CLEVELAND, Ohio— Fifty years ago July 20, Neil Armstrong etched two statements into the world’s memory: “The Eagle has landed” and “That’s one step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”
The Eagle approaches the Moon, and the Earth looms far away. Courtesy Statement Pictures for MacGillivray Freeman / CNN Films
But a new documentary playing at the Great Lakes Science Center at 3 p.m. daily through August includes many little-known bits of dialogue from long-forgotten video and audio of the Apollo 11 mission.
“Neil’s standing on his head again,” crewmate Michael Collins is heard in “Apollo 11: First Steps Edition” radioing Marshall Space Center. “He’s trying to make me nervous.”
Space Center members could be witty, too. One compared the astronauts eating on the fly to diners in a rotating restaurant.
Apollo 11 awaits its flight to the Moon. Courtesy Statement Pictures for MacGillivray Freeman / CNN Films.
The “First Steps Edition” is a 47-minute version for giant screens of the 93-minute “Apollo 11” for regular theaters. Directed by Todd Douglas Miller, a Columbus native, the movie weaves together footage shot during the mission. Much of it had gone ignored for decades until federal archivists unearthed it for the film crew. The filmmakers say they digitized and clarified but did not distort.
The documentary fleshes out many of the words, deeds, fears and thrills behind the first human steps on the moon.
We see Armstrong, Collins and Buzz Aldrin shaving, filming, working the controls, descending the ladder and planting a U.S. flag on the moon. We see members of mission control in Houston, including one woman and one African-American, concentrating, consulting and cheering. We see crowds of spectators on the Cape Kennedy beach and in a reviewing stand, including Johnny Carson and Richard Nixon.
Director Miller traces his fascination with space to his childhood in Ohio, ground zero for Armstrong and many other astronauts. Born in 1976, he said in a recent interview, “When you grow up there, you get saturated with that.”
Still, “I never really appreciated how difficult [Apollo] was, and how courageous everyone was, and the expertise involved, and how everyone came together for this common goal.”
Beloved TV host Johnny Carson watches Apollo 11's launch. Courtesy Statement Pictures for MacGillivray Freeman / CNN Films.
The movie is almost completely chronological. There’s no narrator except for the occasional contemporary voiceover of famed newsman Walter Cronkite. Composer Matt Morton’s music uses period electric devices, though it sounds more modern.
“Apollo 11” was produced by Statement Pictures and CNN Films. It fills the curved, 82-foot-tall screen of the science center’s Cleveland Clinic Dome Theater. According to the center, the theater was remodeled in 2016 with the world’s first laser system for a giant cinema dome.
The movie’s been made, but the work’s not done. “Our research still continues,” said Miller. “That’s the bigger mission of the film. We have a large volume of footage to put back in the public domain. Curation and restoration is going to take years.”
“Apollo 11” is airing at 3 p.m. daily through Aug. 31 and also at 1 p.m. daily in July at the Great Lakes Science Center, 601 Erieside Ave. For nonmembers, admission to the movie is $11 for adults and $9 for children 2 through 12. Combo deals are available that include admission to the rest of the museum. Go to greatscience.com.