The Moonwalkers
Go see The Moonwalkers
While in Boston, I had the chance to see “The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks,” and highly recommend it, not because I was wowed (I was) but because it wowed the people I browbeat into coming with me.
The Moonwalkers is the latest of the Tom Hanks Apollo history projects; Apollo 13 is the best known, but his From the Earth to the Moon is also excellent. Unlike those, The Moonwalkers also ties in the upcoming Artemis missions.
The Moonwalkers is an hour long “immersive experience” in a room that’s probably 50 or 60 feet square, with very high definition projection onto all the walls, and sometimes even the floor. When you see Kennedy speaking at Rice to announce that we’re going to the moon, he’s at the front, and crowd shots are all around you. When a Saturn V takes off, you’re in the glowing exhaust.
The folks I brought were amazed by the epic story, brought back to life. As a space fan, I particularly enjoyed seeing the photos at what might have even been life-size. Some of them were sequenced so that successive stills showed their animation, and perhaps my favorite was a subtle fade from one of the original prints of Apollo 11 on the moon to the incredibly crisp Andy Saunders remaster. That photo looks and feels contemporary instead of historical, and at scale it’s just breathtaking. Don’t believe me? Here’s a review from Boston Uncovered.
It is annoyingly complicated to find a global site for the show. Searching for one, I’ve found four current installations:
- Boston (through Jan 4)
- London (through Jan 25)
- Paris (through Dec 4)
- Houston (We have a problem: the end date isn’t clear.)
For a sense of the scale, the couches in the foreground seat two or three people; this shot is when you’re in Mission Control, watching a landing.