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Neil Armstrong, famously reclusive, chose not to appear in the film, though his name comes up often, Aldrin says that Armstrong’s cool manner was admirable, with his “One small step for man.” Aldrin admits that had he stepped out of the lander first, he might not have been able to refrain form shouting something like “Yahoo, man, I’m here.” He also describes how Armstrong decided to “go long” when a boulder field was under the lander and notes that “it was a little iffy right there at the very end.”
Michael Collins talks about how he felt about orbiting the Moon without getting a chance to land, poinging out that he was glad to have been on the crew of the first manned landing. He wasn’t lonely when on the far side of the moon by himself, though he was aware that there were two people on the surface on the other side of the Moon and beyond them 3 billion on Earth, while “over here, there’s me plus.. god only knows what.” He noted of earth: “How fragile it appeared.” On his return, he remarked. “Nice ocean you’ve got here, planet Earth.” And Bean recalls, “Since that time, I have not complained about the weather one single time. I’m just glad there is weather.”
The strangest piece of historic footage is Richard Nixon beginning a speech to the nation announcing the failure of Apollo 11 and loss of its crew. Fortunately, that speech never had to be delivered. Earlier, we were shown John Kennedy announcing the goal of bringing men to the Moon and back safely to Earth by the end of the decade. But the omission of Lyndon Johnson from the movie (we only see him sitting behind Kennedy during the latter’s Senate speech) seems very strange because Johnson played major roles by suggesting the Moon landings to Kennedy and the by carrying through.
I was left with a sour taste by the film’s treatment of religion, near its end. Gene Cernan talks about a general creator “that stands above the religions that govern our lives,” and then Charlie Duke tells about finding Jesus. How about the other 10 Moon-landing astronauts? Did any lose religion or decide that religion was not a particular part of his voyage to the Moon? Earlier, Jim Lovell, who read from Genesis on Apollo 8, responding to a letter from an atheist who wrote “that was inappropriate,” answers, “Maybe it was; I don’t know.”
All the same, Sington offers a moving tribute to “a time when we made bold moves.” The film’s final credits wonderfully proclaim, “This film was shot entirely on location on Earth, in Space and on the moon.”
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