Watched the movie over two days while the Little One was napping. A true throwback to my youth. I remember parts of the movie, certain scenes here and there, with complete and vivid recollection, while huge spans of the film seemed completely new to me.
Released in the summer of ’78, I probably first saw it on cable TV the following year. Just after Star Wars and Close Encounters, but before Superman, The Empire Strikes Back and Alien. What more could a huge SF geek like me and my friends want for summer viewing? You may remember the set-up, even a few of the “iconic” shots. Basically the movie is about a faked Mars landing, and the image I have in mind is of an astronaut, decked out in full Apollo regalia, saluting a motionless United States flag amidst the red-orange hues of the Martian sunset. And on the periphery of the rocky Aresian landscape, bright lights and movie cameras and men with clipboards and cue cards.
How did the movie fare to LE-as-an-adult? All right. Not the best thing I’ve ever watched but certainly not the worst. Huge, massive plot holes capable of bending light. A really, really bad acting performance by OJ Simpson (who noticeably improved to Oscar caliber for his final performance sixteen-or-so years later). Bad science, such as using the Apollo lunar lander (the bug-like LEM) to descend to the Martian surface (the moon has no atmosphere; Mars does, so a lander would have to be designed radically different). But, darn it, I found it easy to suspend disbelief and get into the swing of things.
Some of the acting was really great. Hal Holbrook, who was in every movie in the 1970s, is an enigma: a nerdy milquetoast who can play a very subtle and menacing villain. Sam Waterson as a pretty funny astronaut, with some throwaway one-liners you might miss. Elliot Gould, despite playing Elliot Gould, is believable as a down-on-his-luck reporter slowly uncovering the conspiracy. Hey, it ain’t Ingmar Bergman, but for what it is, it’s good.
But the best part of the movie is James Brolin. Yeah, I know, I know. Nowadays he’s Mr. Barbara Streisand. He’s a big limousine lib. And he portrayed Ronald Reagan as a senile old fool (or evil old fool, I forget which). Forget all that. In the ’70s, he was cool. There was no one cooler, I used to think as a boy. He was also in a really cheesy but otherwise excellent The Car, and he was cool in that movie as a long-haired motorcycle-riding lawman. My brother and I watched The Car at least a dozen times or more. I liked him immensely in Capricorn One, as the commanding officer of the Mars mission and unwilling participant who decides to do something about it. He takes a lot of abuse, eats a rattlesnake, lets a scorpion crawl over his face, beats a bad guy with a crowbar, and has to hold on for dear life on the wing of an airplane to get to freedom, his viselike grip forcing blood out between his fingers. In the end, he’s the hero, just what a twelve-year-old boy needs to look up to at that stage in his life.
Released in the summer of ’78, I probably first saw it on cable TV the following year. Just after Star Wars and Close Encounters, but before Superman, The Empire Strikes Back and Alien. What more could a huge SF geek like me and my friends want for summer viewing? You may remember the set-up, even a few of the “iconic” shots. Basically the movie is about a faked Mars landing, and the image I have in mind is of an astronaut, decked out in full Apollo regalia, saluting a motionless United States flag amidst the red-orange hues of the Martian sunset. And on the periphery of the rocky Aresian landscape, bright lights and movie cameras and men with clipboards and cue cards.
How did the movie fare to LE-as-an-adult? All right. Not the best thing I’ve ever watched but certainly not the worst. Huge, massive plot holes capable of bending light. A really, really bad acting performance by OJ Simpson (who noticeably improved to Oscar caliber for his final performance sixteen-or-so years later). Bad science, such as using the Apollo lunar lander (the bug-like LEM) to descend to the Martian surface (the moon has no atmosphere; Mars does, so a lander would have to be designed radically different). But, darn it, I found it easy to suspend disbelief and get into the swing of things.
Some of the acting was really great. Hal Holbrook, who was in every movie in the 1970s, is an enigma: a nerdy milquetoast who can play a very subtle and menacing villain. Sam Waterson as a pretty funny astronaut, with some throwaway one-liners you might miss. Elliot Gould, despite playing Elliot Gould, is believable as a down-on-his-luck reporter slowly uncovering the conspiracy. Hey, it ain’t Ingmar Bergman, but for what it is, it’s good.
But the best part of the movie is James Brolin. Yeah, I know, I know. Nowadays he’s Mr. Barbara Streisand. He’s a big limousine lib. And he portrayed Ronald Reagan as a senile old fool (or evil old fool, I forget which). Forget all that. In the ’70s, he was cool. There was no one cooler, I used to think as a boy. He was also in a really cheesy but otherwise excellent The Car, and he was cool in that movie as a long-haired motorcycle-riding lawman. My brother and I watched The Car at least a dozen times or more. I liked him immensely in Capricorn One, as the commanding officer of the Mars mission and unwilling participant who decides to do something about it. He takes a lot of abuse, eats a rattlesnake, lets a scorpion crawl over his face, beats a bad guy with a crowbar, and has to hold on for dear life on the wing of an airplane to get to freedom, his viselike grip forcing blood out between his fingers. In the end, he’s the hero, just what a twelve-year-old boy needs to look up to at that stage in his life.
Pretty decent conspiracy flick with pretty good acting. Some genuinely tense parts, some effectively artsy parts, some really chuckle-worthy parts. And there’s also the game you can play trying to spot the goofs and gaffes, which even someone half-paying attention will catch. Best of all, when it’s over, you can spend, oh, maybe a minute, maybe two, and become fully convinced of the impossibility and the improbability of the government even coming a tenth of a percent towards accomplishing something as complex as a faked Martian (read: Lunar) landing.
PS ... Just discovered the movie is scheduled to be remade, with shooting to start in a couple of months. Bleh. It’ll suck.
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