You wouldn't think a movie like this would have a patriotic message
but it does. On the surface, the movie seems to be about the story
of Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) and his fellow astronauts on the Apollo 13
mission but director Ron Howard made it into a movie that made you
feel good about America. Maybe that was just due to Tom Hanks who
made the other similar "feel good about America" movie, "Forrest Gump".
The movie is based on the real-life mission of Apollo 13. Jim Lovell,
along with Fred Haise (Bill Paxton of "Aliens" and "Trespass")
and Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise, who co-starred with Hanks in "Forrest
Gump") are ready to embark on the Apollo 13 mission, which will land
on the moon much like the more famous mission of Apollo 11 with Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. You can see that they are all excited about
this, especially Lovell; to him, walking on the moon and looking up into
the lunar skies and seeing Earth is a dream. He desires it for the same
reason many young children dream of being an astronaut - to achieve a
sense of accomplishment and to be an explorer breaking new ground.
A sense of optimism about the future, about science discovering new
things and solving old problems abounds. The movie does a good job of
expressing this sentiment in a subtle way by a narrative voice in the
beginning of the movie.
Well, things seems to go wrong for the mission. 13 is an unlucky number
and Ken Mattingly is scratched from the mission because he might have
the measles. Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) is assigned to replace him.
The "team" is broken but Lovell is still looking forward to walking on
the moon.
Apollo 13 launches off and in a great work of special effects, you see
the rocket launching off, belching flames from the tail. The mission
seems to be routine but something goes wrong as a malfunction occurs.
Apollo 13's life support system is failing and the astronauts are
threatened with loss of power and oxygen. Mission Control has to
scratch the mission of a lunar landing and is now more worried about
bringing the astronauts back safely. In a telling moment, Hanks does
a good job of portraying the sense of regret that Lovell had when he
realized that his dreams would not happen and that this was his last
opportunity to achieve it.
Now the world watches as America faces a disaster in the space program
on par with the real life Challenger disaster of 1986. Gene Kranz
(Ed Harris) plays the irascible but totally driven flight director of
Apollo 13 who is determined to bring the astronauts back to earth
safely.
Here is where the movie gilds the American pride. The movie does a
good job of showing that, behind the scenes, the three astronauts being in
space are the results of a team of hard-working, knowledgeable people at
NASA. It does this without bogging down the viewer with a barrage of
minor characters and it doesn't take the movie down divergent tangents.
But you get the feeling that the astronauts are depending on the work of
the people at NASA and these people are up to the challenge. Critical
technical problems arise but the NASA scientists and engineers solve them
with hard work and resolve, exemplifying American know-how and ingenuity; the
movie epitomizes the American "can-do" attitude.
The movie also expresses that NASA, and thus, by extension, America, is up to
a challenge. Remember, the time frame was in 1970, when John F. Kennedy's
call for a quest of the New Frontier was still being heeded. In one part
of the movie, a bureaucrat predicts that "...this could be the greatest
disaster NASA's ever faced." Gene Kranz replies back sharply "With
all due respect sir, I believe this may be our finest hour." Again,
by extension, the finest hour belongs to America because we faced a challenge
and overcame it. The statement is shades of Churchill and his speech during
the dark days of the Battle of Britain.
The astronauts are also shown to have overcome challenges. In space, without
enough power for heat, they endure the coldness for a few days. Shivering,
feeling discomfort, they endure it with stoicism, exemplifying the American
will.
All in all, this movie is like "Forrest Gump" in that it leaves you
with a good feeling about America and you end the film feeling better about
American than you did before. More so than "Forrest Gump", you feel
optimistic about the future of America because of the movie's representations
of the American "spirit."