Excellent again., 24 Aug 2004

By	Jason Thompson (UK) - See all my reviews

Disc One, as with the other sets, contains a specially made documentary and some sections of footage that didn’t seem to fit anywhere else. The documentary is interesting, as ever, though I found it less interesting than the Saturn 1 documentary. Again it scores over the Project Gemini documentary by not being over-narrated. The other sections of footage are nice little bits to have, especially the engine test-firings, which actually include the appropriate sound. Having said that, watching the five J-2 engines firing for the entire duration of a planned mission does get rather dull, since they go on for around six minutes. The other clips have no sound, but are covered by interview audio excerpts.

Disc Two is full of launch footage, as with the Saturn 1 set. The big difference here is that all the launch footage has accompanying sound. As with the Saturn 1 set, some of this seems rather odd as the footage is in slow motion but the sound is not. Some shots are covered by the air-to-ground communications with the craft, which makes the whole lot seem a lot more real. I couldn’t help but smile when I heard the cheers that accompanied the successful launch of Apollo 4, and Apollo 12 was an interesting one to watch as it was struck by lightning after launch (no footage of the strike itself exists, but the communications are very clear). This disc includes some of the classic space footage, such as the section of the interstage separating from Apollo 4.

Disc Three contains more launch footage from Apollos 8, 11 and 12, though I am not sure why the footage was divided this way. One item of interest is the shot of Apollo 11 lifting off taken from ground level and focused on the base of the rocket. It is in slow motion, and the sound is also slowed, making for a rather odd experience.

But the icing on the cake in this set is the collection of quarterly progress reports on the third disc. These are really fascinating, giving a real insight into the processes involved in constructing something of the magnitude of the Saturn V. It includes reports of failures such as explosions during engine tests, ruptured fuel tanks during pressure tests, and so on. It also underlines the sheer scale of the project, as you see the enormous efforts undertaken just to construct the facilities necessary for the project. It is a great shame that some of the reports could not be located, but the ones included are enough for anyone to be going on with. Hell, just one or two of these reports would be enough for anyone!

Spacecraft Films have again produced an excellent set here, but again I caution that it is not for casual entertainment. The main aim of these discs, as stated, is simply to make commercially available to anyone the reams of footage from mankind’s greatest adventure. They do not set out to entertain, but they certainly do educate. No serious enthusiast of Apollo, or the space program in general, should be without these DVD sets. They are superb.