The Moonwalkers

A week or so ago I finished watching a recording, and when the system flicked back to normal TV Graham Norton was on.  It's not something I usually watch, but on the couch were Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts - pretty much acting royalty - along with Cher (legend) and Timothée Chalamet (upcoming man of the moment).  Tom Hanks was talking and caught my attention.  He was on to promote a new exhibit in London called "The Moonwalkers".  It sounded interesting, and since I had a spare evening in London today I went along.


The Moonwalkers is an immersive video presentation in a space called The Lightroom.  Projectors cover every wall and the floor with a combination of restored film and photographs from the Apollo era, along with just a little about the forthcoming Artemis program.  Tom Hanks has clearly been a "space geek" from childhood, and his voiceover is both personal and authoritative.


There is little in the way of footage or material I haven't seen before, but the restoration is fantastic and the Apollo 11 launch sequence, experienced in fully enveloping video and surround sound, is spine-tingling.  The images that struck me most were some of the panoramic shots taken on later Apollo missions which visited more mountainous areas of the lunar surface.  I have only seen these before in the form of strips of panorama on TV or in books, which have made little or no impact on me.  The "astronauts eye" view afforded in this medium, with astronauts and lunar lander visible for scale, was simply breath-taking.  It's reshaped my mental image of the moon which had previously been dominated by the flat, cratered, desolation of the Sea of Tranquillity.  I now have some slight appreciation of the scale and grandeur of the terrain in other areas.

Tickets for the event are for timed entry coinciding with the start of the film but you can stay as long as you like.  I thought about staying to see it all again, but decided not to as I felt I had yet to process some of what I had seen this time around.  I'd be fascinated to see it again sometime though.  It's £25 to get in for what one could sceptically describe as a 50 minute documentary made on the cheap from existing footage.  I thought it was worth every penny though - it's just spectacular and has clearly been made with great love.  

I loved it.

16 Years Blipping...
meles reminded me in the comments this completes is my 16th year blipping (I think without a gap).  I did get a reminder e-mail the other day but with so much going on I completely forgot about it.

I love having this journal to flip back through and love seeing other peoples journals - thank you for all your lovely comments below too!