User reviews

As others have mentioned, this movie would have more meaning had it depicted events after the Challenger explosion, as well as before. In respect to the families of those who were killed in the accident, I believe the producers chose not to depict the explosion itself.

The film is very engrossing and holds one's attention from beginning to end. The primary point is that bureaucracy and politics are often at odds with the value of human life.

The film is surprisingly well acted for a made-for-TV movie. Performances are believable and help us to understand and appreciate the lives and persona of those aboard the Challenger, and the sacrifice they made.

Families of those lost in the Challenger disaster I am sure appreciate the fact that this film did not exploit the sensationalism of the event, but instead concentrated on honoring the lives of those aboard and trying to understand the bureaucracy responsible for this tragedy.

I highly recommend you watch this film, as you will gain insight into the lives of the people who bravely accepted the risks of human exploration.

I remember seeing this movie 29 years ago when it was on TV. Then it was just a story of a terrible tragedy. Now in 2019 I am seeing a bit of this movie in a training class about "group think" and how to avoid similar situations as the Challenger accident. I do see many reviews from 15-17 years ago that were not kind to the movie. Just know that while you may have not liked the way history was presented, the movie is working well in training new viewers how to avoid a similar situation.

Just a note to say that I happened on Challenger, the TV movie from c. 1990 tonight on cable and came here to IMDB to see what I could find - because I thought it was kind of interesting. Found I was even more interested in the few comments I found here (no reviews).

It was also interesting to me that the "rating" votes from those 60 something people who made a choice were all over the map, but the two (statistically significant?), most often chosen numbers, were 6 and 7. That's about right. (I'm giving it a six.)

But, to get to the main point <s>, all but one of the comments written in for the movie were trashing and what I would call trashy: all of them seemed to be hugely swayed by the subject of the show. Too "meaningful", too "important for our nation"??? The fact, I'm pretty sure, is that Challenger is a somewhat better than average docudrama. And Karen Allen is a distinguished actor. And almost all of the rest of the cast were at least OK. I thought the tone set was quite good, trying pretty successfully for "this is the way it was". No melodrama, no Hollywood "effects", just straight ahead "documentary" acting and other movie skills. Not overwritten.

It's hard for me to figure where the low average of the comments came from. Something I guess about the subject being too Big and Serious (in the pseudo sense, non gravitas) for anyone, particularly the automatically suspect TV movie crowd, to make a respectable film about. I guess. ??? Interesting.

I revisited this for the first time in 14 years after watching more recent docudramas of the space program like "Apollo 13" and "From The Earth To The Moon" to see how well it held up. I have no problem with the acting, or the manner in which the Challenger's crew is depicted. What I do think hurts this film though is the decision to not depict the explosion and the aftermath and just end it with the launch. I realize this was done because in 1990, the events were still too fresh in public memory to want to see the images of disaster again, but this decision ultimately hurts the film's ability to be a long-term definitive telling of the story. What was needed instead was a flashback framing device of the Rogers Commission investigation, with Roger Beaujolay and Lawrence Molloy being subjected to the painful admissions of what went wrong, and how they were impacted by the tragedy. And thumbs down for the cheesy ending of the Challenger astronauts reciting the poem one line at a time instead of providing something more moving like President Reagan's remarks to the nation that afternoon.

For all it's virtues, the story of the "Challenger" disaster ultimately deserves a better treatment than this version gave it because it was simply made too soon after the tragedy for there to be appropriate perspective.

I was a young man in the first year in my new career after college when the challenger exploded. It was heartbreaking. There was a teacher being shown standing next to a TV set showing the even to her grade school class. After the shuttle exploded she burst into tears and was unconsciously hitting the old style tv set. Thirty two years later I came across Challenger on some obscure channel while channel surfing during a Sunday football game-break.

Challenger is not a great film. But it is a good one. The acting is solid. The story about whether to launch or not, the astronauts and their families were portrayed well. In retrospect you wonder how anyone would have considered launching with all that ice. And . It brought back the memories and feelings of those sad days. I'm very glad they didn't show the explosion. Challenger was about the people. As the crew was about to lift off, each astronaut was shown in the shuttle, voicing over lines from John Magee's poem "High Flight". The final verse of that poem is: "Up, up the long, delirious burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or ever eagle flew - And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod The high un-trespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

This movie serves as a great teaching tool to show how difficult it is to express idea's and ask the right questions in a high stress environment. It also shows how culture can effect a persons ability to communicate and for compliance even when they have strong thoughts and feeling on a subject. You here the unfolding of a tragic set of events driven by hidden goals and values and a lack of a clear understanding of the views others are expressing and why. Truly an in site into how good intentions can go wrong when institutional culture and pressures meet individual concerns. Ideas can fail to be communicated clearly and effectively.

There have been some great or plausible movies or made for television films focusing on disasters or news events in history, such as 'Alive' and 'Hillsborough'. Sadly, 'Challenger' isn't one of them.

It perhaps could've been improved with not leaving the launch until the end of the film, and instead perhaps leaving it until about two thirds of the way through, leaving room for the investigation into the Disaster. It hardly breaks new ground either, apart from maybe that the teachers knew before the White House conference who was chosen to go into space.

Although i have not minded her in other films, i don't think Karen Allen was anywhere near the ideal choice to play Christa McAuliffe, she was at times irritating and wooden occasionally too, it also seemed to rely on her looks more than her acting ability, and also over-done the scene where she makes her speech at the White House about taking ten souls on board with her.

The disaster happened in 1986, the film was made 1990, a bit too early in my opinion. Had it been made at present times, less emotional feeling would be used during the making of it, I'm not saying that it's wrong, just that you can tell it was obvious it was made in a time when the world was still not fully over the shock of the disaster.

May all seven astronauts rest peacefully. May this film have reached its potential and not been a disappointment.

We all knew it was inevitable--somebody would want to make a TV movie out of such a heart-wrenching tragedy.

And they did, despite the fact that it was only a few years afterward. And despite the fact that the astronauts' families begged the producers not to go through with it.

The writer said he was curious to see how these seven people ended up together on that fateful day. How dare he even begin to think he knew what went on in these people's lives?

I watched a bit of it. It was so bad I wanted to puke.

I hope the producers and the network are happy about the families' wounds they re-opened when this thing aired.

While this movie is clearly lacking in some respect, it also clearly outlines the events leading to the disaster. While I respect the wishes of the families with regard to this movie, they are clearly misplaced as this movie led me to seek a more though answer to the questions it raised. I find it hard to see how this movie pays anything but respect to those who lost their lives in this accident. The worst criticism that I can level at this movie is that the story and characters are somewhat melodramatic - but so was all that was made of this tragedy. It remains the most comprehensive account of this incident that is generally accessible. If one really wants a comprehensive account of the causes of the accident then they should read the Presidential Commission Report on the accident - otherwise watch the movie.

I was waiting for a bus in southern India when I noticed the headlines in a Tamil newspaper banner announcing the Challenger disaster. Being interested in Space, I was saddened. In the following days, the Soviet Union callously spread a disinformation story in some Indian newspapers charging that the Challenger was secretly carrying explosives as part of a clandestine plot to militarize Space. Therefore, I watched "Challenger" with interest when it was first shown on television in 1990. I liked it then. I am not sure I'll think so now. Here are the impressions this film made on me at that time.

I identified with Julie Fulton as Dr.Judy Resnick, because of the character's feminism, an ideology in which I believed - at that time. I was a little annoyed by Christa McAuliffe because as a Social Studies teacher she proclaims (in the movie) that there are too many scientists in the Space Program and not enough ordinary people. The film only hints at the role of Roger Boisjoly, an engineer who urged NASA to cancel the Challenger flight because of faulty O-ring seals. Like all engineers, he was overruled (you guessed it; I am an engineer). The film follows the lives of the doomed astronauts during their final days - I was rather moved by that. Strangely, the film never shows the famous Challenger disaster footage. Maybe, it was too well-known.

(Reviewed by Sundar Narayan)

Granted,this movie could have been much worse. But, having it as a TV movie rather than a Ron Howard production, or even a little miniseries like "From Earth to the Moon" was a big mistake. They just couldn't get as detailed as they should've. I believe that Christa McAuliffe's mother Grace Corrigan referred to this movie as 'a bit of fluff'. Guess the writers didn't really do much research into this thing. While Karen Allen usually does a great job in whatever movie she's in, she just wasn't convincing as Christa. Plus, she didn't even look like her - she looked more like Barbara Morgan (Christa's back-up teacher) with curly hair, or maybe some distant cousin of Sally Ride. And I couldn't help but think someone in the casting department had a sick sense of humor - Barry Bostwick was cast to play Dick Scobee. Remember how lovely Barry looked in those fishnet pantyhose in 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'? Bad casting choice...

I very much enjoyed the film.... perhaps it was filmed too soon after the tragedy, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a good movie. My question is why the DVD version of the movie was cut by 20 minutes -- only 140 minutes of the 160-minute movie?