HOLY SHIT, MAN WALKS ON FUCKING MOON

April 23, 2010 2:10 PM

MOONWALK ONE - A surprisingly groovy look at the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in a full length documentary that contains a lot of rare and not often seen footage of the preparations and launch of the first manned mission to the moon. Warning: Also contains lots of theramins, trippy optical effects, faux bohemians and some really blowy narrative.
posted by loquacious (22 comments total)

I'm down with this!
posted by Liquidwolf at 2:24 PM on April 23, 2010

Welcome to FedFlix, Joint Venture NTIS-1832 between the National Technical Information Service and Public.Resource.Org. Here we feature the best movies of the United States Government, from training films to history, from our national parks to the U.S. Fire Academy and the Postal Inspectors, all of these fine flix are available for reuse without any restrictions whatsoever.

That's right, films from The U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Thank goodness for Archive.org!
posted by filthy light thief at 2:26 PM on April 23, 2010

lots of theramins, trippy optical effects, faux bohemians and some really blowy narrative.

Oh, that was IN the film?

I thought I was just having an acid flashback - damn hippies!
posted by Relay at 2:36 PM on April 23, 2010

Groovy is right. That opening....

"Hundreds of years before the dawn of history lived an ancient race of people: the Druids. Nobody knows who they were, or what they were doing...."
posted by Bummus at 2:37 PM on April 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

the druids were a race?
posted by radiosilents at 2:45 PM on April 23, 2010

Yeah, despite the faux populist hoodoo there is some really great archival footage in this one, stuff I haven't even seen before and I watch a lot of archival NASA videos. There's a little of everything from extended shots of Mission Control, space suit manufacturing and assembly, some unique launch gantry shots and extended views of the landing itself.
posted by loquacious at 2:47 PM on April 23, 2010

For reference, THE FUCKING MOON.
posted by carsonb at 3:42 PM on April 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

wow. this is AWSM.
posted by lapolla at 3:52 PM on April 23, 2010

For carsonb, THE FUCKING MOON. (See transcript.)
posted by dhartung at 3:56 PM on April 23, 2010

For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me

Song about the guy who had to stay in the orbit module while Aldrin + Armstrong went for their little walk.

Jeffrey and Me is everyone else - the entire human race, watching.
posted by philip-random at 4:28 PM on April 23, 2010

Couldn't this go in the open Apollo 11 thread? I mean, it's not July, so why the glut of eagle has landed posts?
posted by thescientificmethhead at 4:52 PM on April 23, 2010

Because someone found a cool movie and it's got us talking.
posted by philip-random at 5:17 PM on April 23, 2010

This is fantastic. But I notice around 1:09:50 that the American flag is flapping slightly, as if blown by wind. Could some of this footage have been staged?
posted by newmoistness at 6:07 PM on April 23, 2010

But I notice around 1:09:50 that the American flag is flapping slightly, as if blown by wind. Could some of this footage have been staged?

If they were going to stage it, wouldn't they stage it indoors?

The lack of atmosphere on the moon allows fabric to move in ways we wouldn't expect, the same way a feather falls at the same speed as a rock. The flag they planted is a very thin material with a metal pole along the top. As it unfurls it ripples and waves longer due to the lack of atmospheric friction dampening the oscillations of the flag material.

See The Great Moon Hoax.
posted by loquacious at 6:29 PM on April 23, 2010

Moonwalking is a stone groove, man.
posted by dhammond at 6:29 PM on April 23, 2010

Loquacious - fabulous footage! I skipped over a lot of the over dramatization to watch the footage in the spacecraft and the command centers - I'm a huge fan of the apollo space program so this was a real treat. But I realized as I was watching that I was expecting and missing the voice of Walter Cronkite! I wish they had gotten him to narrate this - say what you will, this was an amazing feat. I wondered about the power of the on board computer (did they call it something like systie???) - to get something that compact in 1969 that could do anything was an engineering miracle. Many thanks for this!
posted by bluesky43 at 7:50 PM on April 23, 2010

I watched almost the whole thing this afternoon. I laughed so hard when the seamstresses were explaining how they thought going to space would be really great "...everyday you get up you to work you go home you clean house, but if you go out there there's no house no kids no problem."
posted by thylacine at 12:39 AM on April 24, 2010

faux bohemians

fauxhemians?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:52 AM on April 24, 2010

loquacious -- that was an attempt to get some more activity going in this thread. I think, all hyperbole aside, that the moon landing hoax theory is quite possibly the single most stupid fucking notion in the history of humanity, and I could happily spend hours watching Buzz Aldrin punch its proponents in the face, hard, one by one. But I really like this movie and anything to do with space exploration in the 60's, so thanks for the post. Just thought a little cheap controversy might attract some more viewers.
posted by newmoistness at 8:08 AM on April 24, 2010

fauxhemians?

Fauxhemians
posted by philip-random at 9:09 AM on April 24, 2010

loquacious -- that was an attempt to get some more activity going in this thread.

The debate of whether or not the moon landing is a hoax is likely a non-starter here. However, the more I learn about the Cold War, the more I could believe it was a hoax just for political posturing. But that would be one hell of a hoax, since moon rocks were brought back and analyzed by many 3rd parties and identified as "yep, not from Earth!" and the radio transmissions that were unencrypted and live that anyone with basic HAM radio skills could pick up would also have to be faked.

Anyway. I would recommend not worrying about trying to stimulate "activity". Personally I would much rather not have a moon hoax derail in a thread I posted, and further - I judge the success of the posts I make based on the ratio of favorites to comments. If I get more favorites than comments I know I did right. Discussion, comments (and favorites) aren't everything.
posted by loquacious at 6:47 PM on April 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Surprised nobody has linked to the site of the cleaned up re-release. Quite a story behind its restoration.
posted by A189Nut at 10:23 AM on April 25, 2010 [1 favorite]