Image: Netflix
Richard Linklater is a well-known director of films such as Boyhood, Slacker, Suburbia and the Before trilogy. He seems like an unlikely candidate to direct a goofy movie about a teenage boy who inadvertently becomes an astronaut, but that’s just one of the mysteries raised by this weird first Apollo 10 1/2: Space Age Childhood trailer.
There’s a lot to understand here, but let’s start with the ridiculous assumption that NASA accidentally built a model of the moon smaller than planned. It’s such a flawless ’80s – Apollo 10 1/2 would have been the perfect complement to the 1986 movie Space Camp, in which a well-intentioned robot launches a shuttle full of kids into space – except that the action of Apollo 10 1/2″ clearly takes place in the 60s. My next big question is: why did Linklater decide to use the same rotoscopic animation as in his 2006 film Blurred? There, the supernatural visuals may have befitted a sci-fi dystopian story, but for a film about a group of families living idyllic lives in the suburbs of the ’60s, it’s pretty unnerving to watch.
Besides, maybe the baby doesn’t even fly into space? Here’s the official synopsis:
Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood tells the story of the first moon landing in the summer of 1969 from two intertwined perspectives—an astronaut and mission control’s view of the moment of triumph, and the eyes of a child raised in Houston, Texas who has his own intergalactic dreams. Drawing inspiration from the life of Academy Award-nominated director Richard Linklater, Apollo 10 1/2: Space Age Childhood is a snapshot of American life in the 1960s that is part coming-of-age, part public commentary and part extraterrestrial adventure.
Apollo 10 1/2: Space Age Childhood, starring Milo Coy, Lee Eddy, Bill Wise, Natalie L’Amoro, Zachary Levi and Jack Black, hits Netflix on April 1st. Let’s earn a prequel about NASA workers assembling the module and slowly, with increasing horror and nausea, realize that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
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