no one was really worried about whether he was up to the job, but he admitted that it made a nice sub-plot for the film.
- A scene set the night before the launch, showing the astronauts' family members saying their goodbyes while separated by a road, a distance introduced to reduce the possibility of any last-minute transmission of disease, depicted a tradition not begun until the Space Shuttle program.
