For the last Friday Film event of the semester, we watched Apollo 13 (1995), directed by Ron Howard. The film’s plot centered around the 1970 NASA lunar mission of the same name, from both the point of view of the astronauts and Mission Control on Earth. The film left much to be desired in terms of aesthetics — most of the colors in the film were drab, neutral tones and the lighting could sometimes be too diffuse and unfocused, including scenes when the astronauts were inside the capsule away from Earth. Although the settings such as the space capsule and mission control would most likely have had desaturated colors, they could have been intensified slightly in order to give a more exciting feeling to the footage. I also believe that many of the scenes that followed the astronauts in the capsule, especially after the explosion of the tank, could have benefited from more directional lighting to create a subtle sense of drama as they worked to return to Earth.

I believe that what the film lacked in aesthetics, it made up for in content. Although the events of the movie transpired slowly, they never felt boring. There was a constant sense of tension as the astronauts had to adapt to the dangerous circumstances created by the oxygen tank explosion and steer the capsule back towards Earth, and this tension was paralleled by the scenes depicting the engineers back at Mission Control, as they worked to create a quick solution to the power loss and to the increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide on the ship, for example. I also appreciated the idea of the film as a whole — the idea of reacting to a catastrophe on the ship was perhaps more exciting in terms of plot than seeing astronauts walk on the moon and perform geological experiments. I also believe that the experience that the engineers and astronauts gained from the catastrophes of Apollo 13 will only make future missions easier, as they have contributed to future knowledge about troubleshooting emergencies in space. I feel that this will be especially valuable, given that NASA claims to be working to return to the moon by 2024.