Armstrong Family Responds To "First Man" Critiques
Statement by Rick and Mark Armstrong and James Hansen Regarding “First Man”
“Although Neil didn’t see himself that way, he was an American hero. But he was also an engineer and a pilot, a father and a friend, a man suffered privately through great tragedies with incredible grace. This is why, though there are numerous shots of the American flag on the moon, the filmmakers chose to focus on Neil looking back at the earth, his walk to Little West Crater, his unique, personal experience of completing this journey that has seen so many incredible highs and devastating lows. In short, we do not feel this movie anti-American in the slightest. Quite the opposite. But don’t take our word for it. We’d encourage everyone to go see this remarkable film and see for themselves.”
America funded, staffed, planned, implemented, and documented the entire thing. But let’s not tell anyone that. Might offend someone.
So you’re saying that with US flags on EVA suits, a launch from Kennedy, and all theater trappings of the time, places, and agency, someone is _not_ going to be able to figure out it was a US mission without a shot of Armstrong planting the flag?
It is like doing a biography of an Olympic Athlete and not showing them being awarded the goal medal.
So, wait, the whole point of going was to plant the flag? The entire effort and the risk would have meant nothing if the flagpole hadn’t been stuck in the lunar soil? I’m certain it had significant meaning for the astronauts, but was pretty small compared with actually getting there and doing their job.
Remember, President Kennedy challenged them to a race, that was the entire basis of his Moon goal. It wasn’t about science or expanding human knowledge, that was just justifications to make it sound good. But Apollo was basically a contest between the U.S. and Russia to be first. Everything else, including science, was secondary. And when we planted the flag the race was over. We Won. We did a few more missions, a few victory laps if you wish, but the majority of the nation didn’t care anymore. We beat the Russians and that was all that mattered about it.
So when the flag was planted it was the very symbolic end of the space race and why Neil Armstrong was the “First Man”.
And that of course is where the term Flags and Footprints came from 🙂
Not showing an olympic athlete being awarded the medal might be a good choice. Imagine a movie about Jesse Owens which ended with him breaking the tape and winning the race. That’s a much more dramatic end than an anticlimactic award ceremony.
I guess what you’re saying is that showing the flag is no big deal. So….
No, he is saying that the film makes it quite clear that Apollo 11 was an American mission. And it does show the US flag on the Moon. The thing the film doesn’t show is the physical activity of planting the flag.
Since the film can’t show everything, they had to leave somethings out. The movie is about Armstrong, as a person, not about the Apollo project, as an American endeavor. So their choices about what to include or exclude were based on that.
If you want to criticize the film, it might be fair to say they should have made a film about the American Apollo 11 mission, rather than a film about the mission’s commander. But, once they made that choice, what’s wrong with leaving out a sceen showing a meaningful _national_ achievement in favor of ones focused on the person their movie is about?
This is such a non-issue, especially given that the movie isn’t even out yet. This is what the director had to say:
“In an interview with the Los Angeles Times published Sunday, Chazelle said he has been “surprised” by the controversy because there are multiple historical moments he opted to leave out of the movie.
“‘It surprised me because there are so many things that we weren’t able to focus on not only during the lunar EVA but in the entirety of Apollo 11,” Chazelle said. “Just by the nature of the story we were telling, we just couldn’t go into every detail. So our through-line became — especially at this part of the movie where it’s the final emotional journey for Neil — what were the private, unknown moments of Neil on the moon?'”
“‘The flag was not a private, unknown moment for Neil,” Chazelle continued. “It’s a very famous moment and it wasn’t Neil alone. We included the famous descent down the ladder because that’s him alone, literally first feeling what it’s like to be on the moon. But other than that, we only wanted to focus on the unfamous stuff on the moon. So we don’t go into the phone call with Nixon, we don’t go into the scientific experiments, we don’t go into reentry.'”
“Chazelle also issued a statement to clarify that the American flag is shown on the moon’s surface in the film.”
“‘In ‘First Man’ I show the American flag standing on the lunar surface, but the flag being physically planted into the surface is one of several moments of the Apollo 11 lunar EVA that I chose not to focus upon.'”
We’re in a sad place if this is what we get upset about.
Perhaps. But it is also important to consider it in the context of Neil Armstrong’s open letter in opposition to President Obama’s space policy that killed a return to the Moon.
https://www.huffingtonpost….
“Under the bold vision of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and with the overwhelming approval of the American people, we rapidly closed the gap in the final third of the 20th century, and became the world leader in space exploration. …”
“For The United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature.”
So I will be waiting to hear what the Apollo astronauts who worked with Neil Armstrong say about this movie before I spend money on it. I expect they might have different views that a direct who born almost two decades after it happened.
I think what other astronauts have to say is irrelevant. What matter is the director’s intent and that flag planting was only one event. Why is the political statement of a flag planting necessary? Are we that desperate for overt displays of patriotism?
I’ll see the movie because I’m interested to see Neil Armstrong’s story portrayed on the large screen. I already know the flag was planted on the Moon, so I don’t need to see it planted again.
I would agree if this was merely a romantic comedy like the director’s earlier pictures, but this is about a historical figure and historical events. There is a different standard involved. Really, you have to wonder what they were thinking to let him direct it when he had no experience doing similar films.
I don’t see how not showing the flag planting would violate any standard in making movies about historical figures. No movie represents every event in an historical figures life, nor is there any requirement to do so. The only requirement, if there is to be any, is to truthfully represent the events depicted. The flag planting doesn’t have to be shown to truthfully depict such events. Thinking otherwise is purely political.
No, it isn’t, it is about making a picture that is true to the spirit of the historical individual you are doing the biography on. From what I have seen in the trailers this is not so much about history as about trying to fit his story into the style of fiction this director is used to. For example the scene where Neil Armstrong’s wife refers to the astronauts as just being a bunch of boys with no control over anything. It shows that Damien Chazelle doesn’t really appreciate what Project Apollo was or what it was about.
But I am sure that now that the right objects to it, the left will canonize it and give it praise. Meanwhile you have a generation who fails to learn what Project Apollo was about and what it stood for.
Incidentally I have read “FIrst Man” and it was a good biography that captured the spirit of the Apollo program well. Have you read the book?
BTW here is another quote, from Neil Armstrong’s website.
https://www.neilarmstrong.c…
“The exciting part for me, as a pilot, was the landing on the moon. That was the time that we had achieved the national goal of putting Americans on the moon”
In light of that quote, I’m curious how much time the film devotes to the landing itself. The descent and landing were not what you would call problem-free, and involved quite a bit of good piloting/operating on the part of Armstrong, Aldrin and the mission control team. If I were asked to single out events during the mission which were specifically about Armstrong, that would definitely be near the top of my list.
The act of raising the flag could and would have been done by whatever astronaut was selected as Apollo 11 mission commander. The length of the modern films forced them to cut some events and focus on others. (Even older biopics, such as Lawerence of Arabia, of doubtful accuracy and extreme length, didn’t fit in everything.)
Ah, then who gets to decide which historical events in that person’s life have to be represented and which don’t? I don’t see the absence of the flag planting detracting at all from telling the story of Neil Armstrong. Apparently, his family doesn’t either. I’m comfy sharing their view.
There are those who are quite desperate for overt displays of patriotism to distract from what’s going on in DC.
I think this entire brouhaha is more derived from Gosling the actor’s phrasing “didn’t see himself as an American hero” than about the content of the film. Based on reading the book, at least, along with various other material (including speeches & editorials offered by Armstrong), it seems evident that he didn’t see himself as a hero (his humility was indeed legendary) but he always recognized and was proud to be an American.
It is interesting that his family used the same expression as Gosling in their statement, though, choosing not to clarify the distinction between the adjective & the noun in terms of Cdr. Armstrong’s self-image.
I haven’t seen the film, but the film, after all, is about him and should be considered through that lens. We have thousands of feet of film documenting the American achievement of the landing on the Moon, flag planting included. And we have the image of same flag being blown over during the LM’s liftoff. I presume they didn’t include that in the film, either.
A Hollywood movie is not history, look at “Apollo 13.” Very close, but still a few things were not 100% accurate. Read the book, before or after the seeing the movie. You will discover that Armstrong was almost stereotypically a pilot/engineer. Many of you know the type. I recall a photo of him taken in the command module, the light from the window shining on his face; he looks like he should be in that Kubrick movie.
And this of course is why Mr. Armstrong — brave and cable — is unfairly called a ‘hero’.
What those guys did is stunningly brave, yes, but then again they are supported by a failure-fearing team of tens of thousands.
Evel Knevel pointed out that what he was doing wasn’t really bravery, just engineering, when he ‘flew’ over the Grand Canyon. He knew the odds and made them heavily favor the attempt.
But what Lenny Skutnik did on the cold Washington day when he saw a 737 in the Potomac? That is heroic.
I heard Fred Haise say that he felt the accuracy of the movie was very good, unlike a lot of space movies, on that one they really did their research. However he said that was the technical stuff, he said the dialogue was almost all made up. He said they told him that during their research they listened to all of the recordings and read the transcripts and said “You guys were too calm, there is no way from listening to your dialogue that anyone would know that you were in danger” so they basically threw all of that out other than of the course the iconic initial calls to Houston after the explosion.
The directors of Apollo 13 also took some liberties with the people involved. To avoid having a confusingly large number of characters, they only included Kranz’s white team in mission control. There were actually four mission control teams. And some of the dialogue was real but misattributed. For example, the pun on Gunther Wendt’s name was real, but it was a joke made on a different mission by a different astronaut. But that sort of thing is normal for a movie. They are telling a story not writing a history. I’d complain if they told a fundamentally different story and claimed it was true, but I don’t think that was the case.
At end of the article, “We’d encourage everyone to go see this remarkable film and see for themselves.”
Pretty much sums it up there. I would be interested how Armstrong dealt with near disasters and never freaked out (Gemini spinning, eject from out of control LLRV, change landing location with only 30 seconds of fuel). We see how in realtime Armstrong is composed while dealing with these harrowing situations, what was he really thinking? How did he describe it to others after things have calmed down?
Ah yes that famous “One small step for man…” Many have wrote he really said “for a man” but do we really need to debate this? Even if grammatically incorrect, everyone gets the meaning. Gene Cernan wrote he was surprised, not of what he said, but that Neil said anything at all.
And then there was the combat mission in Korea when he returned to the carrier after hitting a pole. And the time at Edwards AFB when he was lifting one of the rocket planes to launch it. One of the engines started to run away. He completed the drop just before the propeller broke taking out two more engines and the copilot’s control lines. Somehow he brought it safely down on a dry lake using only the single engine he had left. His actions saved both the B-29 and the rocket plane.
And a scene I would like to see, when Chuck Yeager and Neil Armstrong got a T-33 stuck in the mud while checking a dry lake out for a X-15 flight. Imagine the two best pilots at Edwards on the wing of their T-33 with its wheels buried in the mud waiting for a ride back to base ?
According to Yeager, he told Armstrong that the lake was still too wet but wasn’t believed. The calculations of the sunny days, temps, etc told Armstrong that it HAD to be dry enough. He didn’t say much to Yeager once they got stuck.
Yeager also seemed to enjoy teasing Scott Crossfield for running an F-100 into a hanger wall at Edwards. Crossfield miscalculated how long it would take the plane to stop after he made a dead-stick landing due to engine failure.
Mr. Armstrong, along with Mr. Yaegar, and to an extent every person who sits on top of a rocket — these people are brave and capable, yes, but unfairly called ‘heroes’, a word that, used in this context, becomes debased. And it is incompletely descriptive.
What those guys did/do is stunningly brave, yes, but then again they are supported by a failure-fearing team of tens of thousands.
Evel Knevel pointed out that what he was doing wasn’t really bravery, just engineering, when he ‘flew’ over the Grand Canyon. He knew the odds and made them heavily favor the attempt; initial speed and the gravitational constant were his allies.
But what Lenny Skutnik did on the cold Washington day when he saw a 737 in the Potomac? That’s a person acting selflessly with very little forethought to personal safety to the benefit of a stranger.
Heroic.
Well, I’ll just say I’m tribal enough that I’m glad it was an American program that put our astronauts on the Moon, and not the Soviet Union’s.
And in light of that, I think omitting the American flag planting was a deliberate act of the movie makers. It was done (1) to enhance revenues in foreign markets, (2) to downplay visually the “Americanness” of the Apollo program, and (3) as a slap at conservatives, who typically rally around the flag as symbolizing the country and its basic decent values.
Why do I say this with no proof I can point to? Because Hollywood’s “creatives” (as they fondly call themselves) have systematic anti-American views of our country, and this is another way for them to piss on the rubes in flyover country while taking their money at the multiplex.
Look, if you think I’m exaggerating, ask yourself why such omissions always slant in the same leftward direction.
(sigh) Another conspiracy mongering, left-hating, knuckle dragger …
Had no idea conservatives were such snowflakes. But PubliusII may be right about the ideology of many of not most people in the film and video industry in Hollywood…. which doesn’t explain why the movie does show the flag, just not the planting.
It’s not really accurate, or fair, to characterize conservatives as ‘snowflakes’.
What’s happened over the past 20 years or so is fairly simple; the far-right wackos have pretty much subsumed the thoughtful right (who have failed to fight back, it must be said in fairness).
It started with radio, pure and simple.
Excellent Retort. Someone brings up what could be considered a valid criticism and you not only dismiss it out of hand but then insult him? Excellent moderating. Truly, your work to elevate discussion is un-paralleled.
“ask yourself why such omissions always slant in the same leftward direction”
OK then!
Self: Why are movies slanted to the left?!
Answer: Because you are standing so far to the right!
Self: Duh!
First as a disclaimer I am unabashedly patriotic when it comes to the Moon landing. However what I remember about the Moon landing itself was that the entire world seemed united for a moment in its excitement over what was taking place. Even in the U.S. the transcending significance of what we were witnessing seemed to take a hold on everyone. No one seemed to be thinking about the Soviets or the space race at that moment, we were too much in awe. Oh I’m sure some people were thinking about it, but not most people. To verify my recollections I have looked at numerous newspaper headlines and articles on that day from both the U.S. and around the world, as well as TV news coverage and interviews with both the famous and non-famous. You don’t hear people saying “isn’t it great we beat the Russians” instead it was all about the landing itself. Interestingly in foreign countries a common reaction was along the lines of “We did it, we landed on the Moon”, seeming to perceive it as an accomplishment of the human race. Again as patriotic as I am, that moment of unity is something that I will never forget.
The New York Times headline was MEN LAND ON MOON
(uppercase headlines are used only for news stories of utmost significance) not “Americans Land on Moon”. Although I’m sure the headline today would be “Humans Land on Moon”, but that was a reflection of the times. But this type of headline seemed to be the rule, not the exception among U.S. newspapers. Only in more lengthy news articles which detailed the history of the program was the space race mentioned. However nowadays almost any documentary about the Moon landing puts the space race at the forefront. Yes we know that the Moon landing would not have taken place at least in that time frame if it hadn’t been for the Cold War space race, so it is definitely a huge part of the overall story. But I think what tends to be forgotten is that the moment itself was far bigger than that. The way I look at it, having won the space race, the United States gave it to the world, as epitomized on the plaque with the words, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind”
What we don’t know is what Neil Armstrong was thinking while he installed the American flag, unless he has said something in interviews. As patriotic as he was, at that moment was he mainly thinking of it as one of the many tasks that he and Buzz had to complete in a short period of time. Or did he pause for a moment and reflect on the significance of what it meant to him as an American citizen, as well as being the symbolic moment when the space race was won. Not knowing what he was thinking at that moment, I am not as concerned that it is not part of the movie, although I wish it could have been. But only as long as they didn’t conjecture and make stuff up about what he was thinking at that exact moment.
I also remember back then a common phrase, “If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we [insert solution to any problem here].” Nowadays it is if we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we put a man on the moon?
I think Armstrong was thinking while planting flag is inserting into the surface deep enough. I read Buzz said the surface was a soft 1/2″ dust but very hard below it.
I forget which book but it was written Armstrong first grab a contingency sample in case they had to re-enter LM quickly, later during the EVA he managed to collect a wide variety of lunar samples (maybe he was thinking more about geology instead of historical perspectives).
The contingency sample was planned ahead of time, it was supposed to be Armstrong’s first action on the surface. Using a scoop he was to grab a few soil samples and store them in a pouch on his leg. However due to logistics Neil decided to first get the Hasselblad camera sent down from Buzz and take a few initial pictures even though it had been planned for him to do that after getting the sample. This lead to flight director Charlesworth asking Capcom Bruce McCandless to remind Neil about the contingency sample, even going so far as asking Neil to acknowledge that he heard the reminder.
Neil definitely knew his geology, as indicated by his comment while getting the contingency sample “the hard rock samples have what appear to be vesicles in the surface. Also, I am looking at one now that appears to have some sort of phenocrysts.”