KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

SnoopyStyle America is desperate to get to the moon but the Apollo rocket is not ready yet. The Russians are set to send a team to the moon. In order to beat them, the Americans deploy a risky scheme for one man to fly the modified Gemini craft on an one-way trip to the moon. There he must locate a previously landed shelter and wait for the return trip when the Apollo rocket is ready. The Russian team consists of civilians and the White House insists on putting up a civilian of their own. Team leader Chiz (Robert Duvall) is passed over due to his Air Force credentials and Lee Stegler (James Caan) is rushed into training.There is a tension-filled space drama lurking here somewhere but director Robert Altman is unable inject any intensity. It's his first big budget theatrical movie. He does have some great actors giving some interesting performances. I am struck by Lee blowing up at his wife for lying to her about the risks. It seems like Altman may be more comfortable with the human conflict. He has nothing in terms of thrills or action or excitement. This is probably a wrong fit for him. The movie also ends before the adventure truly ends. The mission is not finished as far as I'm concerned. This is a partly movie and not the good part.

gavin6942 Desperate to reach the moon first, NASA sends a man (James Caan) and shelter separately, one-way. He must find it to survive; he cannot return until Apollo is ready.This film has been heavily scrutinized for being boring, dated and any number of other things. Critic Howard Thompson calls the film a "limp space-flight drama" which "makes the moon seem just as dull as Mother Earth". Some of this might be fair, some might not. Director Robert Altman, who later went on to big things, got the job through Warner Brothers' B-movie producer William Conrad (1920-1994). So maybe we are wrong to expect too much. (Although it is great to see such early performances from Caan and Robert Duvall.) Where the movie is and is not Altman's is unclear. The bulk is obviously his, but the story goes that Jack Warner (1892-1978) did not like Altman's use of overlapping dialogue, had him removed from the set, and Conrad shot some new footage. So how much did Altman get to edit into the final film?

sol1218 **SPOILERS** Made on a shoe-string budget "Countdown" is by far the movie with the best depiction of a flight to the Lunar surface then any of the previous "Flight to the Moon" films going as far back as the early 1900's. The movie went from science fiction to science fact in just under two years after it's release in early 1968 with the historic three manned Apollo 11 Moon landing on July 20, 1969.Trying to become the first nation to put a man on the Moon the US has NASA set a mission to the Lunar surface to beat the USSR. It's supposed to be done with the astronaut sated for that historic mission to be a civilian. Air Force fighter pilot Chiz Stewart, Robert Duvall,who was hoping to be chosen for the Moon Mission is terribly upset by being eliminated because of his military background. Stewart become very hostile towards his friend Lee Stegler, James Caan, a civilian worker for NASA for getting picked for the flight christened, or designated by NASA, Pilgrim One.Taking out his frustrations on Lee Chiz, who's in charge of training for the Moon Mission, does everything he can to have him wash out of the program. Not just because of sour grapes but because Chiz like Lee's wife Mckey, Joanna Cook Moore,feel that he's doesn't have the experience as an astronaut to handle this very dangerous assignment. On top of that Lee, being the egomaniac that he is, will end up getting himself killed on the mission because of his obsession the be the first man on the moon even if it kills him.Just days before Lee is to blast off there's news from the Soviet Union that the Russians sent a three man crew into obit and that it would land on the Moon before the USA planned Moon shot. That still doesn't have Pilgrim One suspended with those at NASA feeling that the news may very well be a rumor. To keep them form launching the Moon Mission, by the sneaky and conniving Soviets.Sent into space the next morning from Cape Kennedy in Florida Pilgrim One has major problems as it goes into the Moons trajectory because of a power loss during the take-off. With Chiz, at the controls at the NASA Space Center in Huston, walking Lee through the dangerous complexities of the space mission he makes it to within 200 miles from the surface of the Moon.On the Moon NASA had two weeks earlier landed and unmanned space shelter with a rotating red beacon that Lee is to first identify and then to land, as close as possible, next to it. At the shelter there's enough air water and food to last two months. It's then when NASA would send an Apollo manned space capsule to pick up Lee and bring him back safely home to earth.It turned out that Chiz and Mickey's worse fears were realized with Lee not wanting to have the mission aborted and sent back to earth, without being the first man on the Moon, taking his chances in landing Pilgrim One despite not really knowing if it was withing site of the NASA shelter. Which, with only two hours of air in his space suit, was almost curtain death for him. Walking through the unknown wilderness that's the Lunar surface Lee discovers that the USSR indeed landed a manned space mission on the Moon before the USA. Lee also finds out that the three man crew were killed as it crashed, instead of landed, on impact.With the air in his space suit almost exhausted Lee looking at his watch, which told him that he had only seven minutes of oxygen left, notices a bilking red flash reflecting off the glass back at him! Looking straight ahead Lee sees the NASA space shelter, which was Lee's only chance of surviving, with it's red rotating identification lamp guiding him straight to it.

Clive-Silas A comment on "Marooned", the movie that was made about a moon mission disaster which was released after the Apollo 11 landing but prior to the Apollo 13 real-life disaster, mentioned that the movie is not available on DVD and rarely, if ever, appears on television. I believe that the same is true of this movie (at least regards TV screenings) and it's for the same reason. "Marooned" and "Countdown" are movies that are so much of their period that they scarcely make any sense at all to 21st Century minds. Of course, we all know about the Cold War, and most cold war movies involve international espionage which is timeless.Countdown is a movie about the Space Race which dominated the daily agenda at least as much as conventional Cold War conflicts like the Korean and Vietnam wars. The plot concerns a situation in which the Soviets succeeded in their aim to send a manned rocket to the Moon before the Americans were ready to fly Apollo. However, contact with the cosmonauts has been lost, and there is still a chance for NASA to fulfill Kennedy's challenge of "sending a man to the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" - as well as the kudos gained from discovering and being the ones to tell the Soviets what happened to their men.An interesting sideline on this is that the actually successful method of moon exploration used, ie send three men to lunar orbit and then two can travel to the surface in a smaller ship, is certainly not the only solution, and this movie explores a different one forced by necessity. Since Apollo is not ready and there is no lunar lander capable of taking off from the moon, why not send a less complex ship with only one man, and let him stay on the moon, kept alive by an environment habitat sent on ahead by unmanned rocket and by provision of supplies by further unmanned ships? Such a scenario had already been envisioned by science fiction authors like Arthur C. Clarke as being the most efficient way to explore our satellite. Certainly nobody had previously imagined that we would send men to the Moon for a matter of a few days in a ship which could not carry more than a few hundred pounds of samples back to Earth. By exploring this other methodology this movie succeeds in highlighting the true nature of our Lunar adventure. The point was not to expand the human frontier or to increase the sum of scientific knowledge - the point was to get a man on the moon and safely back before the Russians did.