I didn't think he was shown as an idiot. What was shown was how much of a media hog he was, which was sort of true.

To Movielib, about the Fireflies scene in The Right Stuff ...

Mate, I thought that was one of the scenes that made TRS such a great movie ... Kaufman injects the odd scene here & there for no reason other than to slow the pace, add some beauty, add something gentle to complement the macho ... fireflies is one such scene (giving excellent Ed Harris one of his very best scenes), as is the scene with the graceful fan-dancing lady at the dinner party ...

Dishonest? Artistic license maybe ... Whoever's wondering whether / not to buy this as a Blind Buy, I say - it's got STBB written all over it. Sure Thing Blind Buy. May not have as many computer special effects as Apollo 13, but it's 10x as exciting and stirring.

Thanks for the info, Decker. Rather disappointing but not a deal-breaker.

I said, "other than that wrong stuff, the rest of the film is quite great." I have had the letterboxed laserdisc for many years (I got it out to watch this scene again) and I have preordered the DVD. I do not mean to give the impression that I don't recommend it. I do, quite strongly.

But I think the "firefly" thing is a major flaw because they withheld the truth and jettisoned science in order to inject that phony mysticism. I realize different people react differently but for me it takes me right out of the movie during what should be one of its highest points. Also, it is unfair to the NASA scientists who are portrayed as baffled by it.

I question the need to create a mystery where none existed to add beauty and gentleness. The true explanation may be mundane but it is in no way uninteresting and the scene could have been just as gentle and beautiful within the context of the truth. After all, Tom Wolfe wrote a great, beautiful, awe-inspiring book without resorting to such cheap tricks.

This is not a space movie or even a movie about the space program. It is about the men who wanted nothing worse than to be better than each other at doing something that 10 years before was unimaginable.
And it is about one man who was probably better than all of them whose name was ALMOST lost by history.

I'm disappointed in the lack of a full length commentary also, but I've held off buying the original for so long I'll go ahead and get the SE.

You mean Chuck Yeager, right?