posted 05-20-2009 05:04 PM               

A film about the moon landings is to be shown in London after a film-maker tracked down tapes years after they were thought lost.

Chris Riley found the sole print of Moonwalk One gathering dust under director Theo Kamecke's desk in the office at his home in the Catskill mountains near New York.

NASA gave Kamecke behind-the-scenes access to "make a time capsule" about the race to put a man on the moon.

The documentary was acclaimed on release in 1972 but sank into obscurity and the US space agency lost its master copy.

Mr Riley is now working to digitally restore Moonwalk One for a screening at the British Film Institute in July to mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, when man first landed on the moon. It will be released on DVD in June.

posted 08-17-2012 08:36 AM               

I would definitely buy a BluRay version — I may just get the remastered version since there may never be a BluRay...

posted 07-17-2014 11:26 AM               

See for the first time Theo Kamecke's extraordinary film of the first moon landing. Thought lost for 35 years it chronicles mankind's greatest achievement in staggering detail.

posted 09-24-2018 04:41 PM            

The film was restored and released on DVD ("Moonwalk One: The Director's Cut") for the 40th anniversary, but I have never been able to source it in high definition, in spite of the fact that it was actually shown on HD on a UK terrestrial TV channel in 2009.

It would be utterly absurd and completely inexplicable if this film is not re-released, at least in HD, if not 4K, for the 50th anniversary. The film is quintessentially late 1960s in its very DNA, and for that reason is the perfect Apollo 11 time-capsule film. If you watch it and think "Oh, they're using all those well-known film clips!" please note that "all those well-known film clips" were actually part of "Moonwalk One" and have been copied by everyone else. This is the one that did it first, and did it best.

posted 01-07-2019 06:05 PM            

The package was pressed through our letter-box a few hours ago and I haven't played the disc yet, but I will comment again after I have seen it.

posted 01-08-2019 04:34 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Blackarrow:
I just think it's a great film.

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posted 01-08-2019 04:27 PM               

Having worked on the 2009 Director's Cut of "Moonwalk One" (I brought the production partners together and edited the "making of" documentary), I can see that the Blu-ray version is made from exactly the same master that was created in 2009. So the distributors have just repackaged that and put it out on Blu-ray.

This is a poor restoration by modern standards. They haven't even removed things like scratches. Out of focus transfers of the flight film were also used to replace the 1970 transfers, however these don't stand up in comparison to more recent transfers (the soft focus is particularly noticeable during the LM rendezvous sequence).

Most of the film was shot in 2.76:1 however it was released theatrically in 4:3 (necessitating the 2.76:1 material to be cropped), therefore the "16:9" version being marketed here was actually made by panning and scanning the 4:3 print even further. So for the "specially shot" material used in the 2009 version (e.g the crew walkout) you are effectively seeing a 16:9 "postage stamp" in the middle of the original 2.76:1 frame.

The Blu-ray description (on Amazon) states it used "the only existing full-length 35mm print." Despite their blurb, it wasn't the "only," or even the best surviving 35mm print available either, as more original 35mm copies and other better quality source material survives elsewhere, including the 70mm source reels. The "5.1 stereo mix" was also simply made from the optical soundtrack that went with the 35mm reels, so it isn't true 5.1.

But I guess at the time I didn't know any different.

It ideally needs a new restoration.