What do you of Capricorn One (1977)

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Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
I thought it was interesting, but I kept scratching my head at parts of the plot, and I had some questions:

WARNING: "SPOILERS" spoilers below

Why is it that when the space shuttle accidentally crash lands back on Earth, the villains feel they must go along with it and report the astronauts dead? They want to fake the landing on Mars, and the reason is, because the shuttle has some faulty equipment on board, so they cannot go for real. But isn't the shuttle burning upon re-entry just as faulty, and therefore just as much of a failure if it would kill the astronauts still?

Wouldn't it make more sense to drive the astronauts out to the crash site and have them pretend that they survived the landing and that the landing was fine?

Also they want to kill the Coffield character to keep him from snooping around so the rig his car, so it will crash, and then when that doesn't work, they try shooting at him. When that doesn't work, they frame him for cocaine possession and have him arrested. But isn't that more complicated than just killing him? Why would you go from attempted murder to framing?


Other than those questions, I feel that the movie tries to be too much of an action and survival, that wants to go for perhaps too big of a plane and helicopter chase, when perhaps it could have been far more interesting, as an investigation thriller, trying to put together how the Mars landing was faked. Unless maybe it's good as an action thriller?

I also found the freeze frame ending to be kind of anti-climatic, and the freeze frame itself was a very awkward note to end on, at least on a first viewing.

But what do you think of the movie?



I don't believe the fillum was actually ever made.



The pace.made me suffer but however it is interesting material



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Another thing about the movie is, how far in the future is this supposed take place in? NASA has the ability to go to Mars, or so they think, but the movies still looks and feels exactly like the 70s with no effort to make it seem futuristic at all it seems.



"What do you of...?"
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Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
There is something else in the movie, I do not understand. Why is it that when the astronauts jump off the ladder, the co-conspirators switch to slow motion in the video footage? Wouldn't it make more sense for the entire video to be slow motion to try to simulate the Mars lack of gravity, rather than only switching to slow motion, after they choose to leap off the ladder?



I enjoyed it, a kind of mainstream, PG rated 70s conspiracy thriller lite. As a kid I was obsessed with the joke Sam Waterston's character was telling himself to keep his spirits up.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Which joke?