What a monster of a machine the X-15 was. All who flew this plane, seriously deserve the highest respect. Essentially the pilots were doing something no human was made to do, fly at numerous times the speed of sound, miles above Earth, with a rocket strapped to their back. These men sure had a hell of a job, and I salute them and their commitment to the country. I always wonder what the Wright Brothers would have said if they saw how much we have evolved their dream, and their invention of making humans fly. As a student pilot and future airline pilot, this right here is why I do what I do.
A lot of it is a rehash of The Right Stuff and the scene was far from visually accurate. Edit: I also was not a fan of how much they used camera shaking I'm the whole movie.
This scene was terrifying. It really gives you a feeling for the raw power and the forces of nature the X-15 was just barely managing to fight against when it flew. The sounds of the metal groaning and the fuselage rattling against the G forces. In most situations it’s sounds like that that would lead you to believe somethings wrong or the planes about to break apart. The fact that the shaking , the rattling , the metal groaning for the most part was all par for the course on that plane. It really gives you a better grasp of how great a feat this all truly was. In the 1960 nonetheless.
What happened in the movie was that Neil Armstrong was piloting the X-15 and when he tried to lose altitude the aircraft kept climbing, so he used the RCS thrusters to regain control. To my knowledge, what really happened was that he was too busy trying to get a new G-Force indictor working, and by the time he realized it he had already gained too much altitude and lost control. He waited for the aircraft to get back in the atmosphere, circled around to make an improvised landing and touched down.
@@ecurb10 spacecraft do bounce of the atmosphere. Dont forget that gases are just like liquids in the fact that they are fluids. If the wings of the spacecraft was oriented upwards, it can quite literally skip up and down the atmosphere like flat stones in water. It's a real phenomenon.
the boucing phenomenon exist, during appolo missions some astronauts explained that on TV about the capsule reentry if the angle was to sharp the capsule burn out in the atmosphere if not enough the capsule would "bounce" on the atmosphere, they really used the word "bounce".
@@lifeforce3451 that is because the energy gained from falling to the earth would be so high that the capsule would still have enough velocity to enter another orbit and bounce off the atmosphere. In this case, there is not enough energy to orbit the earth so this scene is extremely fake.
Movie dramatization. Most of the controlling scenes are. The motions and angles are hugely exaggerated. Just before landing, the angle relative to the ground is shown as so extreme that he'd have been clobbered, but in the next snippet he's already landing. Still, minor complaints!
@@TemenosL it's mainly to stimulate the audiences adrenaline and sense of danger. From Armstrong's perspective all these events would probably seem similar to what's depicted but only in perception. Fortunately astronauts like armstrong manifest their fight or flight responses as stoicism, calm, and taking command of an undesirable or extreme situation.
This move did a amazing job of showing how patched and raw the machines they were tested were. The groaning and mettle rubbing sounds make it feel like its all just barely hanging on.
Unfortunately, it's not true. The movie exaggerates this a lot. The actual spacecraft were quite solidly built and although the rides were bumpy compared to your average 737, they weren't THAT bumpy.
Except Armstrong never made it into space aboard the X-15 hypersonic research plane, his highest flight reached 69166 meter (20 April 1962) Moreover an X-15 is not flown with the large pilot stick when in space...
@@phmwu7368 that's right but the parabolic part of the flight could to allow zero gravity as shown. Do we have written reviews of the X15 pilots ? I'd like to read them.
Armstrong was so unassuming. When he crashed later in the "flying bedstead" he just went back to work as if it was just another day at work and only mentioned it in passing. That's why, I think, NASA wanted him to be first. He's no showboat. He was just interested in completing the mission. He even left NASA before the last of the moon shots were over.
I think the flight where he bounced was in X15 #3 which was destroyed in a crash a few years later. So the X15 in the Air&Space museum is one of the other X15 planes.
@@sleepy91 it was actually appropriate to do that, considering what the film is portraying. It helps immerse viewers in the setting. Shaking camera is used very well in this movie, here especially.
@@zachthomas7810 Doesn't excuse all the other shaky cam though. It was way over the top in the movie. Take look at soyuz launch footage and see for yourself. The rocket is not throwing the crew all over the place.
That’s one of the most intense scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. There’s such a striking difference between how nervous he is in the X-15 and how impassive he is during the Apollo 11 launch!
I duuno, that scene where the Gemini 8 is spinning out of control literally had me coming close to falling out of my seat. I realized that I was not breathing for nearly 30 seconds.
Yes it was good. But not the best, the landing scene later in this movie was better due to the awsome music, and best scene ever in my opinion was the intersteller docking scene (go check it out, I promise it is amazing). But this scene was possibly the most suspenseful (in the movie) in my opinion, a good "wake up" to the Audience before the movie really started.
Max Brazil and yet movies like Hacksaw Ridge, Saving Private Ryan, and American Sniper were nominated for Best Picture. Not sure that it’s safe to say that Hollywood hates patriotic films.
@Boomer Galactica I didn't say it was a bad movie and I didn't say it wasn't worth watching. But I was very disappointed with it because I felt that its portrayal of Armstrong as a man was far too simplistic and one dimensional. Gosling plays him as dour and monosyllabic. By all accounts he was neither of those things. Her didn't always say a lot and he wasn't as colourful in his speech as some of the other astronauts - but he was intelligent, sharp, witty and when he DID say something, everybody listened. Oh - and he was an excellent pilot and engineer too,.
@Boomer Galactica He always said that the incident that scared him most in his career was when a propeller flew off a B-29 he was flying and hit the fuselage. That wasn't covered in the film. Also, his love and passion for the science and engineering of flight was completely ignored. In many ways, that was what kept him going in life - more than anything - and that essential part of his character was completely ignored. To be fair, I also found the book on which the film is based, also called "First Man" to be a rather dull tome.
@@jon8004 Too boring. I've read enough about Armstrong to know he wasn't as flat as portrayed. he had quite a cheeky and intelligent sense of humour which is completely missing from the portrayal. The problem is the book on which the film is based. The book is by James Hansen who succeeds in making an interesting man very uninteresting. And he also did the same for John Young in his book "Forever Young". Missed opportunities.
From the Earth to the Moon, a great HBO series chronicling the beginnings of space exploration starting from Mercury to Gemini to Apollo, if anyone is interested
I love the sound of the thrusters 3:29 so much that when I first watched this movie, I had to put the volume on 100% and use my earphones. It felt so real.
Actually no. For the X-15 and similar programs, NASA and the Air Force had a very carefully planned and calculated test program in place, that required exacting detail with regards to launch altitude, attitude, speed, angle of attack, ground track, and a dozen other factors. This was hardly seat-of-the-pants flying, and is part of why Chuck Yeager never flew the X-15 or became an astronaut. Speaking of, if you want to see what became of the "seat of the pants" style of test-piloting, read up on Yeager's crash of the NF-104.
Armstrong said it was a relatively easy plane to fly. A lot of the X-15 program was actually about creating flight controls that would self-adjust so that the pilots inputs would give the same response even at vastly different speeds/altitudes. A proto fly-by-wire system. And in general super/hypersonic flight at high altitudes is remarkably smooth as the air is very thin and very consistent. But that wouldn't make for a very good scene.
Damn...First he's about to bounce off into to deep space, then he's about to slam into mountains...Next he has a rough landing with no wheels...Now, that's what I call one HELL of a ride. 😜
Utter crap. Even at 400 KM High (same as ISS) Gravity is 90% the same as it is on Earth, unless you are in Orbit (Freefalling). 0% chance that plane wasn't coming back to Earth even if it went straight up or sideways. It simply did not have enough energy to fly off into space.
@@aolson1111 You're the idiot: I didn't say thay X-15 flights didn't occur - they just didn't occur in the way depicted in this movie. In fact, NOTHING depicted in this movie is in any way accurate.
This was flight #51 of the X-15 program, 4/20/1962. The actual ceiling of this flight was 207,500 feet and reached a mach of 5.31. He ended up 45 miles south of Edwards and it was a the longest flight (I'm guessing because of the bounce) of the program.
i had lunch with Scott Crossfield in 1982 when I was Naval Aviator attached to NATC Pax River. He was a good guy but I paid the check. You see test pilots are always survivors ... FLY NAVY.
The sounds in this scene are so intentional. The squeaking and clanking of the craft really shows the audience how primitive the tech was back in those days and how much pressure the structure and pilot experiences. Incredible!!
Cody Higinbotham So if movie is exciting than it's a good movie but if it isn't exciting and have depressive felt it's bad? For me BP was mediocre at best and quite boring in the first half of the movie while First Man was great and deserved Oscar nomination for the best movie.
Chase Kaplan Mostly many of the scenes Ryan was in. Yes, I know his daughter dies early in the movie, but it like he was playing Neil as a downer the whole time
@@codyhiginbotham6616 I totally agree. Watch any interview with Neil Armstrong (there are a few) and read and listen what his colleagues said about him. He was a very positive man with a good sense of humor who made friends easily. He had a shy charm about him and he had a quiet charisma that drew people in. Just because he was humble doesn't mean he was that piece of wood that was in the movie. And yeas, the shaky cam was overdone to death!
Im suprised he died at all. Dudes been chasing death like a madman his entire life. And he wasn't putting on the "im livin on the edge" show of howling at the moon. Dude calmly spoke about preparation and protocols and then did a SWAT style explosive breach on hells front gate. I have always loved the old saturn 5 joke of needing 4 F1 engines for the payload and the fifth Rocketdyne F1 engine was entirely for their balls.
I've just assumed the movie edited the altimeter with him descending. They aren't going to spend 3-4 minutes showing him descend. When he's at the cloud level I'm assuming it's intended to be much lower than what we're shown on the altimeter, and the two are edited together just to convey that he's descending.
Tom imagine watching this and having the camera be totally still for shots inside the cockpit/command module that would be boring and unrealistic. It’s not like someone like you could understand the instruments in the cockpit anyway.
Robert Harrison ...and a velociraptor just before it. I mean, I know the aircrafts are prehistoric compared to todays, but is this taking it to far? Whats next? A scene in mission control just before lift off, starring samuel jackson saying “hold on to your butts!”
the test plane? someone from back then would have asked, test plane? sounds a bit strange to our somewhat aged ears. Back then everyone knew what the x15 was, would have called it the x15 rather than the test plane.
He would never bounce into orbit, it goes against orbital mechanics, but he could do a bounce up to high altitude before being slowed down by atmosphere and returning further away, which is what happened here
I saw Jamey May riding on the U2 at 70,000 feet and noticed how tiny the clouds were beneath them. As for Armstrong, I don't think he would have seen that kind of cloudy view at over 140,000 feet!
As great as this scene is, and the whole movie, what the heck are fluffy cumulus clouds doing up at 40,000 ft? It looks like he's being launched at about 10,000 ft. That's the same mistake as The Right Stuff made. Unless there's a thunder storm the clouds depicted just aren't up there. It might be a fine point, but to me the whole beauty and awe of those high altitude flights was the fact that they were so damn high! Way above the clouds for goodness sake! Great movie though.
Yeah basically just a visual way to ramp up the tension and give the audience a sense of how fast he was going, hard to gauge that without a reference point
WOW! THAT WOULD BE SOOO AWESOME!!!!!!!!! I LOVE TO FLY AND WANTED TO BE AN ASTRONAUT SINCE I WAS IN THE 1ST GRADE. He was flying a high altitude meteorological aircraft; commonly called a low orbit space craft. He did the same thing as Steve Austin, except he didn't biff it, he didn't burn up in the mesosphere either. He escaped the need for 6 million dollars of bionic body parts too! He's too good to be rebuilt! That guy deserves a standing ovation!!! 😎
2:45 To be fair, from that moment and onward I started thinking it was actually a nightmare of him escaping gravity and getting lost into deep space. One of those kind you get before an important appointement at school or at your work. Then, I didn't know it was based on a real experience from Armstrong xD
No he never could have end up deep space because the aircraft never escape orbital trajectory! It stay sub orbital trajectory and in the end aircraft would end up back on the earth, even Neil never could have rectify the course but of course his oxygen supply would have worn out before that and whole aircraft would burn in the atmosphere
@@almightybunny3320 Just imagine the pure horror of realizing your entering orbit and you have limited time to escape before your set onto a path that will slowly yet inevitably kill you. Just orbiting earth , knowing it’s all right there but being hopeless to do anything about it as your oxygen slowly runs out. The nerves of absolute steel it must have taken to do this stuff.
@@archdukefranzferdinand4429 Except there is no stable orbit because his aircraft just end up to sub orbit and there is not enough delta V to escape orbit nor way to achieve stable orbit but yes, knowing you either going to die when oxygen supply is gone or you going to burn atmosphere are both terrifying thoughts.
This really shows you what a deathtrap the X-15 was. I aspire to be a pilot but I never want to fly something like this. It's literally a rocket with wings attached.
The chase planes that intercepted and escorted him on his return to Edwards on the real flight reported being below treetop level at the edge of the lakebed- bouncing off the atmosphere like that meant that instead of a gentle spiral down over the base, he ended up over LA and with just barely enough energy to make it
You gotta be kidding me! Based on this clip, I'm glad I didn't bother going to the theatre. Yes, he skipped off the atmosphere. But the panic and yanking around on the controls were totally unlike Armstrong, who was known to be calm and almost robotic in his piloting. Terribly bad portrayal. No mention of overflying the primary landing site and going to a back up. High altitude one moment and then nearly clipping a mountain the next. I hope the rest of the film was better and more representative!
As much as I wanted to enjoy the movie, I thought Gosling's catatonic portrayal of Armstrong a bit off-putting. Sure, he was a quiet, intensely private man - but he wasn't a zombie. Still, the film had some fine moments - well worth your time as long as you accept in advance that it's flawed.
A bit overly dramatic. There weren't any of those moaning and groaning sounds or explosions using the rcs. Getting back to the ground probably took 10 min, not 10 sec. Hollywood 🤦🏻♂️
It would have been nice to have seen it the way it really happened, it would be just as interesting. But I guess its more suspenseful to show professionals who lack control over their situations... The reason Neil started to re-ascend "bounce off the atmosphere" was not a fluke of understanding or an accident. On the way down, the ground team was guiding him back as depicted, but he radioed-in saying he wanted to test the accuracy and function of G-meter, and then pulled back on his stick hard to induce a large change in g-force to watch the results. Story goes, he was focused on the g-meter's readings long enough he didn't realize he had climbed high and completely over-shot his landing zone until ground called and told him to stop doing what he was doing and turn around immediately. (remember he has no fuel left at this point, he's just falling in style like Buzz Lightyear.) The g-meter worked fine and he managed to return successfully as depicted so Whatever lol.
Guitar Heave n yes it wasn't entirely accurate, but which bits were "massive flaws"? One thing I picked up on was the steepness of the angle of climb - I'm pretty sure they climbed at no more than 45 deg, not almost vertically as shown. Also there shouldn't have been clouds up at 44,000 ft!
@@ecurb10 If I saw it correct at 4.12, it even was 74000 ft. No, it's especially the moment when he sees the mountain. He pulls up hard, but for some reason also hits the rudder (I believe to the right) very hard, and considering the speed the X-15 flies with as well as the shape of the mountain, this didn't really make sense. Then, when he pulls up, you can see that the aircraft is climbing, though his angle doesn't really change. It doesn't matter if the airplane was so fast that it flew exactly the way it pointed, of if he was slow enough that the angle of attack could reach up to 10°, he would have to pitch up at least 10° to get over the top. Which means he would climb and shoot over the top like on a ramp, but he would still be facing the sky. In this case, you can clearly see the horizon, it almost looks like he's even descending a little bit, right after he passed the peak. This is also not possible, considering the way he approached. So, you're right, "massive" flaws is kinda exaggerated, but they are there. And it still is a great and thrilling scene
@@guitarheaven1747 Yea you wonder that if they go to so much trouble with accuracy in other areas, why couldn't they get these little things right? But yes a great scene! And these flaws can be forgiven since it portrays the feel of the scene so well, and so originally.
As told in James Hansen’s biography First Man: ‘On Friday, April 20, 1962, Armstrong zoomed up to 207,500 feet in the X-15, as high as he’d go until his Gemini 8 mission would quadruple that four years later. Well outside the atmosphere, he used the reaction control system to manoeuvre. Another job on this flight was to check out the MH-96, a G limiting device designed to keep the rocket plane from exceeding 5 Gs. He kept the nose up as he plummeted from his peak altitude, which caused his flight path to “balloon,” or rise again, producing about 4 Gs. This ballooning continued as he waited to see the G limiter kick in, which it never did. It turned out that the real flight was not agreeing with simulations he’d done on the ground. All the while, he was cruising along at the rate of ten football fields a second toward Los Angeles, and still up around 140,000 feet. Soon he heard the main flight control center telling him as they watched his telemetry, “We show you ballooning, not turning. Hard left turn, Neil! Hard left turn!” By then, Armstrong had, in his own words, gone “sailing merrily by the field.”’
What a monster of a machine the X-15 was. All who flew this plane, seriously deserve the highest respect. Essentially the pilots were doing something no human was made to do, fly at numerous times the speed of sound, miles above Earth, with a rocket strapped to their back. These men sure had a hell of a job, and I salute them and their commitment to the country. I always wonder what the Wright Brothers would have said if they saw how much we have evolved their dream, and their invention of making humans fly. As a student pilot and future airline pilot, this right here is why I do what I do.
Amen to that.
Is that the plane that had a thorium hull or was that a different one
This scene alone is why I feel this deserves Oscars for sound mixing, sound editing and visual effects! Truly amazing this movie was
A lot of it is a rehash of The Right Stuff and the scene was far from visually accurate.
Edit: I also was not a fan of how much they used camera shaking I'm the whole movie.
MrPhenom444 agreed. It would have won for the audio in the Gemini launch scene alone.
@Steve Eversole Exactly. Why falsify this event - it was hairy enough without the unrealistic drama added.
The audio was an unrealistic mess.
@@maulcs Have to agree. I loved this movie, but the sound editing for this scene was incredibly distracting for the sake of drama alone.
This scene was terrifying. It really gives you a feeling for the raw power and the forces of nature the X-15 was just barely managing to fight against when it flew. The sounds of the metal groaning and the fuselage rattling against the G forces. In most situations it’s sounds like that that would lead you to believe somethings wrong or the planes about to break apart. The fact that the shaking , the rattling , the metal groaning for the most part was all par for the course on that plane. It really gives you a better grasp of how great a feat this all truly was. In the 1960 nonetheless.
“We show you ballooning, not turning.”
Story of my life.
Bless you. Me too.
I aint see no balloons ur thinking of felix kittinger first man in space balloons
Christopher Fontes yep. Me too.
Dude... same.
What happened in the movie was that Neil Armstrong was piloting the X-15 and when he tried to lose altitude the aircraft kept climbing, so he used the RCS thrusters to regain control. To my knowledge, what really happened was that he was too busy trying to get a new G-Force indictor working, and by the time he realized it he had already gained too much altitude and lost control. He waited for the aircraft to get back in the atmosphere, circled around to make an improvised landing and touched down.
That is hard to put in a movie and be understood unfortunately. Thank you for explaining.
Yes thanks for that. Nothing can really "bounce of the atmosphere"......as if bouncing off water! Lol.
@@ecurb10 spacecraft do bounce of the atmosphere. Dont forget that gases are just like liquids in the fact that they are fluids. If the wings of the spacecraft was oriented upwards, it can quite literally skip up and down the atmosphere like flat stones in water. It's a real phenomenon.
the boucing phenomenon exist, during appolo missions some astronauts explained that on TV about the capsule reentry if the angle was to sharp the capsule burn out in the atmosphere if not enough the capsule would "bounce" on the atmosphere, they really used the word "bounce".
@@lifeforce3451 that is because the energy gained from falling to the earth would be so high that the capsule would still have enough velocity to enter another orbit and bounce off the atmosphere. In this case, there is not enough energy to orbit the earth so this scene is extremely fake.
4:22
“Seem to be a tad short” says the guy on the radio while the plane is flying into a mountain.
Movie dramatization. Most of the controlling scenes are. The motions and angles are hugely exaggerated. Just before landing, the angle relative to the ground is shown as so extreme that he'd have been clobbered, but in the next snippet he's already landing. Still, minor complaints!
Temenos Lykourgos I’m only joking I thought the film was amazing
@@TemenosL it's mainly to stimulate the audiences adrenaline and sense of danger. From Armstrong's perspective all these events would probably seem similar to what's depicted but only in perception. Fortunately astronauts like armstrong manifest their fight or flight responses as stoicism, calm, and taking command of an undesirable or extreme situation.
"I'm down." Nerves of steel.
This move did a amazing job of showing how patched and raw the machines they were tested were. The groaning and mettle rubbing sounds make it feel like its all just barely hanging on.
Except that they really weren't...
Mettle urgency wasn't as good then so they just made what they could in cauldrons and hoped the plane would go good
Unfortunately, it's not true. The movie exaggerates this a lot. The actual spacecraft were quite solidly built and although the rides were bumpy compared to your average 737, they weren't THAT bumpy.
Incredible opening to an incredible film.
Except Armstrong never made it into space aboard the X-15 hypersonic research plane, his highest flight reached 69166 meter (20 April 1962)
Moreover an X-15 is not flown with the large pilot stick when in space...
@@phmwu7368 69166 meters is over 200,000 feet. If anything, the film underplayed his altitude.
@@phmwu7368 that's right but the parabolic part of the flight could to allow zero gravity as shown. Do we have written reviews of the X15 pilots ? I'd like to read them.
@@phmwu7368 so he flew to an altitude of 226,377 feet? Or about 43 miles? Yeah they underscored his flight ceiling in this movie then
@@drewmandan 207500 to be precise
Armstrong was so unassuming. When he crashed later in the "flying bedstead" he just went back to work as if it was just another day at work and only mentioned it in passing. That's why, I think, NASA wanted him to be first. He's no showboat. He was just interested in completing the mission. He even left NASA before the last of the moon shots were over.
The plane that Neil Armstrong flew here is currently on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Mueseum. It’s an X-15. Truly remarkable.
On my bucket list
I think the flight where he bounced was in X15 #3 which was destroyed in a crash a few years later. So the X15 in the Air&Space museum is one of the other X15 planes.
Big man, solving every problem with cold blood and clear mind. Hats off to all test pilots in 50s and 60s
Shame that even the cinematography wasn't nominated.
Probably because of using too much shaky cam. DON'T DO THAT.
@@sleepy91 it was actually appropriate to do that, considering what the film is portraying. It helps immerse viewers in the setting. Shaking camera is used very well in this movie, here especially.
@Edd 1
Aaaaaand you brought the race card.
Anonymous Neil said the turbulence on this flight were the worst he ever experienced so it’s accurate
@@zachthomas7810 Doesn't excuse all the other shaky cam though. It was way over the top in the movie. Take look at soyuz launch footage and see for yourself. The rocket is not throwing the crew all over the place.
That’s one of the most intense scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. There’s such a striking difference between how nervous he is in the X-15 and how impassive he is during the Apollo 11 launch!
One of the greatest cinematic scenes ever filmed.
In the year 2018, with basic celluloid and cameras, these were masterfully directed.
I duuno, that scene where the Gemini 8 is spinning out of control literally had me coming close to falling out of my seat. I realized that I was not breathing for nearly 30 seconds.
Yes it was good. But not the best, the landing scene later in this movie was better due to the awsome music, and best scene ever in my opinion was the intersteller docking scene (go check it out, I promise it is amazing). But this scene was possibly the most suspenseful (in the movie) in my opinion, a good "wake up" to the Audience before the movie really started.
Ohio proud. Great movie. Genuine hero. Rest in peace Neil Armstrong.
I can't believe the balls these guys had. All the guys from this era. Incredible.
This really makes you take a breath of air around you and realize how nothing outside of this planet is survivable
Never underestimate human inventiveness and ingenuity when faced with a challenge.
Brilliant movie, shame it didn’t get nominated for Best Picture, I think it deserves it!.
Too patriotic. Hollywood hates that sort of thing.
Max Brazil Erhh...... I can see why...
Max Brazil and yet movies like Hacksaw Ridge, Saving Private Ryan, and American Sniper were nominated for Best Picture. Not sure that it’s safe to say that Hollywood hates patriotic films.
Clank Zoka If it weren't for Black Panther, it could've.
@@bassmith448bassist5 But it won Best Visual Effects. Eat it Wakanda! You too Stark and Solo.
The sound design in this sequence is GODLIKE.
Really solid scene. Really goes to show how bright our guys were.
@Boomer Galactica The film was only OK and this scene was not very realistically portrayed.
@Boomer Galactica I didn't say it was a bad movie and I didn't say it wasn't worth watching. But I was very disappointed with it because I felt that its portrayal of Armstrong as a man was far too simplistic and one dimensional. Gosling plays him as dour and monosyllabic. By all accounts he was neither of those things. Her didn't always say a lot and he wasn't as colourful in his speech as some of the other astronauts - but he was intelligent, sharp, witty and when he DID say something, everybody listened. Oh - and he was an excellent pilot and engineer too,.
@Boomer Galactica He always said that the incident that scared him most in his career was when a propeller flew off a B-29 he was flying and hit the fuselage. That wasn't covered in the film.
Also, his love and passion for the science and engineering of flight was completely ignored. In many ways, that was what kept him going in life - more than anything - and that essential part of his character was completely ignored.
To be fair, I also found the book on which the film is based, also called "First Man" to be a rather dull tome.
Seadaddy and how is that, exactly?
@@jon8004 Too boring. I've read enough about Armstrong to know he wasn't as flat as portrayed. he had quite a cheeky and intelligent sense of humour which is completely missing from the portrayal.
The problem is the book on which the film is based. The book is by James Hansen who succeeds in making an interesting man very uninteresting. And he also did the same for John Young in his book "Forever Young". Missed opportunities.
Watching this again reminded me of how gripping it was in IMAX. One of my favorite movies of the year
From the Earth to the Moon, a great HBO series chronicling the beginnings of space exploration starting from Mercury to Gemini to Apollo, if anyone is interested
Thanks m8
Is more Apollo, since Mercury and Gemini was only in the first episode.
I love the sound of the thrusters 3:29 so much that when I first watched this movie, I had to put the volume on 100% and use my earphones. It felt so real.
God, I remember watching this. It was such an awesome and loud movie.
I agree, that it was
“a test plane”
Ummm... how bout the X-15? 💥🇺🇸🌎
Nah it's skylon
@@checkmate-7596 you dumb or what? Its that damn X-15, and American Beauty
Back in that time they took a brand new aircraft never tested before, stuck a pilot in it, and told him, “Try to come back in one piece!”
What kind of plane was that
@@keidricwilson4237 X-15.
Actually no. For the X-15 and similar programs, NASA and the Air Force had a very carefully planned and calculated test program in place, that required exacting detail with regards to launch altitude, attitude, speed, angle of attack, ground track, and a dozen other factors. This was hardly seat-of-the-pants flying, and is part of why Chuck Yeager never flew the X-15 or became an astronaut. Speaking of, if you want to see what became of the "seat of the pants" style of test-piloting, read up on Yeager's crash of the NF-104.
The guy who first flew the X-15 was Scott Crossfield - in 1958. He should get a mention.
@@EricIrl Yeager should get mentioned before Crossfield
Dope movie, amazing intro. Human's are crazy.
Armstrong said it was a relatively easy plane to fly. A lot of the X-15 program was actually about creating flight controls that would self-adjust so that the pilots inputs would give the same response even at vastly different speeds/altitudes. A proto fly-by-wire system. And in general super/hypersonic flight at high altitudes is remarkably smooth as the air is very thin and very consistent. But that wouldn't make for a very good scene.
Ya know, I was going to post something similar. The scene was way over dramatized.
Damn...First he's about to bounce off into to deep space, then he's about to slam into mountains...Next he has a rough landing with no wheels...Now, that's what I call one HELL of a ride. 😜
Nevermind that this whole scene is pure fantasy.
Utter crap. Even at 400 KM High (same as ISS) Gravity is 90% the same as it is on Earth, unless you are in Orbit (Freefalling). 0% chance that plane wasn't coming back to Earth even if it went straight up or sideways. It simply did not have enough energy to fly off into space.
@@stanislavkogan Oh, look, one of those conspiracy idiots.
@@aolson1111 You're the idiot: I didn't say thay X-15 flights didn't occur - they just didn't occur in the way depicted in this movie. In fact, NOTHING depicted in this movie is in any way accurate.
@@aolson1111 No. You're just an idiot who had no idea what this flight is supposed to look like, just like the makers of this film.
This was flight #51 of the X-15 program, 4/20/1962. The actual ceiling of this flight was 207,500 feet and reached a mach of 5.31. He ended up 45 miles south of Edwards and it was a the longest flight (I'm guessing because of the bounce) of the program.
i had lunch with Scott Crossfield in 1982 when I was Naval Aviator attached to NATC Pax River. He was a good guy but I paid the check. You see test pilots are always survivors ... FLY NAVY.
Best Actor in the Best Movie.
The sounds in this scene are so intentional. The squeaking and clanking of the craft really shows the audience how primitive the tech was back in those days and how much pressure the structure and pilot experiences. Incredible!!
All I could think when he touched down was, "Another happy landing"
A good landing is one you can walk away from. If you get to keep the plane, that's a nice bonus!
Reminds me of the scene in The Right Stuff where Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier.
Awesome movie
Those men had balls of steel!
1:37-1:41 sounds like the trex from jurassic Park
Yes it does
Sooo Black Panther gets a nomination for best movie but First Man doesn't? Seems legit...
Because The Oscars wants to be "include"
alex DyD At least Black Panther was exciting the whole time. This movie, 75% of the time, felt depressing
Cody Higinbotham So if movie is exciting than it's a good movie but if it isn't exciting and have depressive felt it's bad? For me BP was mediocre at best and quite boring in the first half of the movie while First Man was great and deserved Oscar nomination for the best movie.
alex DyD I agree that First Man was good, but the thing is, it just wasn’t as exciting/enjoyable as like Apollo 13
@@codyhiginbotham6616 MOST films that get nominated for, or win, best picture are depressing. Mostly period dramas aimed at the 50+ crowd.
This movie was great, but it felt very depressing the whole time
Cody Higinbotham May I ask which aspects felt depressing to you?
Chase Kaplan Mostly many of the scenes Ryan was in. Yes, I know his daughter dies early in the movie, but it like he was playing Neil as a downer the whole time
@@codyhiginbotham6616 I totally agree. Watch any interview with Neil Armstrong (there are a few) and read and listen what his colleagues said about him. He was a very positive man with a good sense of humor who made friends easily. He had a shy charm about him and he had a quiet charisma that drew people in. Just because he was humble doesn't mean he was that piece of wood that was in the movie. And yeas, the shaky cam was overdone to death!
The press conference on their 'return' was far more depressing.
@@pleasepermitmetospeakohgre1504 yes............
Im suprised he died at all. Dudes been chasing death like a madman his entire life. And he wasn't putting on the "im livin on the edge" show of howling at the moon. Dude calmly spoke about preparation and protocols and then did a SWAT style explosive breach on hells front gate. I have always loved the old saturn 5 joke of needing 4 F1 engines for the payload and the fifth Rocketdyne F1 engine was entirely for their balls.
This scene, the one of the launch of the Gemini 8 and the one of the docking with the Agena station are the best and most real in the film.
Neil Armstrong is such an inspiration he was able to cheat death so many times he just punched death in the face
@Boomer Galactica Could to
What an incredibly brave man.
My dreams as a child on film. I was born in that time and things like this were my only dream until the Shuttle came.
Great story have you tried contacting Random House?
“Neil you are bouncing out of the atmohere” scariest scene (sorry for bad english)
Scary as hell that scene!
I met Neil Armstrong at NASA JSC Houston during the Challenger hearings.
What an honor.
Clouds at 70,000 feet?! Who did they consult for the technical aspects? Sesame Street?
Lol! No, Kermit was the technical advisor.
I've just assumed the movie edited the altimeter with him descending.
They aren't going to spend 3-4 minutes showing him descend. When he's at the cloud level I'm assuming it's intended to be much lower than what we're shown on the altimeter, and the two are edited together just to convey that he's descending.
@@Korijenkins1414 with that logic I could theoretically install a gazebo in my backyard in 2 minutes! Yaaaaaay!
Hollywood can do that, no matter if it's logic or not, they can do that
I haven't seen this movie yet but I hope It will be good as the "Right stuff"
Which is one of the best movies about the Space Program ever😎
Oh this knocks “The Right Stuff” out of the park. “First Man” is quite possibly the greatest movie about our trip to the moon.
Right Stuff (the movie) is chock full of inaccuracies and fictions. It might be fun, but it is far from truth.
Ratpack Nothing knocks The Right Stuff out of the park ever. This movie is its worthy companion and unofficial sequel of sorts
@@naughtydog201 ...except for the fact that the Right Stuff has a heck of a lot of fiction in it. And a lot of misinterpretation. Etc.
KYCCCGuy it’s still a good movie though, not accurate but good,and Sam shepherd did good portraying good old chuck
Shake the camera some more, I could almost see what was happening.
Tom imagine watching this and having the camera be totally still for shots inside the cockpit/command module that would be boring and unrealistic. It’s not like someone like you could understand the instruments in the cockpit anyway.
It's like the Blair Witch is up there with him
@@zachthomas7810 , actually, the constant shaking and close-ups I found to be unrealistic
This scene reminds us Fear for being lost in space...
4:24-4:25
Star Wars Sound (From Empire Strikes Back specifically)
It's when Luke's X-Wing crash lands in Dagobah.
Then where the hell is my mans Yoda then, if ur so smart??
Eh?
Yoda is a man,...................right?
What about the T Rex roar from Jurassic Park at 1:39?
Robert Harrison ...and a velociraptor just before it.
I mean, I know the aircrafts are prehistoric compared to todays, but is this taking it to far? Whats next? A scene in mission control just before lift off, starring samuel jackson saying “hold on to your butts!”
the test plane? someone from back then would have asked, test plane? sounds a bit strange to our somewhat aged ears. Back then everyone knew what the x15 was, would have called it the x15 rather than the test plane.
I hear ya, this is kind of annoying, it was an important plane and important piece of aviation history, not just a "test plane"
d e austin There is a 1960’s episode of “My Favorite Martian” where the title character refers to the X-15.
Wasn’t the X-15 a confidential project tho?
@@Lockheed35ait actually not, because it was for research instead of a spy plane
@@Lockheed35ait idk
One of the scariest movie intros ever!
Rest in peace Neil Armstrong
Most of us will never see space or reach this height in our lives so I think this film does a pretty good job of taking us there.
1:14 That's a nice match cut
Astronauts in 2000s: OMG WE SURVIVE THE LANDING!
Astronauts in 1900s:
*I ' M D O W N*
Where did they get these damn men? Lord.
Armstrong, was into "Space", with this X-15, flight, & HE KNEW IT!
Geez those test pilots had balls of titanium. As Bill Hicks would say, "they carry their balls in a wheelbarrow, man"
Nope, they took every precaution they could during the program so they could come back safe
I felt sick when he said "you're bouncing off the atmosphere".
How these guys handled this, I'll never know.
His speed was way too low to ”bounce off” the atmosphere.
@@YDDES actually this happened
@@YDDES yeah but how much Time he Will be there and where he would return ( middle of the ocean)?
shadowx With such a plane and the speed compared to orbital speed, he wouldn’t go long, before falling back to denser atmosphere
He would never bounce into orbit, it goes against orbital mechanics, but he could do a bounce up to high altitude before being slowed down by atmosphere and returning further away, which is what happened here
I saw Jamey May riding on the U2 at 70,000 feet and noticed how tiny the clouds were beneath them. As for Armstrong, I don't think he would have seen that kind of cloudy view at over 140,000 feet!
As great as this scene is, and the whole movie, what the heck are fluffy cumulus clouds doing up at 40,000 ft? It looks like he's being launched at about 10,000 ft.
That's the same mistake as The Right Stuff made. Unless there's a thunder storm the clouds depicted just aren't up there.
It might be a fine point, but to me the whole beauty and awe of those high altitude flights was the fact that they were so damn high! Way above the clouds for goodness sake!
Great movie though.
Thanks Weather Man Bruce. Will it be sunny tomorrow?
@@fairfaxphil I don't understand your sarcastic remark Philip, so it's wasted on me.
@None Ya I was referring to the launch altitude from the B52.
Weatherman Bruce just blowin' up buildings to stop Vietnam
Yeah basically just a visual way to ramp up the tension and give the audience a sense of how fast he was going, hard to gauge that without a reference point
Clouds at 140 thousand feet??!!
Marilyn well you don't see the clouds at that height, but yea they shouldn't have been there when he's launched.
Those are nocktiloosent clouds from the space shuttle launching over at the cape
That was intense
2:09 like a FireFox ( film 1982 by Clint Eastwood)
WOW! THAT WOULD BE SOOO AWESOME!!!!!!!!! I LOVE TO FLY AND WANTED TO BE AN ASTRONAUT SINCE I WAS IN THE 1ST GRADE. He was flying a high altitude meteorological aircraft; commonly called a low orbit space craft. He did the same thing as Steve Austin, except he didn't biff it, he didn't burn up in the mesosphere either. He escaped the need for 6 million dollars of bionic body parts too! He's too good to be rebuilt! That guy deserves a standing ovation!!! 😎
You'll definitely be an astronaut with that temperament
Saw this film last night. Real good.
2:45 To be fair, from that moment and onward I started thinking it was actually a nightmare of him escaping gravity and getting lost into deep space. One of those kind you get before an important appointement at school or at your work. Then, I didn't know it was based on a real experience from Armstrong xD
No he never could have end up deep space because the aircraft never escape orbital trajectory! It stay sub orbital trajectory and in the end aircraft would end up back on the earth, even Neil never could have rectify the course but of course his oxygen supply would have worn out before that and whole aircraft would burn in the atmosphere
@@almightybunny3320 Just imagine the pure horror of realizing your entering orbit and you have limited time to escape before your set onto a path that will slowly yet inevitably kill you. Just orbiting earth , knowing it’s all right there but being hopeless to do anything about it as your oxygen slowly runs out. The nerves of absolute steel it must have taken to do this stuff.
@@archdukefranzferdinand4429
Except there is no stable orbit because his aircraft just end up to sub orbit and there is not enough delta V to escape orbit nor way to achieve stable orbit but yes, knowing you either going to die when oxygen supply is gone or you going to burn atmosphere are both terrifying thoughts.
This really shows you what a deathtrap the X-15 was. I aspire to be a pilot but I never want to fly something like this. It's literally a rocket with wings attached.
If it was done more accurately, it would have been more dramatic and you would see the amazing skill that Armstrong had.
I agree, still a great movie.
Yeah bunch of wanking idiots made this one esp get Chris Farley toss 'im in the x15 lol fart to space
The chase planes that intercepted and escorted him on his return to Edwards on the real flight reported being below treetop level at the edge of the lakebed- bouncing off the atmosphere like that meant that instead of a gentle spiral down over the base, he ended up over LA and with just barely enough energy to make it
That's the early version of the B-52 strategic bomber that serves as launch platform for the X-15
You gotta be kidding me! Based on this clip, I'm glad I didn't bother going to the theatre. Yes, he skipped off the atmosphere. But the panic and yanking around on the controls were totally unlike Armstrong, who was known to be calm and almost robotic in his piloting. Terribly bad portrayal. No mention of overflying the primary landing site and going to a back up. High altitude one moment and then nearly clipping a mountain the next. I hope the rest of the film was better and more representative!
As much as I wanted to enjoy the movie, I thought Gosling's catatonic portrayal of Armstrong a bit off-putting. Sure, he was a quiet, intensely private man - but he wasn't a zombie. Still, the film had some fine moments - well worth your time as long as you accept in advance that it's flawed.
4:38 : LOL ! :D
The first man that made youtube
'test plane'.
It's an X-15, you savages.
Well that was Beautiful.
One of the best movie scenes of the year
Did Neil Armstrong actually do this? Because this looks scary as hell
The 16mm makes this scene incredible
"Honey! I'm home. Had a hard day at work. What's for dinner?"
Got my hands sweating
Thank you for flying with NASA airlines, we know you have a choice and we appreciate your custom. Have a nice day.
Man of steel.
A bit overly dramatic. There weren't any of those moaning and groaning sounds or explosions using the rcs. Getting back to the ground probably took 10 min, not 10 sec. Hollywood 🤦🏻♂️
AS WE WOULD SAY IN THE 60S. WHAT A TRIP.
It would have been nice to have seen it the way it really happened, it would be just as interesting. But I guess its more suspenseful to show professionals who lack control over their situations...
The reason Neil started to re-ascend "bounce off the atmosphere" was not a fluke of understanding or an accident. On the way down, the ground team was guiding him back as depicted, but he radioed-in saying he wanted to test the accuracy and function of G-meter, and then pulled back on his stick hard to induce a large change in g-force to watch the results. Story goes, he was focused on the g-meter's readings long enough he didn't realize he had climbed high and completely over-shot his landing zone until ground called and told him to stop doing what he was doing and turn around immediately. (remember he has no fuel left at this point, he's just falling in style like Buzz Lightyear.)
The g-meter worked fine and he managed to return successfully as depicted so Whatever lol.
Awesome scene, but there were some massive flaws about the given information as well as the aerodynamic traits of the X-15
You think? LOL, this whole scene is PURE FICTION.
@@stanislavkogan Ah...a bit strong. "Pure fiction"? All of it? Which parts?
Guitar Heave n yes it wasn't entirely accurate, but which bits were "massive flaws"?
One thing I picked up on was the steepness of the angle of climb - I'm pretty sure they climbed at no more than 45 deg, not almost vertically as shown. Also there shouldn't have been clouds up at 44,000 ft!
@@ecurb10 If I saw it correct at 4.12, it even was 74000 ft. No, it's especially the moment when he sees the mountain. He pulls up hard, but for some reason also hits the rudder (I believe to the right) very hard, and considering the speed the X-15 flies with as well as the shape of the mountain, this didn't really make sense. Then, when he pulls up, you can see that the aircraft is climbing, though his angle doesn't really change. It doesn't matter if the airplane was so fast that it flew exactly the way it pointed, of if he was slow enough that the angle of attack could reach up to 10°, he would have to pitch up at least 10° to get over the top. Which means he would climb and shoot over the top like on a ramp, but he would still be facing the sky.
In this case, you can clearly see the horizon, it almost looks like he's even descending a little bit, right after he passed the peak. This is also not possible, considering the way he approached.
So, you're right, "massive" flaws is kinda exaggerated, but they are there. And it still is a great and thrilling scene
@@guitarheaven1747 Yea you wonder that if they go to so much trouble with accuracy in other areas, why couldn't they get these little things right?
But yes a great scene! And these flaws can be forgiven since it portrays the feel of the scene so well, and so originally.
Just like The opening scene from Interstellar.
As told in James Hansen’s biography First Man:
‘On Friday, April 20, 1962, Armstrong zoomed up to 207,500 feet in the X-15, as high as he’d go until his Gemini 8 mission would quadruple that four years later. Well outside the atmosphere, he used the reaction control system to manoeuvre. Another job on this flight was to check out the MH-96, a G limiting device designed to keep the rocket plane from exceeding 5 Gs. He kept the nose up as he plummeted from his peak altitude, which caused his flight path to “balloon,” or rise again, producing about 4 Gs. This ballooning continued as he waited to see the G limiter kick in, which it never did. It turned out that the real flight was not agreeing with simulations he’d done on the ground. All the while, he was cruising along at the rate of ten football fields a second toward Los Angeles, and still up around 140,000 feet. Soon he heard the main flight control center telling him as they watched his telemetry, “We show you ballooning, not turning. Hard left turn, Neil! Hard left turn!” By then, Armstrong had, in his own words, gone “sailing merrily by the field.”’
How to totally confuse an audience in the beginning of a movie
this is his 7 th ride on the mighty X-15 I DON'T THINK a skilled pilot will panic breathing like a newbie
He almost got to the moon a few years ahead of schedule lol
Rob Reynolds actually 250,000 miles away
4:32 i think here, this scene shows how bad was X-15 as a glider
Ryan Gosling the best actor
SR-72 Darkstar : @X-15 what a slowpoke :P