We choose to go to the Moon, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
With these historical words of the late JFK, the race to the moon was officially started.
Almost seven years later, this race was decided when the whole world witnessed how Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on another world. But was everything really the way it looked?
This documentary starts from a simple premise: when Stanley Kubrick wanted to shoot the candle light scenes for Barry Lyndon, he needed a special lens that costs several millions of dollars and only one such lens existed and was owned by NASA, and they used it for tracking satellites in complete darkness.
The ease with which the NASA was ready to borrow this piece of espionage equipment to Kubrick set the researcher on a hunt for the truth behind the moon landing and the part that Kubrick had played in it. Exposing fact after fact, the director William Karel explains the viewer how the evidence that was right there all along under our noses proves that the moon landing was actually staged in a studio and that the original plan of Nixon, who was president at that time, was to make everyone who participated in this staging, disappear. He shows testimonies of Buzz Aldrin, Richard Nixon, Stanley Kubrick, Henry Kissinger and even Donald Rumsfeld to prove his theory.
****MAJOR SPOILER**** If you want to enjoy this documentary to fullest, then please watch it first before you read on.
OK you are either stubborn or you have watched it already. The topic is of course not very original, the movie Capricorn One already covered a staged Mars landing, and there is a lot of literature that tries to prove that the NASA moon landing happened in the studio. And this one is of course a mockumentary but the clever thing about it is that it gradually feeds the viewer with inconsistencies and absurdities which get more and more noticeable as the story unfolds. It starts with subtle things like a view of an ordinary 28-85mm Carl Zeiss lens costing less than 1000$, a French speaking head of the CIA and a mission control team member named David Bowman ending in such ridiculous claims that in order to eliminate the 4 remaining witnesses, an army force far greater than that used in the first Gulf war was deployed. And for the intellectually challenged viewer, at the end some bloopers are shown between the end credits that show that certain parts were played by actors.
Still, by using a clever mix of real footage, excepts of interviews with famous people and fake interviews with fictional key figures played by actors, Karel manages to keep many less informed viewers unaware for a while that they are watching a hoax.
And depending on how keen and sceptical you are, the time for you to expose this hoax will be shorter. And once you realize that you were being fooled, it suddenly turns into a very funny joke. Even if you decided to read the spoiler, you will still be entertained by the absurdities near the end.
**** END SPOILER ****
I advise you to watch it with a few friends and I am certain that you will equally enjoy their reactions as much as you will enjoy this documentary. It is certainly worth a second view in order to capture all the details.
With these historical words of the late JFK, the race to the moon was officially started.
Almost seven years later, this race was decided when the whole world witnessed how Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on another world. But was everything really the way it looked?
This documentary starts from a simple premise: when Stanley Kubrick wanted to shoot the candle light scenes for Barry Lyndon, he needed a special lens that costs several millions of dollars and only one such lens existed and was owned by NASA, and they used it for tracking satellites in complete darkness.
The ease with which the NASA was ready to borrow this piece of espionage equipment to Kubrick set the researcher on a hunt for the truth behind the moon landing and the part that Kubrick had played in it. Exposing fact after fact, the director William Karel explains the viewer how the evidence that was right there all along under our noses proves that the moon landing was actually staged in a studio and that the original plan of Nixon, who was president at that time, was to make everyone who participated in this staging, disappear. He shows testimonies of Buzz Aldrin, Richard Nixon, Stanley Kubrick, Henry Kissinger and even Donald Rumsfeld to prove his theory.
****MAJOR SPOILER**** If you want to enjoy this documentary to fullest, then please watch it first before you read on.
OK you are either stubborn or you have watched it already. The topic is of course not very original, the movie Capricorn One already covered a staged Mars landing, and there is a lot of literature that tries to prove that the NASA moon landing happened in the studio. And this one is of course a mockumentary but the clever thing about it is that it gradually feeds the viewer with inconsistencies and absurdities which get more and more noticeable as the story unfolds. It starts with subtle things like a view of an ordinary 28-85mm Carl Zeiss lens costing less than 1000$, a French speaking head of the CIA and a mission control team member named David Bowman ending in such ridiculous claims that in order to eliminate the 4 remaining witnesses, an army force far greater than that used in the first Gulf war was deployed. And for the intellectually challenged viewer, at the end some bloopers are shown between the end credits that show that certain parts were played by actors.
Still, by using a clever mix of real footage, excepts of interviews with famous people and fake interviews with fictional key figures played by actors, Karel manages to keep many less informed viewers unaware for a while that they are watching a hoax.
And depending on how keen and sceptical you are, the time for you to expose this hoax will be shorter. And once you realize that you were being fooled, it suddenly turns into a very funny joke. Even if you decided to read the spoiler, you will still be entertained by the absurdities near the end.
**** END SPOILER ****
I advise you to watch it with a few friends and I am certain that you will equally enjoy their reactions as much as you will enjoy this documentary. It is certainly worth a second view in order to capture all the details.