Apollo 13 (1995)

"HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM."

There was a time when the whole world looked to the skies in the spirit of adventure and hope, not for reasons of religion, but because mankind had shaken off the bonds of Earth and travelled beyond the limits of our atmosphere – space exploration had begun. Though this spawned the rather paranoia-tainted Space Race between the US and Russia, both trying to conquer the outer limits first, the advances of humanity were of greater import. In 1969, this led to one of the truly great achievements of the 20^th Century (or any Century) as the crew of Apollo 11 landed on the surface of the moon. There, astronaut Neil Armstrong produced one of the most famous quotes in history: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” In 1970, the world would receive another now famous quote from another Apollo space mission: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

Less than a year after man first walked on the Moon, Apollo 13 was sent back on another lunar-landing mission. However, before the craft even got there, a catastrophic technical malfunction effectively crippled them. Stranded hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth, the Apollo 13 flight crew, Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), and the NASA technicians fight desperately to bring the craft back to life and bring the astronauts home safely.

Before we even begin to look at the mission at the heart of this story, we are told of a previous mission that went horribly wrong, Apollo 1, which killed its three crew members. The point is being made very clearly – tragedy can happen at anytime, even to those who prepare for it. If there’s one thing that the film of Apollo 13 wants to do in the first forty-five minutes or so, it’s build up a sense of foreboding, a sense of sinister premonition, a sense that this mission was doomed from the start. It’s something that some of the superstitious folk among us have often said about the Apollo 13 mission itself. There’s the fact that it was the 13^th mission in the Apollo program, that it launched at 19:13pm (13:13 by North American Central Standard Time), that the rupture of the oxygen tanks occurred on the 13^th of April (again, Central Standard Time), that there was a change in the crew a week before blast-off. The film itself builds on this by highlighting other things, too. Crew Commander Lovell’s wife lost her wedding ring down the shower drain before the launch date. Lovell’s car had been having some technical difficulties recently and stalling without warning. These ominous concerns were not lost on the crew, who joked about breaking mirrors and black cats and walking under ladders in preparation for the flight. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re a superstitious person or not (I’m certainly not), because the film does makes its point that some of these characters may be somewhat superstitious themselves, even if it’s merely a case of not wanting to tempt fate. For example, Gene Kranz, the no-nonsense flight director, maintains a simple ritual of wearing a crisp white waistcoat with mission patch on the lapel for the duration of the assignment.

Although these nods towards less rational sensibilities are important, they take up only a little bit of time in the build up to the film’s central crisis. Much more attention is paid towards the establishment of the characters who must deal with it when it comes. Working from a script by William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert, director Ron Howard develops a fine array of individuals for us to follow along this perilous journey. Jim Lovell was part of the Apollo 8 mission, the first to orbit the moon, though never got a chance to actually walk on its surface. We feel his awe of such a feat, his sense of mild disappointment that he got so close before without touching it, his humble joy at finally being given the chance to achieve his goal. His wife, Marilyn, is so loving and supportive of her husband and his dreams. She’s a veteran of watching her husband go off into space, so she also remains a firm support for other wives who are new to the whole experience, although she is still uneasy about it herself. Fred Haise is a family man and southern country boy, a fun guy of simple tastes, a little rough around the edges, but a fine pilot. Ken Mattingly is a straight arrow and a driven perfectionist, always pushing himself to get it right. Jack Swigert is a ladies man, a slight outsider as the late addition to the crew, and also with great flight skills and instinct. Gene Kranz is a man who commands respect, but through an understated resolve and calm under pressure. The film builds these characters, and their families (or lack of), so well that when things start to go wrong, you are completely invested and feel genuinely taken by their plight. As things progress, the characters are treated with a great dignity and respect, their actions developed with tight and utterly believable motivations. Even better is that no one is ever given to the overly dramatic bouts of hysteria, with someone eventually cracking up, screaming and crying that they don’t want to die up here. It’s made very clear that these people are who they are and where they are precisely because of their heroic levels of self-control, that they know their best chance to survive is to remain composed and work together. We should all be so controlled as these people.

Howard is also well aware that the greatest dramatic draw is the crisis itself. Of course, how could it not be? A less assured director would have perhaps tried to cram in more subplots and storylines underneath the main one in order to add even greater weight and complexity to the piece. It speaks greatly that Howard did not do such a thing. The film is complex enough, built out of a tight sense the technical issues that must be tackled on Earth, and the delicate relationship of the three men on board the ship. The level of technical detail itself is enough to create a heavy sense of realism, making it all so absorbing. The script is full of technical jargon and astro-speak, but it never overwhelms the audience, still remaining somehow accessible, even if just in a basic sense. It’s from this kind of realism and adherence to detail that we get some moments of drama and concern in the film. When the crew have to turn off most of their equipment in the hope of conserving battery life and fuel, the possibility for the condensation build-up to short out the electrical instruments becomes another concern to deal with. It’s really a case of one thing leading to another, and it makes for really great drama.

And it’s not even just in the technical side of things that there’s a great sense of detail. The period is evoked so well, with the fashions, the music, the cars. Lovell’s eldest daughter initially doesn’t want to watch her father’s flight broadcasts (all before the disaster strikes, of course) because she’s so upset that The Beatles have broken up. That actually happened, the day before Apollo 13 launched. It’s the small details throughout the film that make it all so immersive and wonderful to watch.

The cast do a superb job throughout. Tom Hanks is able to bring his typical Everyman-ness to Lovell, but yet still make him someone of great poise and character. Ed Harris’ Gene Kranz is a performance of superb control and reserve, delivering lines like “Failure is not an option” with great solid conviction. Kathleen Quinlan also gives a great show, steering clear of the weepy astronaut’s wife thing, showing a core of strength and restraint. She’s not above letting the tears come, but she knows better than to let them take over. Paxton, Bacon and Sinise provide great support, too.

Apollo 13 is a genuinely thrilling, tense and really rather emotional experience, which remains unaffected by whether or not you know how it all turns out. The direction is firmly controlled and incredibly well detailed, with solid performances from everyone involved. It’s often overlooked or forgotten about today, but this is an exhilarating experience and a fine tribute to those involved in a great pursuit of exploration.

Aliens (1986)

THIS TIME, THERE'S MORE

Sequels. So often tried, yet it is the popular consensus that they rarely work out. The first film sets the bar and it is the job of the sequel to clear it, but they so regularly fall short that it feels like a bigger disappointment. There are some sequels out there that probably would have been much better received if it wasn’t for the ghost of their predecessor hanging over them. A sequel to Alien especially would have proved a real challenge. Ridley Scott created a superb and highly influential slice of sf terror, made with vision and brains… where exactly do you go from there? James Cameron had an idea, and thus was given his chance in 1986 with Aliens.

Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the only human survivor of the Nostromo, is discovered by a salvage ship after 57 years in deep sleep. Back in civilisation, she learns that the same planet where the alien was first found has since been colonised. When contact with the colony is lost, she is sent back to the planet along with a team of marines to investigate.

Frankly, there’s a certain simple genius to Cameron’s idea of what to do with the follow-up to Alien. A kind of genius that you can actually see in most of his work. If Alien was an intense sf horror picture that couldn’t really be topped, why bother trying? Cameron decided to go in another direction by adding a single letter to the original’s title, turning the fear of one into the fear of many. Cameron was also smart enough to know that he couldn’t really compete with Scott’s powerful sense of dread as a horror, so he would just switch tactics altogether and make it an actioner. From this, Cameron came up with what would be the main conceit of his film: Marines versus Aliens. Thanks to this idea, and the character types that Cameron would utilise to such classic degree, Aliens would go on to be the blueprint for modern commando/military unit movies, including the Predator films that would eventually crossover with this series.

Cameron’s direction is of a much broader sense than Scott’s. That’s not to say that it’s stupid, but it’s a far more dynamic approach. Cameron doesn’t want the audience cowering in their chairs, trying to hide from the beast… he wants them to take the aliens head on. He wants to invoke a kind of infectious panic, but in a good way. Less a quivering, jibbering hysteria; more an active sense of confrontation. He wants you to actually be with these soldiers as they enter hostile territory - apprehensive, but prepared. The sheer badassery of these grunts works well to that point. Michael Biehn’s Hicks is calm and level-headed; Bill Paxton’s Hudson is a loudmouth joker; and Jenette Goldstein’s Vasquez is the Chick-That-Can-Kick-Your-Ass type 14 years before Michelle Rodriguez cornered that market (There’s the classic exchange between Hudson and Vasqeuz: “Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?” “No. Have you?”).

The lesser gung-ho characters fill out proceedings well, too. William Hope’s Gorman is the squad leader, but he’s no field operative, so he’s ill-equipped to deal with disaster and the grunts know it. Paul Reiser plays a typical yuppie shmuck in Carter Burke, who looks so sincere that you know he’s going to do something (weird how, even in the future, 80s slimeballs still exist). Lance Henriksen plays the newly Asimov-ised android Bishop with a nice sense of understatement, though it is rather undercut later on in the final battle (he seems to be an android that can feel pain, despite Ian Holm experiencing none in the first film). Carrie Henn as Newt, though occasionally awkward, does very well here, too. This would be the only film Henn ever did, but she does the traumatised bit quite well. She does revert to screaming a lot when I’m not sure she would have survived like she did with that as her first response, but that’s a flaw in the script, not Henn’s performance. And it does save her at least once.

Then there’s Ripley. There’s a sense in Aliens of a different kind of Ripley. In the first film, she was a much more controlled presence. In her confrontations, she was always the calm one. She responded to pressure not with overly emotional displays of crying or shouting or lashing out; she was smarter than that. In Aliens, her smarts are still there, as is her bravery, but she’s less of a still water running deep. She’s more aggressive, forceful. She should be. She alone knows what the team is going in against, and she’s got a better chance making her point by shouting than whispering. Weaver is more than up to the challenge of this more vigorous version of Ripley. She still has the cleverness and the physicality to do what she has to. Ripley’s still awesome.

There are aspects of the film that border on the ridiculous, but these will only be noticed if you’re not going along with the ride. The final battle between the Queen Xenomorph and Ripley in the power-lifter rig is the true test of this. When the bay doors open and Ripley steps out in that hydraulic monster and utters one of the most quoted lines in film (“Get away from her, you bitch!”), a bit of you should be going “Yeah, let’s kill this alien mother!” If you aren’t enjoying the film, because it’s too different from the first film perhaps, this will be the final straw. As it is, I do find it silly, but enjoyably so.

The picture doesn’t just pummel the audience with dumb action, either. Cameron’s film also has some brains, carrying over thematic concerns from the first. I mentioned in yesterday’s piece about Alien having its horror roots in sex, rape, impregnation and birth. Aliens does let go of the more aggressive aspect of this subtext (i.e. the rape) and focuses more on what would be the next stage in the process: Motherhood. I also mentioned yesterday about the matricidal tendencies of the first, with people killing their mothers, either literally or figuratively. In Aliens, the mothers fight back. Ripley effectively becomes mother to Newt (there are actually deleted scenes in which Ripley, after many years in stasis is told of her own daughter’s death, and also one where Newt, having lost her real parents, expressly asks Ripley to be her new mother), and as such goes to incredible lengths to protect her. Similarly, the Queen Xenomorph goes on a rampage after her own spawn are killed. This dynamic of mother-as-protector even has its own moment when, as Ripley and Newt are trying to escape and end up in the chamber with the Queen and her eggs, Ripley threatens the safety of the eggs with her flamethrower in order to force the Queen to give them safe passage out of the chamber, which the Queen allows. It’s a wonderfully effective scene, as Ripley and the Queen Xenomorph find a brief moment of common ground, from one mother to another.

There are also some arguments that have been made about the Marines ill-fated battles with the intergalactic killer species serving as a comment on the state of US military policy, harkening back to the Vietnam War. There, as far as the popular reading holds, American forces were unprepared and overwhelmed by an enemy they didn’t seem to fully understand. They so underestimated the enemy’s tactical capability and lethality, where enemy forces struck from everywhere without warning, that they were at a loss almost immediately. The Marines do have superior firepower and the will to use it, and as such believe that no enemy can beat them. When they enter what has become the Xenomorph’s home territory, they are hammered so quickly and brutally that their numbers are cut in half in a matter of minutes. So devastating is the attack, that Hudson, the loudmouth of the group, instantly buckles. In what has become one of the most quoted lines of the film, he says, “That’s it, man! Game over, man! Game over!” If Aliens does serve as a sort of critique of US military policy, it does so whilst celebrating the sheer balls of the men and women that are entrusted to enforce such policy.

Overall, I can honestly say I don’t enjoy Aliens nearly as much as I did its predecessor. For me, it lacks the full crafted polish, the unsettling atmosphere, the overwhelming tension that rests beneath every scene, the sense that you are watching a project that has been thoroughly conceived from beginning to end. That said, there is still plenty to enjoy in James Cameron’s crack at the series. The characters are fun to watch, the action sequences are strong and it has an effective adrenaline thrill that is of a completely different variety to Scott’s vision. I don’t really think it quite matches up to the high standard of the first, but it doesn’t really try. It goes in its own direction, and it sure is a fun ride to go on.