When Aquarius is descending during re-entry, why is the Navy preparing Search & Rescue instead of the Coast Guard? [Aquarius was most likely going to splashdown in international waters; since the U.S. Coast Guard only has jurisdiction within American waters, the Navy would have to rescue them.] Answered by Xofer
Apollo 13 (1995) - 5 questions
Directed by Ron Howard, starring Bill Paxton, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise, Kevin Bacon, Tom Hanks
The "questions" section is for any random questions that occurred to you while watching this film, or anything you didn't entirely understand, and which Google or the IMDb can't help with. Submit them as a question, and hopefully someone will answer (the bold comments in brackets) - check back regularly. If the answer is wrong, or missing information, please use the "clarify answer" option. Don't feel limited - want to know what music played in a certain scene? Whether this was the first film to use a certain effect? Here's the place to ask!
When Aquarius is descending during re-entry, why is the Navy preparing Search & Rescue instead of the Coast Guard? [Aquarius was most likely going to splashdown in international waters; since the U.S. Coast Guard only has jurisdiction within American waters, the Navy would have to rescue them.] Answered by Xofer Did anyone play him- or herself in this movie? That seems to be typical for many movies of this kind, but I'm not aware of anyone doing it in Apollo 13 (yes, I know Jim Lovell had a cameo at the end). [Other than a few individuals who appears in archive footage taken from the era, who could technically be said to be playing themselves, no, there's nobody. Too much time has really passed since the original events for anybody to be convincing as their younger selves.] Answered by Tailkinker One of the mistakes listed for this film says that Lovell's daughter Barbara slams a copy of the not-yet-released Beatles album "Let It Be" into her rack. How can you tell what album she's holding in that scene, when you only get a split-second glimpse of it? Without using slow-motion or freeze-frame (which is not permitted for mistake submissions), it doesn't seem possible to conclusively identify the album in question. Or is the background music for that scene a song from that particular Beatles album? ["Let It Be" has a very distinctive cover. If you look at the cover, and then re-watch that scene, you should recognize that it is indeed that album.] Answered by Cubs Fan In the scene where Lovell's wife is watching an interview of Lovell, he is asked if he can recall a moment when he experienced fear. Lovell proceeds to talk about a time when he's in a fighter jet and gets lost. Is this story a real life experience of the real Jim Lovell, or did they make it up for the movie? [It's a true story. I read it in Lovell's book Lost Moon. Great book.] Answered by William Bergquist There's an "abort" dial Tom Hanks looks at once as they are taking off and once when the engine shuts off. What would happen if he turned the abort dial. [The launch escape system, the 'spike' mounted above the command module, would fire a set of four thrusters designed to pull the command module away from the rest of the launch vehicle. Pitch thrusters fire to move the command module laterally, in order to avoid the possibility of the module being hit by the oncoming launch vehicle, or to prevent the module from landing in a dangerous location in the event of a launchpad fire. Once these thrusters have done their job, the escape system jettisons and the module lands using the onboard parachutes.] Answered by TailkinkerYou may also like: Top Gun | Cloverfield | Battlestar Galactica | Enchanted | The Bourne Ultimatum