is the movie good?
i only just heard about this film and now i really want to see it. is it any good?
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MovieChat Forums > Challenger (1990) Discussion > is the movie good?
Hm, it is nothing spectacular. All the pilots are portrayed totally goody-goody and there is a lot of unexciting stuff, coffee breaks at NASA and family dinners and such. The production values are very "TV-movie".
But you DO get to see young Angela Basset although her role requires nothing more than flashing her teeth and being African-American. Her only worthwhile moment comes at the very end.
Unless you're into NASA or something, it's nothing special. It's got some recognizable actors, but lacks much drama, so it's a little boring. It's all set up, and the film ends before the Challenger explosion so we don't see that or the aftermath with the families and the people at NASA, which frankly I would have preferred. That's not a spoiler, is it?
http://www.freewebs.com/demonictoys/
I think that one story about the Challenger disaster that perhaps hasn't been explored too much is the story of Barbara Morgan, who was Christa McAuliffe's backup. I always wondered if she suffered from a major case of "survivor's guilt". There is footage of her on YouTube witnessing the Challenger launch and disintegration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Morgan
I think making a movie about the Challenger tragedy was going to be hard. Because anybody who has heard of the story, knows that it ends badly. I suspect that the filmmakers of the 1990 TV movie, knew this too, and they tried to at the very least, end on a "bittersweet" mark. We know that these people are going to die, but they wanted to still end on an "inspirational" note by having each of them recite the "High Flight" poem (the one that Ronald Reagan quoted when he gave his first public remarks about the disaster) in their thoughts.
Also, you can't really talk about the Challenger disaster without going into all of the technical details that caused it like the problems with the O-rings. So you have a movie that wants to simultaneously show the personal humanity and bravery of the astronauts while at the same time, giving us some insight of what caused their horrific deaths.
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-02-25/news/tv-2306_1_challenger-space
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-02-23/features/9001160741_1_christa-mcauliffe-o-rings-challenger
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/25/arts/to-view-arrogance-in-the-name-of-liftoff.html
https://people.com/archive/picks-and-pans-review-challenger-vol-33-no-8/
"Challenger" (1990) Movie Review - Barkey Reviews Movies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouce3xznsPU
"Challenger" (1990) was an interesting artifact, attempting to dramatize what happened leading up to the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986. Adding to the national grief of the tragedy, one of the crew was Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire who was to have been the first civilian in space, and would have broadcast lessons to schools around the country from orbit. The TV movie sports a name-brand cast, including Peter Boyle, Barry Bostwick, Angela Bassett, Lane Smith, and a star turn by Karen Allen as Christa McAuliffe. Does the movie measure up? Does it do justice to the subject? Barkey has the word.
00:00 The reality of space travel today
00:36 The space shuttle Challenger
01:07 "Challenger" (1990)
01:23 What is "Challenger" (1990) about?
03:33 The cast of "Challenger" (1990)
04:37 What "Challenger" (1990) gets right
05:20 Where does "Challenger" (1990) go astray?
06:40 The kind of restraint sorely lacking today
07:18 Barkey's score and final thoughts share
all that detail and you didn't mention the talking dog
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