TV Miniseries/DVD Set Review: 'From the Earth to the Moon'

The Signature Edition reissue 5-DVD box set. © 1998, 2005 Home Box Office and Imagine Entertainment.

President John F. Kennedy: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this time period will be more impressive to Mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space. And none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

On April 5, 1998, HBO broadcast "Can We Do This?" — the first episode of From the Earth to the Moon, a 12-part miniseries about Project Apollo, the U.S. manned space program tasked to fulfill President John F. Kennedy's challenge of placing "a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth" before 1970. Based mostly on Andrew Chaikin's 1994 book A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts, From the Earth to the Moon follows the professional and personal triumphs and tribulations of the astronauts, their families, and the NASA employees that collaborated from 1961 to 1972 in humankind's greatest adventure.

[discussing what Neil Armstrong will say when he steps onto the surface of the moon]

Frank Borman: What are you guys gonna say?

Michael Collins: If you had any balls, you'd say "Oh, my God, what is that thing?" then scream and cut your mike.

Conceived by executive producers Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and Tom Hanks after production of Imagine Entertainment's Apollo 13 wrapped, From the Earth to the Moon covers the Apollo Program from its genesis in the early days of the Kennedy Administration to Apollo 17, the December 1972 mission that took America's first scientist-astronaut (and later U.S. Senator) Harrison Schmitt (played in the miniseries by Tom Amandes) to the Moon. Boasting amazing visual effects by Ernest D. Farino and shot on location in Florida, Washington DC, and California, From the Earth to the Moon is a historically accurate docudrama won three Emmy Awards (for Outstanding Miniseries, Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries or Movie, and Outstanding Hairstyling for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special), as well as one Golden Globe Award (for Best Mini-Series or Movie Made for TV). for 1998.

The miniseries' 12 episodes were originally shown on HBO over a six-week period; the cable premium channel aired two episodes at a time each Sunday from April 5 to May 10, 1998. Executive producer Tom Hanks appears in 11 of the 12 parts as the series' host, stars in the last episode ("Le Voyage Dans La Lune" as George Melies' assistant and directed "Can We Do This? " In addition, Hanks, Ron Howard, and Brian Grazer decided to shift the focus of the eighth episode, "We Interrupt This Program," from the astronauts of Apollo 13 to the reporters that covered the star-crossed mission; Apollo 13 had already told the story from the perspectives of the flight crew and  Mission Control, and the producers did not want to repeat themselves on the small screen.

The 12 parts of From the Earth to the Moon are:

1. "Can We Do This?"
2. "Apollo One"
3. "We Have Cleared the Tower."
4. "1968"
5. "Spider"
6. "Mare Tranquilitatis"
7. "That's All There Is."
8. "We Interrupt This Program."
9. "For Miles and Miles"
10. "Galileo Was Right."
11. "The Original Wives' Club"
12. "Le Voyage Dans La Lune"

In addition to Tom Hanks and Tom Amandes, From the Earth to the Moon features a large cast made up of some of Hollywood's best actors, including Lane Smith, Tim Daly, Cary Elwes, Jo Anderson, Rita Wilson, Nick Searcy, Bryan Cranston, Ted Levine, Mark Harmon, David Andrews, David Clennon, Blythe Danner (voiceover in Le Voyage Dans La Lune), Dave Foley, Peter Scolari, Brett Cullen, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Adam Baldwin, and Zeljko Ivanek. 

Behind the scenes, in addition to the Grazer-Hanks-Howard triumvirate are various producer-writers Tony To, Graham Yost, Erik Bork, John P. Melfi (of Sex and the City fame) and Michael Bostnik. Bork, To, and Yost would later collaborate with Hanks' Play-Tone production company on future miniseries for HBO, including Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific. 

The miniseries also benefitted from the talents of many skilled directors, including Lili Fini Zanuck, David Frankel, Graham Yost, Frank Marshall (one of the producers of the Indiana Jones movies), Jon Turtletaub, David Carson, Gary Fieder, Sally Field, and Jonathan Mostow. The director of photography was British lensman Gale Tatersall, who also shot Tank Girl and Virtuosity. 

The late Michael Kamen composed the series' main theme, as well as the incidental music for three of the 12 episodes; other composers who contributed music for individual episodes include Brad Fiedel (of The Terminator fame), Marc Shaiman, Mark Isham, and James Newton Howard. The producers also acquired the rights to use music from the period, although, in one instance of anachronisms, a 1970 Credence Clearwater Revival song ("Up Around the Bend") is played in "That's All There Is," an episode set a year earlier. (From the Earth to the Moon has quite a few visual and technical gaffes, but they don't mar the entire miniseries, considering the complexity of the project and the pressures caused by deadlines.)

My Take

President John F. Kennedy: We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

I didn't watch From the Earth to the Moon when it premiered on HBO nearly 21 years ago; I've never lived in a house with a subscription to that premium cable channel, so I've always had to wait until certain shows are available on home media (usually DVD or Blu-ray). I ended up seeing it for the first time when I purchased the 2005 From the Earth to the Moon: The Signature Edition DVD box set, which was HBO Home Video's second DVD release.

As I have often said in other reviews about movies and books that depict the U.S. effort to be the first to land astronauts on the Moon and return them to Earth, I am a child of the Apollo era. I lived in two countries (Colombia and the U.S.) and followed the great Space Race between my homeland and the former Soviet Union avidly, even though I was extremely young. To put it in context: I wasn't born when Kennedy challenged Congress and the American public to join him in a mighty endeavor to go to our nearest celestial neighbor. I was a toddler during Project Gemini;  not quite four when the Apollo One fire killed Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee; five when Apollo Eight circumnavigated the Moon; six when Apollo 11 and 12 landed on the lunar surface and barely seven when 13 did not; eight when Alan Shepard played golf on the Fra Mauro Highlands, and nine (going on 10) when Apollo 17 left the Moon for the last time.

Of course, most of my real (and, let's face it, vague) memories of the era have been "overwritten" by the many documentaries and dramatizations about Project Apollo that I've watched since the program ended and was superseded by first Skylab and then the Space Shuttle. 

Naturally, From the Earth to the Moon is "must-see TV" for a space geek such as me. 

Obviously, the miniseries is not a documentary along the lines of When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions or For All Mankind. It's a docudrama largely based on a non-fiction book by Andrew Chaikin but fleshed out by dramatized material and the depiction of fictional (or heavily fictionalized) characters, such as Lane Smith's Eric Seaborn, an old-school TV anchorman in the mold of CBS's Walter Cronkite. Thirty of the 32 Apollo astronauts are depicted by actors on the miniseries, and although most of their in-mission dialogue is derived from the historical record, there are many exchanges that were written for dramatic purposes to create realistic but artistic drama to the lives of the astronauts, their colleagues at NASA, and their families. 

That having been said, From the Earth to the Moon takes great pains to be historically accurate wherever possible. There are some goofs, such as the onscreen presence of a Ticonderoga-class AEGIS cruiser (which entered Navy service in 1983) during a recovery sequence in "Can We Do This?" - an episode that is set in the early 1960s, a stowed Lunar Rover attached to the Lunar Module Eagle (which landed on the Moon several years before Rovers were added to missions), and other minor anachronisms or visual flubs. But overall, Imagine Entertainment and Clavius Base (the production company set up just to make this miniseries) did a remarkable job of getting things right. Apollo astronaut David Scott was on set as the main historical advisor, and Hanks (in his foreword to a 2009 reissue of A Man on the Moon) has written that Chaikin's book was the main reference for the mission details. 

Overall, From the Earth to the Moon is definitely worth watching at least once or twice, especially for younger viewers who have grown up in a post-Apollo and (mostly) post-Shuttle America with no memories of watching "live from the Moon" TV footage. Sure, there are plenty of documentaries out there about Apollo, the Space Race, and the Camelot/Apollo/Vietnam era, but most people prefer dramas because they delve into the personal - and therefore human - elements of history. 

With a great cast, fantastic writing, and excellent (if at times imperfect) production values, From the Earth to the Moon gives viewers all that and more.

Astronaut David Scott: Ever since I was five years old, all I ever wanted to be was a pilot. And flying to the moon seemed to be the ultimate adventure. Nothing seemed more important. Do you understand?

Dr. Lee Silver, Geologist: I think so.

Astronaut David Scott: But finding this little fella - understanding what it represents, what it could tell us - will probably be the most satisfying thing I'll ever do.

Dr. Lee Silver, Geologist: Well, I suspect there more to come from Dave Scott. But, in the meantime, "Brought back original crust from the Moon" should weigh pretty impressively on your resume, you know?

HBO Home Video has released From the Earth to the Moon on DVD two times since its 1998 broadcast, first in a four-disc set in November of 1998 that presented the miniseries in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which was the basic format for most U.S. television sets. Each DVD featured three episodes, and the behind-the-scenes extra features were bundled in Disc Four. 

However, as widescreen flat panel TVs became the standard in the early 2000s, HBO decided to remaster the miniseries as a "widescreen" presentation, which involved changing the aspect ratio to 1.76:1. Imagine Entertaiment and HBO took their time and paid attention to detail during the process, and with the exception of a few shots here and there, the average viewer will see nothing untoward in the Signature Edition reissue that was released in 2005. The extra features from the 1998 set have been moved over to a fifth disc, and only a few of the miniseries' captions have been changed from the original DVDs. 

I'd really like to see a Blu-ray version, perhaps one that has both the original 1998 1.33:1 aspect ratio and the "remastered" version, as well as new extras, such as interviews with Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, the surviving cast members (some, like Lane Smith, have died since the series aired), and veteran astronauts such as Dave Scott and Buzz Aldrin. There have been rumors that HBO Home Entertainment has been working on a Blu-ray set for years, but as of January 2019, that's all fans have..rumors.