Someone Made a Horror Movie in Space, and NASA Won’t Let Anyone See It
It Came From Outer Space
Meet Richard Garriott — space tourist, video game designer, millionaire, filmmaker. While on board the International Space Station for some light sightseeing, he used his own money and spare time to produce an eight-minute short film, a sci-fi horror movie called Apogee of Fear. But NASA is refusing to let it see the light of day. Why? Because it’s chock full of NASA’s stuff, used without their permission. What about an executive producer credit, NASA? … No? Come on, your astronauts can totally make a cameo! … Oh, they did. And that’s the problem. (They’re not in the Screen Actors Guild.) (Not really.)
Garriott has been promoting a movie — Man On a Mission, a documentary about his journey into space, following his astronaut father Owen Garriott‘s own journey — but not the one he really wants people to see. And it’s all because while the script had nothing to do with NASA and didn’t require that kind of clearance, the entire movie was shot using NASA astronauts as performers and on a set that featured a lot of NASA hardware. And that kinda needed some clearance.
But it might not be just the legal aspects of making a movie that are stopping NASA from letting people see Apogee of Fear. It might have something to do with how the astronauts are portrayed. Garriott says that the characters — two of whom are played by NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff, plus some screen time for a Russian cosmonaut — are “too playful.” And NASA takes itself pretty darn seriously, and they’re just not feeling a light-hearted look at space travel and exploration. (Perhaps especially at a time when things are going that great for the agency and they had to shut down their shuttle program completely.)
While he doesn’t think that NASA is actually against the movie or dislikes, it, Garriott says that the agency just doesn’t have any reason to stand behind it, and their default answer for everything is simply “No.” Even when it comes to the first-ever science fiction film made entirely in space. Sigh.
Space.com has some details about the movie, which has only gotten as far as Garriott’s laptop:
It begins with NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff waving affably to Garriott through a window as the space tourist departs the orbiting lab and heads back home to Earth.
Then they turn to each other and express profound relief that he’s finally gone.
“Man, am I glad we finally got rid of that guy,” Chamitoff says.
Cut to several days later, and Fincke and Chamitoff are actually starting to miss Garriott. …
… [A]n ominous declaration breaks the wistful chatter: Cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov announces that oxygen use aboard the station is higher than it should be.
“Let’s just think of what might be the obvious reason,” Chamitoff says. “Maybe it’s aliens.”
The spaceflyers conclude that an unwanted visitor has found its way aboard the station, and they begin a search to root him or her out. And what they find will shock and amaze you! Well, not really, though there is an interesting double twist.
An interesting double twist … that may never be seen by an audience. Unless you’re close personal friends with Richard Garriott.
Top pic from Man On a Mission
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