Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Blistering performances.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I always wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. Neil Armstrong was my hero, Gus Grissom and Alan Shepard too. This TBS production is a very "viewer friendly" trip down history lane starting from the beginning of the astronaut selection for the Mercury program through the Apollo-Soyuz test flight. As told by Deke Slayton, it's easy to understand, doesn't waste the viewer's time with a lot of heady details, puts all due influence on our Cold War competition with the Russians (the astronauts were all soldiers, and the Apollo program was at first an effort to show we could put soldiers with a payload -- re: weapons systems -- on the moon), and has it told by the astronauts themselves: Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, Buzz Aldrin, Scott Carpenter, ground crew people like Chris Kraft.Do kids these days even know who these people were? Do they understand that we really did shoot people into space in little tin cans with no bathrooms or kitchenettes? Do they understand that these cold warriors were "men", who had egos and wives and drank and got into trouble and made history? People died, too, both on the Soviet side and our boys, and the special very soberly gives attention to all of that while being genuinely amusing at times, mixing period era authentic NASA test footage with the astronauts reminiscing about how ALL OF THIS WAS REAL.One thing does kind of work against it and that's the overly "down home" narration by Barry Corbin. Yes, Deke Slayton had a bit of a cornpone accept, but after a while it strikes you as having been laid on a bit too thick, along with the comedic music and pratfalls. It's when the presentation sharpens up and gets down to telling you what it was like to be an astronaut candidate that it all comes together. They were competitive, somewhat egotistical and "cocksure" fighter jocks, and one of the interesting points that the film does a good job in getting across is that in 1966 or whatever, not everybody could be an astronaut. Today sure, but only because of the pioneering work these men undertook.Highly recommended and suitable for all ages & audiences, anybody will be entertained and just like Cosby used to say if you aren't careful you just may learn a few things too.

This series is about the race to the moon viewed from the the perspective of the American Space Program from Mercury to Apollo. Retired astronauts, engineers, and program managers reminisced about their involvement in the program which makes this 4 hour program an invaluable documentary of the history of American space exploration.What kind of an era was this when people were able to dream such grand adventure, and actually pull it off ? Sadly space exploration was put on hold due to domestic issues of feeding the poor, but 40 years later, those problem still persists, and we're not officially back on moon for all the years. Makes you wonder if the protest of the poor were just a sour grape to find an easy target to take pot shots at.There's still magic in seeing the giant Saturn V rocket take off, and space crafts making docking maneuvers in space. It could be the best of the movies, but even better. Will we see the spirits of adventure like this in our life time again ? If not, we've lost something valuable to all humanity.

Moon Shot is the story of the astronauts that flew in the first flights into space thru the last flight of an Apollo space craft. It is a very solid and well put together film, exciting, action packed, and filled with scenes of high emotion (Apollo 1 fire, Apollo 8's Christmas Eve reading from Genesis, Apollo 13's ordeal, the final scene as a tribute to Deke Slayton). There is humor and a feeling of the type of personalities it took to man these crafts and fly into outer space. We are reminded of the political climate of the 60s, the leadership of JFK, the way the program treaded thru the late 60s. The show has what amounts to 3 climaxes. The first is the flight of Apollo 8, which was the first flight to orbit the moon. The Christmas Eve reading from Genesis is moving. The 2nd climax is the landing of Apollo 11 and the time that craft spent on the moon's surface. The 3rd was about Slayton finally getting to fly into space in 1975. For anyone that wants to get a feel of the way things were in the 60s, this is a grand film to watch.

I have been a staunch supporter of the U.S. space program for many years, and when I heard about "Moon Shot" I knew I had to add this video tape to my collection. One thing that struck me as very funny were the comments of some of the principals(John Glenn, Chris Kraft, Alan Shepard, etc). For example, when discussing Deke Slayton's heart problem, in relation to his Apollo-Soyuz mission, Kraft states, "We knew more about Deke Slayton's heart than any man we ever flew, and that goddamned doctor stood up in the meeting and said, 'Well, I know we've said this before, but if he fibrillates on the pad, I'm gonna stop the count.' And I fired that sonuvabitch!"Of course, life for the American space program wasn't all humorous. Three astronauts died in an accident during a training excercise in 1967, and there are many interviews with fellow astronauts and Mission Control members describing how they felt at the loss of their three comrades. There is also a great deal of discussion of the Soviet moon program, and its ultimate failure.Any history fan or space enthusiast will enjoy Moon Shot. It gives one of the most accurate accounts of the early space program, through the eyes of the guys who lived it. I would heartily recommend this video for anyone interested in the space program.