Space movies, shows, and documentaries deserve a genre of their own, especially those that focus on the Apollo Space Program. It doesn’t matter how many titles on the subject have been released before, there is always a new perspective that can be explored and put forth to an audience as science, tech, and space continue to see progress with every passing day.
Get ready for a heart-pounding journey with Netflix‘s latest documentary, Apollo 13: Survival, expertly directed by Peter Middleton. This gripping documentary recounts the harrowing story of astronauts fighting for survival as they desperately try to return to Earth.
While we may have a soft spot for space documentaries, we’ll strive to provide an unbiased review of Apollo 13: Survival, so you can decide if you want to stream it or skip it.
A Guaranteed Nail-Biter!
The Apollo 13 mission took place in 1970 and was the 7th crewed mission in the Apollo Space Program. This Netflix documentary has included recordings from the missions, along with archival interviews, and if you have declared yourself a space nerd, you can’t miss out on Apollo 13: Survival, and the story it tells.
The documentary begins with a short and optimistic clip by astronauts on board the mission, and it is almost surreal to watch a floating tape recorder, with smiles all around. Following this, Netflix uses its tools to tell parts of the story that weren’t in the recordings but fill in any gaps with plenty of information and context to what happened on this mission, which has also been dramatized into a movie starring Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon in 1995.
“Houston, we’ve had a problem,” or anything similar to that statement, can be some of the most terrifying words uttered during a space mission, and in the case of Apollo 13, it started with an electrical failure. Following a brief introduction of the intensity viewers can expect in this documentary, it takes us back to 4 months before the mission.
Apollo 13 aimed to land on a more hilly area of the moon, unlike Apollo 11 and 12, making this a more risky flight. This, along with the mission, is explained with the help of archival interviews in the documentary, including those of James A. Lovell Jr., the Commander of the mission. There were so many different elements to this mission, prior, on the day of, and of course, during, and after, all of which are brilliantly highlighted.
Apollo 13: Survival isn’t just any other space documentary, but one that very smartly utilizes different tools at hand to retell a story several had heard before. It was important for this documentary to bring something new to the table, and it managed to do exactly that in almost the entire runtime, making it a treat for those invested in the subject, and others who might be new to it.
Conlcusion
This documentary was informative, and gripping, and managed to keep us on the edge of our seats even though we were aware of the final outcome. If you’re looking for a space documentary to add to your watchlist, let Apollo 13: Survival be your pick!