Trailer
Plot summary
In 1961, NASA test pilot Neil Armstrong flies the X-15 rocket plane, which bounces off the atmosphere before he brings it down in the Mojave Desert. Colleagues worry that a string of mishaps means he is distracted. His two-year-old daughter Karen is being treated for a brain tumor. After her death, Armstrong joins NASA's second astronaut group, and he and his wife Janet move to Houston with their son Rick, where he befriends Elliot See and Ed White. Deke Slayton stresses how far the Soviet Union has pushed ahead in the Space Race. Armstrong and Janet have another son, Mark. After the Soviets complete the first spacewalk, Armstrong is chosen to lead Gemini 8, flying alongside David Scott.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about First Man (2018)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- First Man was shot with no green screen at all: LED displays up to 10 meters projected views of Earth, space and the lunar surface for the actors inside the spacecraft sets.
- The lunar surface was recreated by sculpting the landscape of the Vulcan Quarry south of Atlanta, and Damien Chazelle shot those scenes at night with a custom 200,000-watt light standing in for sunlight.
- Damien Chazelle and cinematographer Linus Sandgren shot the film in four formats: 16mm for most scenes inside the spacecraft, 35mm for the Armstrong house and NASA facility, and IMAX 70mm for the Moon sequence.
- Visual effects company DNEG found footage of an Apollo launch in a 70mm military stock that had never been seen, then cleaned it up and extended it on each side of the frame for the film.
- Jon Bernthal was cast as astronaut David Scott but had to leave First Man before production when a serious illness hit his family.
SPOILER
The moment where Neil Armstrong drops his daughter Karen's bracelet into Little West Crater is an invention: he did visit the crater, but there is no historical record that he took the bracelet to the Moon.
