[FPSPACE] Capricorn One

Sat Aug 7 16:22:21 EDT 2004

May I ask a rhetoric question? What happened to that Crossbow' spaceplane from "Real Genius"?
--
KD

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: LARRY KLAES 
  To: fpspace at friends-partners.org 
  Sent: Saturday, August 07, 2004 3:49 PM
  Subject: [FPSPACE] Capricorn One

  For sheer entertainment plus the music, yes I agree with you that Capricorn One was not a bad film in that sense.  But even seeing it as a teenager in 1978 I thought how absurd to use one Apollo CSM to get three men to Mars and back.  Even if they did rig up some kind of system to make the ship last all that time, I cannot imagine any three normal people, even trained astronauts, surviving in such cramped quarters without going crazy and ending the mission prematurely.

  And I would still like to know whatever happened to those full-scale models they used.  Hey, you don't supposed they were NASA leftovers used to fake the Apollo program, do you? 

  Larry

  Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 21:31:22 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
  From: DwayneDay <zirconic1 at earthlink.net>
  Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] What happend to the full-scale Apollo models
  from Capricorn One?
  To: fpspace <fpspace at friends-partners.org>
  Message-ID:
  <18435891.1091842282624.JavaMail.root at donald.psp.pas.earthlink.net>
  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

  -----Original Message-----
  From: LARRY KLAES <ljk4 at msn.com>

  >Remember the 1978 film Capricorn One, about a faked manned mission to Mars?  Well, regardless of how unrealistic and otherwise bad it was...

  [snip]

  I don't have an answer to your question.  But I'm going to disagree with your characterization of this film.  I actually think that Capricorn One is an okay movie, for what it is--a 1970s era paranoid thriller.  Not great, but enjoyable.

  Now certainly this is a matter of opinion.  There are a number of blockbusters that I consider absolutely awful, like Armageddon and The Rock (the one about Alcatraz, not the wrestler).  And then there's similar bombastic films like Independence Day and The Core that I enjoyed but lots of people hate.  I dunno why I am willing to suspend my brain for some movies and simply enjoy the ride whereas with others I get irate because of the plot holes, inconsistencies and ignorance of even basic physics.  (FP's own Robert Kennedy once calculated that the giant spaceships in ID4 would have ignited the earth's atmosphere and killed everybody on the planet, but I didn't care--they were pretty neat.)  I think that it comes down to a couple of things--is the dialogue witty instead of testosteronic bombast, and is the premise and execution clever instead of cliched and predictable?  (Good acting helps too.)  In this regard I think that Capricorn One performs admirably.

  First, you have to recognize that the movie is really a product of its time.  The hero of the film is a crusading reporter, which is no surprise considering that this was right after Woodward and Bernstein exposed Watergate.  Reporters were briefly heroes.  (That's not exactly the case today.)  Similarly, this was one of a new genre of "government-is-evil" films.  That is quite common today, with films like Enemy of the State, and Conspiracy Theory, but it was relatively new then.

  The movie certainly has some flaws and gaping plot holes.  >From a technical standpoint you cannot use a lunar module to land on Mars.  And if the astronauts were supposed to film regular messages to send to the ground, how did they deal with the slight problem of gravity, which would have been evident when the astronauts were not exactly floating around the cabin?  It would have been possible to concoct a better explanation for this, but the director did not think it necessary.

  But I think that several things make Capricorn One work.  First is the pacing, which is tight and which ratchets up appropriately by the final climax.  Second is the action sequence at the end, which builds up quickly and then just jumps off the screen with one of the best aerial chase sequences ever filmed--helicopters versus biplane, how cool is that?  Third is how the final action sequence is supported.  The helicopters are portrayed as ominous desert predators, the desert scenery is beautiful, and the score by Jerry Goldsmith is also excellent.  

  Finally, there's Telly Savalas, who comes very close to stealing the entire film with his portrayal of Albain, the abrasive, foul-mouthed crop-dusting pilot.  His one big scene in the movie is worth repeating here.  It is when the reporter thinks that the astronauts are out in the desert and he goes to a small airfield:

  Caufield: Morning.
  Albain: Mornin'.
  Caufield: You in charge here?
  Albain: You see that sign there?
  Caufield: Yes.
  Albain: Well read it.
  Caufield: I already did.
  Albain: Out loud!
  Caufield: A&A Crop Dusting Service.
  Albain: You wanna know who I am?
  Caufield: I'll bet you're one of the A's.
  Albain: But which one, I betcha can't answer that one, smartass!
  Caufield: The first one.
  Albain: Wrong!
  Caufield: Can I have one more guess?
  Albain: You got it.
  Caufield: The second one.
  Albain: [laughing] Wrong.  I'm both of 'em.  A&A. My name's Albain.  Now I got a son.  The other A was for him.  But he don't like to fly, he's a lawyer.  I think he's a pervert, so I took the A away from him.  You wanna speak to somebody in charge, you're speaking to both of them.
  Caufield: My name is Caufield.
  Albain: Hey, I can't help that.
  Caufield: Mr. Albain, how much do you charge to dust a field?
  Albain: Twenty-five dollars.
  Caufield: I'd like to hire your plane.
  Albain: That'll be a hundred dollars.
  Caufield: You said you charged twenty-five.
  Albain: Twenty-five dollars to dust a field, but you ain't got no field, because you ain't no farmer which means you ain't poor and I think you're a pervert!
  Caufield: [counting money] Twenty, forty, one hundred.
  Albain: One hundred twenty-five!
  Caufield: Why?
  Albain: Because you said yes to a hundred too quick, which means you can afford a hundred twenty-five.
  [Caufield gives him the money]
  Albain: So where you wanna go, smartass?
  Caufield: I'm not sure, I'm looking for someone who's lost.
  Albain: Eh, it's your money.

  DDAY

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