For its physics, Fly Me to the Moon is not a complete waste
JISHOU, HUNAN — It’s nice to see a movie for kids that for once doesn’t play games with scientific accuracy. While it may be a fantasy (according to Buzz Aldrin), Fly Me to the Moon keeps its physics pretty darn close to the real thing.
Granted, it’s not on a par with Pixar’s or Disney’s animated features, but this cute little kiddie movie about three young adventure-seeking houseflies is not a complete waste of time. It recreates one of the most exciting moments in US history for a new young audience, while giving them a glimpse of what moving in space is really like.
The plot is pretty simple. Three nerdy flies, Scooter (fat kid), IQ (bespectacled brainiac) and Nat (the ringleader), live in a junkyard near Cape Canaveral within sight of the Apollo 11 launchpad. They all want to have an adventure, like Nat’s grandpa did 37 years ago, but all they can do is dream.
Nat’s grandpa tells him once again his story of how he saved a sleepy Amelia Earhart from splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean by flying up her nose. Nat then decides to hitch a ride on Apollo 11, due to launch the next day.
They successfully become stowaways on the moon mission. They correct an electrical short on the outbound leg. They hide inside the Neil Armstrong’s and Aldrin’s spacesuits to become the first flies on the moon.
Meanwhile, on Earth, Soviet flies try to sabotage the reentry phase, but are thwarted by Nat’s grandpa, his mother, his two maggot brothers, and grandpa’s old flame from the 1930s, Nadia, a sympathetic go-fer to the head Soviet fly spy.
It’s a plot line designed for a eight-year-old, on the same level as many TV cartoons, but as kid movies go, it’s not awful.
There are a few bones thrown to the parents and grandparents watching. Nat’s family name is McFly (who could resist, after all?). A Mona Lisa postage stamp in the McFly living room wall has bug eyes. Nat’s mom frequently exclaims, “lord of the flies!” whenever she’s upset. There are some musical quotes for the old folks, too. As Nat and his buddies float inside the Command Module, Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz plays, as it did in 2001: A Space Odyssey. As the Command Module docks with the Lunar Module, the orchestration alludes to the score from Apollo 13. And, of course, the title song is an old Frank Sinatra classic from 1954.
For this space bug (pun intended) and physics teacher, the animated physics is for the most part dead-on. The launch sequence looks almost as real as an actual Apollo launch. The orbital maneuvers remind one of the graceful movements in 2001 and in real life. Objects in the spacecraft follow inertial paths, and the flies have to beat their wings to move; the animators mercifully did not have them “swim” through the air with their insectoid arms. Acceleration from transorbital burns sends the unmoored flies apparently in the opposite direction from the Apollo’s velocity vector.
As the Lunar Module approaches the moon’s surface, Aldrin and Armstrong capture the three flies and seal them in a test tube. The animators could have violated the First Law of Motion and had the flies beat their wings and push against the tube in an effort to dislodge it, but they didn’t. While Nat, IQ and Scooter do try, they fail.
The physics is not perfect. Vibrations from the landing do finally dislodge the tube, but it does not fall to the deck. In fact, the Lunar Module was close enough to the surface by then for the lunar gravity to pull the tube downward. The decision may have been poetic license, though. The fall might not have been enough to break the glass tube to free the intrepid insects, so the animators instead have the tube float between a heavy camera heading toward an instrument panel. The impact shatters the tube.
We get to see Armstrong climb down the ladder and step on the lunar surface, uttering his famous “one small step for man” line. The animation of him and Aldrin loping around on the moon is pretty lifelike. And, for those moon-landing doubters, the movie clearly shows the upper pole on the US flag keeping the flag outstretched.
As the movie ends, the present-day Aldrin appears, advising us that at no time was the Apollo moon mission contaminated, and that the possibility of three flies sneaking aboard the spacecraft was “scientifically impossible.” In a continuity error, the camera then focuses on the three heroes waving from inside an astronaut’s helmet. (Earlier in the movie, Nat is inside Armstrong’s suit and his buddies are in Aldrin’s.)
(One other error caught my copy-editor eye: a panel in Mission Control is mislabeled, “Authorized Personal Only.”)
Experiments with insects in orbit have shown flying insects are initially disoriented, and cannot fly worth a darn. Nat and his buddies have no such problems, however.
Will kids care about or even notice the little errors? Probably not. I am not even sure their adult companions will, either. For the most part, Fly Me to the Moon is a fairly accurate, child-sized recreation of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon mission. For those of you old enough to remember watching the real landing on TV, it would be worth spending an hour and a half with your younger family members to view this flick. Sharing your feelings about the real event might inspire some new would-be astronauts.
There are teacher’s guides for the movie, one for the 2D version and one for the 3D version. Here’s the link for the 2D version I saw.
This movie is rated G, by the way. Scooter burps a couple of times and farts once. Christopher Lloyd (who of course played Marty McFly’s friend, Doc, in the Back to the Future movies), Tim Curry, Robert Patrick, Kelly Ripa, Nicolette Sheridan, Ed Begley Jr., and Adrienne Barbeau are among the voice talents.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Main errors in the movie
1. Mission timer inside CM stands still, and displaying number (7) in other way, then it in real could (it was standard eight segment LED display, which cannot show diagonal line).
2. SIVB (Last stage of Saturn 4 rocket) is jettisoned in lunar orbit. This way, Apollo 13 astronauts would be dead on their way. In real world, CM and LM was docked shortly after TLI burn, and not near the end of journey.
3. LM legs are extended during descent to lunar surface – crazy. In real, they were extended BEFORE LEM disconnects from CM.
4. Armstrong sits in right chair in CM. In Apollo capsule, commander sits on center position (CMP on the left, LMP on the right)
5. All three astronauts wearing their space suits all the way to the moon and back. Crazy, really crazy.