Really Surprised!

Powerful

Excellent adaptation.

Blistering performances.

I own about a dozen documentaries covering the moon landings, being someone who remembers the endeavour from Apollo 8 onwards (collecting the newspaper clippings and building my plastic Saturn V) and this is easily the most watched in my collection. The atmospheric soundtrack allied with the voice-overs from the actual Apollo astronauts and flight controllers raise this above the others, giving a real insight into how it felt to be creating history. It's a great shame that some reviewers have seen fit to mark down this film because it doesn't do what the majority of the other documentaries do. For All Mankind is one of a kind and all the better for that.

This film had some of the most extensive, most well restored Apollo footage I have ever seen.Not having been around in the 1960s to see much of this footage firsthand, I was astounded by some of the videos and insights portrayed by this film. To see the Apollo 11 astronauts goofing around and playing cassette tapes that had been custom made for them by their favorite artists is pretty awesome. This is a must-see for any big Apollo or space buff.Seeing from some other reviews that incorrect footage is mixed to information about different missions doesn't really hurt the picture. Many of the different Apollo launches looked similar. It is hard to tell from the outside what each ship's mission was, so that does not detract from the film.Hopefully we will have more footage from the moon in the near future as we proceed back into outer space to gain more knowledge through exploration like the early explorers that can be heard and seen in this film.

This was effective for this viewer. Usually what that means in cases like this is that it made me cry. The hook is that it reviews its subject through the eyes of the astronauts. I was wary of this. I got involved in the program later, during the beginning of the shuttle era and even then the astronauts were pretty much there only to have been taken there. They were chosen — some of them — for how good they looked on newsprint. The magic of the program and its heroes were a few visionaries and an army of competent engineers. Yet it was effective because we see the story through the eyes of witnesses. There role here is simply as witness, and if you were alive during this time, you will be impressed at how it affects you.There were all sorts of paths that could have been followed in this. The quest of man to explore; the mysteries of the unknown; the vast game being played by two enemies to demonstrate superiority of ideology; the hidden weapons programs.They cover all these slightly except that last, and that's excusable because these witnesses saw none of that. But the story that dominates is the Kennedy one. Its hard to imagine today, but we loved our president and he deserved it. He was intelligent and articulate. His advisers came off not as louts or bullies, but men (and a few women) smart enough for difficult times. He was the Peace Corps president. Kennedy promised to go to the moon and return without consulting anyone at NASA, and riding on the crest of a national enthusiasm for science and hardware. The nation really was engaged. And then he was killed, and with our rising self-doubt (Vietnam, race) we decided that as a people we owed it to him, or what he stood for. So when it happened, and the world watched, re affirmed the man and what he stood for. It was a good feeling, not pride as much as wonder about who we discovered ourselves to be.This will evoke that same feeling again, the original tears, followed by tears of disappointment at the massive collapse of esteem which followed. A serious of botched opportunities to be worthy of the accomplishment.Its an effective documentary in that regard, all the more so since everything was designed to be photographed, and was. If you really want to learn of this program, you need to go elsewhere, But this delivers on the promise.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I followed the Apollo program closely and have seen much footage. I prefer a straightforward presentation of material, not this highly "augmented" stuff. I find the music and the sound effects added to the film annoying. Especially bad is the incoherence created by mixing film from different flights, and even using the audio from one while showing the video from another. For example, use of the spacewalk from earth-orbital flight Apollo 9 gives the impression it was done on the way to the moon, and the "flight director says 'get back in'" they add to the soundtrack is from Gemeni 4! The flights were dramatic enough, distortion to "improve" them isn't necessary! The extra material on the DVD is interesting, including commentary by Alan Bean on his paintings. He comments on many details about the experience you don't normally hear, like his suit's ankle joints were more comfortable than the knee joints.