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December 19th 1972, when the Apollo 17 CM successfully returned to Earth. Details at This Day in Aviation.
The very next day, they wheeled out the polyester suits, disco music, mopeds, pet rocks, and gas lines. The 70's were on. At least, that's how my then 10 year old self remembers it.
Short and sweet: it's a 99 minute WWI documentary, made up of meticulously restored film clips, still photographs, and 60 year old recorded reminisces by veterans. It respectfully shows the British soldiers' side of the war, from joining up, through training, deployment, hazards of the trenches, hazards of R&R, going 'over the top,' dealing with German P.O.W.s, the end of the war, and re-entry into post-war everyday society.
Comments and clips prior to the initial UK rerelease were blogged here back in October. Go see for yourself, especially to click through to the film trailer and to hear an interview with Peter Jackson.
So, the two questions I had going in were: How well does it all work together? And how does the restoration look on the big screen? To answer the first, it's very good but not outstanding. Anyone familiar with WWI has read about and seen photos of the hell of trench warfare, and this doesn't really present any truly new material. However, where this movie shines is how the restoration brings the war into a much more relatable visual focus for modern audiences. It sweeps away the noise and debris of time and archaic film technology, allowing us to see the soldiers as humans, not merely as the almost comic herky-jerky shadow figures that the cameras of the time turned them into. That is the value Jackson and his team bring, and this is what makes this whole project worthwhile.
A small warning though, one that probably isn't needed but I feel compelled to say it anyway: There's a lot of restored battlefield gore here. It's unavoidable and is not overwhelming for adults, but don't take the pre-teen set to this one.
One more thing to note, the full color restoration is only given to the segments filmed in France, with the portions shot in England largely left in their original form. It's sort of a Wizard of Oz cinematography twist on things, where the war zone is the real world in living color, but back home things are still black-and-white. It's an understandable choice, if only to allow resources to be concentrated on the war footage.
Back to the second question, about how it looks on the big screen. It's good, but it's not super high definition viewing. Overall, the main images of men and objects such as artillery are stable and devoid of image artifacts and noise, at least in the large scale. However some of the texturing of uniformly colored objects, especially helmets, has a slightly disconcerting tendency to "swim," probably as a side-effect of the frame interpolation software used. This doesn't show up in the small youtube clips, but on a big screen it's very noticeable. But it's not bad, and in a lot of cases the original film was in pretty rough shape to begin with. Retouching these images any more aggressively would probably breach the bounds of "restoration" and plunge into "CGI re-creation." Jackson and company made the right calls on holding that line here, and I think it'll look just about right on a normal-sized home screen.
Which brings me to the two real questions: how many stars, and will I buy the disk version? 4 of 5 Stars and Yes.
Final Note: The next and only remaining U.S. viewing is upcoming on Dec. 27. Check your local times, or resign yourself to waiting on the disk release.
Solar flux predictions for the next few years, and hence prospects for HF propagation, are looking poor:
Here, go read all about it at KB6NU's blog.
Ah well, there's always digital modes when the bands aren't good enough for voice.
This past year and a half, I've been tuning in to a weekly podcast, The First 40 Miles. This coming Tuesday, they're wrapping it up after 4 years. It's been a good trip, but you can tell that the hosts are straining under the load of restoring an old house, herding teenagers, maintaining gainful employment, and oh yes, finding time to go backpacking. I wish them well and many more miles on the trails in 2019 and beyond.
If you missed this podcast and it sounds interesting to you, here is their archive page. Good information in every episode. As always, no guarantees how long these episodes will be around once they wrap things up, so get hopping if you want to download.
Deer season will be ending in a month here in Coastal MS, and with that begins the real backpacking season. Can't wait to get going with that again. I want to, one more time, thank Heather and Josh at The First 40 Miles for all the good advice, gear recommendations, and reports from their adventures. Happy Trails!
This looks so much nicer than a pic of the view from the Tuxachanie Trail. No such sweeping vistas in south MS, but the "vegetation tunnels" we have here have a charm of their own.
Over at Messy Nessy.
That band in the last video really ought to do the soundtrack for the next Tim Burton movie.
In a hurry this morning, I'm just here to re-direct you to an interesting short essay and its follow-up: Trust and About Trust.
That is all. Back to your Monday morning activities.
The first U.S. module was launched to click together with the first Russian module, which had already been in orbit for about two weeks. Article over at This Day in Aviation.
