Sons of Neil Armstrong and the director of the biopic movie, “First Man” hits back against criticism that says the movie is unpatriotic as it lacks flag hoisting scene. The movie is based upon the story when Neil Armstrong first landed on moon’s surface.
Yesterday, during an interview Mark and Rick Armstrong acclaimed that First Man, starring Ryan Ghosling, “was intended to depict their father’s journey to the moon and delve into “the man behind the myth.”
For this movie written by the author James Hansen, the two brothers added further that, “This story is human, and it is universal. Of course, it celebrates an American achievement. It also celebrates an achievement ‘for all mankind,’ as it says on the plaque Neil and Buzz (Aldrin) left on the moon.”
They even added strongly that they did not find the movie unpatriotic as the movie did not showed “anti-American in the slightest.”
However, they even concluded by saying quite an opposite thing, “But don’t take our word for it. We’d encourage everyone to go see this remarkable film and see for themselves.”
The director of the movie Damien Chazelle and the actor Ryan Ghosling who acts as Neil Armstrong himself in the movie, hits back the criticism for which they were accused. They director said, “In ‘First Man’ I show the American flag standing on the lunar surface, but the flag being physically planted into the surface is one of several moments of the Apollo 11 lunar EVA that I chose not to focus upon,”
He further added, to the statement carried by Variety, “To address the question of whether this was a political statement, the answer is no. My goal with this movie was to share with audiences the unseen, unknown aspects of America’s mission to the moon — particularly Neil Armstrong’s personal saga and what he may have been thinking and feeling during those famous few hours.”
Republican senator Marco Rubio and failed presidential candidates were some of the few who criticized the movie.
Due to the absence of the patriotic moment in the movie, one of the republican senators tweeted on Friday “This is total lunacy. And a disservice at a time when our people need reminders of what we can achieve when we work together. The American people paid for that mission, on rockets built by Americans, with American technology & carrying American astronauts. It wasn’t a UN mission.”
“First Man” opened in Venice Film Festival this week and is about to release on 12th of October in US theatres.
Watch its official trailer given below.