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List Price: $12.98 | | Label: Universal Home Video
Salesrank: 1143
Released: March 29, 2005 |
| Our Price: $6.45 |
| Used Price: $5.98 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Nominated for nine Academy Awards , including Best Picture, Apollo 13 is now available in an incredible 2 -Disc Anniversary Edition with never-before-seen bonus materials. Produced by Academy Award winner Brian Grazer and directed by Oscar winner Ron Howard, Apollo 13 stars Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise and Ed Harris in the inspiring and riveting story of the real-life space flight that gripped a nation and changed the world.
Description of Apollo 13 (Widescreen 2-Disc Anniversary Edition):
NASA's worst nightmare turned into one of the space agency's most heroic moments in 1970, when the Apollo 13 crew was forced to hobble home in a disabled capsule after an explosion seriously damaged the moon-bound spacecraft. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton play (respectively) astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise in director Ron Howard's intense, painstakingly authentic docudrama. The Apollo 13 crew and Houston-based mission controllers race against time and heavy odds to return the damaged spacecraft safely to Earth from a distance of 205,500 miles. Using state-of-the-art special effects and ingenious filmmaking techniques, Howard and his stellar cast and crew build nail-biting tension while maintaining close fidelity to the facts. The result is a fitting tribute to the Apollo 13 mission and one of the biggest box-office hits of 1995. --Jeff Shannon
Apollo 13 (Widescreen 2-Disc Anniversary Edition) Reviews:
"Gentlemen, it's been a privilege flying with you" 
2008-05-24 - THE MOVIE: Ron Howard's "Apollo 13" is superb. It is also majestic, romantic, thrilling, adventurous, frightening, funny, dramatic, heartbreaking, heartwarming, heroic, and just plain wonderful.
Every single actor in the film delivers a phenomenal performance (although Chris Ellis as Deke Slayton isn't given much to work with by the script), and Howard's direction is the best it could possibly be. I need hardly rehash the information in other reviews about the absolutely authentic recreation of the historical visual elements of the movie, or the use of NASA's KC-135 "Vomit Comet" to film most of the scenes set in weightlessness.
Some may prefer "The Right Stuff" to "Apollo 13" as a movie because it's more imaginative, but "Apollo 13" is one of the most accurate and faithful docudramas ever made about space exploration.
THE DVD: "Apollo 13" has not one but two of the best DVD commentary tracks I have ever heard. Ron Howard's account of the making of the movie is full of fascinating anecdotes, but even better is the commentary by Jim and Marilyn Lovell, which is simply one of the coolest bonus features ever found on a Digital Video Disc.
The Lovells' commentary is the equivalent of hearing Scarlett and Rhett comment on "Gone With The Wind", or Frodo and Sam (as distinct from Wood and Astin) discuss Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings". Because the movie is so faithful to the historical record, Lovell is able to describe his own inner thoughts and feelings over big closeups of Tom Hanks (e.g., when he's watching Neil Armstrong step onto the moon).
Among the other special features on the second disc is the condensed IMAX version of the movie, which is in a different aspect ratio (one which fills the whole screen of a widescreen TV, whereas the unedited movie fills the entire width of the screen but has black bars at the top and bottom). This version is mainly interesting as a demonstration of how an Academy Award-winning director goes about trimming one of his masterpieces. Some of the edits result in stronger scene transitions, but the shortening of the long take of Ken Mattingly's (Gary Sinise) reaction to learning he's been bumped from the mission is profoundly regrettable.
behind the headlines
2008-05-20 - I was at UCLA when this happened. I remember watching the news reports like everyone else on the planet. But to find out what was going on at Houston behind the scenes, what they didn't talk about to the press, it really adds to my memories of that time.
Technical DVD review ONLY. 
2008-05-16 - Do not be fooled by the tag, "IMAX theatrical experience". This is the original theatrical release version of the movie. Which was very fine, because it's a very fine movie. But I haven't seen the original theatrical version since I saw it at the movies the first time! Since then, I've been watching the special extended cut on VHS. Finally updating to "anniversary edition" DVD, I was MUCHO DISAPPOINTED to find all my favorite extra scenes cut!
The extras ARE worth having, so it wasn't a total mis-buy, but now I will have to find a DVD version of the extended cut, too, so I can have the complete movie that I love in my collection.
Overwhelming. 
2008-05-09 - Apollo 13 is a good Ron Howard film, I just don't think it's his most accomplished work. Tom Hanks pulls off another excellent performance, the problem I have with this film is the pacing, it's slow but the ending more than makes up for it. Apollo 13 is a film every young adult should watch, good history lesson.
Ron Howard's & Tom Hank's Best Collaboration
2008-04-11 - As I write this review on the anniversary of the launch of that fateful mission, I am reminded of how I felt during this tragedy. I was a teenager with an eye towards the sky. I had watched every launch I could since Mercury. Landing on the moon seemed so easy after Armstrong and Aldrin. It was hard to find out even when they would land let alone find coverage. We were all distracted by Vietnam. Little did I know, nor did anyone, that this, not the landing on the moon, would become, as Gene Kranz, the flight director, said, "NASA's finest hour." This movie captures the mood of the time and the joy of that moment on April 17th when radio contact resumed after re-entry.
This is an excellent ride, as one of the astronauts once said.
Here's an interesting footnotes from Wikipedia:
Grumman, the maker of the LEM (lunar excursion module) sent a bill for towing to the North American company, the maker of the command module. North American, jokingly declined, by saying that their accountants priced out a towing fee for the LEM for past missions to the moon. The LEM was the crew's lifeboat after the accident that crippled the command module.
Ironically, stirring the O2 tanks may have prevented a worse tragedy. A level gauge failed early into the mission causing ground control to doubt a reading. So, the frequency of stirring the tanks was increased in the hope that the gauge would clear, i.e., function again, or that the cause of its failure could be determined. Increasing the frequency also upped the risk of failure of the heater. Based on normal stirring, the accident would have had a greater chance of failure later in the mission when there would have been less provisions to ration ¯ sometimes luck throws some English your way.
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