History Film / Apollo13

* DisneyDeath: Communications black out during re-entry, and all the audience can see is Mission Control and Lovell's family awaiting for contact to be re-established. After three minutes (the longest a blackout had been sustained before a prior crew arrived safely), still no contact. After ''four'' minutes, still no contact. [[ForegoneConclusion Eventually, there's contact]], but the movie makes sure to make every character and every audience member sweat it out. In real life, the actual blackout lasted six minutes, nearly a minute and a half longer than expected. This was due to the trajectory of the command module being slightly shallower than originally calculated, due to a steam sublimator on the LM pushing them slightlyl off course on the long trip back from the moon.

* TheCameo: Aside from Ron Howard's relatives, he also put in movie producer Creator/RogerCorman (as the congressman who questions continuing the Apollo program) and Todd Hallowell, the film's Executive Producer, (as the guy that yells at Jim Lovell at a traffic light). Creator/WalterCronkite does the prologue narration, and his news broadcasts for both Apollo 11 and 13 are used as plot points.

'''CAPCOM:''' [[DidIJustSayThatOutLoud You have a hot mic]], we are [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments reading everything you say]].\\

-->'''Blanche:''' [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Are you boys in the space program, too?]]

[[caption-width-right:310:''[-"We've never lost an American in space. We're sure as hell not gonna lose one on my watch! Failure is not an option!"-]'']]

-->'''Jim:''' Hello, Houston, this is ''Odyssey''. It's good to see you again.

-->'''CAPCOM:''' Aquarius, watch that middle gimbal. We don't want you tumbling off into space.\\

* DisneyDeath: Communications black out during re-entry, and all the audience can see is Mission Control and Lovell's family awaiting for contact to be re-established. After three minutes (the longest a blackout had been sustained before a prior crew arrived safely), still no contact. After ''four'' minutes, still no contact. [[ForegoneConclusion Eventually, there's contact]], but the movie makes sure to make every character and every audience member sweat it out. In real life, the actual blackout lasted six minutes, nearly a minute and a half longer than expected. This was due to the trajectory of the command module being slightly shallower than originally calculated, due to it being underweight because of the lack of lunar cargo they were supposed to bring back.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/apollo_13_poster_3.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[-"We've never lost an American in space. We're sure as hell not gonna lose one on my watch! Failure is not an option!"-] ]]

* Jim and Marilyn talk to one another in person the night before liftoff. [[NewerThanTheyThink The tradition of astronauts saying their goodbyes to friends and loved ones at the launchpad the night before liftoff actually started with the space shuttle era]].

* RecognitionFailure: Lovell's senile mother doesn't recognize Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin when they arrive to give support. ** This also counts as a HistoricalPersonPunchline. While Armstrong is mentioned a lot early in the film (and the 1969 moon landing shown), he and Buzz only first appear as characters in that scene, and are named by Marilyn only after telling them what to do.

* CapsLockNumLockMissilesLock: Defied. Swigert makes sure to place a bit of paper with "NO" written on it on the LM jettison switch so that he wouldn't accidentally jettison the thing with them on it.

-->'''Jim:''' ''Are we on VOX?!''[[note]]VOX stands for Voice Operated Transmission (what we today would refer to as "speakerphone").[[/note]]

* ImagineSpot: When Lovell notices their landing site a short day dream sequence scene ensues, with Aquarius landed on the surface and Jim taking his first steps in the lunar landscape.

[[TheFilmOfTheBook Based on]] Jim Lovell's book on his experience, ''Lost Moon''. In an interesting example, he shot the book idea past publishers, publishers got excited and sent it to filmmakers who immediately started bidding on it, and then someone called Lovell and said Imagine Entertainment was going to make a movie based on it. He hadn't finished the book yet!

* {{Corpsing}}: The director told Hanks at one point during filming the TV broadcast/non-broadcast scene to do something to liven up the kid actors, as they were getting bored. He went back and started his lines about the space food again, then changed to a joke about a ''Film/FreeWilly'' sandwich, playing on the actress who was the eldest Lovell daughter also having been in that franchise's second film.

* ParentalFashionVeto: The Lovell's teenaged daughter wants to go out for Halloween dressed like a hippie, and her parents tell her she can't go out dressed that way.

* TheSixties: The film is set in the transition between TheSixties and TheSeventies. As exemplified by Lovell's BrattyTeenageDaughter hippie attire and her brooding over "[[Music/TheBeatles The stupid Beatles]] breaking up" (Paul [=McCartney=] resigned from the band on April 9, 1970, two days before Apollo 13's launch).

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: On day 6, a fit of cabin fever leads to the crew ripping off their bio-med sensors. While the flight surgeon was exasperated to say the least, Gene Kranz was rather amused.

** Ken Mattingly gets bumped from the flight of Apollo 13 because of exposure to the measles. Later, as they're preparing to reenter the Earth's atmosphere, Mattingly takes CAPCOM. Lovell asks him, "Are the flowers blooming in Houston?" Mattingly replies, "Uh, that's a negative, Jim, I don't have the measles," as he glares at the flight surgeon. The final narration states that Mattingly ''never'' got measles.

* ButtMonkey: From getting crap for bumping Mattingly from the mission to a later "medical mutiny", the poor Flight Surgeon can't catch a break.

** Mission Control is stuffed to the vents with smokers and ashtrays are as prominent as flashing lights--each station has an ashtray ''built in'', as did the seats in the viewing gallery behind the Mission Control room. Punctuated during the Go/No-Go sequence where the ''flight surgeon'' blows out a huge cloud of cigarette smoke. Gene Kranz stated in a documentary that the "smell" of Mission Control was the mix of "cigarette smoke and boiled-over coffee pots" and given what they are going through the odds are that many of those engineers were [[CigaretteOfAnxiety lighting up more frequently than normal]].

* {{Flatline}}: The flight surgeon at the control room freaks out when the astronauts' monitors flatline, but they hear their voices through the radios fine, and the director assures him that the astronauts simply took their medical leads off. They did so because they were tired of hearing the operators fuss about their medical condition. Given that they were freezing, exhausted (unable to properly sleep), Haise was legitimately sick, and they were all under incredible stress, the flight surgeon had actual cause to be concerned for their health, but the astronauts were having none of it. (This was ArtisticLicense in part. Jack Swigert couldn't use the biomed system because the LM only had connections for Fred and Jim.)

* ShootTheMessenger: Unsurprisingly, given the tense circumstances, those most aware of problems have to bear the brunt of others' frustration and impatience over things they have no control over. The astronauts get angry at the flight surgeon, who was simply doing what he needed to do to keep them safe (you really ''can't'' risk your command module pilot coming down with the measles during lunar orbit rendezvous). Of course, nobody wants to hear John Aaron tell them they don't have enough power whenever they want to do something.

*** At the beginning of the film, the Lovell family are seen hosting a party for Apollo 11’s landing. In reality, Jim Lovell was at Mission Control during the landing and moonwalk, as he was Neil Armstrong’s backup for the flight.

** The Boeing rep, after warning the LAM was not built to withstand re-entry, whoops it up, yelling "How 'about that LAM, eh?!"

* BigYes: The ''entire world's'' reaction, in general, when, after more than 4 minutes of [[NothingIsScarier radio silence]]...