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For All Mankind



During the Apollo lunar missions from 1968 to 1972, those onboard were given 16mm cameras and told to film anything and everything they could, in space, in orbit, and on the surface of the moon itself. Two decades later, filmmaker Al Reinert went into the NASA vaults to create this extraordinary compendium of their journeys and experiences.

Assembled from hundreds of hours of the astronauts’ own footage, with a soundtrack made up of their memories and a specially composed score by Brian Eno, the film takes the form of one journey to the moon and back again, building with elegant simplicity and exquisite construction to create an overpowering vision of human endeavour and miraculous experience.

At once intimate and awe-inspiring, For All Mankind is a genuinely mesmerising first-hand document of one of the high points of the 20th century. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Criterion’s beautiful high-definition restoration of the film for its UK home viewing première in a comprehensive, director-approved special edition.

DUAL FORMAT RELEASE INCLUDING BLU-RAY AND DVD VERSIONS OF THE FILM

• A new, restored 1080p high-definition transfer, supervised and approved by director Al Reinert
• Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, remastered from the original sound stems
• Audio commentary featuring Reinert and Apollo 17 commander Eugene A. Cernan, the last man to set foot on the moon
• An Accidental Gift: The Making of “For All Mankind” a new documentary featuring interviews with Reinert, Apollo 12 and Skylab astronaut Alan Bean, and NASA archive specialists
• A gallery of Bean’s artwork, inspired by his life as an astronaut, with commentary and a filmed introduction
• NASA audio highlights and liftoff footage
• Optional on-screen identification of astronauts and mission control specialists
• New optional English subtitles (SDH) for the hearing impaired
• A luxurious booklet, featuring essays, credits, stills, a new interview with Brian Eno, and more.

What A Disgrace wrote:Confirmed on the Twitter page.

I wonder if MoC will try to match Criterion's disc supplements; it goes without saying the book/let will likely be superior.

It does? Why on earth would you say that when you don't know anything about MoC's book? Criterion produces beautiful booklets of their own.

Unexpected announcement and given that Criterion pictureboxed their SD reissue, I'm almost certainly going to get the MoC instead which is also going to be cheaper. Can't wait to see what the bonus material will be like - even if it turns out to be identical with the Criterion, I could see a few people who don't have or don't want to go Blu, wait for the MoC for the reasons above.

Is the MoC going to have an audio commentary by Richard Hoaglund or what?

MoC have got a golden opportunity here to interview Eno and effectively eclipse Criterion. (As for the print supplements, book > booklet: MoC > Criterion. As a general rule.)

Amazon has specs.

* A new, restored high-definition transfer, supervised and approved by director Al Reinert
* Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, remastered from the original sound stems
* Audio commentary featuring Reinert and Apollo 17 commander Eugene A. Cernan, the last man to set foot on the moon
* An Accidental Gift: The Making of "For All Mankind," a new documentary featuring interviews with Reinert, Apollo 12 and Skylab astronaut Alan Bean, and NASA archive specialists
* A gallery of Bean's artwork, inspired by his life as an astronaut, with commentary and a filmed introduction
* NASA audio highlights and liftoff footage
* Optional on-screen identification of astronauts and mission control specialists
* New optional English subtitles (SDH) for the hearing impaired
* A luxurious booklet, featuring essays, credits, stills, a new interview with Brian Eno, and more.

My impression is that the MoC will miss out on On Camera, the set of interviews with fifteen of the Apollo astronauts on the Criterion edition. On the other hand, the MoC's book(let) will likely more than make up for the interviews' absence.

I'm going for the MoC.

The specs have swayed me (not that it needed much convincing anyway). I cancelled my pre-order for the Criterion and will be getting the MoC. Thanks for bringing this to the UK market, Nick \:D/

Thanks Mr. Finch. All thanks should really go to Criterion for trusting us with this film in the UK, and for producing the film in the first place over 20 years ago!

peerpee wrote:Thanks Mr. Finch. All thanks should really go to Criterion for trusting us with this film in the UK, and for producing the film in the first place over 20 years ago!

Duly noted, Nick. On a different note: I've asked this before in the Speculation/Wishlist thread but is there any chance at all that MoC will release Sparrow and especially The Mission at some point in the future? The Mission is badly served by the existing releases and Sparrow would be a strong addition to the collection as well (not sure how much longer I can hold out and not buy the Region 3 disc instead).

I'm afraid we've got too much on the decks for the next year, and we're currently hatching a series of plans that don't involve To films, so I can safely, albeit disappointingly, say that there's no chance of either in the next 12 months. Sorry.

So does the Blu-ray release have lossless TrueHD/DTS-HD MA audio or not?

Mr Finch wrote:

peerpee wrote:Thanks Mr. Finch. All thanks should really go to Criterion for trusting us with this film in the UK, and for producing the film in the first place over 20 years ago!

Duly noted, Nick. On a different note: I've asked this before in the Speculation/Wishlist thread but is there any chance at all that MoC will release Sparrow and especially The Mission at some point in the future? The Mission is badly served by the existing releases and Sparrow would be a strong addition to the collection as well (not sure how much longer I can hold out and not buy the Region 3 disc instead).

I believe Sparrow is available in an English-friendly region-free Blu-ray from Hong Kong, as far as I've heard you can't really go wrong with that (outside of price ).

brendanjc wrote:

Mr Finch wrote:

peerpee wrote:Thanks Mr. Finch. All thanks should really go to Criterion for trusting us with this film in the UK, and for producing the film in the first place over 20 years ago!

Duly noted, Nick. On a different note: I've asked this before in the Speculation/Wishlist thread but is there any chance at all that MoC will release Sparrow and especially The Mission at some point in the future? The Mission is badly served by the existing releases and Sparrow would be a strong addition to the collection as well (not sure how much longer I can hold out and not buy the Region 3 disc instead).

I believe Sparrow is available in an English-friendly region-free Blu-ray from Hong Kong, as far as I've heard you can't really go wrong with that (outside of price ).

The Sparrow Blu-Ray from Hong Kong has a beautiful transfer. The colors are rich, the image is sharp. I really don't see that film coming out in the west in a competent edition anytime soon, so I got the Blu-Ray. I haven't regretted it yet. It has a lot of special features too, but they are Chinese only.

The Johnnie To releases from Hong Kong are all excellent (especially Election I and II, the only ones with the features subtitled). I owe all the ones available except for Breaking News, and none haven't left me unimpressed yet!

eerik wrote:So does the Blu-ray release have lossless TrueHD/DTS-HD MA audio or not?

It will have.

Kuros wrote:I haven't been able to confirm if the new Criterion DVD and BD have the same altered audio like the original DVD? Maybe someone can confirm?

Perhaps someone from Masters of Cinema can confirm if the audio on their BD will be altered or if it will be complete with all the correct music?

From peerpee's comment above, I think it's safe to assume that the new Criterion and MoC's will be the same. Even so, it would be nice if MoC could look into and clarify the situation regarding the different versions in their booklet.

Considering that they appear to be from the same master and have an overlap of extras, the MoC should be the easy choice for fans of the film who have no Blu-Ray player since it's safe to assume that MoC's SD DVD won't be pictureboxed. That's what clinched it for me.

Unfortunately, this will be our first Blu-ray release with nasty region coding (Region B).

Criterion's edition already being Region A made it impossible for us to do anything else.

For the record, MoC are completely against region encoding, and - like Franciscan monks - we advise anyone about to purchase a BD player to make sure they pay that bit extra for a region-free version so that no matter where they are they can pick and choose *any* BD, from *anywhere*, and not have to bloody worry!

My primitive format DVD is in the post. Booklet aside, are there any features exclusive to the MoC?

The DVD didn't have 5.1 sound even though it was mentioned on the back of the case and was on the Blu-Ray. When this is put out on dual format, will the DVD be remastered?