Kukrick: Lies wide shut
There’s a video that emerges every so often in moon hoax circles allegedly showing Stanley Kubrick in various moon landing filming locations.
It’s a fake. It’s concocted from a variety of sources, from behind the scenes footage on the 2001 set showing Kubrick at work, to clips from Capricorn One and First Man, plus a mix of genuine NASA footage with Stanley clumsily inserted.
Whether the video was intended as a bit of fun or a genuine attempt to deceive, many gullible idiots have fallen for it. This page will deconstruct the video to show you how it was done.
It starts off with a clip of Wernher von Braun, speaking in front of what appears to be a moon set. As you can see from the picture from the right, it’s taken from a film called ‘Footprints on the moon’, and the original backdrop has been replaced.
After a few stock clips of MGM studios (you can see what’s being implied there), we have Stanley’s first appearance, supposedly gathered around a table with von Braun and his fellow rocket scientists.
If, however, you have access to footage like this from the filming of 2001, it doesn’t take long to find the exact clip of Kubrick used, as shown on the right.
The actual footage shown is of von Braun with his management team, as seen in very similar footage from Shutterstock. Shutterstock lists the footage as being from the 1960s, but it bears a strong similarity to this gathering of experts assembled for Colliers magazine in 1952.
The video footage has the people in the right place, but von Braun is still wearing that suit. Notice how the shuttle used in 2001 has been inserted in the background of the fake footage.
Whichever decade it’s from, Kubrick isn’t in it.
The next shot supposedly shows Kubrick taking notes while von Braun looks at plans with his technicians.
Or does it.
The von Braun footage is another piece you can find that has Kubrick nowhere near it, this time billed on Shutterstock as the ‘father of rocket science’ in the 1950s.
The Kubrick image is more difficult to track down, and the version I’ve found is on this site, and is a scene from ‘Operation Avalanche’, a film about Kubrick’s involvement in a supposed hoax.
Following a montage of poisoning the well stuff (fake clapperboard, ‘closed’ army bases, big movie sets) all to the audio of Kennedy’s famous “we choose to go to the moon” speech, and clips of Frederick Ordway III -
This time he’s not inserted into a piece of NASA footage, but there is a subtle addition to the background.
That’s it, just the addition of an Apollo patch or two over the actual equipment used.
There’s some more footage of a model lunar module being assembled by people wearing very obviously not contemporary clothing before we get to another Kubrick inserted into a scene.
More stock footage follows before we get to Kubrick seemingly in discussion with Neil Armstrong.
Again, it’s Stanley on the set of 2001, and the original Armstrong footage is of him suiting up in preparation for Gemini VIII. Stanley is nowhere near here.
Kubrick’s next appearance is another one from the 2001 set, this time with a few Apollo suits added.
That shot seems to be used again with the next shot, where he’s inserted in a shot of an astronaut training for lunar gravity.
The original footage is of the ‘6 degrees of freedom’ trainer, designed to simulate lunar gravity. Here it is in use.
Kubrick’s next appearance is so laughably obvious it’s hard to believe idiots fall for it. He’s shown wandering across a production gallery on a moon set.
Kubrick himself has been taken from footage filmed on the 2001 set, which has then been reversed. The film into which he has been inserted is from the James Bond film ‘Diamonds are forever’, released in 1971.
That’s right, two years after Apollo 11,
We then get some faked footage of children watching a moon landing. We know it’s faked because the footage on screen is actually from Apollo 14, and was filmed on 16mm stock, not broadcast on TV
Stanley next appears after footage of what is obviously a lunar module replica, and the implication is that he is somehow involved in supervising its construction. He isn’t, as shown below, the original footage does not show the added LM leg and ladder.
Next up we see Kubrick supposedly inside a lunar module, only his image is actually a reversed of him on the 2001 set.
The actual footage comes from this video, footage from which is also to vbe found elsewhere in this film. The man on the right is Arthur C Clarke, the author of 2001.
More stock footage follows, together with scenes from the making of the 2017 film ‘First Man (eg from here) before we get a view of Kubrick suppsedly looking at film taken on set.
To be fair that is what he’s doing, only the footage he’s actually seeing is from 2001, no a superimposed clip from Apollo 14’s 16mm footage.
We next have Stanley supposedly scrutinising photographs taken during Apollo 11 (again intercut with scenes from Operation Avalanche) As usual, he’s doing nothing of the sort.
I’m not entirely sure what his next appearance is supposed to prove. All that’s been done is to convert the original photograph to black and white.
After some more stock footage and more scenes taken from ‘First Man’, we return to Kubrick looking through a camera. Spot the difference.
In case you didn’t, it’s the addition of the Apollo 11 crew patch on the camera.
We next get more stock footage, and a completely phoney clapperboard superimposed on a ‘First Man’ moon scene.
Cute details are the April Fool’s day date, and the mathematical value of Pi as the scene number. Perhaps the only clue you’re going to get that the people behind this aren’t being serious.
It gets even more obvious for a bit -
Kubrick’s next appearance is again supposedly looking at a monitor, this time showing Apollo 11’s actual EVA with a scene from First Man as the backdrop.
The studio component is from the 2016 film ‘Moonwalkers’, which also supplies a few other backdrops and pieces of footage used here.
Kubrick’s final appearance is of him on a lunar set, again lifted direct from 2001.
More ‘First Man’ behind the scenes footage help fill the gaps.
And if a scene’s worth using, use it three times. Here we see more supposed film supervision from Apollo, when it’s actually 2001. Again.
That’s it, so what do we have.
I think the deliberate use of two comedy dramas as primary sources that both have a moon landing hoax as the plot (and that’s before we think about the use of Capricorn One footage), as well as the use of April 1st on the clapperboard, all point to this being a piss-
Bravo to the film makers, it was fun, and I think you’re mocking the morons, but if you’re going to be more convincing, maybe don’t use really obvious mass market films as the primary source.
In other shock news, no, Kubrick did not make a death bed confession -
We went to the moon.
The movie set itself is from ‘Moonwalkers’.
Pity they didn’t pick a scene from First Man with a flag in it, because that’s what the real astronauts are standing next to. It’s also more than a nod to a scene in Operation Avalanche, which uses the same TV view, and we get a piece of the ‘Frst Man’ behind the scenes footage too.
Next up, more First Man scenes, with Stanley inserted in it, lifted straight from the 2001 set.
The suits themselves are lifted from a scene in ‘Moonwalkers’. The actual suits did not have that patch on the arm.
Immediately before this scene are a few shots from ‘Operation Avalanche, but the leg itself here is from ‘Moonwalkers.
The backdrop they’ve used here is from the moon walk scene of ‘First Man’, filmed some time after the actual mission!
