This sort of sounds sad to say, but getting good play in the movies is important for NASA these days. With its budget scrapped so we can keep having wars for indefinite periods of time, it has to rely on its image with the public to make people care about space travel again.
This often means working with various films or TV shows to show the agency in a good light, as any interest in space is ultimately good for the agency, even if the film itself is fictionalized.
NASA tried to work with the APOLLO 18 team to do just that, as the “found footage” fictional film seemed like it might be right up their alley. Unfortunately, the film is so ridiculous, they had to actually retract their help.
“The science was just so off the wall that eventually we felt, ‘You guys go ahead and make your movie.’ If there’s something that’s going to be so misleading to the public that we don’t want to participate, then we’ll say no,” said Ulrich. “The big thing is, we want to make sure we’re not misleading the public completely. So if all of a sudden there’s a change in what was shot or a change in the storyboard, they’re supposed to inform us.”
Well, that has me sort of curious as I’d think the film must pull some pretty ridiculous tricks to cause NASA to throw up their hands and walk out. They even worked with Michael Bay for a few scenes for TRANSFORMERS 3, so APOLLO 18’s violations must be particularly aggregious.
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