The second DVD features two scene specific audio commentaries. This is a recent trend that eliminates dead air by only showing footage from the movie that features comments from the participants. The first track features a good portion of the cast, from the major players like Ed Harris and Dennis Quaid, to minor ones like Donald Moffat and Pamela Reed. The track starts off appropriately with Chuck Yeager's comments on the factuality of the scene where he breaks the sound barrier. The cast all tell good stories about making the movie and one gets the impression that the actors who played the astronauts really bonded while filming-a connection that still stands today.
The second track features select crew from the movie. It is more informative and technical in nature.
"Realizing The Right Stuff" is an excellent retrospective documentary on the making of the film, from the optioning of Tom Wolfe's book to the end of principal photography. The cast and crew tell all sorts of fascinating stories, however, the difficulties with William Goldman's initial drafts of the screenplay are not even mentioned (for more on this check out Tom Charity's BFI book).
"T-20 Years and Counting" documents the post-production process. This was before CGI and so all the special effects were achieved simply, using models and other low tech methods with results that still hold up today.
"The Real Men with The Right Stuff" puts the film in its proper historical context and takes a look at the real astronauts of the U.S. space program.
"Additional Scenes" is ten minutes of footage that was cut from the movie. It is obvious why these scenes were cut but should be of interest to fans.
The "Interactive Timeline to Space" provides vintage footage from important dates in the history of the space program right up to the tragic Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003.
"John Glenn: American Hero" is a feature length PBS documentary on the famous astronaut and takes a look at his life and his most recent achievement of being the oldest person in outer space.
The Right Stuff is an important film whose legacy can be felt even today. Without it, there would have been no Apollo 13 or Contact. This forgotten film has finally been given a decent DVD treatment and hopefully this will lead to renewed interest.
The script, from Tom Wolfe's excellent book of the same name, is fantastic. For all of us who experienced the early days of the "space race", there is a lot of information that we never knew before. Some of the information we get tells us how "human" the astronauts were (are) and some tells us how "human" some of out leaders and directors were. Every scene is important in its' own way which is a credit to the directing and editing of this film.
There are a number of scenes where the photography is particularly stunning. Not the least of these is at the end of the movie when Yeager actually appears to enter outer space in an aircraft. The music is very impressive. There are a number of climatic scenes where the music actually gives you goosebumps.
This is a movie that all audiences can enjoy. There is plenty of history in this movie. There is also a great deal of implied flag-waving as the US vs. Soviet space race is on display. There is also a lot of heroics, action, and humor. The final scenes, as previously alluded to, are very artistically woven together. We see the glitz of fame versus the guts of anonymous individual effort. This is a real "feel good" movie. If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for.
Knowing the dangers involved with testing new experimental spacecrafts, a group of pilots chose to brave the odds in their quest to travel the stars. There are several arcs in the film that follow these pilots with the ones involving John Glenn (Ed Harris), Leroy "Gordo" Cooper Jr. (Dennis Quaid), and Virgil "Gus" Grissom (Fred Ward) being the most engaging. Each arc explores the unique contribution each man made to the space program. In addition, the film also explores how the astronauts' newfound celebrity changed their personal lives and their place within the American popular consciousness.
The triumph of "The Right Stuff" is its ability to chronicles just how difficult and dangerous a venture it was to travel beyond the Earth during the early stages of America's space program. Television and historical accounts of the early space flights typically did not show this dimension of the initial flights - we saw the rockets taking off, we glimpsed some footage of outer space, and then we saw the capsules returning back to Earth. The public never saw the blood, sweat, and tears it took to develop and implement the space vehicles and the hard decisions made by individuals who were placing their lives or the lives of others at risk. Kaufman is careful to document each link in the chain in the evolution of the space program and all its accompanying dangers. Yet, the film never loses sight of the individuals who helped humanize one of the most exciting journeys in the modern history of humankind. This balanced narrative makes "The Right Stuff" a tribute to the intrepid spirit that was behind America's space pioneers as well as a tribute to the pioneers themselves.
