First Man - What Went Wrong? - Houston, We Have a Problem.....

[el sid]

I also think that the main problem were the trailers which looked boring, pretty sterile too and at least for me developed no 60ies/70ies feeling (or better said, they hadn't the look/feeling I get when I watch older films e.g. James Bond or an older TV-series). And OTOH they contained too much pathos when it came to leaving the family behind because we know what happened – wrong focus in my view.
The second problem was probably the marketing campaign. I can't judge how much the flag thing really hurted, but maybe it just caused a beside-discussion and distracted from the real marketing and also reduced the target audience, the people who would see such a movie. As members here mentioned, other events in former decades had no problems to find an audience, so I don't think it was the moon landing itself which could have been told as a very exiting, emotional adventure.
And finally, regarding the legs, obviously some members liked it but I read many complaints (on RT etc.) about what was already said in this thread, that the film is too depressing and of cold nature and has too much shaky cam. I normally like these space movies so much and a film with such reviews about such an interesting event would be a must see for me but now my interest is lukewarm.

[Merkel]

Everything that involved space flight and the moon landings was absolutely terrific. Had the whole movie been centered on the Apollo 11 itself, I think this could have been a real winner, because Chazelle's handling of the space sequences, like I said, was quite incredible

[CoolioD1]

yes the family drama stuff felt perfunctory to me. a bit spoilery but

 

Spoiler

the part where armstrong and the guy from Girls are spinning out of control was so great, but the constant intercutting between that and... claire foy getting mad at her kid interrupts the momentum of that sequence for me entirely. coulda been an all-timer sequence. kinda indicative of the whole thing for me.

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by CoolioD1

[AndyK]

I think the thread title says it all - What went wrong?

 

Nothing....thats the problem.

[DAJK]

I'd argue that Armstrong's story is one that should be told, and could make for some really compelling drama. 

 

I think the problem with this movie (for audiences) was the way the drama unfolded in the script... movie didn't handle passage of time well, and any time something shocking or upsetting or exciting would happen, the film would jump ahead months/years. Made for a film that wasn't as compelling as it could have been. 

[The Futurist]

10 minutes ago, CoolioD1 said:

yes the family drama stuff felt a bit perfunctory to me. a bit spoilery but

 

  Reveal hidden contents

the part where armstrong and the guy from Girls are spinning out of control was so great, but the constant intercutting between that and... claire foy getting mad at her kid interrupts the momentum of that sequence for me entirely. coulda been an all-timer seqeuence. kinda indicative of the whole thing for me.

 

Yep that was clumsy as fuck.

[dxmatrixdt]

I think First Man looks great, but unfortunately I don't live inside a 4DK theater to watch it.  

 

[Merkel]

And I don't get how you aspire to make a biopic about Neil Armstrong and completely bypass how his life was changed by the landing on the moon

[WrathOfHan]

19 minutes ago, Merkel said:

And I don't get how you aspire to make a biopic about Neil Armstrong and completely bypass how his life was changed by the landing on the moon

That probably wouldn't have been a bad thing, but this is already a long movie. No way Universal would've let that happen

[Tau Ceti]

13 hours ago, Jessie said:

is Neil Armstrong an important figure though? I wouldn't say so. he's just a guy that put his foot on the moon before anyone else did

That just screams unimportance.

[Cap]

22 hours ago, Deja23 said:

The trailers were basic and boring.

 

They also told the whole story.  The last shot of the trailer was a shot of the moon.  So, why go?  I got a mini-movie with a complete story in 2 minutes.

[The Futurist]

Dark of the moon did it better.

[Tau Ceti]

Going the Venice/Toronto + early October route seemed like a good bet early in the year when this appeared to be a comp to Gravity and The Martian but seems awfully questionable now. The positive reviews it did receive post-festivals were almost completely overshadowed by the inane flag controversy and it's now sandwiched between what will likely be three of the top five October releases of all time. It's the very definition of lost in the shuffle. In retrospect a big tent, more explicitly patriotic marketing pitch at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or next July before the 50th would have been a smarter play.

 

That said, popular movies find an audience regardless of when they're released and clearly people didn't like a lot of this film. Gosling's inscrutability, the sometimes maddening shaky cam, the cold tone, the predictability of the kitchen scenes -- I think First Man works despite these criticisms and will give it a second theatre viewing. But clearly others were bothered.

 

The last, and perhaps main, reason I would give for the failure has been observed in Variety and other spots: the moon landing seems small scale at this point in cinema history and the marketing never overcame this. The millenial audience does not grasp the import and the baby boom audience is busy watching ASIB. The true follow-on to Apollo 13 was Gravity and First Man, fairly or not, seems like low stakes. 

[Jessie]

9 hours ago, Tau Ceti said:

That just screams unimportance.

Well what good has come from it? Nothing. Americans see it as a big event but everyone else just see it as a pointless waste of money, no wonder they have no interest in going back.

 

Neil Armstrong just got the credit that the scientist deserved. All he did was stand on a moon, well done. The real smart and important figures of NASA aren't stupid enough to get into the rocket ships they create lol

Edited October 23, 2018 by Jessie

[Brainbug]

Well i skipped it because it looked boring.

[aabattery]

26 minutes ago, Jessie said:

Well what good has come from it? Nothing. Americans see it as a big event but everyone else just see it as a pointless waste of money, no wonder they have no interest in going back.

 

Neil Armstrong just got the credit that the scientist deserved. All he did was stand on a moon, well done. The real smart and important figures of NASA aren't stupid enough to get into the rocket ships they create lol

 

Neil was an engineer himself. He didn't exactly sit around doing nothing while people put the rockets and landers and what-not together. The astronauts had a lot of valuable input on getting all that stuff working.

[filmscholar]

Competition, from everything I'm hearing it's actually not a bad film but I'm also hearing it's no "Apollo 13" either.  "Hidden Figures" is going to do much better as well.   So it's not something making movie goers say, "Hey I have to see that" over films like "A Star is Born", "Venom" or "Halloween".   These 3 films literally killed any chance at a breakout for it.   Also though Oct has been kind to Sci-Fi in the last 5 years but again IMO, "First Man" got lost in the Halloween/Oct shuffle of competition.   Yes the so called "Flag" controversy might of hurt it slightly but not enough to move the needle to me.   It's more about 3 other films attracting audiences.   Again a heart wrenching musical love story (Adults/Couples).  An Anti-Hero Super Villain (Teens/Comic Fans) and a Horror Legend (Adults/Couples/Some teens).   There seems to be barely anything left for "First Man" which demos match a few of the others.   I still think it will have Oscar buzz but the box office run has been underwhelming.  

[Alli]

3 minutes ago, filmscholar said:

   Also though Oct has been kind to Sci-Fi in the last 5 years but again IMO, "First Man"

[filmscholar]

2 minutes ago, Alli said:

Yes it's a Biopic but it's still a concept that would attract sci-fi fans.  

[Jessie]

20 minutes ago, filmscholar said:

Competition, from everything I'm hearing it's actually not a bad film but I'm also hearing it's no "Apollo 13" either.  "Hidden Figures" is going to do much better as well.   So it's not something making movie goers say, "Hey I have to see that" over films like "A Star is Born", "Venom" or "Halloween".   These 3 films literally killed any chance at a breakout for it.   Also though Oct has been kind to Sci-Fi in the last 5 years but again IMO, "First Man" got lost in the Halloween/Oct shuffle of competition.   Yes the so called "Flag" controversy might of hurt it slightly but not enough to move the needle to me.   It's more about 3 other films attracting audiences.   Again a heart wrenching musical love story (Adults/Couples).  An Anti-Hero Super Villain (Teens/Comic Fans) and a Horror Legend (Adults/Couples/Some teens).   There seems to be barely anything left for "First Man" which demos match a few of the others.   I still think it will have Oscar buzz but the box office run has been underwhelming.  

Autumn  (or shall o say Fall) has been kind to exciting Sci fi blockbusters like Gravity, interstellar and The Martian because they were more exciting for the general audience therefore become massive crowd pleasers. First Man doesn't really have the same appeal as those, I don't think we should blame the performance on competition.