Apollo 10 1/2, a film by Richard Linklater

10 March 2022

Talk about the trip of a lifetime. American space agency NASA accidently builds an Apollo Moon lander that’s too small for adult astronauts. So the investment doesn’t go to waste, a young boy is clandestinely recruited to take the vessel to the lunar surface, in Apollo 10 1/2, trailer, an animated feature directed by Richard Linklater.

The story of the first moon landing in the summer of 1969 from two interwoven perspectives. It both captures the astronaut and mission control view of the triumphant moment, and the lesser-seen bottom up perspective of what it was like from an excited kid’s perspective, living near NASA but mostly watching it on TV like hundreds of millions of others. It’s ultimately both an exacting re-creation of this special moment in history and a kid’s fantasy about being plucked from his average life in suburbia to secretly train for a covert mission to the moon.

Apollo ten and a half, this is Houston. Do you read?