I recently watched Stanley Kubrick's Epic 2001 A Space Odyssey

and it still holds up amazingly well 50 years on. The pioneering special effects and as yet unseen views of space with music by Strauss conspire to create a gripping if slightly modern-esque view of the near space future, (which has lamentably passed by 18 years ! without so much as a re-usable Skylon plane ever being flown).. Although the PAN AM craft which takes Dr Floyd up to orbit is very similar looking to one planned for the near future. Only 25-30 years late !

Next to it in the playlist on BBC iplayer

was a film called Operation Avalanche by VICE
in which a young team of talented Ivy League graduates is recruited by the CIA and inadvertently end up faking the moon landings. It's got a really amateur, ropey 8mm, shaky film look to it, which is intentional. When it began, I thought this is going to be pants but as I watched, it became both entertaining and quite gripping with an intensifying sense of drama and suspense. Cleverly paced out and increasingly paranoid, the film knits in lots of FAKE MOON LANDING tropes including copying Stanley Kubrick's front screen projection without invoking his actual involvement. It turns out that one of the the young teams' first missions is to investigate Stanley Kubrick as a possible spy (a bit weak) but later they visit the 2001 set in Shepperton, UK which I thought adds a bit of gravitas. They turn up during the shooting of the monolith on the moon scene. A brilliant piece of post modern homage.

An Intriguing Thought

The young team are assigned to find a mole in NASA who is passing tech intel to the Russians by posing as a documentary film making team. They inadvertently find out that NASA don't have the tech to actually land on the moon (predicting 1971 as the actual real first moon landing date) so set out to fake it by sending pre-recorded tapes and successful test telemetry data with the crew and swap it when they go dark side. The idea is to fool Mission control, and by proxy the rest of the World via Walter Kronkite - TV.

It Get's a Bit Messy

It all get's a bit messy towards the end and although there's no connection to Kubrick's supposedly coded public message all about Apollo in The Shining, it's really nicely and deftly done. It's a very Canadian take on things and one which no doubt resonates with a lot of people. It's pure entertainment of course and low budget film making. I applaud the film makers vision. It feels like they're really letting you in on the secret truth. Of course, they had to co-opt the Astronauts to willingly (pretend to land) and this is an ace card. It couldn't be done without their help.. and of course, it makes sense for the filmmakers to imagine a successful moon orbit with an imagined landing.

Gallileo

One of the famous NASA experiments was to test out Gallileo's theory that due to lack of air resistance on the moon, a feather and a hammer would land at exactly the same time if dropped. Hey it works.. In Operation Avalanche, they use a lead feather.. A genius touch of plot which toys with the conspiracy in a very playful way.

For Conspiratorial types & Space Race fans alike

it's a really interesting watch. I'd give it a solid 4/5 and it only dropped a point for not having Stan direct the films (which is suggested at one point in the film.)

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