
The NASA Rocket Countdown Came from a 1929 Fritz Lang Film - prismatic
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/nasa-stole-the-rocket-countdown-from-a-1929-fritz-lang-film-1d569cc0-50ff-4045-b0c9-1f0d72a193db
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jonas21
I went looking for a picture of the retired analog countdown clock from the
article, expecting to see a giant clock face with hands.

But as far as I can tell, the analog clock they're referring to is the one in
the photo on the right here [1], which most people would probably consider
digital.

[1] [https://www.nasa.gov/content/new-display-counts-down-for-
new...](https://www.nasa.gov/content/new-display-counts-down-for-new-
generation)

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webkike
It doesn't use a digital display, so how can it be considered digital?

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dandelany
"Digital [adj]: (of a clock or watch) showing the time by means of displayed
digits rather than hands or a pointer."

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usrusr
Imagine the confusion in an alternate universe where the clockmakers of old
decided to call the pointing sticks "fingers" instead of "hands".

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SCAQTony
...And his follow-up contribution to illustrate a modern economy circa 2015
was "Metropolis."

"...Made in Germany during the Weimar Period, Metropolis is set in a
futuristic urban dystopia and follows the attempts of Freder, the wealthy son
of the city's ruler, and Maria, a poor worker, to overcome the vast gulf
separating the classes of their city. ..."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_\(1927_film\))

~~~
weinzierl
Metropolis has quite an interesting history:

The original cut was lost and only fragments survived. Since the 80s the most
popular version was one made by Giorgio Moroder (the same guy that worked with
Daft Punk on the Album Random Access Memories). Over the years different
versions and scenes were found all over the world and since 2010 there is
version that is considered close to the original.

Popular culture is full of references to this movie, from "The Fifth Element"
to Queen's "Radio Ga Ga".

I can also highly recommend "M"[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_%281931_film%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_%281931_film%29)

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djloche
I also recommend M. Given the fame of the original film, it is a little bit
surprising that they haven't remade it recently.

~~~
kuschku
There is a 2000 Anime and Manga remake of Metropolis. Very interesting
variation. (but not close to the original)

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weinzierl
The whole film is on Youtube. If you are just interested in the countdown
scene the link is below:

[https://youtu.be/9MVga1D6rRQ?t=5626](https://youtu.be/9MVga1D6rRQ?t=5626)

EDIT: The clip is also in the original article but a bit different. This link
shows only the last 10 seconds, it has English translations of the titles and
has no modern background music.

~~~
WalterBright
I'm a big fan of colorized history over on Reddit. The old pictures become
much more appealing this way.

Wouldn't it be great to colorize these classics, and also remove the title
cards and hire some foley and voice artists to create a soundtrack for them?

~~~
ollifi
These are artworks, and even though they are made with limited technology they
are built to those constraints. You can't update the medium and not lose the
essence of the piece.

You don't make super mario more appealing to modern audiences by rendering it
from first person. We should build emulators so that people can play the
original. Or you can draw inspiration from the original and make a new piece
that works in modern ways.

So I think it would be waste of effort. Colorizing historical photos is cool,
but I don't think it's the same thing.

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WalterBright
> You can't update the medium and not lose the essence of the piece.

I don't find this argument compelling at all. If the director at the time had
color film and sound, he certainly would have used them. After all, how many
silent films have been made after 1930? 2? B+W persisted for a while because
it was so much cheaper than color film, but now that that differential has
gone away, how many movies are released in B+W? 1 every 5 years? Even film
noir is done in color today.

~~~
ollifi
Yes it's a technical limitation which he would not have chosen today. I agree.

In the silent era they had to work around the missing technology and that
affects acting style, story points, the pacing, lighting, set design etc. This
created silent film. To reverse those creative decisions you need to redo lot
more than color and sound.

Even today when you shoot b+w movies and probably use color camera you light
it totally different. Just simply desaturating the image does not work.

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WalterBright
The examples in Reddit's colorizedhistory subreddit show how good and
effective colorization is. It doesn't have to be effective, and those
colorized pictures don't quite look like color photography, but things don't
have to be perfect to be a huge improvement.

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tyingq
Pictures of the clock from when it was being dismantled:

[http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/images/small/2014-4558-s.jpg](http://www-
pao.ksc.nasa.gov/images/small/2014-4558-s.jpg)

[http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/images/small/2014-4559-s.jpg](http://www-
pao.ksc.nasa.gov/images/small/2014-4559-s.jpg)

[http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/images/small/2014-4560-s.jpg](http://www-
pao.ksc.nasa.gov/images/small/2014-4560-s.jpg)

[http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/images/small/2014-4561-s.jpg](http://www-
pao.ksc.nasa.gov/images/small/2014-4561-s.jpg)

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chizzl
Fritz Lang, in turn, may have been inspired from the old portrait photography
days whereby the subject is counted down to -- to indicate that the long
process is almost over after many many minutes.

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beloch
The Nazi party had this film withdrawn from release. They felt the film was
realistic to the point of giving away German technological secrets.

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arrrg
I was just skipping through it. This film gets things right many scifi films
don’t to this day. Which is astonishing, really. There was no real need for it
to be this accurate. I mean, there just was no space flight, so you could just
as easily have picked stereotypes about what it’s like to fly to space … it’s
not like anyone (safe some scientists) would have noticed.

(I love the scene with the water bottle in zero g with some nice special
effects. They got the nice round water bubbles right, but didn’t quite go for
space travelers catching them with their mouths. I don’t think putting those
bubbles in a drinking glass would be as easy as they show it to be. But
probably easier from a special effect point of view.)

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kevin_thibedeau
This attributes a little too much insight to Lang. Multi-stage rockets had
already been invented. It is quite likely that people developing rocketry at
the time were already using count downs and Lang was inspired by what he
witnessed. This is the first documented countdown on film. It doesn't
necessarily represent a novel invention.

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rocky1138
If the article is about a specific item, there should be a picture of the item
in the article. Without it, it's nearly worthless.

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dandelany
The second picture in the article shows the countdown clock. The article just
confuses it by calling it "analog" and comparing it to a wristwatch, but in
fact most people would consider it digital.

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peter303
It should be on every nerds bucket list to view live rocket launch.

