I suppose it has come to this. We have no manned space program anymore, Muslim outreach is a NASA priority according to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and a recent paper from a NASA postdoc suggests aliens will kill us because they can detect our global warming from light years away and think we are a threat.
After watching this video trailer for the movie, Plan 9 From Outer Space seems almost plausible now.
Plot fail – I suppose nobody in Florida noticed nor any of the thousands of NASA employees and contractors said a peep when the Saturn 5 rocket lifted off for Apollo 18. Yeah stuff like that is easy to keep under wraps. Though I haven’t seen the full movie, the trailer makes it pretty clear that I’d never want to. Originally scheduled for release in the spring, it has been delayed and now has a planned release Sept 2nd.
Hollywood, like NASA, has lost its mojo.
I feel for the crew of Apollo 17, including my friend and fellow skeptic Dr. Harrison Schmitt. This film makes a mockery of the the Apollo program and the true final mission.
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What is behind this, of course, is the long popularity of movies that evoke the helpless feeling in nightmares (I too have only seen a few seconds of this movie in commercials). I had nightmares growing up (and “Plan Nine From Outer Space” was, for me, not the schlockiest but the scariest movie of all, as a kid), and I deliberately set out to kill any monsters I encountered in them. I found that they literally disintegrated, or changed into helpless mewling embryos themselves, when determinedly attacked. So I have been immune to “nightmare” movies ever since, and I look down upon those who relish them (sorry, but my personal experience makes such fans seem only pathetic in their failure to confront their inner demons). I would not even bring all this up, except that I think the people of the world (especially the Old World, or those encumbered by the sense of long-past injustices) need especially to defeat their own inner demons now, not project them upon other people in the real world. If you are troubled by nightmares, I will tell you how to stop them: With anger, not fear. Hit them as hard as you can (even if they are a thousand feet high and made out of solid rock, or hardest steel); they will disintegrate before your determined blows. Then, be open to new-found confidence, and respect from others, in the real world, and really live your life.
They had to do something with all that left over equipment from Hanks’ Earth to the Moon. Oooh! I know, Andromeda Strain meets Zombieland.
Holding “18” to the lowest B-movie standard possible, it makes more entertainment sense than Hansen makes scientific sense.
Yeah. It looks pretty awful.
On the other hand, I just saw “A Sound of Thunder”, loosely (and I do mean loosely) based on a classic short story by Ray Bradbury. Apollo 18 would have to work very hard to be worse than that steaming pile of…
I wasn’t aware of this film, however James Michener’s epic novel Space centres around a fictional Apollo 18 mission and was a great read.
The reason for the film is obvious. Hollywood has no imagination, they’ve run out of ideas. That’s why they keep doing remakes.
Let’s be clear on the alien paper.
—
So here’s the thing. This isn’t a ‘NASA report.” It’s not work funded by NASA, nor is it work supported by NASA in other ways. It was just a fun paper written by a few friends, one of whom happens to have a NASA affiliation. […]
Is such a scenario likely? I don’t think so. But it’s one of a myriad of possible (albeit unlikely) scenarios, and the point of the paper was to review them.
http://paleblueblog.org/post/9110304050/some-important-points-of-clarification
I don’t know about worst of this century, I’ve seen Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, a movie partially filmed in my very own city of Port Coquitlam, B.C.
What Hollywood needs to do is create more movies about cllimate change, that will bring in the crowds. 😉
I don’t see what the big deal is…it’s just a movie and the documentary style for fictional movies is certainly not a new concept. I don’t think they are ‘mocking’ the crew of Apollo 17 — I think they were just making what they thought was a cool “what-if” movie.
Let’s quit calling it science fiction … it’s just fiction.
John Carter says:
August 24, 2011 at 3:14 am
Good grief – chill out – it’s a movie.
It’s entertainment, not history!
You are missing the point of hollywood. It is there as a platform for the socio-communists such as Moore to indoctrinate and educate the masses in their/his beliefs. This s not just a movie. Try to find out who paid for most of it. That maybe more telling.
“Moon”, a little 2009 film starring Sam Rockwell was excellent if you’re looking for a good SciFi flick you probably haven’t seen.
Unfortuately, as cool as manned space flight is, it is not how man is ever going to explore the galaxy. Physics just won’t allow it. We could get to Mars, which would be cool, but there is nowhere else in the solar system where we could explore barring a massive leap in technology. Man couldn’t survive a few minutes on Venus, couldn’t even land on the gas giants. The amount of knowledge we have gained from Hubble, Swift, Chandra, etc absolutely dwarfs the information we gained from landing on the moon.
However an observatory on the moon, that would be both useful and ambitious, and likely within our grasp.
Shaun Dunne:
At August 24, 2011 at 5:32 am you say;
“Let’s be clear on the alien paper.
–
So here’s the thing. This isn’t a ‘NASA report.” It’s not work funded by NASA, nor is it work supported by NASA in other ways. It was just a fun paper written by a few friends, one of whom happens to have a NASA affiliation. […]”
Yes, let us be clear. IT IS A NASA PAPER. Only NASA can repudiate a paper published in NASA’s name by a NASA employee. NASA has not done that.
Richard
Figured it out – NASA secretly developed a “stealth” Saturn V.
I dunno, I can think of some really bad SciFi films.
I don’t know, hard to tell how bad or good it is from that trailer. I don’t understand such a harsh reaction from only a trailer… And remember, it has to be really, really awful to beat An Inconvenient Truth 😉
. . ..if you wonder how he eats and breathes, and other science facts, repeat to yourself ‘Its, just a show, I really should relax!'”
The sad thing is that a large gaggle of people will actually believe this to be a documentary.
Having been to the launch of both Apollo 12 and 13, there is NO way a Saturn V could be launched without notice. Seismographs as far away as Jacksonville Fl were set off during these launches.
Score! Lots of MST3Ks on Netflix too!
—
. . ..if you wonder how he eats and breathes, and other science facts, repeat to yourself ‘Its, just a show, I really should relax!’”
Some of us need to release anger from time to time by having a go at things. Today Anthony had a go at a B movie. Good luck to him, it’s better than kicking the cat.
I don’t think Anthony is part of their demographic. Old guys like us go to a movie, what, .5 times a year?
If you’re going to do a movie about a hidden moon menace, do it right:
Very rare to not be disappointed by Hollywood’s stab at “sciency fiction”. This one will join a long list of discredits: The Core, Volcano, The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Blue Sea…
On the other hand, waiting till you can rent them and holding your own living room version of MST3k can be fun, too.
Have to agree on the plot fail regarding who would miss a Saturn V lift off. My wife and were discussing just this problem yesterday after watching the trailer. Even if they lifted from Vandenberg instead of the Cape, someone would have noticed it. That rocket cannot be mistaken for a sat launch vehicle.
I doubt however that this movie can possibly be as bad as Plan 9 from Outer Space. That movie is just plain horrid and in a special class all by itself.
“Tom in Florida says:
August 24, 2011 at 6:11 am
The sad thing is that a large gaggle of people will actually believe this to be a documentary.”
Exactly right Tom. That is what I fear too.
Apocalypse Now was seen as representative of river boat duty in VN. Having been there and done that I was annoyed my GFs daughter thought it was accurate.