From the Earth to the Moon: Signature Edition

Many reviewer have rightfully praised some of the good value of this TV miniseries (even though, I would not rate this film so high, because it also comprises truly inferior sequences, such the Apollo-13 part - which, in the ligh of the Apolo 13 movie, could have been neither avoided nor successfully included - or the annoying Apollo-7 [or the majority of the Apollo-8] parts). However, what most, if not all, of those reviewers miss is to compare this film to reality. And that is the point where this semi-documentary fails.

My biggest concern is that this film is being just too patriotic on the account of treating people, who were responsible for putting Americans on the Moon in the first place, with dignity and fairness. First of all, where is the sole person who made J.F. Kenendy's dream come true - German chief rocket designer, Dr. Wernher von Braun - in the film? He designed the mighty Saturn 5 rocket (and most of its predecessors), which was the very point the USA could beat the Soviets (the Russians' Moon boosters kept blowing up, while the Saturn rockets worked flawlessly). Yet Dr. Braun appears in the 10-hour film for literally a few seconds - and only for mocking on him. It is shameless. Where is the 110-meter tall Saturn booster, the main attraction of the Kennedy's Space Centre Visitor Complex, the biggest and best rocket ever designed and built in the world, mentioned in this 12-part series? Nowhere ... while over an hour is dedicated to the building of the Lunar Module, which would have stayed on ground forewer, had NASA not had the Saturn rockets.

By the way, LEM was designed under the leadership of Canadian engineers (who had been involved with Canada's Avro Arrow superplane project), and even the legs of the descent module were also manufactured in Canada. Many Canadian, British and German engineers were involved with the NASA project - and even Hungarians [one of them designed the Lunar Rover] -, yet no other nation than American is mentioned in this 600-minute series. With all due respect, bored housewives contributed to the program a lot less than those people (first and foremost Dr. von Braun) -, yet the film erects a statue for them (which alone would be fine and righful), but completely forgetting about those "foreign" scientists and engineers, without whom NASA would have never been successful. (Just see, please, how NASA has been struggling ever since those "foreigners" had left out of the picture.)

Unlike - the much better, elbeit also inaccurate - 'The Right Stuff', this miniseries is virtually ignors the Soviets as well, who were the pioneers in space exploration, and Americans had followed their footsteps up until before landing Americans on the Moon. The space race was [righfully, I admit full-heartedly] won by the Americans - but the film ignores the fact that by not much. The first human-made device landing on the Moon was the Russian Lunik-9, the first earthly creatures orbiting the Moon were Russian turtles, and the first colour photograph showing earth-rise seen from the vicinity of the Moon was taken by a Soviet Zond [the unmanned Russian Lunar spacecraft]. Had the Americans finished the LM in time - and, as a result, had they skipped the Apollo-8 moon-orbit flight in order to take the LEM to Earth orbit right away - the Soviets might have beaten the USA by the first manned lunar orbit... But the Soviets were just playing safe to put animals aboard their lunar spaceship first, which resulted the loss of the race to the Moon. (On the other hand, NASA took a huge risk with sending a crew aboard Apollo-8 to the Moon; Had the O2 tank exploded in the Apollo-8's Service Module and not in the Apollo-13's [the faulty design had already been there], there would have been no way of saving those three astronauts, considering the absence of the Lunar Module that would serve as a lifeboat.) NASA gambled - and won ... but they do not always win {see the bad fate of Challenger and, most recently, Columbia... By the way, the Soviets tested their shuttle, Buran, unmanned + a Soyuz spacecraft - originally designed for taking cosmonauts to the Moon - could have been used as a lifeboat, had the Buran's [presumably 2- or 3-member] crew {who never flew in the reality} been in danger during subsequent flights. Compared this cautious approach to the American Space Shuttle program, please...})

I take my hat off, however, before Tom Hanks, who, at the beginning of one of the episodes, is trying to make a balance by stating: "Without Tsiolkovsky, Koroljev and von Braun <two Russian and a German rocket scientists> America could have never gone to the Moon." It is very true - but where are those genetlemen in this long and detailed TV miniseries...?

P.s.: My concern is not what is in this 12-part TV series [becasue there is a lot, indeed] - but rather what is missing ... and due to the neglect of those important factors described above, I just can not enjoy this film...