YMMV / First Man

• Award Snub: The film was not nominated at the Academy Awards for Best Picture, the acting categories for the performances of Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy, and Best Score, despite Justin Hurwitz winning a Golden Globe for the score.
• Awesome Music: As to be expected, given that the film was scored by Justin Hurwitz, who also provided the music for La La Land.
  • After a very low key score for most of the film, the moon landing itself is given the full bombastic, heroic music it deserves.
  • The "docking waltz" between Gemini 8 and the Agena. Also something of a Shout-Out to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • "Crater", the track used at the end of the film when Neil drops the bracelet on the Moon utilises Karen's motif and combines it with the theremin used for the other Moon music in a heartbreaking way.
• Genius Bonus: An extremely macabre one: when the Gemini astronauts are returning from their mission, a reporter quotes a poem about them having "slipped the surly bonds of Earth." That line is probably better known nowadays from Ronald Reagan quoting it in a speech about the astronauts killed in the Challenger disaster.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Several people have noted parallels between this and Blade Runner 2049. Both films star Ryan Gosling in the lead role (playing a stoic, reserved character struggling internally with his emotions), both were released in October, both were critically acclaimed but financially disappointing, and they even both end with a man and a woman making a meaningful reunion through a pane of glass.
• Memetic Mutation: "Damien Chazelle faked the moon landing after all"^Explanation Due to how well-made the moon landing scene in this film is presented, people begin to joke on the old "Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landing" conspiracy theory by saying that Damien Chazelle was the one who actually did it. This also lead to conspiracy theorists taking the BTS footage from this movie and reuploading it whilst pretending it is "top secret footage from NASA" which unfortunately tricks some deniers.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The opening with Neil flying an X-15 to the edge of the atmosphere, including a red glow as friction builds outside and the plane nearly bouncing off into space.
  • Even if you know it's coming, watching Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee broil to death in the Apollo 1 cockpit is a deeply disturbing experience.
  • Gemini 8 spinning out of control is very intense.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: For various scenes, including those of the moon launch and the mission itself, the VFX team used actual NASA archival footage (including some that has never been released before). The team then filled in the missing details on each side of the footage to make it fit the widescreen resolution of the film. This was done so that, when people saw these scenes, they would match their memories of the footage from the actual mission.

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