Apollo 13 is a 1995 American docudrama film directed by Ron Howard. The film stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Kathleen Quinlan and Ed Harris. The screenplay by William Broyles, Jr. and Al Reinert, that dramatizes the 1970 Apollo 13 lunar mission, is an adaptation of the book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by astronaut Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.
The film depicts astronauts Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise aboard Apollo 13 for America's third Moon landing mission. En route, an on-board explosion deprives their spacecraft of most of its oxygen supply and electric power, forcing NASA's flight controllers to abort the Moon landing, and turning the mission into a struggle to get the three men home safely.
Howard went to great lengths to create a technically accurate movie, employing NASA's technical assistance in astronaut and flight controller training for his cast, and even obtaining permission to film scenes aboard a reduced gravity aircraft for realistic depiction of the "weightlessness" experienced by the astronauts in space.
Released in the United States on June 30, 1995, Apollo 13 garnered critical acclaim and was nominated for many awards, with nine Academy Awards including Best Picture; it won for Best Film Editing and Best Sound. In total, the film grossed over $355 million worldwide during its theatrical releases.
Plot[]
On July 20, 1969, veteran astronaut Jim Lovell hosts a party for other astronauts and their families, who watch on television as their colleague Neil Armstrong takes his first steps on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission. Lovell, who orbited the Moon on Apollo 8, tells his wife Marilyn that he intends to return, to walk on its surface.
On October 30, while giving a VIP tour of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building, Lovell is informed by his boss Deke Slayton that he and his crew will fly the Apollo 13 mission instead of Apollo 14. Lovell, Ken Mattingly, and Fred Haise begin training for their new mission. Days before launch, it is discovered that Mattingly was exposed to measles, and the flight surgeon demands his replacement with Mattingly's backup, Jack Swigert, as a safety precaution. Lovell resists breaking up his team, but relents after Slayton gives him the choice of either accepting the switch, or else being bumped to a later mission.
As the launch date approaches, Marilyn's fears for her husband's safety manifest in nightmares, but she goes to Cape Kennedy the night before launch, to see him off despite her misgivings.
On April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 Flight Director Gene Kranz gives the go-ahead from Houston's Mission Control Center for launch. As the Saturn V rocket climbs into the sky, an engine on the second stage cuts off prematurely, but the craft successfully reaches Earth orbit. After the third stage fires, sending Apollo 13 on a trajectory to the Moon, Swigert docks the Command/Service Module Odyssey with the Lunar Module Aquarius, and pulls it away from the spent stage.
Three days into the mission, the crew send a live television transmission from Odyssey, but the networks, believing the public now regards lunar missions as routine, decline to carry the broadcast live. Swigert is told to perform a standard housekeeping procedure of stirring the two liquid oxygen tanks in the Service Module. When he flips the switch, one tank explodes, emptying its contents into space and sending the craft tumbling. The other tank is soon found to be leaking, prompting Mission Control to abort the Moon landing, and forcing Lovell and Haise to hurriedly power up Aquarius as a "lifeboat" for the return home, while Swigert shuts down Odyssey before its battery power runs out. On Earth, Kranz rallies his team to do what is necessary to get the astronauts home safely, declaring "failure is not an option." Controller John Aaron recruits Mattingly to help him figure out how to restart Odyssey for the final return to Earth.
As Swigert and Haise watch the Moon passing beneath them, Lovell laments his lost chance of walking on its surface, then turns their attention to the task of getting home. With Aquarius running on minimum systems to conserve power, the crew is soon subjected to freezing conditions. Swigert suspects Mission Control is unable to get them home and is withholding this from them. In a fit of rage, Haise blames Swigert's inexperience for the accident; the ensuing argument is quickly squelched by Lovell. When the carbon dioxide exhaled by the astronauts reaches the Lunar Module's filter capacity and approaches dangerous levels, an engineering team quickly invents a way to make the Command Module's square filters work in the Lunar Module's round receptacles. With the guidance systems on Aquarius shut down, and despite Haise's fever and miserable living conditions, the crew succeeds in making a difficult but vital course correction by manually igniting the Lunar Module's engine.
Mattingly and Aaron struggle to find a way to power up the Command Module with its limited available power, but finally succeed and transmit the procedures to Swigert, who successfully restarts Odyssey by transmitting extra power from Aquarius. When the Service Module is jettisoned, the crew finally see the extent of the damage and prepare for re-entry, unsure whether Odyssey's heat shield is intact. If it is not, they will burn up. They release Aquarius and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere in Odyssey. After a tense, longer than normal period of radio silence due to ionization blackout, the astronauts report all is well and splash down in the Pacific Ocean. The three men are brought aboard the aircraft carrier USS Iwo Jima.
As the astronauts are given a hero's welcome on deck, Lovell's narration describes the events that follow their return from space—including the investigation into the explosion, and the subsequent careers and lives of Haise, Swigert, Mattingly and Kranz—and ends wondering when mankind will return to the Moon.
Cast[]
- Tom Hanks as Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell
- Gary Sinise as Apollo 13 prime Command Module Pilot (CMP) Ken Mattingly
- Kevin Bacon as Apollo 13 backup CMP Jack Swigert.
- Bill Paxton as Apollo 13 Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise.
- Ed Harris as White team Flight Director Gene Kranz.
- Kathleen Quinlan as Lovell's wife Marilyn
- Chris Ellis as Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton
- Joe Spano as "NASA Director"
- Marc McClure as Black team Flight Director Glynn Lunney.
- Clint Howard as White team EECOM (Electrical, Environmental and Consumables Manager) Sy Liebergot.
- Ray Mckinnon as White team FIDO (Flight Dyamics Officer).
- Loren Dean as EECOM John Aaron.
- Xander Berkeley as "Henry Hurt", a fictional NASA Office of Public Affairs staff member.
- David Andrews as Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad
- Christian Clemenson as Flight surgeon Dr. Charles Berry
- Ben Marley as Apollo 13 backup Commander John Young
- Brett Cullen as CAPCOM Bill Pogue
- Tracy Reiner as Haise's then-wife Mary
- Mary Kate Schellhardt as Lovell's older daughter Barbara.
- Max Elliott Slade as Lovell's older son James (Jay), who attended military school at the time of the flight.
- Emily Ann Lloyd as Lovell's younger daughter Susan.
- Miko Hughes as Lovell's younger son Jeffrey.
- Thom Barry as an orderly at Blanch's retirement home.
- Chauntal Lewis as Roxanne Strybos (Susan's Friend) (uncredited)
The real Jim Lovell appears as captain of the recovery ship USS Iwo Jima. Horror film director Roger Corman, a mentor of Howard, appears as a congressman being given a VIP tour by Lovell of the Saturn V Vehicle Assembly Building, as it had become something of a tradition for Corman to make a cameo appearance in his proteges' films. The real Marilyn Lovell appeared among the spectators during the launch sequence. CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite appears in archive news footage and can be heard in newly recorded announcements, some of which he edited himself to sound more authentic.
In addition to his brother, Clint Howard, several other members of Ron Howard's family appear in the movie:
- Rance Howard (his father) appears as the Lovell family minister.
- Jean Speegle Howard (his mother) appears as Lovell's mother Blanch.
- Cheryl Howard (his wife) and Bryce Dallas Howard (his daughter) appear as uncredited background performers in the scene where the astronauts wave goodbye to their families.
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