Posted on 06/02/2023 12:38:45 PM PDT by nickcarraway
There will always be people who believe the NASA Moon landings were faked. Many feel that the conspiracy theory was fueled by recent events, including the Vietnam War and notably the Watergate scandal, which took place in a culture where people were beginning to loudly question the motives of their leaders. The greatest achievement of the conspiracy movement has been to raise the question: Regardless of whether they did or didn’t fake something, did they try?
Such thoughts were on writer and director Peter Hyams’ mind as he watched TV coverage of Apollo 11’s historic lunar landing in 1969, just months before President Kennedy’s deadline of reaching the Moon before the end of the ‘70s.
He explained in 2016 that his parents were born into a generation “who believed that if you read it in a newspaper, it was true. ... And then we found out that newspapers didn’t always tell the truth. My generation thought that if it's on television, it's true. I was sitting there one day watching TV, and CBS News was covering the space shots. … I realized that the whole story was being fed to America by one camera. That’s kind of how I got the idea for Capricorn One. If one camera can lie, then just because you're seeing it on television, it doesn't mean it's true.”
Hyams' 1978 movie tells the story of the first manned mission to Mars, which has been subject to tight financial restrictions. Shadowy mission bosses realize that the crew will be killed by a faulty life-support system, but that failure will cut future budgets even more. So senior scientist Kelloway (Hal Holbrook) orders astronauts Brubaker (James Brolin), Willis (Sam Waterston) and Walker (O.J. Simpson) out of the Capricorn One capsule seconds before launch and removes them to a secret movie studio, where they’re expected to act out the mission and then, they’re promised, “come home” as heroes.
Kelloway is the character that every corruption scheme needs: the idealist who doesn’t know how he lost his way. “I remember when [John] Glenn made his first orbit in Mercury, they put up television sets in Grand Central Station, and tens of thousands of people missed their trains to watch,” he tells the astronauts, who up until then have been his friends. “You know, when Apollo 17 landed on the Moon, people were calling up the networks and bitching because reruns of I Love Lucy were canceled! … And then suddenly everybody started talking about how much everything cost.” Hyams said one of his inspirations had come from a real-life NASA hero. “One of the greatest quotes ever was from the astronaut John Young. They asked him: ‘What were you thinking before the launch?’’ He said, ‘Well, you’re on your back, 360 feet in the air, above 6 million pounds of parts and fuel, all submitted by the lowest bidder.’”
In the movie, Kelloway desperately argues that everything they’ve all dreamed of will be taken away if they don’t all take part in a conspiracy that’s no longer under the control of “loony scientists” because “grown-ups” have taken over. When he hints that their families are at risk unless they do what’s required, Brubaker responds, “This is really wonderful. If we go along with you and lie our asses off, the world of truth and ideals is protected. But if we don't want to take part in some giant rip-off of yours, then somehow or other we're managing to ruin the country. You're pretty good, Jim. I'll give you that.”
While the world watches Capricorn One’s disappearance into space, and the crew struggles with its sense of honor to playact the mission, Elliott Gould’s classic cynical newshound Robert Caulfield gets wind that something’s amiss. As his investigations continue, he finds himself the victim of multiple attempts on his life, which only makes him more determined to find the truth. He’s instrumental in revealing the conspiracy after the astronauts escape and is hunted down, until – after a dramatic air chase involving a biplane piloted by Telly Savalas as wisecracking Albain – Brubaker turns up at his own funeral, arranged after mission controllers “lost” the spaceship when its heat shields failed on reentry.
Hymans said he was proud of the fake Mars set, which he tried to make sure was accurate to a quarter-inch to photos of the red planet. While NASA wasn't too enthusiastic about the movie, the organization provided props and information, and its representatives who visited the set were impressed by what they saw. “We turned the stage lights on, and there was Mars,” he recalled. “My chest filled with pride, and I was tearful, and then [designer] Albert [Brenner] motioned to me … I looked down and saw paw prints on the Martian surface. We followed the paw prints over to the ascent and descent stage and there by the ladder was a turd. That was my lesson and introduction to my importance. A cat had taken one look at the stage and thought, ‘I am gonna take a dump right here!’”
Capricorn One was an instant hit when it arrived on June 2, 1978, making $12 million from a $5 million budget. Hyams remembered seeing theater audiences erupt with cheers at the turning point of the story, even though he acknowledged that his movie isn’t the greatest film of all time. “There are better movies. It just happened with that movie at that particular time,” he reflected. “My buddy told me that people were watching it on an airplane, and he came out of the bathroom and everyone was cheering. He immediately looked to see if his flies were open!”
It marked the end of a dry period of Hyams' career, but he accepted much of that was beyond his control. A friend told him that Superman director Richard Donner told Warner Bros. that he couldn’t deliver the movie for the summer season. “It’s going to be Christmas,” he was told. “Capricorn One is going to be the summer release for Warner Bros.” “I said, ‘What does that mean?’ He said, ‘You’re going to get all the advertising budget and all the theaters that were booked for Superman.’ I said, ‘What was going to happen if Dick Donner and Superman had not been late?’’ He said, ‘You would have opened in two theaters in Atlanta.’”
One notable name who didn’t approve of the movie was astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who stepped onto the Moon immediately after Neil Armstrong in 1969. He objected to the visuals being based on the Apollo Moon missions rather than designing props that looked like a future setting. “I’m sure that a lot of people came away after seeing this movie, saying, ‘They’re not talking about Mars – this is really because they faked the mission to the Moon with Apollo, and it never happened,’” Aldrin said. “The story could have been told about some good reason why, after making all the plans to go to Mars, you find there’s a flaw in the plan [so] you’re gonna start lying to everybody.” Which is more or less what Hyams had done.
The 124-minute Capricorn One melded conspiracy theory, journalistic procedural, thriller and science fiction into a production that remains worthy of investigation. It’s perhaps best thought of as a good, extended episode of a character-led TV action drama, enlivened by the interactions among the leading people. “We are dead,” Brubaker notes as he works out just how much trouble they’re in. “Shit,” says Willis. “I was such a terrific guy.”
The more important takeaway is not whether every detail of the mood landing was accurately reported or not.
The only important point is that the people in charge—the globalists—would lie to us as often as they want and as severely as they choose. And do.
There’s lots of of these fake moon landing videos on YouTube. I watched a couple and they did raise some interesting questions. I don’t trust anything the government tells me anymore without double checking. They will pee on your leg and tell you it’s raining.
HA HA .... ROCKET TO THE MOON
woooosh ....
Hollywood lies about everyone and everything for profit.
Neil and Buzz left mirrors on the moon you can shine a laser on. No lie.
The USSR never reached the moon, but they actually had a satellite orbiting the earth BEFORE the U.S.
The USSR was watching that mission. They would have absolutely known if the U.S. landed on the moon, and they would not have missed the opportunity to ridicule the United States, if they never landed on the moon.
Maybe Bigfoot left those mirrors.
They lied then and they are lying now:
https://www.aulis.com/investigation.htm
It saddens me that so many Freepers refuse to look beyond the Deep State and Mockingbird mass media propaganda.
And, if you know where to look, the bottom of the landers can be seen with a telescope.
It is not an achievement when you convince people literally too stupid to think, to believe a particular thing.
The questions they raise are all, everyone one of them based on ignorance. Look up the rebuttal to to videos.
The whole thing bugged me too.
Well Russia couldn’t say it was faked for sure, perhaps they thought the US had secret technology that enabled us to overcome the various obstacles inherent in a successful moon launch and return. But if we had that tech back in ‘69 it seems odd that we haven’t returned there since.
I know they landed on the moon, but it’s just a movie.
“How’s mom?”
Oh yes, they could. They had satellites, etc. They didn't deny the U.S. landed, they just claimed they were never trying to.
But if we had that tech back in ‘69 it seems odd that we haven’t returned there since.The U.S. landed on the moon six times between 1969 and 1972. I guess there wasn't as much excitement after a while. I think the major reason was that the USSR and PRC weren't trying, so there wasn't enough motivation.
You know India landed a craft on the moon last year, although it flamed out.
John F. Kennedy killed himself.
1. The moon landings were real.
2. “Capricorn One” has one of the most amazing aerial dogfight sequences ever filmed: one Boeing-Stearman Model 75 “crop-duster” vs. two Hughes OH-6 “Loach” (Model 500) helicopters.
Stunt pilot Frank Tallman, who flew the cropduster, claimed this film was the most dangerous film he’d ever flown for. He was killed in a crash soon after filming finished.
We lost interest. It’s really just as simple as that. You just have to look at the ratings numbers of the moon landings. We went from 53 million people watching in America to 60 million in the whole world watching from Apollo 11 to Apollo 15. Add in a bad economy and people complaining about the expense and we just lost the drive. We could do it, but nobody has the drive or vision to navigate all the political BS to fund it.
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