Respond to these rapid questions in our Apollo 11 quiz and we will tell you which Apollo 11 character you are. Play it now.
In comparison to other documentaries about the first moon mission, “Apollo 11” is a unique experience. In fact, it is unlike the majority of other films in every way. It’s magnificent and one-of-a-kind, a high-octane adrenaline rush of wonder and skill.
This is the first time that Todd Douglas Miller, the editor and director of “Apollo 11,” has told the story entirely in the present tense, omitting the historian interviews and vintage news clips that you would expect to see in a film about the space shuttle. The film is not a history lesson, despite the fact that the filmmaker was able to obtain access to previously unseen archival footage and previously unheard audio recordings, and synced them to create an almost dizzying sense of immediacy. It’s more like a psychedelic light and sound show, conceived in the spirit of “trip” films such as “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Woodstock,” “Apocalypse Now,” and “Koyaanisqatsi,” rather than a documentary.
It is explained in the film through simple line-drawn animations, which are reminiscent of the computer graphics in “2001,” what the various spacecraft are going to do. Despite the fact that Walter Cronkite can be heard but not seen, his voice is given no more dramatic weight than the voices of NASA announcers, supervisors, and technicians who are speaking into headphones. A majority of the most exciting moments—the launch and landing, the lunar surface separation and descent through Earth’s atmosphere—are conveyed through a series of still images taken from a fixed vantage point (for example, a view out of the spacecraft’s capsule window during re-entry that shows flames roasting the spacecraft’s heat shield). The film is intuitively put together, is fond of the grand gesture, and is frequently amusing. Given how well it performed on a medium-sized screen, I can only imagine how well it will perform on a large-screen television set.
But you shouldn’t waste any more time and start this Apollo 11 quiz.
And it is important to note the shape of the image at this point. There are two times as many pixels as there are pixels on the screen, giving it the proportions of a science fiction epic, a biblical spectacular, a Western adventure, or one of those long “roadshow” movies that used to play in theaters around the same time that NASA was preparing to send Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon. In this case, the decision was influenced by the discovery of the most valuable and impressive new material for the project: a 65mm motion picture film that was shot for a theatrical documentary that was ultimately abandoned. They have astonishing clarity and density, as you can see in these images. Their vibrant, cool colors will evoke memories of science fiction classics that were showing in theaters around the same time period in 1969.
Apollo 11 Quiz
However, these images are noteworthy not only for their crispness, scale, and sense of timelessness, but also for their historical significance. Their significance stems from the fact that, when it became clear that the documentary’s commercial release was in jeopardy, NASA took over and directed the cameras at technicians, construction crew members, and onlookers, capturing the banal but crucial context surrounding the astronauts’ feats of strength. We see footage of the launch pad being wheeled into position atop a massive platform with caterpillar wheels, men in hardhats scaling scaffolding that reaches hundreds of feet in the air, and spectators (including parents with children) congregating in a nearby department store parking lot to witness history being made: everything that isn’t covered in schoolbooks about the space shuttle launch.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this Apollo 11 quiz.
The film “Apollo 11” frequently splits the screen in the manner of “Woodstock” and other concert documentaries from the 1970s when the action moves indoors to mission control. This allows the film to follow multiple, concurrent lines of action in different locations, whether it’s technicians working on consoles on opposite ends of the control room or astronauts on the lunar surface taking a phone call from then-President Richard Nixon while NASA watches the exchange on a screen in Houston, as in the film. The film also makes use of split-screens to show the orbiter and the lander’s perspectives at the same time as they separate and reunite. A joyful music montage divides the image into ten panels, each of which depicts a group of NASA employees, forming a mosaic that conveys the collaborative effort required to pull off this magic trick. NASA employees are featured in each of the ten panels.
About the quiz
Matt Morton’s pulsing electronic score, which is based on an analog-era Moog synthesizer of the sort heard on albums by The Beatles, The Who, and Stevie Wonder, as well as in film scores such as “A Clockwork Orange” and “Tron,” further enhances the rock concert atmosphere. We are assured by a title card at the end of the film that Morton’s score was composed solely with instruments that were available in 1969. The reason for this is that (a) Morton’s work is much more reminiscent of the music of the 1980s film composers Vangelis and Tangerine Dream than it is of Neil Armstrong’s time; (b) it frequently suggests the kind of score that would play in a high-tech crime thriller while robbers cut into a safe with blowtorches; and, most importantly, (c) who cares as long as it is awesome, which this score most definitely is.
Also, you must try to play this Apollo 11 quiz.
But even in its own right, that particular assurance is magnificent in its own right, because it emphasizes the unity of vision that unites every aspect of this production, down to the most seemingly inconsequential technical detail. It is so rare to see films that are this completely imagined and ecstatically realized that when one does come along, it makes the majority of other films, even the good ones, seem underachieving in comparison. Any information that you may happen to take in while watching or listening to “Apollo 11” is secondary to the visceral experience of watching and listening to it on the big screen. You can feel it in your bones and may even have a physical memory of it later on, such as when you’re lying in bed at night after a long day at the beach, smelling the salt water in your nostrils and feeling the rising and falling of the waves in your legs and back. It’s that kind of movie.
We see a shot of the control tower of the aircraft carrier that was sent to retrieve the capsule after it had splashed down late in the film, after Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins have been there and back. The moon is hanging in the evening sky, small and pale in the frame, as if it were a dish of some sort. We have a different perspective now that we have been there. But it hasn’t lost any of its grandeur, which is understandable given how much effort it took to get there.
For more personality quizzes check this: Motherless Brooklyn Quiz.
