Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #232105 in DVD
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian
• Subtitled in: English, German, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Swiss German, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, Polish, Czech

Amazon.com essential video
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

Amazon.com
Relying primarily on actual footage shot by NASA and by news organizations, this video documents the drama of the aborted Apollo 13 mission, in which three astronauts came close to losing their lives in space. The actual recording of commander Jim Lovell telling Houston about the "problem" made famous in the Hollywood version of Apollo 13 is presented, and the scenes showing distressed engineers in the actual control room in Houston are in some ways much more dramatic than anything seen on the big screen. This is, after all, reality, with real people scrambling under intense pressure to save real lives. Besides the footage inside mission control, the video also showcases invaluable flight footage shot by the astronauts aboard the crippled spaceship. This video takes an essentially chronological approach, but the technique of using the crew's postflight news conference to serve as narration, while it is at first confusing, serves a useful purpose. This is a no-frills production, but the excitement as NASA engineers mobilize and the whole world watches the news about the stricken spaceship is so gripping that any flourishes would only seem to get in the way. --Robert J. McNamara

From The New Yorker
Ron Howard's movie is the true story of the manned lunar mission in which almost everything went wrong-so wrong that there was a real possibility that the spacecraft wouldn't make it back to Earth. The movie, like the 1970 mission itself, gets home safely only by the skin of its teeth. Dean Cundey's cinematography is drab, James Horner's score is unbearable, and Howard retards the momentum with frequent cutaways to the astronauts' families, who are, unsurprisingly, mighty worried. But the acting-especially by Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton (as the imperilled astronauts), and Ed Harris (as a fiercely determined NASA flight controller in Houston)-is sharp and persuasive. And the screenplay, by William Broyles, Jr., and Al Reinert, makes the scientific details both comprehensible and exciting. The film, despite its raggedness, is stirring. In the end, this failed mission seems like the most impressive achievement of the entire space program: a triumph not of planning but of inspired improvisation. Also with Gary Sinise and Kathleen Quinlan. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Don't buy anything but the Special Edition DVD
Others have remarked well enough on the virtues of _Apollo 13_ as a film. What makes the Special Edition DVD worth its purchase price, however, are the tons of extras that you get. The story of the making of _Apollo 13_ is at least as interesting, if nowhere near as harrowing, as the actual moonshot itself, and this DVD gives you hours of material to walk you through that process.

Anyone who's interested in filmmaking will be riveted by both the Ron Howard running film commentary and the hour-long "Making of" documentary. Perhaps even more intriguing is the Marilyn and Jim Lovell audio track, in which you get to hear how Lovell feels about Howard and Hanks made his movie. This is made all the more interesting and informative for the filmmaking student in that _Apollo 13_ wasn't just the retelling of Lovell's real-life experience, it's also the film version of his book. Getting his perspective both as narrative object and storyteller is fascinating, as are Marilyn's observations on Kathleen Quinlan's Academy-nominated performance.

Combine all this with the superb technical brilliance of the encoding here, and you've got a DVD that's entirely worth the surprisingly modest price.

Good movie, good extras, nice price
"Failure is not an option!". So says mission-control director Gene Kranz, played by Ed Harris, as mission control devises a way to get the astronauts safely home. Although initially viewed as a disaster (explosion in spacecraft which forces cancellation the the moon-landing mission), in reality it is a story of success due to resourcefulness. The astronauts must return to earth and splash down safely with only enough electrical power to run a coffee pot.

Probably the best of director Ron Howard's movies, it is well acted by stars Tom Hanks (as Jim Lovell), Kevin Bacon (Jack Swigert), and Bill Paxton (Fred Haise) as the three space-bound astronauts, Gary Sinise (mission-bumped astronaut Ken Mattingly), Ed Harris (mission control Gene Kranz), and Kathleen Quinlan (Marilyn Lovell). The movie was nominated for 9 Oscars including best picture, writing, supporting actor (Harris), supporting actress (Quinlan), music, and visual effects, and won for editing and for sound.

There are a lot of special effects thoughout the movie, including the entirely-recreated lift-off sequence from a bird's-eye viewpoint. The weightlessness scenes were achieved by filming in a KC-135 airplane that did a series of parabolic climbs and dives, allowing about 25 seconds of filming at a time.

An exciting 220 minute movie about one of the most-watched successful rescues in history, the DVD contains a good "making of" documentary, a commentary by director Ron Howard, and another by Jim and Marilyn Lovell. "Bill Paxton's home movies" were never located, and the "comparison with NASA footage" and the "extensive exploration of special effects" were brief parts of the "making of", not separate items. Text-based production notes and cast/crew blurbs, and a trailer. Undocumented feature is the isolated score which plays in its entirety at the main menu (can skip forward, but not backward, however). The 2.35:1 wide-screen movie has 56 (!) chapters. Highly recommend for fans of any of the actors listed above, the space program, or adventures in general.

"With all due respect, sir, I believe this will be our finest hour" - Gene Kranz

For Audiophiles: The DTS is worth the Money
Everyone knows that Apollo 13 is a well written and directed movie (Ronny Howard). What everyone may not know is that the DTS audio track transfer from the Video master to the DVD is excellent. With nice speakers and a subwoofer, DTS makes this movie worth the price. AC-3, having to compress the audio more than DTS on the DVD disc, the Dolby Digital just doesn't sound as good. Period. The rumbles of the lift-off are clean and tight - they are not just a low "buzz" or vibration. The high's in the dialog are much crisper and give the audience the sense they are sitting right there next to Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon. DTS does a much better job with the surround channels as well. What moves around the rear with AC-3 Dolby Digital, REALLY moves around the room with DTS. Transitions are smoother and the sound "flows" around you. The one problem? The cheapest DTS decoder (needed to watch DTS DVD's) is a Technics for 300 bucks. I say that the DTS decoder and the DTS movies by Amazon are well worth the money for even the small home theater guru.