Product Description

This 12-hour HBO miniseries created by Tom Hanks garnered 17 Emmy nominations and captivated audiences. From the early stages of the space program and Kennedy's 1961 call to reach the moon within a decade to the successes and heartbreaking failures of the race for space the dream was kept alive by dedicated daring professionals and a nation intent on reaching for -- and landing amid -- the stars all while the world faced the Vietnam War.Running Time: 720 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 026359885327

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #222 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2005-09-20
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: AC-3, Box set, Collector's Edition, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish, French
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 5
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 720 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Originally broadcast in April and May of 1998, the epic miniseries From the Earth to the Moon was HBO's most expensive production to date, with a budget of $68 million. Hosted by executive producer Tom Hanks, the miniseries tackles the daunting challenge of chronicling the entire history of NASA's Apollo space program from 1961 to 1972. For the most part, it's a rousing success. Some passages are flatly chronological, awkwardly wedging an abundance of factual detail into a routine dramatic structure. But each episode is devoted to a crucial aspect of the Apollo program. The cumulative effect is a deep and thorough appreciation of NASA's monumental achievement. With the help of a superlative cast, consistent writing, and a stable of talented directors, Hanks has shared his infectious enthusiasm for space exploration and the inspiring power of conquering the final frontier.

NASA's complete participation in the production lends to its total authenticity, right down to the use of NASA equipment, launch locations, and even spacecraft. The re-creation of the lunar landscape is almost as impressive as the real thing and is further enhanced by the use of helium balloons to lighten the actors playing moon-walking astronauts. (These and other backstage details are revealed in the "making of" featurette, along with a wealth of supplemental materials, on a bonus disc in the miniseries' DVD package.) With a fictional, Walter Cronkite-like TV reporter (Lane Smith) serving as the dramatic link for all 12 episodes, this ambitious production may not be a great work of art. But as a generous and definitive example of nonfiction drama, it's full of the same kind of awe, inspiration, and humanity that led to "one giant leap" in the all-too-short history of 20th-century space exploration. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
The 2005 "Signature Edition" adds a powerful DTS track along with a remastered picture (now in widescreen). It takes many of the extra features from the original 1998 release's DVD-ROM disc and puts them onto a DVD disc including the standard making-of docs and several text segments on the solar system and timeline of space travel. This makes for easier viewing, but the new edition loses the virtual datacenter of space and NASA information that would be hard to reproduce without the ROM disc. The extra discs are mainly to hold both the DTS and 5.1 soundtracks; there are no new features. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

An Inspiring, Touching and Astoundingly Beautiful-looking Miniseries
I had already seen many of the episodes of From The Earth To The Moon in a class about manned spaceflight I had taken. I was shown them on a small screen in 4:3. It did not diminish the human stories or the interesting science that are the main components of this miniseries, but it greatly diminished the look and sound. When I bought these DVDs I knew I had gotten my money's worth. The picture is absolutely beautiful. I found myself very surprised to learn that the series had been broadcast in 1998. But most importantly, this series was able to explain about what happened in the Apollo program (and to a lesser extent Mercury and Gemini) without befuddling the viewer without prior knowledge of the science. The series non-obtrusively explains the science, but the focus are the amazing human stories. This series is filled with wonderful acting and producing. The best example is the episode about the Apollo 8 mission, "1968". The episode not only tells the story of the Apollo 8 mission but also gives an overview about things going on that year like the Vietnam war, the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and MLK Jr, and the Chicago riots. The only episodes I disliked were the Apollo 13 episode (where the series made sure not to repeat the movie Apollo 13 and instead covered the changing style of the press) and the Astronaut's wives' episode which was melodramatic and filled with the culture of 60's wife-in-suburbia. The music is also excellent.

Highly Recommended

I bought the '98 release 4 disk set
and had forgotten just how good this mini-series was. I last saw it when it was broadcast on TV in NZ. I had always meant to buy the series .. but ... just didn't until now. I can only reinforce all the other positive reviews as to the quality of production and the outstanding performances of all the actors and actresses.

You will not regret buying this mini-series. It reminds us of a time when we did things not because they were fast and easy with instant gratification, but because they were hard and required focus and dedication to the task at hand.

The SCREEN FORMAT question: I bought the original '98 release as I felt it more important to not loose any subtitle information etc while watching on our 16x9 format TV, so I was expecting the sidebars on screen from the 1.33:1 image. I don't know if our TV is automatically reformatting it to 16x9 but it fills the screen, and there is no lose of image that I can see/remember. Subtitles are there, as is the stuck thruster that a recent reviewed mentioned was missing from the widescreen format.

In watching and remembering this my only regret has nothing to do with the mini-series itself ... it's the fact that somewhere along the way we seem to have lost our direction in our Journey from the Earth to the Moon.

best series about the moon ever
i loved this when i first saw it in HBO like 10 years ago and its still great