Educational Streaming: Moonwalk One
Jan. 31st, 2022 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerFollowing the lead of my family, I signed up with the educational network of a province on the far edge of the country to watch some of their shows streaming. Just as I was sorting my way through the catalog, I was told about a documentary just added, if not quite a “new” one. Not that long ago I had heard about a period feature-length film about Apollo 11, which just happened to be available on YouTube. Not having got around to watching Moonwalk One until now, though, I was willing to hope more legitimate streaming would mean a better-quality print and picture.
It hasn’t been that long since I saw a newer Apollo 11 documentary at the movies (and then bought it on Blu-Ray), and while I’d heard its simple animations echoed those of Moonwalk One listening to the narration of the older movie had me appreciating again how the newer film had worked without its own narrator. Some of the footage, of course, was familiar enough, although it was interesting to see a tracking camera shot not cut up between the separation of the charred first stage and the jettisoning of the “interstage” ring and escape tower. There was also an extended sequence about making a space suit that showed just how much shiny mylar went into it underneath the standard white exterior. More than that, perhaps, there was also a sequence of world news suggesting that maybe everything wasn’t thought just fine in 1969.
I can admit that in starting the documentary I realised it would run for longer than the copy on YouTube; getting to its end I saw credits for a “director’s cut,” following a mere forty years after the landing. That did get me wondering just what had been added, although there’s enough yet to watch just on the educational network that I’m left wondering when I might make the comparison.
It hasn’t been that long since I saw a newer Apollo 11 documentary at the movies (and then bought it on Blu-Ray), and while I’d heard its simple animations echoed those of Moonwalk One listening to the narration of the older movie had me appreciating again how the newer film had worked without its own narrator. Some of the footage, of course, was familiar enough, although it was interesting to see a tracking camera shot not cut up between the separation of the charred first stage and the jettisoning of the “interstage” ring and escape tower. There was also an extended sequence about making a space suit that showed just how much shiny mylar went into it underneath the standard white exterior. More than that, perhaps, there was also a sequence of world news suggesting that maybe everything wasn’t thought just fine in 1969.
I can admit that in starting the documentary I realised it would run for longer than the copy on YouTube; getting to its end I saw credits for a “director’s cut,” following a mere forty years after the landing. That did get me wondering just what had been added, although there’s enough yet to watch just on the educational network that I’m left wondering when I might make the comparison.