First Man; Opening analysis

 First Man (Opening)

First Man is a historical fiction movie, meaning it should be mainly realistic and true to the real life events it is based off. But there are times in this movie when it is being dramatic, not accurate to history, to show how risky the process of space exploration was during the first years of NASA. 

Such as this scene here. Armstrong, the astronaut piloting the plane, is shown being shaken a ton by the flight. But in real life, this did not happen. Armstrong only felt a bit of turbulence when he bounced off the atmosphere but since he is in a bullet plane, he would not have felt much vibrations. As explained here by Chris Hadfield, an actual astronaut. "And the vibration, there's so much little rattly vibration. Where's that coming from?"

Not to mention that clouds do not appear at 45,000 ft as shown in this clip. So this scene is not really realistic, but it does illustrate how crazy and dangerous it was being a test pilot back during the 60s. Remember these men were using technology that was not fully ensured if it would work properly, all while piloting a ship that the they do not know if it is going to shatter or not. 

2001 and First Man is realistic in its approach to space and scientific topics, and do not shy away from exemplifying certain aspects it wants to make clear to the audience. I definitely want to lean toward the realistic side for my film, mainly combining the the roughness and uncertainty of First man, and the grand magnum opus 2001 shows itself as. 

I really like this opening because it is the opposite of what is done for 2001. While 2001 used grand music that tilts up to reveal the silhouettes of the Sun and Earth, First Man barely has any music at all in its opening. First Man's intro is mainly occupied by diegetic audio. Also the intro takes place on the surface of the Earth while 2001 is an extreme wide shot of the planet instead. I love the contrast between these two movies because they both show the fantasy vs reality of space: how beautiful yet dangerous the unknown is.