Walk on the Moon in IMAX 3D

HaveNoMouth writes "NASA, Lockheed Martin, and Tom Hanks are making an IMAX 3D movie about the Apollo moon landings to give viewers something like the actual experience of being on the moon. Complete with actors playing astronauts, mockups of the Lunar Excursion Module, and fake moon surface, this looks to be a real kick. The website for the movie itself is all shockwave, but it contains some nice behind-the-scenes photos of the production. Here's a QuickTime trailer. All you lunar hoax conspiracy theorists out there can just consider this the remake, with 2005-class special effects."

Comments

Boom boom

[Anonymous Coward]

Best bit is, they've already got the set from the faked moon landings in 1969!

Spark that interest

[rob_squared]

I hope that this makes people feel awe about the moon again. Every now and again looking up and realizing there's footprints and hardware up there really gets to you.

Here's some info about those last lines regarding the "hoax."

http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/
http://www.apollo-hoax.me.uk/index.html

Re:Spark that interest

[utnow]

You're a classic example of today's modern, plugged in, brilliant, and utterly uninspired people.

It's difficult to fathom the fact that a collection of atoms formed together to produce you in such a fashion that you can create such a statement. Life is utterly amazing in that regard. We're having an argument. THAT is awe-inspiring.

How can the idea of having overcome so many obstacles, arguably way before our time, traveled such a distance, and achieved such a feat. The idea that there's a massive rock orbiting our tiny little planet is crazy as it is but that we were able to get people there is insane.

Now I think that our progress in getting people more than 365 times as far (mars versus the moon) has been rather astounding. We managed, on only our second shot, to hit a target as small as mars (technically we 'hit' it twice) from literally ~50 million miles away. We have photographs taken from the surface of a completely different planet.

You're amazingly desensitized by tv, media, movies, music, videogames... i dunno what.

Re:Spark that interest

[utnow]

Landing on the moon was a crazy achievement.. In fact it was so crazy that there are people who, to this day, think we never made it. Making that voyage was like squeezing a baby until it makes it's first sounds. You wouldn't claim that it could talk. No where near. So now the kid knows it can make noises (not the best way to teach it) and it can spend the time learning new ones and fine-tuning the ones that it knows.

Space travel is the same way. So we punched through the glass ceiling (so to speak) but we've been focusing our energy of late on sustaining life in a vastly different environment. The trip to the moon was roughly 3 days to, 3 days on, and 3 days to return home. The trip to mars is roughly a 6 year round trip? There are significant obstacles that have to be overcome before we can afford to send live humans out there. Not only that, but because of the length of each experimental trial, 40 years would only afford... 6? MAX (granted multiple trials can be undertaken simultaneously, shorter peices of the whole, etc, etc, but the point is made, and I can't picture anything less than full scale, full length simulations).

Food is an issue. Air is an issue. Water is an issue. Muscle atrophy is an issue. The list goes on. All of these things are being investigated at the ISS, and the MIR as well I presume.

In this day and age NASA can't afford to 'screw up' any more so I don't blame them for taking their good old time getting on track for mars. I say send lots of probes that can't die. If I were them I'd send a few monkeys with no families (you know, the hobo monkeys) up first as well. ;)

Where is it?

[z3r0w8]

How come I keep looking for the MTV flag?

Plate Tectonics

[geomon]

"All you lunar hoax conspiracy theorists out there can just consider this the remake, with 2005-class special effects."

I love conspiracy knotheads. They always ignore evidence that is readily available to them that would disprove their theory immediately.

On several Apollo missions, astronauts planted mirrors facing Earth. The mirror were useful for measuring the distance of the moon from the Earth and the change in readings was used to confirm the theory of plate tectonics. We now use GPS surveys with permanently mounted stations.

Funny how facts available to everyone can be ignored by people with an axe to grind.

Re:Plate Tectonics

[sconeu]

I love conspiracy knotheads.

I love Buzz Aldrin's response to conspiracy knotheads.

Re:Plate Tectonics

[jeffdsimpson]

Although the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment were placed there by Apollos 11, 14 and 15 astronauts, the Soviets did the same thing with their unmanned Lunokhod 2 rover. If you talk to your local hoax idiot, my guess is they will tell you the United States got their's onto the Moon using unmanned probes.

Of course the Soviets actually provide the most compelling evidence that we did go to the Moon - their utter and complete silence. It seems strange that at the height of the Cold War, the United States biggest enemy would be completely silent and not say a word. You would have thought that if it is so obvious from the photographic and video record that we didn't go to the Moon, that the evil commies would have been all over it. But there is nothing.

Hi Def Trailers

[OverlordQ]

Find the Hi-Def trailers here

Re:oh great...

[KernelHappy]

Well the real question is, are they using the original set, or a new one. I heard that higher definition displays show lots of flaws in lower def sets.

Re:Finally

[beerman2k]

A chance to visit my moon base!!

Was that Moon Base Alpha? Or Moon Base Zappa?

Only the coolest thing ever.

[Dr Tom Danger]

You don't even understand, the secret is in what the y DON'T tell you. After Tom Hanks (the mildly retarded yet persistant shrimping captain turned astronaut) gets stranded after the lunar lander, loses 70 pounds, and is rescued when he triumphantly sends an email to an unwitting cute small time bookstore owner, who he later marries - and manages as the head of a womans baseball team. If that isn't sheer gold, it's at least Oscar worthy. Count me in. T dub out.

Re:Doesn't look real...

[jpellino]

Hanks already used helium baloons to unweight the actors in "From The Earth To The Moon" - seeing how much it costs to film IMAX, this would be a cheap (as in dollars) trick.

/Sting

[OneArmedMan]

Giant Steps

Are, what, you, take ..

walking on the moon...

I like Tom Hanks and all, but...

[fractalrock]

I'm not sure why this struck me as being so funny: "NASA, Lockheed Martin, and Tom Hanks are making an IMAX 3D movie..." My emphasis...

I can't help but think of similar matchups like "Today, the European Union, Venezuela, and Posh Spice all expressed their sympathy to the U.S...."

Stupid, I know. I'll shut up now.

This Movie Is A Hoax!

[Rob Carr]

They couldn't possibly have filmed this movie on a sound stage. They obviously sent real astronauts to the moon to film this, and they're only telling us it was filmed on Earth.

Re:3D

[sinewalker]

I have a sister with the same problems, but she has no trouble with the 3D IMAX movies as screened here in Sydney, so maybe you'll be in luck.

The Sydney IMAX theater uses special glasses that are a combination of Polaroid filters and high-speed shutters. I'll try to explain my simplistic understanding of them in the next few paras to convince you why I think it'll work for you, but do have a go in your city anyway! If it works, it's way-out, and if it doesn't, I've got a trick that will let you enjoy it in 2D anyway.

In the Sydney theatre (which I assume is pretty much the same elsewhere), the glasses have polarised lenses, each off-set 90 degrees to the other. The theater's twin projectors send their images to the screen through polarised filters with the same offsets.

(My Optics theory is a bit rusty to figure out the relationship here, but basically, the left-eye projector's image is polarised so it can be seen clearly through the left-eye lense of the glasses, and not clearly through the right-eye. And vice-versa of course).

This means you get full-colour stereo 3D.

I wear specs and the glasses fit comfortably over these (the theater glasses are more like some high-tech VR headset really).

Polarised lenses aren't perfect of course, since some of the wrong image will get through. To minimise this cross-talk in your brain, the glasses are also covered with an LCD film that is switched to clear/opaque in sync with the projectors. A radio signal is sent from the top of the theater and picked up by the audince's glasses to maintain sync. Because cross-talk is eliminated in this way, I believe this should cancel out any processing difficulty your optic system seems have had with the old red/blue trick.

Anyway, it's worth a try, because here's my 2D trick: The theater technicians advise you to try closing one eye if you feel sick during the movie. But keeping one eye closed for a long time is difficult. So, take an eye-patch with you (or a handkerchief or something) to cover your eye underneath the glasses. This way, you'll still be able to enjoy the movie in 2D through your open eye. But don't take the glasses off. If you take the glasses off, everything looks blurred because your naked eyes will see both images.

Good luck!

more remakes

[javiercr]

Yet another remake of a 60s TV classic, wasn't bewitched enough? can't we come up with new ideas anymore? :)

Random Futurama reference

[Calathea]

But will Leela be able to watch the 3D film?

Proof

[91degrees]

Fact - The moon does not exist.

The moon weighs 73 600 000 trillian tonnes and is made from cheese. To produce that much dairy produce, it would take the world 12 trillion years at the current annual rate of dairy production. Since the world has only been in existence for 4.6 billion years, there is no way that much cheese could have been produced even if current dairy production was at current rates.

Fact - If it did exist, there is no way of getting there.

The moon is roughly 250 000 miles away. There are no gas stations on the way. A typical car will only get about 600 miles on a full tank. Even an exceptionally fuel efficent car with a very large tank will not get anythign like 250 000 miles.

So, since the moon is cleary an illusion, and is too far away to visit, the "moon landings" must have been faked.