Apollo 13, which I consider to be Ron Howard’s best film by far, hit Blu-ray this past week. The film runs two stories: the bravery of the astronauts of Apollo 13 and the ingenuity of the men at Mission Control. I find the latter more gripping simply because they’re the only hope the men in the command module have. That’s not to diminish the quick-thinking and perfectly executed work of Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert, but it’s the fast-paced, intense discussion of those on the ground that really sell the film for me.
One of the my favorite scenes is when John Aaron (Loren Dean) breaks the entire problem of getting the astronauts home down to power. When he tells a fellow flight commander that in order to get the astronauts home they need to use enough energy to barely power a coffee maker. My other favorite scene is this one:
