Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5066 in VHS
• Released on: 2002-04-08
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Dolby, PAL, Surround Sound
• Original language: German
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 134 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
NASA's worst nightmare turned into one of the space agency's most heroic moments in 1970, when the Apollo 13 crew was forced to hobble home in a disabled capsule after an explosion seriously damaged the moon-bound spacecraft. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton play (respectively) astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise in director Ron Howard's intense, painstakingly authentic docudrama. The Apollo 13 crew and Houston-based mission controllers race against time and heavy odds to return the damaged spacecraft safely to Earth from a distance of 205,500 miles. Using state-of-the-art special effects and ingenious film-making techniques, Howard and his stellar cast and crew build nail-biting tension while maintaining close fidelity to the facts. The result is a fitting tribute to the Apollo 13 mission and one of the biggest box-office hits of 1995. --Jeff Shannon

Amazon.co.uk Review
NASA's worst nightmare turned into one of the space agency's most heroic moments in 1970, when the Apollo 13 crew was forced to hobble home in a disabled capsule after an explosion seriously damaged the moon-bound spacecraft. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton play (respectively) astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise in director Ron Howard's intense, painstakingly authentic docudrama. The Apollo 13 crew and Houston-based mission controllers race against time and heavy odds to return the damaged spacecraft safely to Earth from a distance of 205,500 miles. Using state-of-the-art special effects and ingenious filmmaking techniques, Howard and his stellar cast and crew build nail-biting tension while maintaining close fidelity to the facts. The result is a fitting tribute to the Apollo 13 mission and one of the biggest box-office hits of 1995. --Jeff Shannon

Synopsis
Drama based on the events of the Apollo 13 space flight which saw three American astronauts stranded in a crippled spacecraft miles from earth.

Customer Reviews

A film thats out of this world SHEER CLASS
Can Tom Hanks do no wrong,not in this case because alongside Kevin Bacon and others he brings this magnificent account of the near 1970 disaster of the Apollo 13 moon mission into one of the most frilling and brilliantly directed films to come out of Holywood for many years.

Ron Howard (Ricky in Happy Days) won a deserving Oscar for this incredible film,the cinematography and script make this an especially memorable film.

Now the last Saturn 5 space rocket took off from the Kennedy Space Centre with Apollo 17s successfull moon mission in 1972.The launch sequence in this film is as realistic as it is possible to get to the real thing way back 35years ago even down to the control centre itself.

Thankfully Ron Howard obtained the help of NASA itself to make this film,the weightlesness in orbit sequences were filmed in NASA very own test aeroplane that vertically dives from an altitude of around 36,000ft resulting in the zero gravity effect.Remarkably Hanks and his fellow actors were standing on boxes to film the majority of the space shots but Howards direction and quality acting desgises this magnificently.

I can go on and on writing about the realism and use of actual events to make a memorable film into a great one but there is no need because im sure there would be few bad words said against this film.

It took two Oscars at the ceremmony and those were more than deserved.

Its a film you can watch again and again and never become bored with it,in my opinion its Tom Hanks best film and if you have never seen it it comes highly reccommended for the visuals alone.

Almost a documentary
Apollo 13 is based on Based on the true story of the ill-fated 13th Apollo mission bound for the moon. Astronauts Lovell, Haise and Mattingly were scheduled to fly Apollo 14, but are moved up to 13. Swigert replaced Ken Mattingly at the last moment. It was 1970, and America has already achieved their lunar landing goal, so there's little interest in this. America had become complacent about our space shots by this time, which is something I still do not understand. But that may be because I worked so long at the Kennedy Space Center and always knew and still understand how dangerous each and every launch is. Apollo 13 was to have been the fifth mission to the moon. But two days into the trip, on April 13, 1970, the oxygen tank exploded in the command module, placing the three astronauts in grave danger. This movie shows those terrifying days as astronauts, contractors, and Mission Controlled struggled to bring Apollo 13 safely back to earth.

This special edition is the copy should purchase. It has two commentaries. One of the commentaries is by director Ron Howard and the other commentary by Jim and Marilyn Lovell. It also contains the IMAX version that is crisp and great if you have a home theater. You will learn that they show only a very few of the things that actually went wrong on the flight. And almost everything you see in the movie actually happened with a couple of composite characters to help the flow of the movie. From the documentary "Lost Moon: The Triumph of Apollo 13" where the crew and cast members come across as being absolutely committed to portraying events accurately, but in a way that underscored the innate drama of them. You can tell that every single person involved in this project had respect for the material and staying true to the story. A must see.

Strength of the Human Spirit
Ever since I saw this movie I've loved it! Its a truly amazing true story. When I saw it I didn't know how it would end so I cried when the astronauts families, NASA, and the world were waiting for them to come home. After I saw it I would give anything to See it back in 1970 ( i was only 2 years old then)!