Blu-ray Set Review: 'From the Earth to the Moon - Remastered Edition'

From the Earth to the Moon finally gets the Blu-ray treatment. © 2019 Imagine Entertainment and HBO Home Entertainment 

Yesterday marked the 50th Anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11, the third manned flight to the Moon and the first to land on Earth's closest celestial neighbor and only natural satellite. There were the usual commemorative segments on the morning and evening newscasts, and social media was littered with tributes to Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. 

Fittingly, Imagine Entertainment and HBO Home Entertainment chose July 16, 2019 as the "drop date" for the long-awaited Blu-ray disc (BD) set of From the Earth to the Moon, a 12-part docudrama about mankind's greatest adventure: Project Apollo. 

Produced by Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, and Brian Grazer, From the Earth to the Moon premiered on HBO in the spring of 1998, seven months before the 30th Anniversary of Apollo 8's historic "first flight" by a manned spacecraft into lunar orbit. It was partly based on Andrew Chaikin's non-fiction book A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts, which was published just as Hanks, Howard, and Grazer were in pre-production for Apollo 13 and was one of the sources for that 1995 film. 

Because From the Earth to the Moon covers the history of the Apollo program from its inception in 1961 to the last manned mission to the Moon on December 1972, it has a huge cast; 30 actors play 30 of the 32 Apollo astronauts, and many more have roles as NASA officials and flight controllers, reporters (Lane Smith plays Emmett Seaborn, a fictional reporter for the equally fictitious "NBS" television network, while Jay Mohr plays a young upstart who wants Seaborn's job in the episode We Interrupt This Program.), politicians, Presidential advisers, astronauts' wives, and non-NASA aerospace contractors and executives. 

The miniseries earned three Emmy Awards (Outstanding Miniseries, Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries or Movie, and Outstanding Hairstyling for a Miniseries, Movie, or a Special). From the Earth to the Moon also took home a Golden Globe for Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for TV in early 1999. 

HBO Home Video (now HBO Home Entertainment) first released From the Earth to the Moon on VHS and DVD box sets in 1999. Though they were pricey ($100 was the asking price for a VHS set), they preserved the miniseries' original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. This "mostly square" format was standard for the analog televisions of the time and reflected the way in which HBO had broadcast it 21 years ago.

The 2005 Signature Edition of From the Earth to the Moon. I bought it - used but in good condition - on eBay in 2009. It presents the miniseries in the widescreen format. Photo © 2005 Imagine Entertainment and HBO Home Entertainment

However, when HBO re-released From the Earth to the Moon on DVD several years later, widescreen TV sets (both analog and digital) were gaining popularity. As a result, HBO Home Entertainment decided to change the aspect ratio from the original 1.33:1 to the more widescreen-friendly 1.78:1 seen in the remastered DVD sets released in 2005. 

The Blu-ray Set


Like most entertainment providers with a home media division, HBO began re-releasing many of its original programs on high definition BDs when it became apparent that the new format was going to be the standard disc-based home medium. Most of its big-event miniseries, including Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and John Adams were given the "Blu-ray treatment" either as re-releases (for shows made before 2007 or when they were introduced in disc format.

From the Earth to the Moon took longer to be re-released in high definition for the same reason that most of the 1990s Star Trek TV series have not been issued in Blu-ray. Although Imagine Entertainment and Clavius Base had filmed From the Earth to the Moon on Super 35 film, the visual effects sequences were made with techniques and equipment designed for analog TV broadcasting, not for the detail-rich environment of high definition television (HDTV).

HBO and Imagine Entertainment were aware of the high demand for a BD/digital copy version of From the Earth to the Moon, but they didn't want to release a Blu-ray edition with effects shots that didn't hold up well in HDTV sets. So a decision was made to remaster the series once again in a way that honored the original 1998 Emmy Award-winning version but fixed the inherent flaws in the DVD "remastered" editions from 2005 and 2016.

Well, it took a while, but after many years of waiting, From the Earth to the Moon fans now have a Blu-ray set to add to their collection.

Tom Hanks, Imagine Entertainment and HBO present the Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner From the Earth to the Moon, the dramatic story of the Apollo missions and their heroic astronauts.  Powerfully told through the memorable performances of Bryan Cranston, Sally Field, Chris Isaak, and many more, these are the stories of the men, women and children who lived, breathed, and manufactured, from the power of human will, one of the greatest achievements in the history of mankind. Beautifully restored in stunning HD, the Remastered Edition updates the visual effects, adding vivid detail to the Apollo missions while remaining true to the masterful storytelling of the original.  - Packaging blurb, From the Earth to the Moon - Remastered Edition

The 2019 Blu-ray set consists of three discs; each BD holds four episodes, with two short behind-the-scenes documentaries included on Disc Three as a bonus.

Disc 1:

• Part 1: "Can We Do This?"
• Part 2: "Apollo One"
• Part 3: "We Have Cleared the Tower"
• Part 4: "1968"

Disc 2

• Part 5: "Spider"
• Part 6: "Mare Tranquiliatis"
• Part 7: "That's All There Is"
• Part 8: "We Interrupt This Program"

Disc 3

• Part 9: "For Miles and Miles"
• Part 10: "Galileo Was Right"
• Part 11: "The Original Wives Club"
• Part 12: "Le Voyage Dans La Lune"
• 1998 "Behind-the-Scenes" featurette
• Inside the Remastering Process featurette

My Take

When I saw the product page for From the Earth to the Moon on Blu-ray.com a few weeks ago, I knew that the BD edition was going to be different from its DVD version. What I didn't know was just how much different.

The first thing I noticed was that HBO Home Entertainment decided to make this set affordable by packaging it in a standard slipcover/BD multi-disc plastic case. In the past, HBO miniseries, or at least their Big Event ones, have come in more expensive packaging, such as Band of Brothers and The Pacific's metal tin cases.  But as disc sales have been slipping downward in favor of streaming and digital download formats, Imagine and HBO Entertainment figured that glitz is nice but pricier, so they went for a less-is-more approach and gave consumers good content in a less expensive package.

The other thing I noticed is that the remastering goes beyond merely replacing the old standard definition 480p special effects sequences in the original broadcast and DVD releases. The new version preserves the DVDs' 16:9 (1.78:1) aspect ratio but fixes some of the issues that were created when the image was altered from its original broadcast 1.33:1 aspect ratio to the one present on the DVD set back in 2005.

For instance, the main title sequence in the BD version is radically different. Each episode still begins with shots of the Moon and the famous "We choose to go to the Moon" excerpt from President Kennedy's September 1962 speech at Rice University near Houston, Texas.  But the visuals of the moon were redone, and although the main titles keep Michael Kamen's theme and most of the original graphics (snippets from various episodes and shots of astronauts' gear and mission patches, the images are sharper and more detailed than the ones in the DVD edition.

And because the entire miniseries has not only been remastered but restored, the color palette that was designed to evoke the 1960s and early 1970s looks crisper and brighter. I have only watched one episode ("Can We Do This?") since I got my copy, but I could swear that I could almost touch the metal of the rockets at Cape Canaveral or the fabric on the 1960s era upholstery on the chairs and sofas shown in From the Earth to the Moon.
Judging from other viewers' comments, mostly on Blu-ray.com, the BD release is far from perfect. Some people say the visual effects shots waver between good and "cheap video game cutscenes" quality or cite issues with digital noise reduction, the replacement of one period song with a cover version, and other errors or technical problems. One commenter said that most of the extras from the 2005 Signature Edition had not ported over to the 2019 Blu-ray.

Still, considering that HBO and Imagine finally invested time, effort, and money into the Remastered Edition of From the Earth to the Moon, I still recommend this Blu-ray set. It is not as awful as some of the comments on Blu-ray.com and Amazon say it is, and if you have not seen the series at all, it is definitely worth watching, imperfect as the BD may be to some.