10 Times Movies Changed Real Life For Being Too Unbelievable

There's no denying the majorly dramatic stakes of Apollo 13's true story - a perilous botched lunar mission in which three astronauts (played by Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton) are eventually returned safely to Earth following an onboard explosion.

On paper this setup surely didn't require director Ron Howard to do much in terms of hamming up the pre-existing tension, except that because the real failed Apollo 13 mission was actually a relatively calm affair, it was decided to embellish the situation and depict the embattled trio as incredibly stressed out.

And honestly, why wouldn't they be?

And yet, transcripts from the mission are a matter of public record and show that the three remained calm, didn't squabble, and simply went about trying to find a way out of their predicament.

Yet if Howard had translated this verbatim to the big screen, it surely wouldn't have been nearly as enthralling to watch, nor would the movie likely have wound up with nine Oscar nominations (of which it won two).