Search - Moonshot on DVD

Not the Documentary with Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton

Michael Burton | Columbus, OH USA | 01/03/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This wasn't what I expected.

There is a documentary with the same name, based on the book by astronauts Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton. The cover art is almost identical, too. The documentary is available here in VHS.

This disc is a dramatization of the Apollo 11 mission done for the History Channel. It mixes in a good bit of actual hi-def footage from NASA. The result looks great. It's mostly entertaining, and fairly informative. You should take some of the events shown with a grain of salt, due to filmmakers' continual tendency to try to crank up the drama -- in particular, you might want to look at a map of the moon, and at footage of the actual descent and landing of Apollo 11 -- but this film seems to stay a lot closer to reality than Hollywood's "Apollo 13" did.

The product description says both "widescreen" and "1.33:1". The program is actually widescreen, 1.85:1."

A different perspective on an often portrayed event.

Jennifer Oleszkowicz | 12/31/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Moonshot is an interesting look at the human side of one of The United States' biggest scientific (and political) accomplishments. The now legendary astronauts are portrayed as humans with quirks and flaws and also with the courage and determination to undertake a challenge that was just as likely to kill them as it was to change history. I enjoyed it far more than I would have enjoyed a more typical documentary featuring the same information and would recommend it to anyone interested in learning about the people behind the infamous video clips."