''From the Earth to the Moon'' is a 12-part 1998 HBO television miniseries co-produced by

Ron Howard Ronald William Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He first came to prominence as a child actor, guest-starring in several television series, including an episode of '' The Twilight Zone''. ...

, Brian Grazer, Tom Hanks, and Michael Bostick telling the story of the Apollo program during the 1960s and early 1970s in

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event". Docudramas typic ...

format. Largely based on

Andrew Chaikin Andrew L. Chaikin (born June 24, 1956) is an American author, speaker and science journalist. He lives in Vermont. He is the author of '' A Man on the Moon'', a detailed description of the Apollo missions to the Moon. This book formed the bas ...

's 1994 book, '' A Man on the Moon'', the series is known for its accurate telling of the story of Apollo and the special effects under visual director Ernest D. Farino. The series takes its title from, but is not based upon, the 1865

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the '' Voyages extra ...

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

novel '' From the Earth to the Moon''. Hanks appears in every episode, introducing each of the first eleven. The last episode is represented in a pseudo- documentary format narrated by Blythe Danner, interspersed with a reenactment of the making of Georges Méliès' 1902 film '' Le Voyage dans la Lune'', which was in part inspired by Verne's novel. Hanks narrates and appears in these scenes as Méliès' assistant.

Cast

The miniseries has a fairly large cast, driven in part by the fact that it portrays 30 of the 32 astronauts who flew, or were preparing to fly, the twelve missions of the Apollo program. (The only two Apollo astronauts not portrayed by credited actors are Apollo 13 Command Module pilot Jack Swigert, who is heard but not seen in Episode 8, and

Apollo 17 Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon or traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walke ...

Command Module pilot Ronald Evans, who has a brief appearance in the liftoff scene of

in the final episode.) Members of many of the astronauts' families, and other

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

and non-NASA personnel, are also portrayed. Several fictional (or fictionalized) characters are also included, notably television newscaster Emmett Seaborn (

Lane Smith Walter Lane Smith III (April 29, 1936 – June 13, 2005) was an American actor. His well-known roles included newspaper editor Perry White in the ABC series '' Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman'', Walter Warner in ''Son in Law'', coll ...

) who appears in nine of the twelve episodes. Astronaut David Scott, from

Apollo 15 Apollo 15 (July 26August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the United States' Apollo program and the fourth to land on the Moon. It was the first J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and a greater focus on science than ear ...

, was the chief technological consultant.

Episodes

The twelve episodes, each directed by different individuals, use a variety of viewpoints and themes, while sequentially covering the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.

portrays Emmett Seaborn, a seasoned reporter for a fictional television network, who covers the U.S. space program from its earliest days, providing continuity for most of the episodes.

Integration with existing films

The miniseries, concentrating on the

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

space program, was produced with an intent not to repeat other dramatic portrayals of events of the space race. Project Mercury, which was portrayed in the 1983 film '' The Right Stuff'', was briefly summarized in the first episode. Miniseries producers Hanks, Howard and Grazer, who had previously produced the 1995 film '' Apollo 13'', shot the episode "We Interrupt This Program" from the perspective of the media covering that flight, as the film had already covered the story from the point of view of the crew and the mission control team.

Production

Many of the actors had opportunity to interact and form friendships with the real life astronauts they were portraying. Brett Cullen, who played Apollo 9 Command Module pilot and

commander David Scott, was invited to the Scott family home each time an episode he appeared in was first televised. Two short clips from the final scenes of '' Apollo 13'' were used in "That's All There Is"; a splashdown sequence, and a view of the recovery ship USS ''Iwo Jima'' (portrayed by USS ''New Orleans''). The original series was shot in

Super 35 Super 35 (originally known as Superscope 235) is a motion picture film format that uses exactly the same film stock as standard 35 mm film, but puts a larger image frame on that stock by using the space normally reserved for the optical anal ...

, intended to be viewed on standard television sets of the time in 1.33:1 aspect ratio. With the proliferation of widescreen flat-panel TV sets the series was remastered in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio and re-released in 2005 as a 5-disc DVD box set. As is the case with most material shot in this format, the widescreen framing causes the loss (in some shots) of the top and bottom parts of the frames from the original broadcast, but reveals additional information on the left and right. This is not always noticeable because of careful transfer process, but in some scenes important details are lost. For example, in the first episode, when the Gemini 8 / Agena assembly is tumbling around in space with a stuck thruster, the thruster is not visible in the new widescreen version, as it is cut off by the top of the frame. Some captions have also been compromised. Parts of the miniseries were filmed at the Disney-MGM Studios (now Disney's Hollywood Studios) in Orlando, Florida. Scenes of the moonwalks were shot inside the blimp hangars on a former Marine base in Tustin, California. Approximately half the area inside was converted to the Moon's surface, with the remainder used to hold production trailers. To simulate lunar surface gravity, weather balloons filled with helium were attached to the backs of the actors playing the astronauts in the lunar extravehicular activity scenes, effectively reducing their weights to one-sixth. The score of "Spider" prominently features an imitation of the main title theme from the 1963

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

movie '' The Great Escape'', and Tom Kelly jokes about having a crew digging a tunnel out of the Grumman plant. The episode also featured a real Apollo Lunar Module (LM-13), which had been built for the Apollo 18 mission but was never used due to budget cuts.

Awards and nominations

The series was nominated for seventeen Emmy awards and won three: Outstanding Miniseries, Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries or a Movie and Outstanding Hairstyling for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special. In addition, the series won a 1999

Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of ...

for Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV.

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, 1990s, Television, United States 1998 American television series debuts 1998 American television series endings 1998 in American television 1990s American television miniseries American biographical series Best Miniseries or Television Movie Golden Globe winners HBO original programming Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries winners Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series Science docudramas Television shows based on books Television series about the Apollo program Television series based on actual events Television series by Imagine Entertainment Television series by Home Box Office Television series by Playtone Cultural depictions of Georges Méliès Films scored by Mason Daring Cultural depictions of Buzz Aldrin Cultural depictions of Neil Armstrong Cultural depictions of Michael Collins (astronaut) Gus Grissom Wally Schirra Alan Shepard Deke Slayton Frank Borman Pete Conrad Jim Lovell James McDivitt Thomas P. Stafford Ed White (astronaut) John Young (astronaut) William Anders Alan Bean Gene Cernan Charles Duke Ronald Evans (astronaut) Richard F. Gordon Jr. James Irwin Ken Mattingly Edgar Mitchell Stuart Roosa David Scott Alfred Worden Harrison Schmitt Television series about astronauts