"The Right Stuff" (TV Series)

[Thorny]

National Geographic Channel is making a TV series based on "The Right Stuff".

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2019/04/30/leo-dicaprio-right-stuff-tv-show/3621969002/

" "The Right Stuff," a new television series adapted from Tom Wolfe's iconic account of the early days of the U.S. space program, will start filming this fall on the Space Coast. "

[MATTBLAK]

Probably an 'artistically unnecessary' or redundant thing to do. But I applaud the creation of the subject matter. Anything to help curb the rise of conspiracy sh1t and flat earthism rising so rampantly these days...

[libra]

Amazing ! Although the original will be very hard to beat, obviously. Such a movie.

The good thing is that Bill Conti is still alive and kicking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Conti

Oh please, I do hope he will compose the series music. That would be completely awesome.

I do hope they correct the siliness around Gus Grissom. Can't remember the book, but the movie was wrong, so wrong, about the incident.

[flyright]

Amazing ! Although the original will be very hard to beat, obviously. Such a movie.

The good thing is that Bill Conti is still alive and kicking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Conti

Oh please, I do hope he will compose the series music. That would be completely awesome.

I do hope they correct the siliness around Gus Grissom. Can't remember the book, but the movie was wrong, so wrong, about the incident.

Yeah, the book had it wrong about Gus Grissom too. Otherwise a good book. Looking forward to the series.

[Dalhousie]

Amazing ! Although the original will be very hard to beat, obviously. Such a movie.

The good thing is that Bill Conti is still alive and kicking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Conti

Oh please, I do hope he will compose the series music. That would be completely awesome.

I do hope they correct the siliness around Gus Grissom. Can't remember the book, but the movie was wrong, so wrong, about the incident.

Yeah, the book had it wrong about Gus Grissom too. Otherwise a good book. Looking forward to the series.

The book had it wrong about Neil Armstrong too

[Fequalsma]

How so?  IIRC The book stopped after Mercury
F=ma

The book had it wrong about Neil Armstrong too

[MATTBLAK]

The book talks about Armstrong's work at Edwards, prior to his Astronaut selection in 1962. He is portrayed by Tom Wolfe as robotic, emotionless and pedantic.

[Oersted]

The book talks about Armstrong's work at Edwards, prior to his Astronaut selection in 1962. He is portrayed by Tom Wolfe as robotic, emotionless and pedantic.

Tom Wolfe's "New Journalism" was  never meant to be taken at face value. The genre was always considered part entertainment, part storytelling. Wolfe supposedly channels Chuck Yeager's view of Armstrong and the other astronauts, but with so much hyperbole that you can't take it as much more than a good yarn. Of course TV people will happily base a whole TV series on that kind of source with no qualms whatsoever. Being TV people.

[frankle94568]

How do you define “pretty close”? Like most movies, it’s based on a book, usually by the same name. Someone writes a screenplay, which changes things and then the director uses the screenplay to shoot the movie. Sometimes the movie is “pretty close” to the book, sometimes a or a number of techinal advisors are present during the filming to keep things accurate.

In my view, this film is “pretty close”. I think Alan Shepard, one of the astronauts portrayed in the film, did NOT like the actor who played him nor his performance. But, the book mentions “two” Alan Shepards. One was “Smilin’ Al” and the other was the Icy Commander. That wasn’t shown in the film.

[libra]

This Wired masterpiece is a must-read.

https://www.wired.com/2014/11/oral-history-of-right-stuff/

It helps understanding where TRS stood amid the Hollywood galaxy. Philip Kaufman was actually a member of the Spielberg - Lucas - Joe Dante - Laurence Kasdan (sorry, need to stop here for a second and just say that I have to use stupid words to get my point across. I know that means I must have a weak argument, but that's why I use bad words).. He knew George Lucas pretty well.
There is also plenty of anecdotes about the movie - making-off style.

[libra]

(sorry, need to stop here for a second and just say that I have to use stupid words to get my point across. I know that means I must have a weak argument, but that's why I use bad words)

 

The word m-a-f-i-a can be used, for example, as in "fighter m-a-f-i-a" used for the group of AF officers that pushed the LWF / F-16 concept forward in the 60's (Boyd, sprey, and others).
Hence I wanted to say " the Spielberg - Lucas - Joe Dante - Laurence Kasdan M-A-F-I-A" without thinking a stupid autocorrect would ever "think" it might be a rude, offending word.

M-a-f-i-a = pack, as in "the rat pack".

Silly autocorrect, really.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1257758297773371393

Before there was one small step, there was one team of military pilots who made history as the U.S. space program's first astronauts. The Right Stuff, an Original Series based on the bestselling novel by Tom Wolfe, is coming soon. #DisneyPlus

[hektor]

Seems to be no Chuck Yeager in this one...

[Thorny]

Before there was one small step, there was one team of military pilots who made history as the U.S. space program's first astronauts. The Right Stuff, an Original Series based on the bestselling novel by Tom Wolfe, is coming soon. #DisneyPlus

Note that this series has moved to a new home and will be shown on the Disney Plus streaming service instead of (in addition to?) the National Geographic Channel.

[libra]

Hey Ridley ! Got any Beeman's ?

It will be hard to top the original movie (despite its minor flaws we all know about)

Then again, if it has "For all mankind" and Tom Wolfe DNA, it can't be bad.

I REALLY hope they get the record straight on Gus Grissom this time. The movie got it extremely wrong and unfair. Can't remember if the cardinal sin come from Wolfe book, which in this case, might led to a repeat of the silly mistake.
Same for the NF-104A crash at the end - made no sense, at least compared to the real events.

Let's hope for the best !

Won't be easy either to better this scene...



In the original movie the very Chuck Yeager got a cameo at Pancho's. As an old rancher saying to his fictional counterpart Sam Shepard "hey, you stand in my way to the bar" - or something close. Best.cameo.ever.

It is a pity Sam Shepard had passed away, imagine if these two - the "real" and the "first fictional" Chuck Yeager - had a cameo with the "2020 Chuck Yeager".
Three Yeagers for the price of one. ROTFL.

To think the real Chuck is still alive and outlived his fictional counterpart. How about that.

Maybe they will get Ed Harris for a cameo. That would be pretty fun, too. He could play Chuck Yeager.

[JMS]

It will be hard to top the original movie (despite its minor flaws we all know about)

Respectfully, more than "minor flaws". Don't misunderstand... it was a well-executed film and enjoyable. But misleading on so many levels. I just needed to correct a user in another part of this forum... believing the scene where the "Von Braun character" and the astronauts butted heads over capsule design and control. Rubbish. Further, the general portrayal of VB as this cantankerous sour figure was senseless. Yes, controversial, but very well-liked and respected.

Grissom's portrayal bordered on slander.

Yeager taking the NF-104 off the flight line to "wring her out" on an unplanned flight... or accepting the job on the X-1 project at Pancho's bar and going out the next morning to make the historic flight just propagated the perception of wreckless test pilots instead of showing the careful, incremental processes that were the reality.

Again, yes, entertaining. Unfortunately, some people believe Hollywood as history.

[sghill]

BTW, I have a non-speaking, but recurring role as a pad technician in the new series! I filmed several scenes last fall in Orlando with my 1950's hairdo.   

Also, as far as the book is concerned, I've read it twice, and Tom Wolf unabashedly hated detested the astronauts, NASA, the federal government, the military mindset, and Floridians. The only people he remotely portrayed as likable characters were the long suffering military wives and Chuck Yeager.

Most of the book is about, what he considered, the irresponsible waste of human lives among the fighter jockey crowd as jets entered service, were killing pilots every day, and the egos at every level of society that allowed all the young men to die in unsafe aircraft. The book could not be more different than the Reagan-era feel good movie.

The trailer for the series is out, I can see a couple of scenes I'm in.

[Thorny]

To think the real Chuck is still alive and outlived his fictional counterpart. How about that.

Also note that Fred Haise is still with us, while Bill Paxton who played him in Apollo 13 has passed.

[LtCmdr]

Some nice 1950 & 1960s photos here:
https://omegaforums.net/threads/new-tvshow-the-right-stuff.113336/

[hygoex]

Will Conti bring back his score?   I'd love to even hear the Planets for John Glenn's launch!

[Oersted]

Gustav Holst's original Planets Symphony isn't half-bad either... - Especially "Jupiter"!

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1296446898270765058

To carve their place in the world, they’ll have to leave it. Discover the story of America's first astronauts in The Right Stuff, an Original Series from @NatGeo, streaming Oct. 9 exclusively on #DisneyPlus. #TheRightStuffSeries

[MATTBLAK]

I recently found some 35mm promotional slides I got way back about 1983 for the movie of 'The Right Stuff'. I got them professionally scanned last week and I'll upload them here for you guys if you want to collect them. They are a collection of behind the scenes and stills from the movie.

[MATTBLAK]

[MATTBLAK]

[MATTBLAK]

[MATTBLAK]

[MATTBLAK]

I'll put up the rest tomorrow!! Matt.

[MATTBLAK]

More Right Stuff 35mm slide uploads:

[MATTBLAK]

[MATTBLAK]

Aaaand the last batch...

[Oersted]

Super stuff, thanks a lot Mattblak!

[Thorny]

Just as a reminder, the first two episodes ("Sierra Hotel" and "Goodies") are now available on the Disney+ Streaming Service.

[spacenut]

I've seen 4 episodes.  Are there any more?  Is there a second season?

[racevedo88]

Disappointed, so far, book and movie so much better. Also offended that producers didn’t even take the time to ensure military uniforms are correct. They had Alan Shepard Sr. Wearing the ribbon of the Medal of Honor.

[Blackstar]

So, did anybody like it?

[Oersted]

Saw the first episode, waste of time in my book. Just actors acting out scriptwriters fantasies, with very little regard for the actual personalities involved.

[Skylon]

It was doing okay in my book until the last episode, which exposed some lingering problems I have been having. Overall, while it started with a better portrayal of the NASA side of things than the film (which IMHO made NASA look like a joke), the human "drama" is getting a bit stale and I am worried they are taking too long to get into space.

My biggest problem remains that this does not feel like "The Right Stuff." Wolfe's tone is almost totally absent, while my problems with the film aside, it at least maintained the voice of the source material - which translated to the Edwards/Yeager stuff being entertaining and some memorable portrayals of aspects of the book (the absurdity of the press-frenzy around the Mercury 7 for example). It feels like they just took the recognizable name of the book to grab viewers in order to tell "general-2020 dramatization of Project Mercury."

[libra]

That's a good point. I mean, I watched (and loved) the movie long before reading the book, electronically then on paper.

The movie has its qualities and flaws. Most important fact is that the book, having been written by Tom Wolfe, also has peculiar style and character.

It is not as if The Right Stuff movie turned a flat and boring novel into a brilliant thing (cough, case in point: The bridges of Madison country... the novel is Barbara Cartland level of litterature, yet Clint Eastwood movie turned that into a gem).

The Right stuff novel by itself is singular enough, a good and original serie could be done out of it - yet completely independant from the movie.

Instead, the new serie suffers from BOTH book and movie comparisons - talk about shooting his own foot...

[RoadWithoutEnd]

On the fence about trying this show.  I'm always looking for things to recreate the magic of the Wolfe book and the movie, and also HBO's "From The Earth to the Moon," but early reports (also in this thread) are not encouraging for The Right Stuff series. 

The trailer is very broad and cliche.  They make it look like cookie-cutter fictional characters rather than actual history. 

I would love to hear if anyone has had good experiences of this show though.

[Blackstar]

On the fence about trying this show.  I'm always looking for things to recreate the magic of the Wolfe book and the movie, and also HBO's "From The Earth to the Moon," but early reports (also in this thread) are not encouraging for The Right Stuff series. 

The trailer is very broad and cliche.  They make it look like cookie-cutter fictional characters rather than actual history. 

I would love to hear if anyone has had good experiences of this show though.

CollectSpace.com has had a number of episode recaps. You could go read those if you are interested. My article will appear in The Space Review in a few hours. I did not give it a thumbs up.

It is not about the training, or the piloting or the preparations for flight. It plays up the interpersonal fights among the astronauts and invents some rivalries. It focuses very heavily on Shepard and Glenn, and a little bit on Cooper. Most of the other astronauts are ignored almost entirely. This creates some weird situations. For instance, when the astronauts rank their peers, the ranking is Shepard, Grissom, and then Glenn. But because you see so little of Grissom, it makes little sense that he's so high. He doesn't do anything that shows him to be a particularly good astronaut. In fact, none of them do, leaving the viewer wondering why they were selected for the Mercury program at all.

If you're looking for something that praises them as heroes, or shows them doing heroic things, or even depicts them as extremely good at their jobs and highly effective pilots, this show does not do that.

[Blackstar]

https://thespacereview.com/article/4076/1

We were heroes once: National Geographic’s “The Right Stuff” and the deflation of the astronaut
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, November 23, 2020

Several years ago, National Geographic ventured out beyond documentaries to start producing scripted dramas. So far none of them have hit a high mark—nothing on the order of “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” “Fargo,” or other prestige television. Most recently they produced “The Right Stuff,” based on Tom Wolfe’s famous book and currently streaming on Disney+. But whereas Wolfe’s book was an exploration of the qualities required of men in a new and highly dangerous job, exploring space, the series is focused on depicting the Mercury astronauts as a bunch of back-biting, egotistical, insecure, argumentative jerks. The differences may be explained by the needs of a multi-episode series, and our changing cultural views of heroism, but the result is unfortunately mediocre.

The eight-episode series spends little time on showing the astronauts training for space, flying their airplanes, or demonstrating the skills that led to their selection for the Mercury program in the first place. Instead, the focus is on rivalries between the astronauts, particularly Alan Shepard and John Glenn, many of them invented. Shepard is portrayed as cold, self-centered, and frequently nasty. Glenn is a boy scout, a square, a Christian, and a good Marine who believes that Shepard’s flaws jeopardize the program. Each is unlikeable in his own way. After Glenn helps cover up one of Shepard’s indiscretions, Shepard quickly—and mistakenly—suspects that Glenn used it to his advantage and turns on him. Glenn then seeks to get Shepard removed from the program. Instead of training hard to be the best, they’re fighting with each other. It is unclear why either man was considered worthy of being in the astronaut program, let alone one of the top candidates for the first Mercury flight.

[MATTBLAK]

I consider the series to be a disappointment. Even 'The Astronauts Wives Club' was better than this.

[woods170]

If you're looking for something that praises them as heroes, or shows them doing heroic things, or even depicts them as extremely good at their jobs and highly effective pilots, this show does not do that.

I could not agree more.

In fact, the show does such a poor job in telling a story that I consider the hours spent watching the episodes as a complete waste of time.

[Skylon]

If you're looking for something that praises them as heroes, or shows them doing heroic things, or even depicts them as extremely good at their jobs and highly effective pilots, this show does not do that.

I could not agree more.

In fact, the show does such a poor job in telling a story that I consider the hours spent watching the episodes as a complete waste of time.

Agreed. The few beats I liked were not worth it. For example, I think some of the actors fit into their roles extremely well - such as the actors for Chris Kraft and Deke Slayton. And I appreciated the concept of setting up a bond (even if fictionalized) of the two early on since they would be required to carry the show thru to the Moon landing - if that is the series' intent. I actually think they found a good actor for John Glenn. And once the series got to an actual flight (Freedom 7), I liked the portrayal of the mission - but there was no reason to take all season to get there.

But the deviations from history are meaningless. Some of the Astronauts are just bland cardboard cut-outs of how they are viewed by history. Wally Schirra just tells jokes, Scott Carpenter is set up as the "washout" and Gus Grissom is there - and gruff. Others-  I don't know what they did to Gordo Cooper because nothing suggests he is the "stick and rudder" pilot he was by most accounts.

Then Alan Shepard - I recognize the complexity of historical figures, and but Tom Wolfe paints pictures of all the Mercury 7 that are three-dimensional. Dee O'Hara evokes Wolfe briefly in the series commenting on Shepard's duality saying something to the affect of "one minute you are smilin' Al - and the next" and I thought "no, he hasn't been that at alll." The big grin of "Smilin' Al of the Cape" that you see in pictures has been absent - and replaced by a cocky sex-maniac. And the other side? The "Icy Commander" that it left un-said. He has been the whiney, paranoid jerk. Nothing about his portrayal suggests he was a natural leader whose comments could be searing.

If it takes all next season to get to MA-6 then this show can be written off as a waste of time. If they try to focus on the rest of the actual Mercury flights then they may have a shot at salvaging this (although they missed the boat with the MA-7 crew swap by needlessly moving Deke's grounding up historically).  But as it stands, I really don't know what they were thinking for the pitch beyond "Mad Men with Pilots."

[hektor]

On a side note I found the 90 min companion documentary very good. No talking heads, which is a good point,  and extracts from the book read by Dennis Quaid.

[spacenut]

The TV series does go deeper into the men and their wives.  It is kind of like the early Americans like Washington and Jefferson.  They both had slaves, but knew that eventually slavery would have to be done away with and wrestled with this.  They did want what was best for America. 

The astronauts were driven men.  You can call them dare devils or whatever, but they wanted more.  They pushed themselves hard.  Physically and mentally.  They also had strong desires, which lead them astray sometimes.  America at that time wanted the ideal Americans, Ideal families, strong faith and so forth.  John Glenn was probably the only one who fit the "Ideal", but he too had his problems. 

I think overall the series is good.  Worth watching. 

[Skylon]

The astronauts were driven men.  You can call them dare devils or whatever, but they wanted more.  They pushed themselves hard.  Physically and mentally.  They also had strong desires, which lead them astray sometimes.  America at that time wanted the ideal Americans, Ideal families, strong faith and so forth.  John Glenn was probably the only one who fit the "Ideal", but he too had his problems.   

The problem isn't how driven the Astronauts were, nor their vices. The problem is that there is no sense given of their abilities as pilots, engineers and overall ability to work as a team. I think the Shepard-Glenn rivalry was a good angle to explore - but to focus the whole season on it? It feels like a squandered opportunity.

[Blackstar]

The problem is that there is no sense given of their abilities as pilots, engineers and overall ability to work as a team.

I think that this was a missed opportunity. Maybe it was different with the Mercury astronauts, but something that was true of test pilots, and of astronauts in later programs, is that they worked closely with the engineers designing the spacecraft. That kind of story would have been a new one to tell--showing these guys sitting down with the wiring diagrams and the blueprints and talking about the different systems would show that the astronaut doesn't just train to fly the machine, but figures out how to understand the machine, and to get the most performance out of it. The shorthand version of that in the movie was them demanding that they have a window in the spacecraft, but I'm sure they had more interactions with the designers than that.

[Skylon]

The shorthand version of that in the movie was them demanding that they have a window in the spacecraft, but I'm sure they had more interactions with the designers than that.

Even the book managed to touch on this, discussing how the Mercury Astronauts "altered" the experiment of the program by demanding greater control of the spacecraft. Now, you could argue that the requirements of landing on the Moon, or the "pilot mentality" dictated that change - but the Astronauts advocating for greater control of their spacecraft - and proving that idea as justified - from Gordo Cooper's manual re-entry on Faith 7, to the Gemini 7 and 6 space rendezvous, all culminating in Neil Armstrong taking manual control of the first lunar landing - is a pretty good thread that can run through the entire series.

[Blackstar]

Even the book managed to touch on this, discussing how the Mercury Astronauts "altered" the experiment of the program by demanding greater control of the spacecraft. Now, you could argue that the requirements of landing on the Moon, or the "pilot mentality" dictated that change - but the Astronauts advocating for greater control of their spacecraft - and proving that idea as justified - from Gordo Cooper's manual re-entry on Faith 7, to the Gemini 7 and 6 space rendezvous, all culminating in Neil Armstrong taking manual control of the first lunar landing - is a pretty good thread that can run through the entire series.

Yeah, see, that would be new, and it would give the show a more positive message--they're working to succeed, not undermining each other. Maybe there's not enough to sustain that for multiple episodes, but they could have introduced that throughout the series.

[Oersted]

Present-day scriptwriters are very removed from old-fashioned concepts such as "patriotism" and are incapable of understanding that some men used to put their lives on the line to fight for their country. You can't get anywhere near an understanding of the Mercure 7 without understanding their deeply-held beliefs.

They saw themselves as front-line fighters in a new and dangerous battlefield, space, and were ready to assume the huge risks to their lives: witness Grissom's gruesome death. All of the US saw them as modern-day knights in shining armour, fighting for the Free World against despotism, as evidenced by the (borderline hysterical) adulation they received.

This was how the astronauts wrere seen and this was also what they actually were.

These aspects are evidently wholly incomprehensible to the script-writers of this series, just as they were to the script-writer of the "First Man" movie.

[hektor]

 “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

― L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://deadline.com/2021/04/the-right-stuff-canceled-disney-plus-shopped-warner-bros-tv-1234726920/

The Right Stuff’ Canceled By Disney+ After One Season, Shopped By Warner Bros. TV

By Nellie Andreeva
April 2, 2021 5:22pm

EXCLUSIVE: Disney+ has opted not to order a second season of space race series The Right Stuff. The Mercury 7 period drama, starring Patrick J. Adams and Jake McDorman, originated at National Geographic before launching as a Disney+ original last October. It is Disney+’s first scripted series cancellation.

Warner Bros. Television, the studio behind The Right Stuff, is shopping it to other outlets, with WarnerMedia siblings TNT and HBO Max considered logical potential targets. I hear the options on the cast expire tomorrow, and WBTV has asked for a two-week extension while the efforts to find a new home continue.

[libra]

(sorry, couldn't resist !)

[Andy_Small]

such a disappointment of a show.  not a bad thing it's not coming back

[HVM]

Did you know that Mercury capsule's Hand Controller look lot like a Saitek Cyborg 3D joystick?

(Lazy props dudes and dudettes...)