Talk:Stowaway to the Moon

Archive: Plot

This is the plot outline as supplied by an IP user who did not bother to provide a source for the outline or the quotes contained therein. I am archiving it here until sources can be located:

Eli ("E.J.") Mackernutt (Michael Link) is an 11-year-old boy who dreams of traveling in outer space. He and his best friend Joey are building a large scale model of a space capsule, and in order to raise money do they do odd jobs for the elderly Jacob Avril, who owns property adjoining the Kennedy Space Center facility.

Avril's close proximity to the Space Center gives E.J. the idea of stowing away on the upcoming Apollo moon launch. He gains access to the space center by cutting across Avril's adjacent land, and gets into the launch complex simply by wearing a hardhat and fake security badge, and carrying a toolbox.

E.J. makes it inside the command module just before the astronauts arrive for the flight, and hides inside a trash compartment. As the astronauts work through their preflight checklist, Mission Control informs them that the spacecraft is overweight by exactly 89 pounds. They are unable to resolve this discrepancy but decide it doesn't present any danger to the mission, and the countdown proceeds.

Meanwhile, E.J.'s father Eli is leaving the house to go to work, and in his car discovers a note written by E.J. telling him of his intentions. The note further explains that by the time his father reads the note, it will be too late to prevent him from carrying out his plan. Eli and his wife Mary race to the Kennedy Space Center and insist to the gate staff that their son is on the rocket that's about to launch, but no one believes them and they are forced to leave.

The rocket launches on schedule and shortly is on its way to the Moon. Opening the trash compartment, astronaut Ben Pelham is astonished to discover that E.J. is on board. Sheepishly, E.J. recounts his story to the astronauts, who now must decide what to do with him. They contact Charlie Englehardt, the flight director, and explain their predicament. Englehardt tells the crew that the mission is essentially scrubbed and that the spacecraft will have to make the quickest return to Earth possible. He also tells the astronauts that they must keep silent about the stowaway until the ground crew comes up with a plan for their return home.

However, when the crew does its scheduled live TV broadcast from space, they introduce E.J. to an astonished world. On live television, E.J. apologizes for his stunt and asks that his actions not jeopardize the crew's important mission. Englehardt is angered by this, but he recognizes that E.J. has charmed the public and made a strong case for the mission to continue. He gives his consent for the planned Moon landing.

E.J. becomes something of a mascot for the crew, and does what he can to help clean the cabin and perform other chores. Once in lunar orbit mission commander Rick Lawrence and lunar module pilot Dave Anderson prepare to undock from the command module and descend to the surface. But E.J. notices that Ben Pelham, the command module pilot, is ill. Ben insists that it's just a slight fever and asks E.J. to say nothing to the others.

The lunar module crew departs but Ben's condition deteriorates rapidly. With the ground crew's help E.J. cares for the ailing Ben and also helps pinpoint the location of the lunar module, which has landed far off course. The astronauts are able to make it back to the command module, knowing that without E.J., Ben would have died and a rendezvous with the other ship would have been impossible.

On the way back to Earth a stuck valve bleeds much of the oxygen from the ship. The astronauts remain in their spacesuits until the return to Earth, while E.J. must retreat to a frigid lunar module for the remainder of the voyage. Despite the low oxygen and freezing temperatures, E.J. never loses faith in the dream of space travel, vividly describing the Earth from space.

Some time later, safely back on Earth, E.J., Joey and Avril watch the full Moon from Avril's property. As E.J. watches the sky, he remembers Ben Pelham's words: "Kid, you got us off the Moon. If it wasn't for you we'd be part of those rocks and rilles down there forever! Now we're going home, and we've got you to thank for that".

Graham1973 (talk) 02:42, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Graham1973 wrote that the above plot summary was provided by an "IP user who did not bother to provide a source". Are you kidding? Plot summaries, especially of obscure made-for-tv movies, do not require sources. The person who wrote this clearly watched the movie and then put some labor into writing up a nice summary. I restored this plot summary to the article. 2600:1000:B01D:EE23:647E:EF48:8E7E:56A1 (talk) 18:02, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Graham1973: Your repetitive deletion of good content is pointless and constitutes actual vandalism. The plot summary is accurate and well-written, and it should not be dumped on the Talk page (yes, that qualifies as deletion). Your complaint that the "user did not BOTHER to provide a source" is misguided. Plot summaries do not need to be sourced. Plot summaries are COMMONLY created from the original content on Wikipedia. That is, you watch an old movie, and you write up a summary of the plot. Just as that unknown "IP user" did. There is no requirement for citation. Sources and citations ARE required for "interpretation, synthesis or analysis of the plot". In other words, it would be wrong to describe this particular film as "corny" or "childish" (which some might consider reasonable criticisms) without citing some secondary source.2600:1000:B010:F2D2:51A9:97B8:5756:259E (talk) 15:47, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

IP User - My reasons for doing this were clear. Firstly, without a clear source how can a reader be sure this plot summary is accurate. Neither the book, nor the film are that easy to come by. Secondly, without a source the risk of Wikipedia:CV is increased greatly, far better to have a paraphrase with a source, than a copyright violation without one.Graham1973 (talk) 02:38, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Graham1973, you wrote: "My reasons for doing this were clear." No. Not in the slightest. All I see here is PETTY vandalism. You deleted a substantial component of an article --why? This deletion is NOT consistent with Wikipedia standards.

You wrote: "without a clear source how can a reader be sure this plot summary is accurate."

And this is utterly ridiculous. You watch a movie, and you write up a plot summary. That is the NORMAL development of a Wikipedia article about a movie. As I wrote previously, there is no requirement for sources in an objective plot summary. Sources are only required when a plot summary becomes a criticism, analyzing the content in a subjective fashion.

You added:

"Neither the book, nor the film are that easy to come by."

Book?? The article is about the FILM (made-for-tv movie) and explicitly so. The film is available on YouTube in it entirety. If you personally have not seen it in years, that is not a flaw in the plot summary.

You concluded: "Secondly, without a source the risk of Wikipedia:CV is increased greatly, far better to have a paraphrase with a source, than a copyright violation without one". And that is just complete nonsense. There is no copyright violation here, and I really don't believe that you think there's a copyright violation here. So somebody wrote some text. Do you really not understand that this is how Wikipedia was built? Please stop vandalizing this article. Deleting good content is VANDALISM.2600:1000:B020:4CFF:C929:C1BA:DF67:7BF9 (talk) 06:35, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Just watched movie on YouTube and found the Plot listed on the Wikipedia page to be accurate. It was also more complete than what exists on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes. --Mindfill (talk) 23:56, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

"MattMason" offers another good synopsis on the NASA Spaceflight Forum except that it was 87 lb, not 89. --Mindfill (talk) 00:18, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Mission Patch

I've watched the first half hour of the film and noticed that the fictional mission patch is sufficiently visible in various scenes up to that point to allow the reconstruction of the full patch. I think it would make an interesting addtion to the page. I'm no good with graphics software so I'll leave that to anyone with the necessary skills who is interested. Graham1973 (talk) 03:40, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Cast?

This article needs a cast list & other credits. CFLeon (talk) 10:23, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Michael Georg Link

Can Michael Georg Link be the actor on this movie? --2003:F1:3706:6C33:74E4:A1F:A67E:EE20 (talk) 22:33, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

He is a german Politican... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:F1:3706:6C33:74E4:A1F:A67E:EE20 (talk) 22:34, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

He wasn't in the full cast list on IMDB. Since Georg was born in 1963, he would have been 11-12 y/o at the time of the movie release. --Mindfill (talk) 00:06, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

WOW! Nachricht aus dem All

There is a German Film wit a similar Plot:

WOW! Nachricht aus dem All

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR3mX9xAUfQ

https://constantin.film/kino/wow-nachricht-aus-dem-all/ Rasmusklump (talk) 12:22, 1 August 2023 (UTC)