![a man on the moon movie a man on the moon movie](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTkxMjM2OTMwNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTUxNjEzMQ@@._V1_.jpg)
The clean-cut 81-year-old chats about his three journeys into space, the strained relationship his NASA duties placed on his family life and his hectic "retirement" schedule of autograph signings and public appearances. But it doesn't offer any narrative we haven't already heard from the more famous space stories - from the infectious hubris of The Right Stuff, from the act-of-God morbidity of Apollo 13 and from everything in between.Ĭernan is certainly a game onscreen presence - as one would hope, considering he shares a co-writing credit (the film is based on his memoir of the same name).
A man on the moon movie tv#
The film lovingly recounts Cernan's journey from naval aviator to three-time space explorer with the familiar assortment of black-and-white family photos, TV news footage and era-appropriate musical cues.
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Though a welcome cinema corrective to NASA's legacy after last month's daft conspiracy-theory comedy Moonwalkers, The Last Man veers too much to the side of lionizing its cowboy. It's a daunting task without a proper crew by his side. Tracy and her astronaut father, Eugene Cernan, in 1972.Ĭernan's role in the film, then, is as a one-man eulogy for the space program and all the promises it embodied. Afterward, NASA pivoted from the Apollo missions in favor of the space shuttle, which has shut down as well. Why he isn't more embedded in our national memory is perhaps yet another sign that America's interest in its space program had already dwindled significantly by the time he commanded Apollo 17 in 1972. If you are a particular space freak, perhaps you also know the name Eugene Cernan, star of the new documentary The Last Man on the Moon.Īs the end of the line, the one who turned out the lights before he left the moon, Cernan's familiarity to most of the American public should be on par with Armstrong's and Aldrin's. You'll perhaps associate their names with the swelling up of pride the nation felt at seeing those boots hit the lunar turf for the first time. So for someone raised in the United States, when you're asked to recall the men we've sent to the moon, your mind probably goes first to the originals: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. The ends bulge out in our minds, becoming signifiers of the whole. Humans have an easier time remembering the first and last of things than we do the middles. Gene Cernan reflects beside an A-4 Skyhawk from VA113 squadron.