Os Eleitos

How is it that writers & directors continue to try to pass off alternative/revisionist crap as historically accurate? While the events themselves may be accurate, the portrayals of the astronauts, NASA employees, their combined families, etc., is severely myopic and filtered through today's politically correct & fragile viewpoints. None of them were perfect, none of their families were...but they did what had to be done at a time when death could be all but guaranteed. I give it a D for this very narrow and shallow take on a classic novel & reality.

Yet another casualty of the tendency of modern writers being unable to identify with intelligent, educated, accomplished people with initiative. As a result, this iteration all but ignores their skills and accomplishments and instead focuses on portraying them as undisciplined jerks becasue the writers can't distinguish between traits like competitive versus combative, or driven versus reckless. Instead of celebrating the swell of patriotism and technological innovation that occurred during the formation and growth of the space program we instead get a boring melodrama about how white men are jerks, even when they are nice. Were these men perfect? No. People as driven and brazen as them are inherently flawed when it comes to social interaction, but that's not the same as being unruly. The misguided focus is so bad we see nothing depicting the reasons why the Mercury Seven were chosen. It's "look at what a bunch of jerks theses guys are" and suddenly BAM! "We've got our seven". Uh, what? Read the book and watch the film instead. Both captured that time much more faithfully while neither focusing on the astronaut's flaws nor sugar-coating them.

Anyone who has read the book or seen 1983 movie version will be disappointed in this version. I had the privilege of meeting John Glenn in 1997 and he is more like the "Ed Harris" version than the Disney version. The Disney version seems to put more emphasis on the personal lives and flaws of the Mercury 7 than the monumental accomplishments of these men. They were true American heroes...not the hero "wannabes" we see produced by Hollywood and the professional sports industry.

This series is a trip into the Disney Alternate Cinematic Universe where the Mercury astronauts are actually self-absorbed millennial frat boys. I truly believe the the Wolfe book and the 1983 film sat unread and unviewed next to the writer's lap top. You can avoid the rest if you wish.

The Disney juggernaut has once again ruined something great. First the Stars Wars franchise and now The Right Stuff. This miniseries almost got me hating John Glenn, for crying out loud because it painted him as a weasel. The political correctness angle is a tired one that Disney keeps playing for the millennial crowd, but even they may tire of it eventually.