“From the Earth to the Moon”: HBO mini-series

In 1998, HBO launched its massive Tom Hanks creation, From the Earth to the Moon, a 12-part miniseries detailing the entire space program in America, from its early days to the last moon-landing. The mini-series was highly decorated at the time, and it is not hard to see why. A massively ambitious project, it examines all the different aspects of the program – from the astronauts, to the “world outside”, to the pressures from NASA, to the engineers who had to build these spacecraft, to the wives – and it does so, blessedly, with very little schmaltz. This is potentially tough material. It seems like a no-brainer, but the traps are everywhere. It could have been far too golden-hued or kitschy, or it could have left out the more petty parts (the clash of astronaut egos, the political pressures and ramifications, the very human emotions of greed and ambition) in favor of a more promotional flag-waving endeavor. It brings up (at least in this American viewer) a sense of national pride (“Look at what our guys did!), which should be just treated as a given, and not worked for, because otherwise the entire thing becomes a propaganda exercise. From the Earth to the Moon does not fall into that trap. It knows it has a great story – not just in the space program as a whole, but each different mission – and its challenges, its triumphs, its stop-gap solutions. By the end, you really get the sense of just how ambitious (and crazy) this project really was. The mini-series is smart to focus on the details of the space program, and let the emotions come as they will – not work for them.

It’s telling that my favorite episode of the 12 is the one called Spider, which details the journey of Grumman Aircraft’s building of the Lunar Module, which took eight years, and much improvisation. It is a slam-dunk of an episode, and mainly involves guys in glasses and white shirts and ties hovering over small nuts and bolts, and staring at their little space-craft models with serious eyes. But by the end of the episode, when that Lunar Module is being taken off to actually, you know, be USED, to land on the moon … and the wonderful Matt Craven, who plays the head engineer, watches it go off, you really get the impact, the hours of manpower and the hundreds (thousands) of men involved in making such an accomplishment possible. It is truly moving. And the emotion is earned, not assumed. The astronauts, naturally, got all the glory. Perhaps with the doomed Apollo 13 mission, the engineers and Mission Control guys took center stage – it was them who figured out how to get those boys home … but I very much liked that From the Earth to the Moon focused one of its episodes on the true NERDS of the space program, the guys who struggled and suffered and brainstormed, over a number of years, to make this thing happen. They were building something that had no precedent. There was nothing to work from. Nothing to look to as a model. Every step of the way had to be thought out, tested.

Unforeseen consequences of tiny choices had enormous impact. The velcro, for example, used throughout the command module, to stick pens to, to stick their feet onto … a practical solution to the floating void of space the astronauts would have to be working in. The velcro was a practical solution, which – during the Apollo 1 fire, which ended the three astronauts’ lives – ended up having dire consequences, due to its flammability under a higher oxygen level. But there were so many things like that that could not be avoided, no matter the brainpower focusing on each problem … and the mini-series does not shy away from that reality. These guys were test pilots. They were used to taking their lives into their hands. They knew the risks. But it still didn’t mean that they were cavalier when men were lost. It is a difficult and complex thought, and From the Earth to the Moon is tangible with that reality.

The series is filled with great acting, and one of the best aspects of it (and it is that way by design) is that it is not a star vehicle. We don’t follow one man through the program. People come in and out. There are a couple of regulars. Nick Searcy (what a face, what a wonderful actor) plays Deke Slayton, an astronaut not allowed to fly due to a heart problem. That must have been a bitter pill for him to swallow, but he took his expertise and know-how to become the over-seer for each mission, handling the flight commands. He appears in nearly every episode. Then there are astronauts who start to grow in importance, as their mission comes nearer – Tony Goldwyn (who is marvelous) plays Neil Armstrong, and we see him briefly at the beginning, in the first episode, and he then subsides … until it is his turn. Other actors (Tim Daly, Dave Foley, Cary Elwes, Mark Harmon) play other astronauts, who have their moment in the sun. All of them, naturally, want to be the first guy out. These are competitive gentlemen, and the mini-series really captures that Right Stuff “yeah, baby” relationship between all these guys. But we also have Lane Smith, in a fictional character, based on Walter Cronkite, who details the space program for us, over a number of episodes, interviewing the astronauts, and giving us essential details of how the whole thing works. He’s wonderful. There are people (like Kevin Pollak and the marvelous James Rebhorn – he’s my kind of actor) who take center stage for one episode alone, and then disappear. Stephen Root, another actor whom you would instantly recognize and exclaim, “Oh, it’s that guy!”, is fantastic here in a number of episodes. God, is he fun to watch. He gets the humor, the toughness, the steely-eyed focus … Wonderful. But the list goes on and on. Ann Magnuson has a small cameo as the sweet nurse who works with the astronauts before each mission, and there’s one shot of her, in her office, during a launch, clutching a rosary, eyes closed, lips moving in prayer. Every time we have seen her up to that point, she is taking blood from an astronaut’s arm, or bantering with them – every time we have seen her she has been in her official position. But the mini-series takes the time and has the imagination to show her, by herself, praying for those guys she has come to know. It’s a lovely touch, but the mini-series is full of subtle moments like that. It flat out would not work without them. Something like this, so grand in scope, so huge in ambition, needs – and needs desperately – to be grounded in reality and detail. From the Earth to the Moon is.

Ron Howard and Brian Glazer were producers on the project, and, in a really nice dovetail, have gotten as many of the actors from Apollo 13 as they possibly could. Not to play the same parts – but it’s nice to see that those who played astronauts in Apollo 13 play astronauts here as well. Ron Howard’s brother, so memorable in Apollo 13, plays another Mission Control guy. Some of the Mission Control guys in Apollo 13, who are also astronauts looking forward to their own missions (I love the one guy who says, “When I go up there, I’m bringin’ my entire collection of Johnny Cash”) – play astronauts in From the Earth to the Moon. Familiar faces. If you’re an Apollo 13 nut like I am, you will recognize everyone. “Oh! That’s the guy who helped build the filter!” It’s down to that level of detail. And so it creates a real feeling of community and continuity. Even though these people are actors, because they have already inhabited that world so accurately in Apollo 13 – they bring with them the memories of that film, helping add to the sense of authenticity in From the Earth to the Moon. Nice choice.

Each mission has its own character and challenges. Tom Hanks, a space nut since he was a little kid, says in one of the DVD extras, that while we all know the name of Neil Armstrong – how many people are aware of just what went on during the mission known as Gemini 8? But there would be no Neil Armstrong on the moon if it hadn’t been for the steps taken in Gemini 8 (and all the others) … and by watching each mission unfold, you really get the sense of the teamwork and ingenuity involved. It was a nearly impossible task. Not to mention the fact that all eyes were on NASA. The gauntlet had been thrown down: “by the end of the decade” … so the deadlines are unreasonable, the media-spotlight intense … not to mention the fact that there were other national things to worry about at the time, like assassinations and war and civil unrest. Did we really care about getting to the moon when things were so bad on earth? Because this is a mini-series, it doesn’t have the problem of focusing on just one of these things, which would make it all rather top-heavy and ponderous. There is one episode called “1968″, which focuses on the events of that terrible year (not just in America, but around the world), and the sort of otherworldly old-school atmosphere of NASA, still moving along, still moving ahead … but with attention being pulled off their objective. The mini-series format helps us glance upon these important things, but not dwell … not stay there … factor it into the mix, and move on.

The overall effect is that of a collage.

I watched it when it first came out. It felt like the entire country watched it. It was, that rarity nowadays, a television event.

I am now, naturally, watching it again, on my own time … mainly because Ben Marley, who played astronaut John Young in Apollo 13, is here again, playing Roger Chaffee, one of the astronauts who died in the fire on the launch-pad in Apollo 1. And so my motives are not pure (or ARE pure, however you look at it) … but it’s been a lot of fun to watch the entire thing again, over the last two weeks. It’s a mind-boggling accomplishment, as a whole. And I haven’t even mentioned the stellar special effects, an undertaking deserving of its own documentary in and of itself. In the DVD extras, there is a “featurette”, detailing the creation of all of the images, and it was fascinating. One of the things I really liked about it was that it had a mix of digital effects and actual footage. For example, one of the biggest sets was ever built – a replica of the moon surface – which was almost two acres large. The shots of the crew, walking around on the moon, placing big plaster-of-paris rocks, and basically shoveling moon-dust around, wearing plaid shorts and sweatshirts and tool belts, is hilarious – a beautiful incongruous moment of movie-making. How to make the effect of sunlight and shadow on the moon? We learn about that in the documentary. How to make the astronauts appear weightless? We learn how they did that, too. A giant undertaking, and I thought the special effects here were superb.

There are other actors I haven’t even mentioned, ones that I would love to write more about. David Andrews, who plays Frank Borman, he of the ice-blue eyes, bushy eyebrows, and basic awesomeness, is one of my favorite characters in the entire mini-series. He is a fantastic actor, never less than riveting, three-dimensional, powerful … But he is just one of many.

I will, obviously, be writing more about this, but I wanted to just give my overall thoughts this morning.