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9/3/2011 5:37 PMBrad wrote:
What part of this review made you think I thought it was real? I talked about how I wanted to see it because it starred Lloyd Owen from "Viva Laughlin." Who best to my knowledge, we not an astronaut in 1974. I questioned how the handheld made it back to earth because if there's no answer that's a huge MOVIE plot hole. Not because I thought it was real. Reply to this
9/3/2011 8:45 PM
Randolph wrote:
And when Brad asked Jerrid, "how was this footage recovered", he knows it's not real footage. It's pointing out a rather big plot hole.
"What do you know? Haven't you heard of suspension of disbelief?" - from the movie "Ed Wood" Reply to this
9/3/2011 11:07 PM
Anonymous wrote:
Hi, Brad. I'm replying to your comment about how the footage was found. All footage taken on the moon trips, was beamed back to NASA. So what this means is that it wasn't so much found by people going back to the moon, but by people locating it in some warehouse owned by NASA and we know they're out of cash right now, so they might as well sell off whatever they have to make money.
And what else would make money, but a moon parasite eating earth men stranded on the moon...? Reply to this
9/3/2011 11:22 PMBrad wrote:
I understand how that footage made it back. My question is how their handheld Super 8 footage, that was clearly shot on film and not transmitted back, made it to earth. Reply to this
9/4/2011 8:52 AM
BlaydeTan wrote:
The only thing I can think of (and I admit it's horribly weak) is that there may have been some form of black-box like container that they could have used for storage and would later have been retrieved in a later mission following the tracing beacons that are contained in black-box devices. Now I also admit that I haven't seen the film yet so that idea may be completely blown out the window (or airlock in this case) by pacing or other events, but it's the first thing that came to mind. Reply to this
9/5/2011 10:21 PM
Alan wrote:
Obviously, after floating around earth's orbit for years, it crashed into the ocean at the end of Cloverfield with the parasites. Reply to this
9/3/2011 5:41 PM
Terrence Cain wrote:
Just some of the tone I guess. Some people apparently think parts of it is real and other parts are filmed to fill the gaps from comments I've seen on You Tube and reviews online by newspapers. I swear some people will believe anything they see. lol! Reply to this
9/3/2011 5:44 PM
Jackie wrote:
You probably should have listened to what Brad was saying. People don't usually throw out the term plothole, or reference the real actors, or talk about ending re-shoots when they think the movie is real. Reply to this
9/3/2011 5:43 PM
C. wrote:
Yeah, I wasn't impressed by Apollo 18 very much either. Have you seen The Last Broadcast? It's a bit older than Blair Witch, but work with even less and is actually more effective. Just don't let the ending ruin it for you - because it will. Reply to this
9/8/2011 2:26 AM
Logan wrote:
Oh man, tell me about it. I was really taken in by The Last Broadcast, and then the ending completely took me out and is one of the few movies that pissed me off.
I haven't seen Apollo 18, but I'm going to. Reply to this
9/3/2011 6:01 PMDaniel wrote:
I enjoy a good found footage movie, when it's paced well. "Troll Hunter" so far is my favorite film of the year, but this review makes me really want to see it. Reply to this
9/3/2011 6:13 PM
Daniel wrote:
Makes me really want to see "Apollo 18". Also good comparison on slasher films. That is a genre that back in its heyday got really over saturated and now thanks to a hand full of popular 'found footage' films that made their money back and are inexpensive to make because it almost always banks on that you don't need any name actors I think a lot of independent horror films are going to try this. A friend of mine made one that didn't do great but was a pretty effective movie. If it had decent cult buzz in a few years I can see it coming back. But yeah as long as film companies aren't willing to take risks and independent films need to model themselves after a financially proven genre I think found footage films are going to stay a while. Reply to this
9/3/2011 6:16 PM
Daniel wrote:
'The Last Broadcast' is a pretty classic semi obscure found footage film if you'd not seen it. It plays along like a made for T.V. crime documentary from the early 90's. Reply to this
9/3/2011 6:06 PM
Ryan S wrote:
as a moon/Apollo buff...I did enjoy this film but would like to have seen more (just a tad) more on the big things, and did also wonder why no explanation about the footage was given. You know the shit is hitting the fan when they tap into the Russian coms...and the Russians..at the height of the cold war - give it to the U.S I give it a B overall. Great vid btw. Reply to this
9/3/2011 6:16 PM
Davide wrote:
Maybe the footage fell back to Earth with the toilet seat of the Mir space station that killed that weird-looking girl who works with Mandy Patinkin.
All jokes aside, the whole movie seems... decidedly more interesting than I imagined. I'll give it a chance. Reply to this
9/3/2011 6:34 PM
Reichsjaegermeister wrote:
While i also enjoy your regular reviews and respect your opinion in most of them, you should try to have guests on them as often as possible.
Jake has been so entertaining in the midnight screening reviews, you should really keep it up. Though, i do not recommend it, since he might totally freak out because of he had to sit through too many bad movies. Reply to this
9/3/2011 6:35 PM
Conner wrote:
Damn. This movie isn't about space zombies?
9/3/2011 7:23 PM
glenn wrote:
Personally, I didn't think much of Apollo 18 and I didn't like Cloverfield either, I don't think the found footage idea works to the advantage of well budgeted high concept movies. The ideas are too big and too obviously fantasy for the films to sustain any sense of the possibility of the events being real. Ghost stories work because ghost stories are ambiguous and the scale is believably small. A found footage slasher could work. Evan an encounter with an alien on earth in a domestic or isolated rural setting could work. But when it involves a gigantic Godzilla mother-fucker stomping over New York (a) It would be all over the news and the grainy footage of a load of screaming ninnies would be less interesting than the clear footage shot by professional news crews (b)The pretence that it could possibly be real is a shot down immediately because I watch the news I have not seen anything about gigantic fucking monsters, ever! This reduces the found footage concept to the level of an annoying affectation along the lines of jerky-cam. With Apollo 18 I'm expected to swallow a conspiracy theory that involves launching a huge rocket, footage that just miraculously appears on earth and the very unambiguous sight of rocks with legs. Not rven a combination of heavy sedatives and powerful hallucinogenics would make me accept blummin' moon spiders! And that's before you look it up in the Urban Dictionary. Reply to this
9/3/2011 7:29 PMBrad wrote:
I thought the movie did a good job of explaining why this was a secret mission; but I agree with you on how did the damn Super 8 footage make it back to earth?! Reply to this
9/3/2011 7:34 PMBooRat wrote:
Now, I'm paraphrasing, I'm stealing this from Linkara whom said he stole it from a friend of his! For how the footage was found, "It found a big enough plothole, fell threw, and landed back on Earth!"
Another found footage movie I want to see or at least see you review it is a Norweigen or Swedish(I'm not sure which it is from) movie called The Trollhunter. It's suppose to be like a mix of the plot and setting of the Blair Witch Project with the ending and character types from Cloverfield! Basically a bunch of teens lost in the woulds trying to catch trolls on film and they get stalked, hunted, killed, and eaten by a giant monsterious troll!
So space rock spiders/crabs!? No referince to Galaxcy Quest or Pirates 3: At World's End!? Reply to this
9/3/2011 7:54 PM
Strelnikov wrote:
To: Brad Jones About: Possible Explanation
The crap from the ruins of the two wrecked spacecraft drifted back into Earth orbit and the Soviets (who had a space station at the time - one of the Salyuts) dragged the junk in, and found the cameras with the film in them. After developing and screening the film for the KGB, they sent it back to Washington.
OR:
This footage was found by the Chinese in the near future. No joke, the Chinese want to send a "taikonaut" (astronaut) to the Moon; possibly their Moon shot came across the foootage, which they processed and showed to their version of the KGB, and then forwarded to Washington.
***
I know for a fact that any video sent from the Lunar Modules was grainer than hell and very low resolution. Yes the lunar astronauts had cameras (still Hasselblads and the 16 or 35 mm hand cameras mounted to the lunar space suits or attached by straps), but none of those cameras had sound, the sole sound camera being the onboard video camera, and that was monochrome. So unless this mission had special film gear, this movie is impossible. Reply to this
9/3/2011 8:05 PM
Chris wrote:
Have you ever seen the found footage webseries Marble Hornets? If you're a fan of those kinds of films, this is one of the best I've seen. Reply to this
9/4/2011 7:13 PM
Mitchell wrote:
Yes, yes, yes. This is a very good series. I don't even like found footage movies that much, but this one is so well done, especially for a webseries. Reply to this
9/3/2011 8:24 PMChris H wrote:
I know how the footage found its way back to Earth. AUTO ROBERT KERMAN MAGICIAN!!!! I wonder who the real moon spiders are? Reply to this
9/3/2011 8:24 PMtotem wrote:
If you (Brad) are into found footage movies, you should really watch (and do a Vlog of) The Troll Hunter. Seriously, best found footage b/monster-movie of all time. Hans ftw... Reply to this
9/3/2011 8:29 PM
Anonymous wrote:
You mentioned watching Tree of Life near the end of the review, and I thought I remembered you mentioning doing a vlog with Jake on it on Twitter a few days ago. Did I miss that or is it still coming? Reply to this
9/3/2011 8:33 PMMichael C. wrote:
You know, hearing the ending, and I'm probably the only one, The B-52s "Rock Lobster" was in my head, modified for this movie:
We were on the moon Everybody had helmets on Somebody went for a moonwalk And there they found a rock It wasn't a rock It was a rock SPI-DER! Reply to this
9/3/2011 9:39 PM
Zoey wrote:
It sounds a lot like The Thing IN SPACE(!). Also, Brad, what would you consider to be the scariest movie you've ever seen? Oh, and do you like kindertrauma.com? The archives are a goldmine of obscure horror flicks. Reply to this
9/3/2011 10:49 PMStrannik wrote:
I would theorize that the film from the Super 8 cameras was picked up by a Soviet Lunahod probe and sent back to Earth. It's no more unlikely than any other theories, and the original press release did say that the footage supposedly came from Soviet archives. Reply to this
9/3/2011 10:54 PM
Handsome Pete wrote:
The footage wasn't recovered from NASA cameras, it was recovered from a video signal sent by faraway aliens who were tapping into NASA's cameras and trying to warn humanity about the moon danger, like in that movie Prince Of Darkness. The aliens also edited the film, I guess. Reply to this
9/3/2011 11:11 PM
Bassbait wrote:
First of all, the "wizard" thing, I think that's from Confused Matthew (although he probably didn't post it on there, it seems to be his joke).
My answer for how the footage was found - Dave Bowman grabbed it on his way back to earth.
9/3/2011 11:50 PM
UserGoogol wrote:
It's from The Simpsons, actually. Specifically, from Treehouse of Horror X, where Lucy Lawless addresses continuity errors in Xena Warrior Princess with that line. Of course, like many Simpsons lines, it has gone to be a meme in its own right. Reply to this
9/3/2011 11:32 PM
Doug wrote:
Brad, why not continue the midnight screening series? I mean, it is better with the gang with you. Reply to this
9/4/2011 12:18 AMBrad wrote:
Because the theater stopped doing midnight showings. They were only doing it for the summer. But I am going to start featuring the gang in more of my movie review vlogs. Some will be me solo, and some will feature me and someone else from the site. That way people who prefer solo reviews will be happy, and people who prefer the group reviews will also be happy. Reply to this
The footage got here from earth due to the Plot Black Hole. Reply to this
9/4/2011 1:30 AM
to.aru.shiroi.neko wrote:
I am curious how there can be skeletal remains on the moon. Flesh cannot decompose in a vacuum. Moon is a vacuum. Since carbon and nitrogen is very trace on the moon, human tissue wouldn't exactly be interesting to rock creatures.
Said rock creatures could be made out of silicon rather than carbon I suppose which is abundant on the moon and Silicon like carbon can. Infection from them are implausible though I suppose poisoning is possible.
As mentioned the footage could have been transmitted back to Earth rather than being brought back physically. Reply to this
9/4/2011 1:45 AMBrad wrote:
I can live with plot holes like the skeleton =) I mentioned in the review that some of the in-ship footage was transmitted back, but the handheld super 8 footage shot on film couldn't have been transmitted back. Reply to this
9/4/2011 8:15 AM
Randolph wrote:
Were the skeletal remains picked completely clean or did there look to be some meat left on the bones?
If the bones were completely stripped, a logical explanation is that the moon-bugs ate it.
As for the hald held footage, there is NO logical explanation for THAT! Reply to this
9/6/2011 5:42 AM
to.aru.shiroi.neko wrote:
That raises more questions...
Why would these creatures be interested in astronauts?
If they were interested in something else it would be scarier. For instance the water in their bodies...
9/4/2011 3:50 AM
GutterMouth wrote:
Almost everyone thinks this movie is horrible except for Brad. Also did Brad say he was not entertained by Tree of Life? Wow. I think Brads videos are awesome but his taste in movies is pure shit. Super 8 sucked too. Reply to this
9/4/2011 3:59 AMBrad wrote:
"Super 8" is a movie. "Tree of Life" is pretentious garbage made for film students to jerk off to. You probably should have used a better example than Super 8, as both Super 8 and Tree of Life were critically acclaimed. Now, if you gave me shit for liking "Ballistica," that would have worked =)
Also, you may think my taste is shit, but if it were PURE shit, I would have liked "Transformers 3." Fuck that movie. Reply to this
9/4/2011 4:15 AM
GutterMouth wrote:
We obviously have different views on what a movie should be. I only brought up Super 8 cause you mentioned it in the video and cause it is also a recent alien flick I found very underwhelming. I still love your work, but I'm going to have to take any of your non exploitation film recommendations with a grain of salt.
9/4/2011 5:16 AM
glenn wrote:
I don't want to come across as a sycophant, but Brad's taste in movies is usually pretty reliable. He just seems to either like a film or he doesn't without getting all deep and hyper critical about them. In the case of Super 8. if you grew up with 80s kids movies like the Goonies or Monster squad it's a relief to find out they can still make them. He should watch Attack the Block because it's like Assault on Precinct 13, with monsters, for kids. Tree of Life, I can't wait to see him lay waste to it. There's art-house movies that are only really art-house because they are foreign and not tied to genre. And then there are Art-Fart-House movies that are only really movies because a lot of Art Farts are pretentious. I am a history of Art Graduate, technically this means I am an Art Fart and I think old Terence is so far up his own backside it's created a black hole where point, entertainment value and narrative can't escape the gravitational pull of his sphincter. It's also more ridiculous than the merman perfume advert in Zoolander. Reply to this
9/4/2011 4:34 AMKitsula wrote:
No comment on the big reveal that of the insane joint US-USSR mission that boils down to 'let's see what happens when we antagonize the vicious space crab creatures into a frenzy... yep, they go into a killing frenzy DERP DEE DOO!!!'
9/4/2011 9:23 AM
Blaine wrote:
the way I explained it to myself was that the footage actually survived the crash, if they crashed the two could have stayed in orbit and the orbit can always deteriorate and they can fall back to the moon, or heck it just stayed in orbit and NASA found it there. its assuming that the cameras were VERY durable but there in space so its not really like theres gonna be a big fireball that destroys everything Reply to this
Remember when MIR had a collision with a supply ship? People so used to Hollywood movies where space ships collide in gigantic explosions were left watching CNN frantically and asking themselves, "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!!"
There is quite literally so much space junk, debris from that collision, urine dumps from the ISS, space tools lost on previous shuttle missions, etc, that it is estimated the number of pieces of space debris is in the tens of millions.
Brad - here is ONE somewhat plausible explanation for the Super-8 footage being recovered. This is assuming the Super-8 cameras or at least the canisters of exposed film survived the crash between the lunar and command modules.
It is quite possible that the canisters were carried by the inertia from the crash and made a long slow trip back to Earth orbit where it would be recovered by a shuttle crew or by the ISS. Reply to this
9/4/2011 12:02 PM
Jay Naiwlier wrote:
I think it is obvious that the Super 8-type footage made it back because there was an explosion that sent it flying into the arctic sea, where it froze for 40 years before being uncovered by Tony Stark only to discover that there was a nuclear weapon hidden in Asia, which lead to a major war between the Spy Kids and the Smurfs which ultimately lead to the understanding that in space no one can hear you scream. Wait... that was the plot to a Michael Bay film... the real answer is cake. Reply to this
9/4/2011 12:03 PM
jmr wrote:
Could film even survive exposure to the various radiations present in space? If lead, or whatever, is enough to protect it, wouldn't that make the cameras enormous and weighty. I know they filmed things in space, of course, but I question Super-8-like devices, correct me if I'm wrong.
9/4/2011 1:48 PM
maxjfrost wrote:
I liked this movie, unlike paranormal bullshit, I was really looking forward to it and it delivered. BUT the thing with recovering shot footage...the only possible explanation that it was recovered soon after the crash(guess it wasn't completely devastating) by some unmaned modules from the moon surface or another secret mission, if not by NASA, maybe by the Soviets. One thing for sure - it stayed on the moon, surface or less likely orbit. Reply to this
9/4/2011 5:41 PM
Amber wrote:
Honestly, I can see the film made by the onboard cameres maybe getting back. The hand held cameras though should have been destroyed. Unless there was enough of the one craft's body to drift around as space debris and later picked up. Either way, thats not likely and its a HuGE plot hole.
Regardless of that, I still liked the movie. Reply to this
9/4/2011 6:24 PM
JayRam wrote:
probably the same person who overheard Charles Foster Kane's last words--that was fuckin' gold.
Anyway, I still want to check out Apollo 18 despite its most glaring plothole Reply to this
9/4/2011 7:25 PM
Nick Nack wrote:
Hey geophysicist here, didn't see the movie but assuming that the tapes where in the modules and the modules remained in a stable orbit around the Moon it actually would be easier to retrieve them than if they were on the lunar surface. Remember that it takes more fuel to break for insertion, slow your descent and take off again than it does to match your velocity to a pair of orbiting craft. Especially if you can just use a large orbiter and didn't bother to carry a landing module of your own. Which you wouldn't bother with if one of the transmitted records indicated that the crew got off the surface.
Unless the modules had a decaying orbit and crashed. Or had enough acceleration perpendicular to their orbit imparted to them during the collision they should still be in a stable orbit around the moon for years. And since it takes several minutes of burn from payload assist rockets to get you into a higher orbit let alone out of orbit entirely, its likely they would just circle the moon until the're orbit decayed over decades. Though I wounder which suckers got sent back the the Moon after they learned that Cthulhu lives there?
I still think it's funnier if they didn't sent anybody.
"Good job retrieving the 8mm reels boys."
"But sir, no mission was sent to retrieve the film."
"But then, WHO WAS PHONE?! I mean, TAPES?! Reply to this
9/4/2011 11:22 PM
Entropy wrote:
Wait, they DID leave most of the Super-8 cams on the ship. He left on the Proton rocket.
Although I'll concede that it doesn't quite explain how the footage from the camera the astronaut had on the Proton ended up in there. Reply to this
9/4/2011 11:50 PM
Ryan wrote:
I went to see this Saturday and left the theater thinking "I hated this movie!" However thinking about it afterwards it really wasn't terrible just forgettable at best. I'll agree that it's suspenseful and the editing was good. I had this movie or Sharks 3D, kind of glad I choose this movie instead. As far as the plot hole is concerned, it's all speculations at this point (Even if it was Wizards or any other stuff). Anyways great review Brad. Reply to this
9/5/2011 11:37 AM
Blasku wrote:
For me, the entire point of found footage movies did not work here: I found it hard to be immersed for annoying little errors physics-wise. The whole point would be that one needs as little suspension of disbelief with this type of movies as possible, and whatever does need it is something that you can't disprove. One such thing being ghosts, or lunar rock-spiders hilariously enough (check Russell's teapot ). Getting to the point: I know that it's a very old complaint, but could they not include sound effects of the rover driving on the moon surface? There's still no sound in space, and the Moon hardly has enough gas floating about to call it an atmosphere. The other only annoying thing was how the younger astronaut could actually run on the Moon, just like on Earth (when he found the infected one after they crashed with the rover). But these are actually just nitpicks, they can't ruin the immersion by themselves. What really did ruin it was the hideous overexpose/bloom effect. It's like a 5 year old found the footage and made sure to expose the film to direct sunlight every 5 seconds at some scenes. And in the end when the editing got really-really hectic with this and other 'authentic' effects overdone, I had to squint my eyes to make anything out of the plot! On the other side, it does make the stock footage indistinguishable from the rest of the movie . I'm really disappointed because the premise is very intriguing indeed, but the OTT genre characteristics made the movie quite mediocre. The director should've been more subtle with these, or ditch the whole thing and use a traditional, cinematic style (still shots, bitte!). Reply to this
9/5/2011 2:22 PM
SeanR wrote:
I'll buy extraterrestrial spiders, but not on the moon! Everybody knows that the spiders are from Mar-ar-ars! Reply to this
9/5/2011 4:07 PMMatsugawa wrote:
You're absolutely right. Great, big hole in that thar plot. I mean, some of the footage was transmitted down to earth live (the Westinghouse cameras), but the 16mm film... yeah, that needs a more clear answer. Reply to this
9/5/2011 11:23 PM
KMarx wrote:
The footage was recovered during a special mission in 2011. STS-135 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sts_135) was the final space shuttle mission flown by NASA, they were relatively quiet about the objectives of STS-135 until the mission had returned to Earth. It had a four man crew (which is unusually small for a shuttle mission) the first time in 28 years NASA launched with a crew that small. A small crew was used to limit the number of individuals who knew of the nature of this mission and to limit loss of life and infection of astronauts with whatever it is those moon-spiders are carrying. The crew was made up of seasoned astronauts who had all flown at least one shuttle mission. the entire crew were fitted with Russian Sokol space suits instead of the NASA EMU and ACES suits. This was done in case the shuttle received irreparable damage and the crew were forced to ride home on a Russian bird. Official NASA records state STS-135 carried a payload to the International Space Station and returned to Earth, these items could easily be transported to the ISS via the Russian Soyuz vehicle ans the American public would be none the wiser.
Or the movie's just bullshit, makes more sense. Reply to this
9/6/2011 12:46 AM
MikeKz wrote:
I haven't seen Apollo 18. Every time you talk about the Moon aliens, I keep imagining them as Snorks in Space. Is that accurate? Reply to this
9/6/2011 10:19 AM
Dean wrote:
I can understand where he's coming from with the question "how did they find the footage?" but then again how could they find the footage in blair witch or cloverfield. Because i can imagine the so called "witch" would see the camera and probably take it and keep it. and in cloverfield i'd imagine the camera would have been crushed to pieces. I think when you look to closely at plot holes it will ruin everything. Thats just my opinion because i'm not the biggest fan of found footage films because they're trying to make it look like reality and i have a hard time grasping that. Reply to this
9/7/2011 8:41 PM
D.J. wrote:
"but then again how could they find the footage in blair witch or cloverfield."
Probably because those movies took place, you know, ON EARTH. Reply to this
9/6/2011 1:31 PM
CM wrote:
I didn't watch the movie but from what I've seen of the viral marketing the footage was supposed to have been recovered by Apollo 19. Reply to this
9/7/2011 8:46 PM
D.J. wrote:
"There's a reason why we didn't go back...other than to solely get recover 'footage' that you weren't meant to see. Good thing we were able to avoid those pesky spider-rocks! Poor Apollo 18 bastards..." Reply to this
9/6/2011 11:15 PM
nerd wrote:
non crazy astronaut loaded the film into a bag and lost the bag in the car crash. Reply to this
9/7/2011 2:07 AM
PhycoKrusk wrote:
CM nailed it: If you follow through the website linked at the end of the film, you will eventually stumble on a bunch of "articles", one of which states that the footage was recovered by Apollo 19.
This still doesn't answer the question of, "How do you conceal the launch of a Saturn V rocket?" They are not known for being discreet. Reply to this
9/8/2011 7:24 AM
CM wrote:
I think I saw some "spy" footage and pics of the launch on the site also, so I guess people were supposed to have seen it but it was covered up ala UFO pics. "nothing to see here but swamp gas. move along." "but it's a giant metal rocket.." "I said MOVE ALONG!"
I'm so tired of the same "critter" over and over again. I'm also tired of Hollywood taking "scare" moments from a movie and making the trailer with them. The worst offender that I can remember in recent films was Quarantine. They played the end of the movie in the trailer!
It's looking like (according to the comments) the footage was actually found by Apollo 19. I was having trouble with this idea when I saw the trailer in the theater. But it didn't stop me from being very interested in the claustrophobic idea of being trapped on the moon with something sinister. That is far more frightening than giant sharks or any number of movie monsters. You're right, Brad, the moon is inherently creepy.
The fact that there's no atmosphere on the moon makes the claustrophobic setting (space suit, lunar module, Russian module, etc.) hundreds of times worse.
Yeah, I've made up my mind. I'm going to go see this. Thank you, Brad! Reply to this
9/8/2011 1:53 AM
Chris wrote:
During the Original moon landing there were semi portable cameras attached to the lunar lander that was controlled via nasa from mission control, so it's not much of a stretch to think that some of the camera's held by the personnel were also portable and sending a constant signal, because it was highly sensitive. A super 8 for the moon wouldn't be very effective, but since this is never explained it can only be speculated.
Another explanation might be the camera's were news type camera, which relay a signal back to the pod, which then sends it back to earth with delay. Reply to this
9/8/2011 3:22 AM
Scofield wrote:
I could have sworn I heard a baby on your review. And its not the first time lol You have a baby :O ? If so, congratulations Brad ! Reply to this
9/8/2011 7:29 AM
CM wrote:
That's his cat. I also thought it was a baby too the first time I heard him in a review. It's kind of creepy actually. Reply to this
9/10/2011 9:27 PM
Sergeant Zaftig wrote:
About how the film was recovered: Tommy Lee Jones found the wreckage and threw the film in the direction of Earth just before he died on the moon at the end of Space Cowboys. Reply to this
9/18/2011 8:55 AM
Motzy wrote:
Totally unrelated to plot holes, when you said the moon was creepy with the pitch black sky and all I couldn't help but think that to the astronauts the sky would have been full of brilliant stars, they just don't pick up on film because of the contrast. So for them it would have been creepy, but with a pretty background. xD Reply to this
9/28/2011 10:55 AM
Kage Nara wrote:
Sorry, haven't seen all the video but maybe they left the film footage in the Lunar Module (The Russian or American) they didn't take back with them and it was found by a later lunar mission. My question is from the ending of Apollo 13, where it said one of the Astronauts from the Apollo 13 mission, Fred Hayes I think, was scheduled to go back on 18... So my biggest question is, where is Bill Paxton?!! This movie would have been so much better if one of the astronauts had said "Game over man!!" Reply to this
12/18/2011 11:13 PM
Paul wrote:
Fred Haise, according to NASA's chedueling of the Apollo missions at the time, was to fly on Apollo 19 as commander, not 18 since Richard Gordon of Apollo 12 was to fly that, the movie got it wrong. Reply to this
1/17/2012 1:41 AM
Cronos006 wrote:
I've been on a found-footage horror film kick lately, and your reviews have helped inspire it. Big fan, love your movie/tv reviews and of course Cinema Snob stuff.
If you like found-footage films, you definitely should watch and do a review of "Grave Encounters". Available on demand, perfect parody of the ghost-hunters type shows these days and pretty chilling and creepy as well. Reply to this
4/9/2012 6:50 PM
space fan wrote:
Just got the Apollo 18 blu ray on sale. Interesting movie. I just figured out how the film footage would have got back to earth. The Soviet LK on the surface didn't travel to the moon by itself. It had a LOK spacecraft in lunar orbit just like the Apollo Command Module. After the LK and Command Module collided in lunar orbit the remaining Soviet cosmonaut in the LOK could have had a rendezvous with the wreckage, retrieved the film and brought it back to earth. Reply to this
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I had no idea that Apollo 18 was out this early
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Do you really think any of that movie is real, Brad? It's a mockumentary. It's all made up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_18_(film)
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What part of this review made you think I thought it was real? I talked about how I wanted to see it because it starred Lloyd Owen from "Viva Laughlin." Who best to my knowledge, we not an astronaut in 1974. I questioned how the handheld made it back to earth because if there's no answer that's a huge MOVIE plot hole. Not because I thought it was real.
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And when Brad asked Jerrid, "how was this footage recovered", he knows it's not real footage. It's pointing out a rather big plot hole.
"What do you know? Haven't you heard of suspension of disbelief?"
- from the movie "Ed Wood"
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Hi, Brad. I'm replying to your comment about how the footage was found. All footage taken on the moon trips, was beamed back to NASA. So what this means is that it wasn't so much found by people going back to the moon, but by people locating it in some warehouse owned by NASA and we know they're out of cash right now, so they might as well sell off whatever they have to make money.
And what else would make money, but a moon parasite eating earth men stranded on the moon...?
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I understand how that footage made it back. My question is how their handheld Super 8 footage, that was clearly shot on film and not transmitted back, made it to earth.
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The only thing I can think of (and I admit it's horribly weak) is that there may have been some form of black-box like container that they could have used for storage and would later have been retrieved in a later mission following the tracing beacons that are contained in black-box devices. Now I also admit that I haven't seen the film yet so that idea may be completely blown out the window (or airlock in this case) by pacing or other events, but it's the first thing that came to mind.
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Obviously, after floating around earth's orbit for years, it crashed into the ocean at the end of Cloverfield with the parasites.
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Just some of the tone I guess. Some people apparently think parts of it is real and other parts are filmed to fill the gaps from comments I've seen on You Tube and reviews online by newspapers. I swear some people will believe anything they see. lol!
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You probably should have listened to what Brad was saying. People don't usually throw out the term plothole, or reference the real actors, or talk about ending re-shoots when they think the movie is real.
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I didn't like {Rec}2 Either.
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Yeah, I wasn't impressed by Apollo 18 very much either. Have you seen The Last Broadcast? It's a bit older than Blair Witch, but work with even less and is actually more effective. Just don't let the ending ruin it for you - because it will.
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Oh man, tell me about it. I was really taken in by The Last Broadcast, and then the ending completely took me out and is one of the few movies that pissed me off.
I haven't seen Apollo 18, but I'm going to.
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I enjoy a good found footage movie, when it's paced well. "Troll Hunter" so far is my favorite film of the year, but this review makes me really want to see it.
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Makes me really want to see "Apollo 18". Also good comparison on slasher films. That is a genre that back in its heyday got really over saturated and now thanks to a hand full of popular 'found footage' films that made their money back and are inexpensive to make because it almost always banks on that you don't need any name actors I think a lot of independent horror films are going to try this. A friend of mine made one that didn't do great but was a pretty effective movie. If it had decent cult buzz in a few years I can see it coming back. But yeah as long as film companies aren't willing to take risks and independent films need to model themselves after a financially proven genre I think found footage films are going to stay a while.
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'The Last Broadcast' is a pretty classic semi obscure found footage film if you'd not seen it. It plays along like a made for T.V. crime documentary from the early 90's.
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as a moon/Apollo buff...I did enjoy this film but would like to have seen more (just a tad) more on the big things, and did also wonder why no explanation about the footage was given. You know the shit is hitting the fan when they tap into the Russian coms...and the Russians..at the height of the cold war - give it to the U.S I give it a B overall. Great vid btw.
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Watch there will be a Apollo 18 Part 2.
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Maybe the footage fell back to Earth with the toilet seat of the Mir space station that killed that weird-looking girl who works with Mandy Patinkin.
All jokes aside, the whole movie seems... decidedly more interesting than I imagined. I'll give it a chance.
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While i also enjoy your regular reviews and respect your opinion in most of them, you should try to have guests on them as often as possible.
Jake has been so entertaining in the midnight screening reviews, you should really keep it up. Though, i do not recommend it, since he might totally freak out because of he had to sit through too many bad movies.
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Damn. This movie isn't about space zombies?
Well they just lost 1 customer.
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Space Zmbies sounds like a cewl idea! Maybe an Night of the Creeps reviews needs to be in the future!
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Heh,cute....I like the idea of 'Lunar Lepus'
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Personally, I didn't think much of Apollo 18 and I didn't like Cloverfield either,
I don't think the found footage idea works to the advantage of well budgeted high concept movies. The ideas are too big and too obviously fantasy for the films to sustain any sense of the possibility of the events being real. Ghost stories work because ghost stories are ambiguous and the scale is believably small. A found footage slasher could work. Evan an encounter with an alien on earth in a domestic or isolated rural setting could work. But when it involves a gigantic Godzilla mother-fucker stomping over New York (a) It would be all over the news and the grainy footage of a load of screaming ninnies would be less interesting than the clear footage shot by professional news crews (b)The pretence that it could possibly be real is a shot down immediately because I watch the news I have not seen anything about gigantic fucking monsters, ever! This reduces the found footage concept to the level of an annoying affectation along the lines of jerky-cam. With Apollo 18 I'm expected to swallow a conspiracy theory that involves launching a huge rocket, footage that just miraculously appears on earth and the very unambiguous sight of rocks with legs. Not rven a combination of heavy sedatives and powerful hallucinogenics would make me accept blummin' moon spiders! And that's before you look it up in the Urban Dictionary.
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I thought the movie did a good job of explaining why this was a secret mission; but I agree with you on how did the damn Super 8 footage make it back to earth?!
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Now, I'm paraphrasing, I'm stealing this from Linkara whom said he stole it from a friend of his! For how the footage was found, "It found a big enough plothole, fell threw, and landed back on Earth!"
Another found footage movie I want to see or at least see you review it is a Norweigen or Swedish(I'm not sure which it is from) movie called The Trollhunter. It's suppose to be like a mix of the plot and setting of the Blair Witch Project with the ending and character types from Cloverfield! Basically a bunch of teens lost in the woulds trying to catch trolls on film and they get stalked, hunted, killed, and eaten by a giant monsterious troll!
So space rock spiders/crabs!? No referince to Galaxcy Quest or Pirates 3: At World's End!?
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To: Brad Jones
About: Possible Explanation
The crap from the ruins of the two wrecked spacecraft drifted back into Earth orbit and the Soviets (who had a space station at the time - one of the Salyuts) dragged the junk in, and found the cameras with the film in them. After developing and screening the film for the KGB, they sent it back to Washington.
OR:
This footage was found by the Chinese in the near future. No joke, the Chinese want to send a "taikonaut" (astronaut) to the Moon; possibly their Moon shot came across the foootage, which they processed and showed to their version of the KGB, and then forwarded to Washington.
***
I know for a fact that any video sent from the Lunar Modules was grainer than hell and very low resolution. Yes the lunar astronauts had cameras (still Hasselblads and the 16 or 35 mm hand cameras mounted to the lunar space suits or attached by straps), but none of those cameras had sound, the sole sound camera being the onboard video camera, and that was monochrome. So unless this mission had special film gear, this movie is impossible.
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BTW,
Are you going to see "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark"?.....please?
I'd love to hear how it came out.
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Have you ever seen the found footage webseries Marble Hornets? If you're a fan of those kinds of films, this is one of the best I've seen.
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Yes, yes, yes. This is a very good series. I don't even like found footage movies that much, but this one is so well done, especially for a webseries.
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En, Apollo 18 only is a classified mission.
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I know how the footage found its way back to Earth. AUTO ROBERT KERMAN MAGICIAN!!!!
I wonder who the real moon spiders are?
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If you (Brad) are into found footage movies, you should really watch (and do a Vlog of) The Troll Hunter. Seriously, best found footage b/monster-movie of all time. Hans ftw...
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You mentioned watching Tree of Life near the end of the review, and I thought I remembered you mentioning doing a vlog with Jake on it on Twitter a few days ago. Did I miss that or is it still coming?
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Me and Jake's vlog on "Tree of Life" will be posted tomorrow.
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You know, hearing the ending, and I'm probably the only one, The B-52s "Rock Lobster" was in my head, modified for this movie:
We were on the moon
Everybody had helmets on
Somebody went for a moonwalk
And there they found a rock
It wasn't a rock
It was a rock SPI-DER!
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It sounds a lot like The Thing IN SPACE(!).
Also, Brad, what would you consider to be the scariest movie you've ever seen?
Oh, and do you like kindertrauma.com? The archives are a goldmine of obscure horror flicks.
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SPACE SPIDERS!?! D:
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Not as good as Troll Hunter.
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I would theorize that the film from the Super 8 cameras was picked up by a Soviet Lunahod probe and sent back to Earth. It's no more unlikely than any other theories, and the original press release did say that the footage supposedly came from Soviet archives.
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The footage wasn't recovered from NASA cameras, it was recovered from a video signal sent by faraway aliens who were tapping into NASA's cameras and trying to warn humanity about the moon danger, like in that movie Prince Of Darkness. The aliens also edited the film, I guess.
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First of all, the "wizard" thing, I think that's from Confused Matthew (although he probably didn't post it on there, it seems to be his joke).
My answer for how the footage was found - Dave Bowman grabbed it on his way back to earth.
I hope someone gets that reference.
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"Open the pod bay doors, HAL. "
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It's from The Simpsons, actually. Specifically, from Treehouse of Horror X, where Lucy Lawless addresses continuity errors in Xena Warrior Princess with that line. Of course, like many Simpsons lines, it has gone to be a meme in its own right.
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Brad, why not continue the midnight screening series? I mean, it is better with the gang with you.
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Because the theater stopped doing midnight showings. They were only doing it for the summer. But I am going to start featuring the gang in more of my movie review vlogs. Some will be me solo, and some will feature me and someone else from the site. That way people who prefer solo reviews will be happy, and people who prefer the group reviews will also be happy.
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Brad, it's simple.
The footage got here from earth due to the Plot Black Hole.
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I am curious how there can be skeletal remains on the moon. Flesh cannot decompose in a vacuum. Moon is a vacuum. Since carbon and nitrogen is very trace on the moon, human tissue wouldn't exactly be interesting to rock creatures.
Said rock creatures could be made out of silicon rather than carbon I suppose which is abundant on the moon and Silicon like carbon can. Infection from them are implausible though I suppose poisoning is possible.
As mentioned the footage could have been transmitted back to Earth rather than being brought back physically.
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I can live with plot holes like the skeleton =) I mentioned in the review that some of the in-ship footage was transmitted back, but the handheld super 8 footage shot on film couldn't have been transmitted back.
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Were the skeletal remains picked completely clean or did there look to be some meat left on the bones?
If the bones were completely stripped, a logical explanation is that the moon-bugs ate it.
As for the hald held footage, there is NO logical explanation for THAT!
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That raises more questions...
Why would these creatures be interested in astronauts?
If they were interested in something else it would be scarier. For instance the water in their bodies...
Do Cosmonauts taste good?
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Brad tries Cosmonauts? O_o
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Rita Repulsa found it "after 10,000 years" of being in a trash can.
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you said this wasn't exactly your favorite found footage, so what is your favorite?
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I know who brought back the tape. The whalers did it.
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Almost everyone thinks this movie is horrible except for Brad. Also did Brad say he was not entertained by Tree of Life? Wow. I think Brads videos are awesome but his taste in movies is pure shit. Super 8 sucked too.
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"Super 8" is a movie. "Tree of Life" is pretentious garbage made for film students to jerk off to. You probably should have used a better example than Super 8, as both Super 8 and Tree of Life were critically acclaimed. Now, if you gave me shit for liking "Ballistica," that would have worked =)
Also, you may think my taste is shit, but if it were PURE shit, I would have liked "Transformers 3." Fuck that movie.
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We obviously have different views on what a movie should be. I only brought up Super 8 cause you mentioned it in the video and cause it is also a recent alien flick I found very underwhelming.
I still love your work, but I'm going to have to take any of your non exploitation film recommendations with a grain of salt.
Sorry for being such a dick.
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I don't want to come across as a sycophant, but Brad's taste in movies is usually pretty reliable. He just seems to either like a film or he doesn't without getting all deep and hyper critical about them. In the case of Super 8. if you grew up with 80s kids movies like the Goonies or Monster squad it's a relief to find out they can still make them. He should watch Attack the Block because it's like Assault on Precinct 13, with monsters, for kids.
Tree of Life, I can't wait to see him lay waste to it. There's art-house movies that are only really art-house because they are foreign and not tied to genre. And then there are Art-Fart-House movies that are only really movies because a lot of Art Farts are pretentious. I am a history of Art Graduate, technically this means I am an Art Fart and I think old Terence is so far up his own backside it's created a black hole where point, entertainment value and narrative can't escape the gravitational pull of his sphincter. It's also more ridiculous than the merman perfume advert in Zoolander.
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The footage was obviously found by the Mooninites, doh!
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No comment on the big reveal that of the insane joint US-USSR mission that boils down to 'let's see what happens when we antagonize the vicious space crab creatures into a frenzy... yep, they go into a killing frenzy DERP DEE DOO!!!'
They make it more explicit in the promo material ( http://apollo18movie.net/cosmonauts/ ).
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Eh. They've sent people to space for simpler things.
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How did we find this footage?
...Magic -snort snort-
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the way I explained it to myself was that the footage actually survived the crash, if they crashed the two could have stayed in orbit and the orbit can always deteriorate and they can fall back to the moon, or heck it just stayed in orbit and NASA found it there. its assuming that the cameras were VERY durable but there in space so its not really like theres gonna be a big fireball that destroys everything
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Put it this way:
Remember when MIR had a collision with a supply ship? People so used to Hollywood movies where space ships collide in gigantic explosions were left watching CNN frantically and asking themselves, "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!!"
There is quite literally so much space junk, debris from that collision, urine dumps from the ISS, space tools lost on previous shuttle missions, etc, that it is estimated the number of pieces of space debris is in the tens of millions.
Brad - here is ONE somewhat plausible explanation for the Super-8 footage being recovered. This is assuming the Super-8 cameras or at least the canisters of exposed film survived the crash between the lunar and command modules.
It is quite possible that the canisters were carried by the inertia from the crash and made a long slow trip back to Earth orbit where it would be recovered by a shuttle crew or by the ISS.
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I think it is obvious that the Super 8-type footage made it back because there was an explosion that sent it flying into the arctic sea, where it froze for 40 years before being uncovered by Tony Stark only to discover that there was a nuclear weapon hidden in Asia, which lead to a major war between the Spy Kids and the Smurfs which ultimately lead to the understanding that in space no one can hear you scream. Wait... that was the plot to a Michael Bay film... the real answer is cake.
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Could film even survive exposure to the various radiations present in space? If lead, or whatever, is enough to protect it, wouldn't that make the cameras enormous and weighty. I know they filmed things in space, of course, but I question Super-8-like devices, correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, was that my cat or yours?!
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How about: "Brad and Jerrid find Apollo 18 footage" Just saying...
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I liked this movie, unlike paranormal bullshit, I was really looking forward to it and it delivered. BUT the thing with recovering shot footage...the only possible explanation that it was recovered soon after the crash(guess it wasn't completely devastating) by some unmaned modules from the moon surface or another secret mission, if not by NASA, maybe by the Soviets. One thing for sure - it stayed on the moon, surface or less likely orbit.
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Honestly, I can see the film made by the onboard cameres maybe getting back. The hand held cameras though should have been destroyed. Unless there was enough of the one craft's body to drift around as space debris and later picked up. Either way, thats not likely and its a HuGE plot hole.
Regardless of that, I still liked the movie.
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probably the same person who overheard Charles Foster Kane's last words--that was fuckin' gold.
Anyway, I still want to check out Apollo 18 despite its most glaring plothole
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Hey geophysicist here, didn't see the movie but assuming that the tapes where in the modules and the modules remained in a stable orbit around the Moon it actually would be easier to retrieve them than if they were on the lunar surface. Remember that it takes more fuel to break for insertion, slow your descent and take off again than it does to match your velocity to a pair of orbiting craft. Especially if you can just use a large orbiter and didn't bother to carry a landing module of your own. Which you wouldn't bother with if one of the transmitted records indicated that the crew got off the surface.
Unless the modules had a decaying orbit and crashed. Or had enough acceleration perpendicular to their orbit imparted to them during the collision they should still be in a stable orbit around the moon for years. And since it takes several minutes of burn from payload assist rockets to get you into a higher orbit let alone out of orbit entirely, its likely they would just circle the moon until the're orbit decayed over decades. Though I wounder which suckers got sent back the the Moon after they learned that Cthulhu lives there?
I still think it's funnier if they didn't sent anybody.
"Good job retrieving the 8mm reels boys."
"But sir, no mission was sent to retrieve the film."
"But then, WHO WAS PHONE?! I mean, TAPES?!
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Heh.... your cat's crying fooled me into thinking my cat was crying.
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Wait, they DID leave most of the Super-8 cams on the ship. He left on the Proton rocket.
Although I'll concede that it doesn't quite explain how the footage from the camera the astronaut had on the Proton ended up in there.
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I went to see this Saturday and left the theater thinking "I hated this movie!" However thinking about it afterwards it really wasn't terrible just forgettable at best. I'll agree that it's suspenseful and the editing was good. I had this movie or Sharks 3D, kind of glad I choose this movie instead. As far as the plot hole is concerned, it's all speculations at this point (Even if it was Wizards or any other stuff). Anyways great review Brad.
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Clearly the footage was recovered by Space Lance Steve.
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For me, the entire point of found footage movies did not work here: I found it hard to be immersed for annoying little errors physics-wise.
The whole point would be that one needs as little suspension of disbelief with this type of movies as possible, and whatever does need it is something that you can't disprove. One such thing being ghosts, or lunar rock-spiders hilariously enough (check Russell's teapot
Getting to the point: I know that it's a very old complaint, but could they not include sound effects of the rover driving on the moon surface? There's still no sound in space, and the Moon hardly has enough gas floating about to call it an atmosphere. The other only annoying thing was how the younger astronaut could actually run on the Moon, just like on Earth (when he found the infected one after they crashed with the rover).
But these are actually just nitpicks, they can't ruin the immersion by themselves. What really did ruin it was the hideous overexpose/bloom effect. It's like a 5 year old found the footage and made sure to expose the film to direct sunlight every 5 seconds at some scenes. And in the end when the editing got really-really hectic with this and other 'authentic' effects overdone, I had to squint my eyes to make anything out of the plot!
On the other side, it does make the stock footage indistinguishable from the rest of the movie
I'm really disappointed because the premise is very intriguing indeed, but the OTT genre characteristics made the movie quite mediocre. The director should've been more subtle with these, or ditch the whole thing and use a traditional, cinematic style (still shots, bitte!).
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I'll buy extraterrestrial spiders, but not on the moon! Everybody knows that the spiders are from Mar-ar-ars!
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You're absolutely right. Great, big hole in that thar plot.
I mean, some of the footage was transmitted down to earth live (the Westinghouse cameras), but the 16mm film... yeah, that needs a more clear answer.
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The footage was recovered during a special mission in 2011. STS-135 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sts_135) was the final space shuttle mission flown by NASA, they were relatively quiet about the objectives of STS-135 until the mission had returned to Earth. It had a four man crew (which is unusually small for a shuttle mission) the first time in 28 years NASA launched with a crew that small. A small crew was used to limit the number of individuals who knew of the nature of this mission and to limit loss of life and infection of astronauts with whatever it is those moon-spiders are carrying. The crew was made up of seasoned astronauts who had all flown at least one shuttle mission. the entire crew were fitted with Russian Sokol space suits instead of the NASA EMU and ACES suits. This was done in case the shuttle received irreparable damage and the crew were forced to ride home on a Russian bird. Official NASA records state STS-135 carried a payload to the International Space Station and returned to Earth, these items could easily be transported to the ISS via the Russian Soyuz vehicle ans the American public would be none the wiser.
Or the movie's just bullshit, makes more sense.
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I haven't seen Apollo 18. Every time you talk about the Moon aliens, I keep imagining them as Snorks in Space. Is that accurate?
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I can understand where he's coming from with the question "how did they find the footage?" but then again how could they find the footage in blair witch or cloverfield. Because i can imagine the so called "witch" would see the camera and probably take it and keep it. and in cloverfield i'd imagine the camera would have been crushed to pieces. I think when you look to closely at plot holes it will ruin everything. Thats just my opinion because i'm not the biggest fan of found footage films because they're trying to make it look like reality and i have a hard time grasping that.
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"but then again how could they find the footage in blair witch or cloverfield."
Probably because those movies took place, you know, ON EARTH.
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Obviously, it was Rita Repulsa who brought the tapes to earth!
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I didn't watch the movie but from what I've seen of the viral marketing the footage was supposed to have been recovered by Apollo 19.
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"There's a reason why we didn't go back...other than to solely get recover 'footage' that you weren't meant to see. Good thing we were able to avoid those pesky spider-rocks! Poor Apollo 18 bastards..."
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This is the prequel for Alien 2: On Earth.
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You got it right on the head, Robert Kerman found it.
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non crazy astronaut loaded the film into a bag and lost the bag in the car crash.
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CM nailed it: If you follow through the website linked at the end of the film, you will eventually stumble on a bunch of "articles", one of which states that the footage was recovered by Apollo 19.
This still doesn't answer the question of, "How do you conceal the launch of a Saturn V rocket?" They are not known for being discreet.
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I think I saw some "spy" footage and pics of the launch on the site also, so I guess people were supposed to have seen it but it was covered up ala UFO pics.
"nothing to see here but swamp gas. move along."
"but it's a giant metal rocket.."
"I said MOVE ALONG!"
I still haven't seen it yet.
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Rock monsters like Missile To The Moon but far less stupid?
I need to see this.
I'm so tired of the same "critter" over and over again. I'm also tired of Hollywood taking "scare" moments from a movie and making the trailer with them. The worst offender that I can remember in recent films was Quarantine. They played the end of the movie in the trailer!
It's looking like (according to the comments) the footage was actually found by Apollo 19. I was having trouble with this idea when I saw the trailer in the theater. But it didn't stop me from being very interested in the claustrophobic idea of being trapped on the moon with something sinister. That is far more frightening than giant sharks or any number of movie monsters. You're right, Brad, the moon is inherently creepy.
The fact that there's no atmosphere on the moon makes the claustrophobic setting (space suit, lunar module, Russian module, etc.) hundreds of times worse.
Yeah, I've made up my mind. I'm going to go see this. Thank you, Brad!
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During the Original moon landing there were semi portable cameras attached to the lunar lander that was controlled via nasa from mission control, so it's not much of a stretch to think that some of the camera's held by the personnel were also portable and sending a constant signal, because it was highly sensitive. A super 8 for the moon wouldn't be very effective, but since this is never explained it can only be speculated.
Another explanation might be the camera's were news type camera, which relay a signal back to the pod, which then sends it back to earth with delay.
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I could have sworn I heard a baby on your review. And its not the first time lol You have a baby :O ? If so, congratulations Brad !
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That's his cat. I also thought it was a baby too the first time I heard him in a review. It's kind of creepy actually.
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I thought from the trailer that a serial killer astronaut ended up on the moon.
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About how the film was recovered: Tommy Lee Jones found the wreckage and threw the film in the direction of Earth just before he died on the moon at the end of Space Cowboys.
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Totally unrelated to plot holes, when you said the moon was creepy with the pitch black sky and all I couldn't help but think that to the astronauts the sky would have been full of brilliant stars, they just don't pick up on film because of the contrast. So for them it would have been creepy, but with a pretty background. xD
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Sorry, haven't seen all the video but maybe they left the film footage in the Lunar Module (The Russian or American) they didn't take back with them and it was found by a later lunar mission. My question is from the ending of Apollo 13, where it said one of the Astronauts from the Apollo 13 mission, Fred Hayes I think, was scheduled to go back on 18... So my biggest question is, where is Bill Paxton?!! This movie would have been so much better if one of the astronauts had said "Game over man!!"
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Fred Haise, according to NASA's chedueling of the Apollo missions at the time, was to fly on Apollo 19 as commander, not 18 since Richard Gordon of Apollo 12 was to fly that, the movie got it wrong.
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I've been on a found-footage horror film kick lately, and your reviews have helped inspire it. Big fan, love your movie/tv reviews and of course Cinema Snob stuff.
If you like found-footage films, you definitely should watch and do a review of "Grave Encounters". Available on demand, perfect parody of the ghost-hunters type shows these days and pretty chilling and creepy as well.
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Just got the Apollo 18 blu ray on sale. Interesting movie. I just figured out how the film footage would have got back to earth. The Soviet LK on the surface didn't travel to the moon by itself. It had a LOK spacecraft in lunar orbit just like the Apollo Command Module. After the LK and Command Module collided in lunar orbit the remaining Soviet cosmonaut in the LOK could have had a rendezvous with the wreckage, retrieved the film and brought it back to earth.
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