The film that started the moon landing conspiracies 'Capricorn One' (1977)

[@TheFilmyMcFilmFilmShow]

00:00 Introduction 00:34 Writer's inspiration 01:36 Main cast 03:33 Background politics 04:57 The twist 07:27 The cover up 09:07 The reporter's self doubt 10:07 Funny action scene 13:59 Low budget, big ambition 19:37 Hilarious pilot 22:53 Disappointing ending 24:36 Final thoughts

[@NeverGiddy]

This movie was not the first to deal with moon landing conspiracies. The 1971 James Bond movie, "Diamonds are Forever", touched on it one of its scenes. That was six years before "Capricorn One".

[@Zodroo_Tint]

Yep, that movie was very fast.

[@TheFilmyMcFilmFilmShow]

One of the few bond films I've not seen. Will check it out

[@Strange_Armour]

One thing that has always bugged me about this movie is that 3 men crammed into a Saturn 3 for a trip to Mars, the command module of which is, near-as-dammit, the size of a Transit van. If this scenario had happened for real, the astronauts would have killed each other months before reaching Mars. Side note : Capricorn One is the first ever movie to portray the infamous.... BLACK HELICOPTERS!!! Yes. I know that the helicopters featured here were green but black refers to the absence of markings, call signs or transponders.

[@bengt-oveandersson2914]

I saw this when it came out, the greatest film of the year for me. Unlike the commentators, I think the ending is brilliant.

[@TheFilmyMcFilmFilmShow]

I loved the film but really wanted to see some of the fallout of the truth being exposed

[@scottstallings5029]

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[@TheFilmyMcFilmFilmShow]

Love you to 😍

[@JamesBrewerDJ]

I think the ending is good and a product of the time when directors expected the audience to be able to fill in the gaps and / or leave to the imagination. It's only the last 20 years where you need to telegram your ending in font 100 for audiences with the attention span of three seconds and incapable of an act of imagination.

[@TheFilmyMcFilmFilmShow]

I love an ambiguous and being but I just really wanted to see the bad guys get their comeuppance

[@stewartstafford]

Capricorn One was directed by Peter Hyams who would go on to direct 2010, the sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[@TheFilmyMcFilmFilmShow]

Actually an underrated film that suffered for being the sequel to one of the best ever

[@stewartstafford]

@@TheFilmyMcFilmFilmShow It makes a link between Kubrick and 2001 and a film about faked space landings. I wonder if that's how the whole Kubrick/Moon Landing conspiracy theory got started.

[@jeffcoat1959]

Some major plot holes in this film seriously degrade its enjoyability.

[@nolotrippen2970]

This movie DID NOT start the moon landing conspiracy. It had been around since the actual moon landing.

[@Zodroo_Tint]

Yep, the "the most historic telephone call ever made" didn't helped selling the story and the interview with the three people visibly afraid and worried cemented the conspiracy. Since then it only needed time for everything to come out.

[@silikon2]

Great commentary, and as you noted at the end, this didn’t start the moon landing hoax theories, it was based on them. One thing I like about older movies is how they can run with a high concept that can be completely separated from basic logic. Sometimes it can be infuriating, and this one veers very close to that. Consider how difficult it would be for the Feds to replace all the phone books in even a small city to pretend someone never lived in an apartment. Finding an actor to live in that apartment and pretend she was always there, convincing all the neighbours etc etc… bonkers. The two helicopters… it’s kind of wild how the director essentially made them characters themselves. I do wonder why the movie didn’t go with the far easier claim that the moon landings were a hoax vs a Martian expedition.

[@Zodroo_Tint]

There were already people back then who wanted to believe in the moon landing like it is part of their religion so the movie would have been harder to sell.

[@TheFilmyMcFilmFilmShow]

Yeah the moment you start playing through the cover up and how logistically fantastical it is it falls apart but the fact it didn't bother me during the film means I was captivated by the storytelling.

[@porcupinecraig]

I really enjoyed this discussion. Great movie. Totally unrealistic, like most movies

[@Blitterbug]

I've mixed feelings about this film. I love it for its clever premise and great execution, but I hate that it spawned the current flat Earth bollocks. It didn't _originate_ the hoax theories but they found a new and naïve audience. Pete Hyams went on to direct the sequel to 2001 and he did a pretty good job there too.

[@Zodroo_Tint]

It didn't started the flat earth theories, those were there since the 90's, at least the current stage, the whole theory was here since centuries. The current stage got a lot of fuel from the fact there are no actual full body pictures made about earth, all of them are CGI. Obviously this stage of the theory only can exist for a couple of decade. The earlier theories were mostly theoretical and since the XIX. century it started to be practical with the light and airship experiments. I find the theory very fascinating especially the hate the theory got what it got from me too when I was young, now I know what science is and how it is working and I'm not a religious believer of science I can deal with alternative theories and I find it really interesting, just like many other theories what come up today unfortunately I can't write it down many of them without being deleted.

[@Blitterbug]

@@Zodroo_Tint Yup. I _did_ actually say that...