Apollo 13 [Blu-ray]

This movie is a dramatization of the very real events of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission that was supposed to land astronauts on the moon for the third time. Of course, on the way to the moon, there was an explosion that caused the oxygen tanks to leak out into space, endangering the life of the crew, at which point the mission became a scramble to get the crew back to Earth safely. The movie was directed by Ron Howard and stars Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell, the mission commander of Apollo 13. The movie also starred Kevin Bacon as Apollo 13 backup Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert, Bill Paxton as Apollo 13 Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise, Ed Harris as White Team Flight Director Gene Kranz, and Gary Sinise as Apollo 13 prime Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly who was supposed to be the pilot on the mission but was scrubbed and replaced with Swigert. The movie is a pretty standard docudrama. Howard, who is a big space enthusiast, was a stickler for getting the technical details correct. While he did change some things for dramatic effect, including the most famous line from the movie, "Houston, we have a problem" (Lovell really said "Houston, we've had a problem"), much of what was shown in the movie happened the way it did in real life. The movie was adapted from Lovell's book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, and he served as a consultant on the movie. For those who get the Blu-Ray, the movie looks and sounds great in HD. The extras include two different commentary tracks, one by Ron Howard, and one with Jim and Marilyn Lovell. There is also a one-hour making-of documentary, a 48 minute TV special that discussed the space race between the USA and the Soviet Union, and a twelve-minute segment from the show Dateline about the movie. So, a lot of bonus material for those who like going through the extras. Overall, the movie is wonderful. It is well written and very well acted, with Hanks and Sinise as the standouts (but the entire cast does a great job). While it is a period piece, and it is made to look as much as possible as things looked at the time of the mission, the movie is timeless and holds up even twenty-plus years after it was made. Whether you are interested in the movie because you are a fan of Ron Howard or one or more of the actors, are into the history of the space program, or are just looking for a good drama to watch, I highly recommend this.

What a great movie! We really enjoyed it! It's an all-star cast with stellar acting. We're barely old enough to remember this, but we know that it stays pretty close to the real-time event. It's wonderfully done! Highly recommend!

I love this movie. I don’t care for the language and they could have left this part out and it would have made it a better movie. But it is a great movie. Helps you see what the astronauts see and do in the shuttle. And it helped to understand what they felt and saw in Apollo 13. What seems to be a good factual movie. Good acting.

Good movie

Amazing movie

Good movie

Content / Quality of Movie: ***** (wish it went higher) Presentation: *** (see below) If you are reading this you likely have already seen Apollo 13, perhaps many times, and are looking for information on the Blu-Ray release (and may be tired of wading through reviews of the DVD version - Amazon really should separate DVD and Blu-Ray reviews but that is another rant for another day). See next paragraph for the technical details but I must first sing the praises of this wonderful film. This has always been one of my favorites. Ron Howard's direction is near-perfect and the cast is terrific. The movie does a wonderful job of almost moving the viewer back in time to when the events of that ill-fated mission occurred. As one of the characters notes this really was NASA's finest hour and this movie puts you squarely in the middle of it - both in that fragile ship out in space and on the ground in mission control. This is one of those films that after watching it you expect to turn on the TV and see updates about the ongoing mission - it is that immersive. My favorite extra feature is the commentary track by the director. I don't often watch a whole movie through with commentary track on but this one is well worth it, offering insights into Howard's direction style which meshed perfectly with the subject matter of this film. Almost all the actors in the movie got to know the people they were portraying and Howard was open to changes in dialogue to add authenticity to the production. This I think allowed the actors to really immerse themselves in their roles and that additional measure of commitment shows through in every scene. Can you imagine Hitchcock (also one of my favorites) directing this film? His style would not have been nearly as effective as Ron's, though there might well have been more intrigue and perhaps one or two of the mission control people would have gone missing. Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind seeing that version at all, either. Anyway, digital special effects are also very well done but were not allowed to detract from the story. I am amazed that it was possible to find so many varied angles to allow the cramped command and lunar modules to at once be confining but not claustrophobic - a really wonderful bit of cinematography. All in all, in my opinion one of the best films made in the last 50 years - heck, one of the best ever. Now about the presentation. Picture and sound quality to me were fantastic (though I have never seen the HD-DVD version which another reviewer feels was better.) Extra features include the above-mentioned director's narration which is terrific. The movie played well (eventually) on my Sony player - and there's the rub as they say. I was amazed at how long the load process was, at least a couple minutes then the question of what language to select, a couple more minutes then the question of whether or not I want to post comments on it to my Facebook site or some such - NO I JUST WANT TO WATCH THE MOVIE ALREADY!! When the menu screen finally arrives over on the right is an animated ad for a current release - so that is obviously what was taking so long to load. I shudder to think how long it would have taken over a DSL or (gulp) a dial-up connection. I do hope they remedy this with a future release without so much wait time but in the end it was a "small price to pay" to watch this great film.

For the over 40 year old viewer, "Apollo 13" recaptures the feeling of America at that time when we were still the "can do" people. As with "The Right Stuff," when there were test pilots who didn't worry about safety too much but just flew by the seat of their pants, you have astronauts here literally using duct tape and other household items to salvage their crippled space capsule and try to get home. I think there is a certain irony that 35 years later we still haven't gone back to the moon, getting the space shuttle up and running is constantly fraught with problems and delays, and now the Chinese, Europeans, Russians, and average millionaire American seems more capable of getting people or equipment up into space than NASA. I think if this Apollo mission took place today, those crew members would probably be doomed. Which makes this film all the more appealing. The entire cast is excellent. The music score beautifully compliments the action. Although beyond the launch there isn't a great deal of physical action, this film is as suspenseful and dramatic as any Alfred Hitchcock film. It is gripping and also inspirational as routine household items (including, quite literally, that duct tape) do get used to cobble together a way to salvage the crippled ship, conserve the remaining oxygen, and power supply (which was barely enough to run a modern day kitchen appliance), and figure a way to get them into the proper orbit to get back into Earth's atmosphere without either being incinerated or bouncing off it and out into space on a one way trajectory into infinity. The effects, particularly the launch, are impressive and realistic and give the feeling they're using real film footage, ie. they don't look like effects. You also feel like you're there. Everything looks very realistic. It seems to me that the film unfairly got a bad rap at the time it was originally released merely because Ron Howard made it. Even if you are not a big space buff, which I'm not although I did like "The Right Stuff" very much, "Apollo 13" is quite entertaining and exciting once it quite literally gets off the ground. It is a little bit of a slow start as characters get introduced and the mission takes shape, but from the moment one of the crew gets bumped from the flight because his medical reveals he has the measles, you begin to get a sense of foreboding of things to come and wonder how this change in crew will affect the mission. It proves to be quite significant. Despite all the drama, there is some witty dialogue from time to time to relieve some of the tension. But above all, the movie shows a positive "can do" quality and optimistic attitude often missing in today's America and NASA despite all our present-day superior technology. Viewed from this perspective, "Apollo 13" the film and the mission are that much more powerful and emotional to watch and I couldn't help but feel a little bit of nostalgia for those earlier days in the American space program.

Another banger tom hanks movie. Always loved this one. Its looks and sounds outrageously good on 4k. Its like watching it for the first time again. Very happy to have this in my collection.

Great movie, great print, great to own a physical copy

La edición alemana B014LS5XL2 es la remasterizada con los subtítulos en castellano y el audio en español latino. La imagen es mucho mejor que en la edición española. Los extras y comentarios son los mismos que antes y ahora lleva un documental más. Todo está subtitulado en castellano.

Commedia con Tom Hanks ambientata in America che narra le vicende degli astronauti dell Apollo 13

綺麗に梱包されていて、配送も早かったので、星5つ。