MovieChat Forums > The Dish (2001) Discussion > Real life is more interesting than Holly...

Real life is more interesting than Hollywood lies.


As anyone working in a technical occupation knows, the engineers in Parkes would never have tried to mislead NASA about their technical problems as depicted in the film. Such dishonesty once discovered would mean the end of the career of everyone involved, if not actual criminal prosecution.

In real life the serious wiring problem Parkes experienced was the explosion of the television scan-converter, which occurred weeks before the Apollo 11 launch, but was only finally fixed after the launch but before the landing on the moon. Of course NASA was fully informed and assisted in the repairs.

The real-life "Dishmaster", John G. Bolton, was a famous pioneer in radio astronomy, first winner of the Jansky Prize, who was Professor of Astronomy at California Institute of Technology before leaving to take over management of the Parkes Observatory as Director, Australian National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Bolton's wife Letty survived him when he died in 1993, so Sam Neill's character being a widower in the film was also not true to life.

This movie did communicate well the grandeur of Apollo 11's achievement. It's a shame they falsified history in doing so. Regrettably that seems to be something that movie makers almost always do.

reply

Well yes, that's because they're in the business of making movies. If they were to stay completely true to every fact they'd might as well make a documentary instead, which probably wouldn't be nearly as engaging. The important thing is that they kept the most important facts in, particularly the climactic wind storm. All in all, a solid effort.

Supermodels...spoiled stupid little stick figures mit poofy lips who sink only about zemselves.

reply

I'm probably wrong on this.... I seem to remember from reading
the materials that you can download from Parkes about Apollo 11,
the Parkes site was the only one that did not do the scan
conversion on site, it was done in Sydney, so I'm not sure there
was ever a scan converter there to blow up! I've not read about
that event anywhere and would really appreciate any links to
more material on those events, it all is very fascinating to
me!

Thanks!

reply

Never heard of willing suspension of disbelief? Guess you should give up movies for the rest of your life, then, because you'll never get what you want from film.

reply

Except making them look like bumbling schoolboys doesn't improve the story, or was the film supposed to include some anti-Australian propaganda to influence public opinion prior to an invasion?

reply

I'm surprised the OP didn't criticize the actors making merry, playing that fictitious cricket match atop that important scientific equipment. He must be a real fun guy around Christmas telling kids that Santa is just another big (Hollywood) lie. 🐭

reply

Ummm, beside the point, but it's pretty amusing that you refer to a movie set in Australia, written and produced and financed by Australians as "Hollywood lies".

We're the funny shaped continent almost right around the other side of the world from North America. That's why we're called "the Antipodes". We're not the ones who yodel. That's Austria. They're still funny shaped though.

reply

Well, at the beginning of the movie the disclaimer "Based On A True Story" was posted. So that should have told you that this was not going to be a boring factual documentary.

"check the imdb cast list before asking who portrayed who in movies"

reply