From the Earth to the Moon

1998

Seasons & Episodes

  • 1
  • 0

8.6| 0h30m| TV-PG| en
Synopsis

The story of the United States' space program, from its beginnings in 1961 to the final moon mission in 1972.

Director

Producted By

Imagine Entertainment

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Trailers & Clips

Reviews

Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism
SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie
Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
tracyb-112-681714 Site rules make me say "Spoilers" but Good Grief, who doesn't know this story? Episodes 1-6 follow a linear storyline, more or less. From the 1st manned Mercury to Apollo 11 which traveled " from the Earth to the moon" in Episode 6. I rank those episodes 10 of 10 but there's 6 hours of TV to follow. 6 hours of Truly Boring side stories, back stories and such, or maybe they're boringly told. Do yourself a favor and stop after Episode 6. The first 6 Episodes/Hours are among the best TV I've watched. You'll laugh, you'll cry and save yourself 6 hours. Skip episodes 7-12, it's like being grounded. On a side note and coincidentally(?) Episodes 1-6 are each 56-59 minutes long while Episodes 7-12 are 49 minutes long! I don't know what this means but..... Enjoy the first 6!
Maniac-9 This is a 12 hour explanation of how man was able to step foot on the moon, something that wasn't even in motion a mere decade prior to it happening. It's truly inspirational to think that just 10 years prior to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepping foot on the moon we weren't even trying to go to the moon. The monumental task of building and designing space shuttles and all the technologies that were invented along the way is amazing. All of the innovations that were invented to make space travel possible are used by most people in their daily lives without even realizing it. For example velcro was invented in this time.The characters of this miniseries are some amazing people with the likes Armstrong, Jim Lovell, Alan Shepherd and all of the other amazing astronauts of the Apollo space program.
Matthew Kresal Truth is stranger then fiction as the saying goes. If there ever was need to prove this one would need to look no further then HBO's 1998 miniseries From The Earth To The Moon. Acting a bit as television companion to Ron Howard's feature film Apollo 13, this miniseries covers the years between 1961 and 1972, this epic twelve hour miniseries covers the race to the Moon from the perspective of those in NASA who went on the missions, supported them from the ground and watched them take place.The epic cast of the miniseries is where much of its success lies. While it may be lacking any "named stars" in its cast it is a perfect place for numerous character actors to show their talents. The cast ranges from Nick Searcy as Deke Slayton, Lane Smith as the Walter Cronkite-like TV reporter Emmett Seaborn, David Andrews as Frank Borman, Stephen Root as Chris Kraft to Ted Levine as Alan Shepard, Rita Wilson as Susan Borman, Dave Foley as Al Bean and Mark Harmon as Wally Schirra amongst many, many others. Then there is of course executive producer Tom Hanks who acts, at the start of all but the last episode, as a sort of Chorus introducing the viewer to the story that is about to unfold.The series is also blessed with fantastic effects work. From The Earth To The Moon builds on the fantastic effects work done for the feature film Apollo 13 to accurately and dramatically recreate the flights of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. Of special mention is the effects work done in the episodes "1968" and "Mare Tranquilitatis". The CGI and model work blends in near perfectly with the archival material used in places throughout the series. Yet perhaps the biggest special effects highlight of the production is the moon walk recreations. As other productions on the moon landings have shown, recreating these famous moon walks are not easy and yet by the time you have finished watching the twelve hours this miniseries covers you'll be amazed at just how convincing the moon walks are. While there are one or two questionable special effects (such as the LLRV crash in "Mare Tranquilitatis") the effects are fantastic pieces that help make the recreation of the missions all the more believable.Yet the heart of From The Earth To The Moon lies in the scripts of its twelve episodes. Perhaps better then a documentary could, the miniseries' writing brings to the light of day the ambitions, dreams, egos, emotions, politics and the people behind the scenes of the Apollo mission to the Moon. While the first episode "Can We Do This?" moves along far too quickly due to the fact it covers as much history in a hour as the rest of the miniseries covers in eleven, the other eleven hours make for fascinating viewing. The various episodes cover the political fights that came up after the Apollo 1 fire ("Apollo One") to the lead-up to the flight of the first manned Apollo flight ("We Have Cleared The Tower") to the building of the Lunar Module ("Spider") to the media coverage of the Apollo13 mission ("We Interrupt This Program") to the scientific flights of the later part of the program ("Galileo Was Right") to the effect of the mission on the astronauts wives ("The Original Wives Club") to the contrasts between the 1902 filming of the George Melies film Le voyage dans la lune and, seven decades later, the last of the Apollo mission done in a documentary format ("Le voyage dans la lune"). Each script tells the story not only of the missions but of the people there as well and never does it descend into the cliché one has come to expect from TV docudramas.The best episode of the miniseries, in my opinion anyway, would be its fourth episode entitled simply "1968". Better then any documentary on the Apollo 8 flight I have seen to date, the Al Reinert (the filmmaker of the wonderful Apollo documentary For All Mankind) scripted episode puts the Apollo 8 flight in the perspective of the other disastrous events of 1968. Even more intriguing, the episode is stylishly shown with all of the Earth-bound scenes in this episode are filmed in black and white, while the astronaut scenes are in color giving an amazing documentary like effect for most of the episode. Add on the aforementioned acting and special effects, especially in the earth rise sequence, and the result is an amazing fifty-four minutes of television.Across the twelve hours and twelve episodes it covers, From The Earth Of The Moon is an amazing piece of television. From its fine acting, incredibly done special effects and fantastic scripts cover the story of the voyages of Apollo. It tells not just the story of the technological achievement of the Apollo flights but of the human stories that lied behind them, mostly unseen. While it might not always be exactly true to life it may well be as close to an accurate recreation of those amazing missions as we are ever likely to get.
Ron Brooks Frankly, every time that I watch the series, I get choked up. The dedication and bravery to make a mandate possible...Yes, it was a political mandate, but it seemed to be more in my view. More a quest to prove that it could be done. Never before has anything been undertaken quite like it. Perhaps the Manhatten Project would come close, but it did not have 400,000 people working together as one.To me, it is totally amazing that it was done on the tools available: Slide rules and rudimentary computers.They went to the moon on a computer that had a whopping 32K of memory if I remember correctly.Most home appliances, cell phones (not to mention computers) have much more processing power than what they used to send Apollo to the Moon.Truly an feat that will be remembered for all of history, at least I hope so.Lesson for today is to remember that given a 'impossible' task that almost anything can be accomplished if you set the human mind free and believe. I wish that in my lifetime, mankind will return to the greatness that was attained during Apollo and surpass it as we must. If not, a true shame for all mankind....