How did this footage retrieved if NASA had never gone back to the Moon?

There would be no plausible way to retrieve the footage. The film we see, was allegedly culled down from many hours of footage. Did Anderson happen to collect *all* of that footage (among all of the the things he was dealing with) and bring it aboard the Soviet lander? Was the Soviet craft still intact after its collision with the Apollo CSM, or was debris scattered all over? (Most likely the latter.) How would NASA (or whomever) even be able to *locate* that footage in orbit around the moon?

It's a plot hole you could drive a planet through. They even screw up and mention that most of it was recorded on film. Oops! We're talking a lot of reels of film that had to be retrieved from both the Moon's surface and a spaceship that collided with another. Lord of the Rings was closer to being a documentary or docudrama. This was lazy writing and filmmaking and boring as hell to boot. Tedious slow and dull. The only saving grace was it only cost 5 mill so it made money. It was hit and run marketing. First weekend good numbers and the second week the sound of crickets in the theaters. Word of mouth can kill a film like this one. My god while I'm writing this the credit crawl is still going on. It's one of the slowest I've ever seen. We're talking three actors and a couple of sets. How long can you drag the bloody credits out!!!! Mother of god they just got to the CG effects and it's still going! They may have the longest credits for a 5 mill film in history! I've lost count of the number of CG companies! Ah finally the lame music crawl. I swear the credits are longer than the movie and you could have shot it in some one's backyard! Hey there's bonus material! What is it the uncut credits that run three hours? Don't waste your time. This should have been a half hour Twilight Zone episode not a theatrical feature.

The footage was retrived under the secret STS-NX01 mission, where they went back to the moon in 1997 with the shuttle Columbia to find out what happened to the crew of Apollo 18.

There was no cancelled flight because of equipment failure that year (STS-83), they did in fact launch the Columbia in the darkness of the night.
No one in a 150 miles radius noticed it, because they used knock out gas to make every one sleep very deeply.

The smart thing about these shuttles, they all look a like, so no one noticed in the morning how they had wrote the name Columbia on the Atlantis and like that convinced every one that the Atlantis was the Columbia.


Man, what a NASA conspiracy movie that would make :-)

There was a reference to Houston "seeing something" from the cameras, so I think you're right. A lot of it was fed back to Earth live and possibly only the excursions away from the lander required the handheld cameras with film.

Explains some of it.

Exactly. Those of us alive at the time watch the Moon landings in real time so in the movie NASA is likewise watching the whole thing unfold...they knew from the Russian mission or information previous missions that some rocks are really shells of the moon creatures. Why else send Apollo 18 to the same place as the Russian LK? The Westinghouse motion cameras were meant to study the creatures. Perhaps though NASA didn't intended to abandon the astronauts.

The intercutting of movie with actual Apollo landing footage is well done. It has that gritty authentic look.

nesenserry? nesenserry??????

That would account for SOME of the footage like the stuff shot from the rover and the corners of the LM. But at other points the footage has signs of damage and scratches clearly showing that that stuff was shot on film.

But once we find out the true motive for the trip, it seems to me that question was answered.

What I got is that Houston wanted them to go there to get killed by the aliens. In fact, getting killed by the aliens was step two of a two-part mission, with part one being to set up the cameras so that they could be *watched* being killed by the aliens! That being the case, it stands to reason the footage would've needed to be transmitted back.

I would've assumed that the handheld cameras wouldn't have been transmitting. But since documenting the whole thing was so important, and NASA knew the footage would not be physically recovered (because they were not planning on bringing the men home), they may have decided it was worth it to have even the handheld cameras transmitted back to earth.

Well said. I especially agree about the "Why do they keep filming?" question. This movie actually made sense, since they were trying to document everything initially for the scientific record; and once they realized they had been duped, they were documenting to expose the corruption of the DOD.

I laughed out loud over the Blair Witch comment. I didn't like that movie at all, but I liked this one quite a bit.

It's true that "Apollo 18" takes more time to build and establish mood than most modern "horror" films, but this is actually the film's strength. Unfortunately, many people today have very short attention spans. I think of this movie more in line with films like "Nosferatu," "The Haunting" (the original), or "Repulsion"--all great and creepy films, but they use subtlety, allowing your imagination to build suspense, and save the big shocks for key moments in the story, rather than bombarding you with special effects and cheap thrills. This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but this film does a good job with what it attempts to do.

i agree, yes there are potential plot holes, but there are plenty in most films. some are downright insulting to the audience. I found this one fairly well done. Most of the plot points you COULD find explanations for.
To the people complaining about the film being slow, go watch a michael bay or jj abrams movie. Those take action to such an absurd extreme that I hate watching them. I like a film that is somewhat minimalist and uses the story to tell the movie, not just huge explosions and actions that are too over the top.

Excellent post ClingwrapKiller. I agree with all you wrote. I too noticed the "plot hole" at the end. But after some quick thinking I just assumed since the astronauts were careful about packing it up, that the film survived, and it was later recovered. I even joked it was Apollo 19 that retrieved the footage. So, just because the filmmakers didn't spell every last thing out, doesn't mean there's a major plot hole. You just have to do some of your own thinking.

I would say it is the best found footage film I have seen. It has good characters, doesn't make you seasick and traded in the usual screaming and running about aimlessly for real tension and a creepy atmosphere throughout. It may be slower burning than many of its genre mates but I personally think that is a good thing.