Capricorn One

Amazon.com

Thanks to repeated showings on cable television and home video, this speculative thriller has built quite a loyal following since its release in 1978. The provocative "what if?" scenario still packs a punch, even if it is not always believable. James Brolin, Sam Waterston, and O.J. Simpson star as three astronauts who agree to spare the government embarrassment by faking their historic landing on Mars after their spacecraft is determined to be unsafe for blastoff. When a scheming mission controller (Hal Holbrook) plots to kill the astronauts in a staged capsule fire, the trio embarks on a dangerous mission to expose the truth. Elliott Gould costars as the journalist determined to crack the conspiracy, and director Peter Hyams turns up the tension with an exciting chase sequence involving Telly Savalas as an eccentric barnstormer who comes to Gould's aid in his attempt rescue the hoax mission's sole survivor. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews:

A Government Gone Bad Tale.......2007-06-25

The first manned mission to Mars is ready to go. The astronauts are strapped in and the countdown is proceeding. At the last minute, the capsule is opened up and the astronauts are taken out to a secret location. The rocket then blasts off as scheduled.

It turns out that a contractor skimped on some parts and the high brass knew the mission would be fatal. Their funding, however, depends on success. They intend to let the rocket go on and mount a hoax with the unwilling participation of the astronauts. Their families are being threatened and they have to play along.

Conditions are rough but they get rougher when the astronauts figure out that they are expected to have a fatal accident on re-entry. They know they must escape and the chase is on.

This is a pretty fair film from the 70s. It is not the best and the cynical view of the government seems harsh but, all too often, it rings true as well.

Capricorn One and Executive Action .......2007-05-04

These are both great movies because they shatter the myths of our times.

From fake moon landing to the assassinations of liberals -- and all the way to an appointed president and 9/11 -- we are asked to believe in coincidence rather than conspiracy. Is this conspiracy-free America?
Are we unlike every other nation; a gene pool set apart, free from violence, genocide, desires to enslave? Our true history suggests otherwise.

On the other hand, there is the propaganda of white male history which is the "Dick and Jane" version of reality which denies conspiracy in America.
What of the genocide of the native America? The enslavement of Africans in America? Our CIA run amuck all over the world? Vietnam and today's Iraq-nam. Warprofiteers aren't part of today's reality? There is no Halliburton ripping off our soldiers?

JFK released the seeds of a counter-revolution which, like feminism, continues to spread and grow.

If you want more insight into the struggles for and against democracy in America -- and there are those who consider democracy a threat to their view of the world -- see both of these movies. The original "Executive Action" with Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan and a sensational cast, not yet on DVD. And, Capricorn One which is the tale of a moon landing more than 40 years ago which more than likely never happened.

For today and the reality of Global Warming we need yet another movie to shatter the myths of wealth, to question why our natural resources are in the hands of private families? To challenge the value of nature, animal-life, humanity being weighed against the yardstick of a dollar bill.

Capricorn One -- with a great cast -- is a cult movie for every good reason!! See it.

Outstanding Action Conspiracy Adventure.......2007-03-06

This is one of the best conspiracy action movies ever filmed. The plot concerning the government faking a manned mission to Mars and a down and out reporter trying to expose the conspiracy is really quite simple. But it is the energy of the script, convincing performances, an outstanding Jerry Goldsmith score and just the plain audacity that a government would even try to pull off such a hoax that gets the viewers' blood boiling. O.J. Simpson, Sam Waterston and James Brolin are excellent as the three beleaguered astronauts who reluctantly go along with the conspiracy. I cannot think of a more diverse trio of actors to play these astronauts but they really make this film convincing. Elliott Gould as the reporter is perfectly cast bringing his best attributes to that role. Telly Savalas almost steals this film with a very colorful performance as an open cockpit pilot who helps Elliott Gould track down the astronauts while being chased by machine gun firing helicopters hot on his heels through curvaceous ravines. This sequence is an extremely exciting. This is director Peter Hyams' best film to date. The one cohesive element that really stands out is Jerry Goldsmith's powerhouse of a theme that literally drives the action and the drama and hits a responsive emotional chord that I remember to this day.

Great concept...lousy writing.......2007-02-22

The concept is terrific:

A struggling NASA, faced with opponents in Congress and a bad track record, decides that it can't afford any more "screwups" as NASA head Hal Holbrook's character puts it. When it's discovered that corner cutting would result in a malfunctioning life support system that would leave a trio of astronauts, NASA's backers decide they'll fake the planned Mars landing to save the program. They ensure the astronauts will go along with it by claiming their families are aboard a single plane armed with a bomb which will be detonated if they don't play along.

Why the movie fails:
Plot holes you could drive a bus through.
**** SPOILERS AHEAD ****

Elliot Gould's reporter character has his car tampered with by the baddies resulting in no brakes and (somehow) a gas pedal that keeps pushing itself down(?!?) Despite speeds reaching 100 miles an hour, he manages to avoid running into another car or any other obstruction in busy traffic until reaching a boat bridge, which is opening as he reaches it (at 100MPH). Gould plunges into the water car and all and not only manages to escape drowning, but doesn't appear to be significantly hurt.

A chase scene late in the movie finds Brubaker clinging to the wing of a cropduster as he, Gould and a minor character are attacked by shooting helicopters. Brubaker manages to hang onto the plane's wing despite barrel rolls, dives and loop-de-loops as they try to evade the copters.

During the fake Mars landing, the astronauts don't "bounce" as they would in weaker gravity...they walk just like they would on Earth. Perhaps the script's writer believes we'll have "weighted" spacesuits by that point in time, but it isn't addressed in the script.

I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting but you get the point...too little attention spent on the actual script once the basic plot was arrived at.

I gave it two stars anyway because the action sequences ARE good to watch, but there's too much disbelief to suspend to really enjoy this one unless you're looking for a movie you can laugh at Mystery Science Theater 3000 style...

Houston, we have a problem!.......2007-02-18

The 1970s were a time rife with left-wing conspiracy theories. Why not? The New Left hippie counterculture of the 1960s was just starting to settle down into "real" life, that dull drudgery of working every day for the man and paying bills so you can squirt out a couple of kids who'll soak up every spare dime you've got yet still hate you when they reach adolescence. Yay! To keep the experience real, the ex-hippies made sure to believe in every half-baked kook conspiracy that came down the pike. The conspiracy to kill JFK. The conspiracy to kill RFK. The conspiracy to kill MLK, Jr. Alien invaders. The evil goings on over at the CIA. J. Edgar Hoover in a dress. Anything was fair game for the acidheads. Heck, they're still up to their old tricks today with the hoodoo about global warming (Yeah, right. They said it'd ice over in the 1970s--if overpopulation didn't kill us off first) and the whole Election 2000 imbroglio. The election of George W. Bush and the concomitant misadventures in Iraq will provide conspiracy scenarios well into the middle of the century--or until the last Baby Boomer in the last pair of Depends coughs out their last breath.

All of this nonsense brings us to Peter Hyams's 1978 conspiracy thriller "Capricorn One," a lesser entry in the 1970s "paranoia will destroy ya" subgenre. It's notable today for the presence of one O.J. Simpson, sans bloody glove and any knowledge that in roughly fifteen years he'll kill his ex-wife and her male companion. There might've been a white Bronco somewhere in the movie--I don't remember. What I do know is this: "Capricorn One" is an entertaining, if somewhat laughable jaunt, through the recesses of Hollywood paranoia, New Left fantasy, and Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain haircut. The plot, if you choose to accept it, deals with three astronauts--Colonel Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Commander John Walker (Simpson), and Lt. Colonel Peter Willis (Sam Waterston)--and their sudden realization that the much anticipated trip to Mars ain't going to happen. Instead of disappointing the public, however, the government goes through the motions of a launch but stashes the astronauts away in an airplane hanger out in the desert. They plan on faking the Mars landing. The hanger has television cameras, a fake lander, a bogus landscape, and enough government secrecy to keep everything under wraps for years. Or maybe not.

Of course, some young shooter at mission control notices some glitch in the computer system that doesn't seem right. He properly notifies his superiors of the problem but is troubled when they don't seem that concerned. He mentions it in passing to his reporter friend Robert Caulfield (Elliot Gould). Caulfield doesn't think it's anything to get excited about until his buddy suddenly disappears without a trace, and bad things start happening to him. Like cops showing up at your apartment and finding drugs you didn't know you had in the bathroom, or driving your car down the road only to discover the brakes are suddenly nonexistent. These are the seminal markers of government conspiracy, and Caulfield (a true journalist/leftist/hero/ in the vein of Woodward and Bernstein) knows this. The rest of "Capricorn One" turns into a race between Caulfield on the one hand, doggedly trying to uncover the evil government conspiracy, and on the other hand the three astronauts trying to save their lives because certain developments suddenly make them think that the government might not want any witnesses around. Come to think of it, does the government ever want anyone around to witness its nefarious schemes and manipulations? Nah.

I noted that "Capricorn One" is a laughable jaunt, and it is. Elliot Gould is a hoot as the over the top reporter Caulfield. A throbbing forehead vein in human form, Gould's character chomps at the bit to prove the big bad government is pulling yet another sleazy scam. He screams at his boss, the man, and anyone that stands in his way. Only by posing heroically and running a lot can Caulfield get to the bottom of the faked Capricorn mission. It's unintentionally hilarious. I mean, the speeded up reels of his car careening through town without brakes evokes memories of the Keystone Kops, and the slow motion run with him and Brubaker at the end has to be one of the most feminine conclusions I've ever seen in a film. No wonder both of these chaps ended up married to Barbra Streisand. Yet the film does offer a few thrills (including a plane chase with Telly Savalas) and some good acting from Hal Holbrook as Dr. James Kelloway, a NASA scientist torn between his loyalties to the astronauts and his attachments to the space program. The movie has some good dialogue too, mostly seen in a monologue delivered by Holbrook at the beginning of the film.

The disc I watched "Capricorn One" on had zero in the way of supplements. No trailers, no commentary tracks, no behind the scenes footage, no deleted/extended scenes. No confession from O.J. Simpson, either. It's an all right film, worth a watch once maybe, but the whole idea is sort of outdated and laughable. How sinister is a conspiracy to hide the fact that we aren't landing on Mars? Not much today, but back during the Cold War the competition with the Soviet Union over who did what first in space had serious repercussions. If the Russians thought we put men on Mars, they'd also think our nuclear weapons technology was superior as well. So when viewed that way, "Capricorn One" has a certain cachet. It also holds some allure, I'd imagine, for the nuts who think NASA faked the moon landings. And the two or three Elliot Gould fans. Give it a shot if you fall into those categories.

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Disaster 1970's! - A Video Scrapbook

Manufacturer: RetroFLICKS
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

The 1970's: the decade of the disaster film! Hollywood churned out one tale of cataclysmic doom after another, and audiences seemingly could not get enough. Here now is a collection of rare behind-the-scenes looks from several memorable films of that era. You'll watch the preparation and filming of exciting action sequences. You'll hear the stars - Gene Hackman, George Kennedy, Sophia Loren, Shelly Winters, Michael Caine, Henry Fonda and many more - talk about their roles. You'll see the directors and special effects experts at work, as they create cinema magic. The movies profiled: Airport '79; Capricorn One; The Cassandra Crossing; Futureworld; The Poseidon Adventure; The Swarm; The Towering Inferno. If you are a fan of 70's sci-fi, action/adventure or disaster movies, you'll want Disaster 1970's! in your collection.

Sci-Fi Collector's Pack (Capricorn One - StarGate - Millennium)

Average customer rating:

Cheese Whip Supreme!
credible-incredible
excellent story line
Sherman, send the gate
This movie is off the cheese scale!

Sci-Fi Collector's Pack (Capricorn One - StarGate - Millennium)
Starring: Kris Kristofferson , Cheryl Ladd , Daniel J. Travanti , Robert Joy , and Lloyd Bochner
Director: Michael Anderson , Peter Hyams , and Roland Emmerich
Manufacturer: Live / Artisan
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 6305559279
Release Date: 2000-03-15

Amazon.com

Time-hoppers from the future, led by Cheryl Ladd, are abducting airline passengers about to crash, and transporting them a millennium hence in order to reseed a future blighted by environmental disaster. This is a dangerous business, plagued by the specter of accidentally creating time paradoxes, which could throw the future out of whack. Unfortunately, they've lost a couple of the stunners they use to subdue troublesome passengers, and these fall into the hands of a curious physicist (Daniel J. Travanti) and an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (Kris Kristofferson). Cheryl Ladd must retrieve these devices before a time paradox wipes out her world, but manages to complicate things by developing a romance with Kristofferson. All of which is very intriguing, having come from the short story, "Air Raid," by science fiction luminary John Varley, who also is credited with the screenplay. The part about airline abductions to save the disastrous future is straight from the original story, and the rest is expanded (you wouldn't say extrapolated) from it. The results are not very happy. About a third of the film is maddeningly wasted by repeating action from a different point of view. Seems natural when there are disparate timelines to deal with, but here nothing is added by the conceit. Only Travanti turns in a creditable performance as the physicist, bent on proving his theories about the future. He seems hungry for discovery, which is one of the things you want from a science fiction story, that sense of awe. But here it's just, "Aw, shucks!" --Jim Gay

Customer Reviews:

Cheese Whip Supreme!.......2007-08-11

If it strikes you as a little strange that a big-budget sci-fi extravaganza aspiring to be first out of the gate with the millennial doomsday theme starred Cheryl Ladd and Kris Kristofferson, you're already in the right mood for the 1989 time-travel howler Millennium. The fun begins when airline-disaster investigator Kristofferson meets mysterious airline employee Ladd while checking out the wreckage of the latest crash. Because Ladd, done up in an appalling perm and enough eyeliner to outfit a pack of raccoons, looks like she's about to shoot The Donna Mills Story, you first suspect Kristofferson might be the weird one -- he invites her to dinner. Then Ladd chain-smokes while eating, a dead giveaway that she's the movie's space case. And that's before she has sex with Kristofferson and gushes, "You're the best thing in a thousand years!" Apparently well aware he's not that good in the sack, Kristofferson responds, "The first rule is: Don't go to bed with anyone crazier than yourself. You're right up there on the top 10 of my Weird List, lady." To which Ladd replies, "If you knew me better, I'd be number one." Then, when Kristofferson's back is turned, Ladd disappears -- literally.

Wandering alone in the plane wreckage the day after this romp, Kristofferson comes upon what looks like a futuristic set of brass knuckles. And indeed, when he touches it, he's knocked out! Then, lo, a tacky blue hologram appears in the air, and Ladd steps out of it in S&M Tinkerbellesque regalia with a hairdo shaped like a giant Foster's Freeze soft ice cream swirl. Yes, Ladd is actually a human visitor from a thousand years into the future. She's here on a mission to -- well, let her tell it: "We're all dying. We can't have children anymore. We steal people from the past and send them somewhere else to start over, to give them a second chance." That's right: Ladd takes airline passengers who are about to crash and transports them to the future. But what about the dead bodies found after the crash? Ladd simply brings a supply of look-alike corpses from the future to leave behind in the live passengers' seats. Ah, but how does she get the passengers to cooperate? Well, that's what the brass knuckles are for, dummy.

Alas, two of the stunner devices were left behind on this latest crash and Ladd's got to retrieve them or "a paradox" will occur and destroy the future. A what? As Nobel Prize-winning physicist Daniel J. Travanti explains, "Say you build a time machine, go back, and murder your father when he was 10 years old. That means you were never born, and if you weren't, how did you build the time machine?" See, this is why Ladd was willing to sleep with Kristofferson - she thought he had the devices. So when Kristofferson sees the futuristic Ladd in the plane wreckage, she's still after the stunner, which she finds and takes with her in her tacky blue time-travel hologram before Kristofferson can ask her on a second date. Later, it turns out that Dr. Travanti has the second scanner, but when Ladd appears from the future this time, Travanti accidentally zaps himself to death with it. For reasons you really don't want to know, this causes the dreaded paradox, which compels Ladd to take Kristofferson back to her future world, where everything is rapidly coming apart -- which is hardly surprising since it's one of the cheapest-looking sets ever seen in a sci-fi pic. Just before the world explodes, Ladd resets the time-travel dial so she and Kristofferson can go even further into the future -- in hopes of more convincing production design, better scripts and more flattering hairstyles.

credible-incredible.......2007-05-17

Refer to the role of Smith! ( I did investigate marine accidents and incidents for 10 years.) One acquires a cynic and slightly morose attitude as this type Bill Smith when confronted daily with disaster, human errors, negligence and technical blunders. I think Kristofferson plays the role quite perfect and Smith has had no vacation for six years and no sleep for 30 to 35hrs so he has to be a little deferred. And then an exhausting night encounter. So he cannot be bright eyed and bushy tailed or could you?
Cheryl Ladd is stunning as ever but seems to be more concerned to cover her bottom than to show the emotions a woman would have when thrown back into a time that is different from hers and with an experience not known to the 4th millennium.

excellent story line.......2007-02-23

I really liked this movie when I first saw it , then again I had to watch it again to understand what I thought I first missed , then realized I didnt lol .

Its a interesting theory about the plane crashes and time travel of course this could only be done in a movie , because if this happens in real life , we're all in trouble !

A must see film go out and rent it or buy it !

Sherman, send the gate.......2006-07-10

We are medially confronted with a midair plain crash. In the confusion the navigator goes back into the cabin and is horrified by something. All we see is a staring device sliding along the floor "MILLENNIUM".

Bill Smith investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (Kris Kristofferson) is dispatched to the crash scene. he must make since of things that do not add up to a normal crash. Meanwhile he is being asked about the anomalies by a physicist (Daniel J. Travanti) that seems to know moiré than he is letting on. And to make things more complicated he is being sidetracked by a female airline employee (Cheryl Ladd) that does not seem to do everything from driving to eating awkwardly.

Bill wonders if he is tired, paranoid or is there something that is just not normal?

The music and filming remind me of a Hallmark romance movie which just happens to have a sci-fi background.

This movie is off the cheese scale!.......2005-08-02

This movie took me back! I haven't seen this movie since I was a little boy..and it took me forever to find it on the internet. I give it 5 stars just because it was everything I was hoping for and more! Sadly..you might not feel the same way so don't get your hopes up. If what you're looking for is a cheesy 80's scifi flick with all the basics: action, drama, comedy, da bomb special effects, robots and a HOPELESS love story..BUY THIS MOVIE!

Sci-Fi II Collector's Pack (Stargate/Capricorn One/Millennium)

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Sci-Fi II Collector's Pack (Stargate/Capricorn One/Millennium)
Starring: Elliott Gould , James Brolin , Brenda Vaccaro , Sam Waterston , and O.J. Simpson
Director: Peter Hyams , Michael Anderson , and Roland Emmerich
Manufacturer: Live / Artisan
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00005O5BE
Release Date: 2001-10-23

Average customer rating:

A Government Gone Bad Tale
Capricorn One and Executive Action
Outstanding Action Conspiracy Adventure
Great concept...lousy writing
Houston, we have a problem!

Capricorn One [Region 2]
Starring: Elliott Gould , James Brolin , Brenda Vaccaro , Sam Waterston , and O.J. Simpson
Director: Peter Hyams , John Barry (III) , and Stanley Donen
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00008DI5U

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

A Government Gone Bad Tale.......2007-06-25

Capricorn One and Executive Action .......2007-05-04

Outstanding Action Conspiracy Adventure.......2007-03-06

Great concept...lousy writing.......2007-02-22

Houston, we have a problem!.......2007-02-18

Average customer rating:

A Government Gone Bad Tale
Capricorn One and Executive Action
Outstanding Action Conspiracy Adventure
Great concept...lousy writing
Houston, we have a problem!

Capricorn One [Region 2]
Starring: Elliott Gould , James Brolin , Brenda Vaccaro , Sam Waterston , and O.J. Simpson
Director: Peter Hyams
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B00004I9OG

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

A Government Gone Bad Tale.......2007-06-25

Capricorn One and Executive Action .......2007-05-04

Outstanding Action Conspiracy Adventure.......2007-03-06

Great concept...lousy writing.......2007-02-22

Houston, we have a problem!.......2007-02-18

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