Before 1995, you had to be a space nut to remember much about Apollo 13. During the mission, the world stopped in its tracks while NASA struggled to save mission commander Jim Lovell and his crew. But like so many other events in the moon program, Apollo 13's dramatic rescue faded rapidly from the nation's consciousness. There were other things to think about: the environment, civil rights and, especially, the war in Vietnam.

All that changed when Ron Howard decided to bring Apollo 13's saga to the big screen. He got the idea from one of his colleagues at Imagine Films, Michael Bostick, son of Apollo flight controller Jerry Bostick. Howard liked the idea of telling the dramatic space rescue tale: it had the arc of a story, with a clear beginning, middle and ending -- a happy ending, at that.

From left, Kevin Bacon, Tom Hanks and Bill Paxton playing astronauts in the film Apollo 13.

For one thing, Howard concentrated on the real story. For the most part, he resisted the temptation of adding fake drama to a story that was already plenty dramatic. SPACE.com found only three exceptions worth noting.

The first is the friction between astronaut Fred Haise, played by Bill Paxton, and his crew mate Jack Swigert, who was substituted onto the crew at the last minute and is portrayed by Kevin Bacon. In reality, no such conflict existed between the men.

Also, the film portrays an engineer with the Grumman Corporation, who built the lunar module (LM), as a doubter who is only interested in keeping his job. Nothing could have been further from the truth; the "Grummies," as the LM teams were known, had a reputation as some of the most dedicated workers in the entire space program.

Finally, the motions of the spacecraft are depicted as being far more erratic than they actually were. This is true in the minutes following the explosion, and later, during the astronauts final "midcourse correction" rocket firing. In both scenes, the craft behaves like a bucking bronco; in reality, the motions were less extreme.

One of the best things about the movie is its focus on the mission's lesser-known heroes, the engineers of Mission Control. These people, who labored in back rooms and in the control room itself, are shown for what they were: Brilliant, dedicated -- and of course, nerdy -- players in Apollo's most harrowing story.

At Hanks' urging, the script was sprinkled with realistic "NASA-ese" jargon, giving the film added realism. The producers commissioned the teams at the Kansas Cosmosphere to create accurate replicas of the Apollo command-module and lunar-module interiors. Special-effects teams created truly stunning views of the spacecraft during its lunar journey.