Talk:The Right Stuff (film)

Historical accuracy

I don't really like some wording in the "Historical accuracy" section.

• Although The Right Stuff was based on historic events and real people, as chronicled in Wolfe's book.

Well, Wolfe's book is not a "chronicle", it's a "journalistic investigation". We must compare the film with the actual events, not with a book (which, although labelled as non-fiction, is full of "poetic license").

• Re. Grissom and the hatch: However, Kaufman was closely following Tom Wolfe's book, which focused not on how or why the hatch actually blew, but how NASA engineers and some of Grissom's colleagues (and even his own wife) believed he caused the accident; much of the dialogue in this sequence was taken directly from Wolfe's prose.

Again, "Wolfe's prose" is not history. The film actually shows Grissom panicking and blowing up the hatch, which, obviously, is historically inaccurate. This is what must be mentioned in this particular section. The comparisons between the film and the book belong elsewhere. P.S. I'll make the necessary tweaks if nobody minds. Taurus Littrow (talk) 14:18, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

The film actually doesn't show that... the filmmakers were very careful to show him inside the hatch, he doesn't hit the button, then a shot from the outside where it APPEARS he MAY have hit it. It's deliberately left ambiguous to the viewer. 137.188.108.55 (talk) 18:43, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Music

The DVD of Philip Kaufman's 1974 film The White Dawn contains commentary by Kaufman. In that commentary, Kaufman states that he used the tune sung by the old Inuit woman in The White Dawn as background music during part of John Glenn's flight in The Right Stuff. MathPerson (talk) 18:15, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

According to the commentary in The White Dawn, that woman's name is Akshooyooliak. MathPerson (talk) 20:39, 8 October 2022 (UTC)