For the past four years, the Eagle documentary project has been the constant noise in my life. In the foreground when I was working on it—traveling, researching, writing, directing—and in the background when I was trying to sleep. Emphasis on “trying’. It was an ever present sound inspired by fifty years of dreams, playing on a loop, all day, every day, refusing to let me rest until it was finished.

As of this week, it’s finally growing quiet. 

It all started with the Eagle. A fictional spacecraft from a British television series I saw when I was seven years old. Something about that ship — its design, its purpose, the world it flew through — got into me and never let go. That was fifty years ago. Everything that has followed in my creative life has, in some way, been in conversation with that first obsession.

Beyond the Eagle Obsession: 50 Years of Fandom is complete. Locked and in the can. The companion film to The Eagle Obsession, and the second half of a two-film journey that began in August 2022 with a single question — what did the amazing science fiction of the Apollo era actually do to my generation? — and ends today with an answer built across four continents, dozens of interviews, roughly fifty hours of footage edited down into 87-minute and 65-minute films, and nearly $1.5 million raised through the belief and generosity of people who trusted me to see it through.

I feel two things at once. Relief that runs deeper than I know how to describe. And jubilation — pride in what my team accomplished. Both films are complete and are the best work I know how to make. And the mental weight of carrying this project every day for four years is finally lifting.

I want to say thank you.

To Denise, who lived every day of this with me and helped me work through the anguish and anxiety as I fought to keep the project alive for four years. 

To Fredrick, who edited both films through timelines that stretched far past what he signed on for. To Michael Nelson, who scored the films through his own personal challenges and still delivered a score that moves people to tears. To Tobias Richter, whose visual effects gave both films the visual grammar they needed to feel real. To Kelly Brown, whose animation brought sequences to life that no other technique could have. To Aaron Young, who has been a partner and counselor at every step. 

To the investors and Kickstarter backers who put real money into an unproven idea because they believed the story was worth telling. To every fan, artist, collector, and dreamer who let us into their homes and their lives to be part of these films.

To the cast — William Shatner, Gen. Charles Duke, Barbara Bain, Nick Tate, Dr. Sian Proctor, Kevin J. Anderson, Bill George, Aldo Spadoni, Jamie Anderson, Todd Morton, Chris Trice, Jan Wenneberg, and so many others — whose willingness to share their time and their voices made these films possible.

And to Brian Johnson.

Brian was one of the last interviews I did for The Eagle Obsession. He was central to Beyond the Eagle Obsession as well. He passed away during the final edit of the second film, and it made me very sad. But it also gave the film a purpose I did not fully see until he was gone. Beyond the Eagle Obsession is, in many ways, a celebration of the Eagle — the spacecraft he designed at Bray Studios more than fifty years ago — and of the man who dreamed it up. We tailored the film to hold his legacy properly, to make sure that his voice and his craft are remembered the way they deserve to be. 

What happens next: both films now go out into the world. Paul Hazen and Handshake Partners are actively representing us to major distributors. The Eagle Obsession will screen at Star Trek Las Vegas this week on August 6th. Both films will screen at Manchester: 1999 — the official 50th anniversary celebration of Space: 1999 — in Manchester, England, September 11–13. 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD editions will begin reaching fans this year. 

For today, though, I just want to sit with the fact that it’s done. That the noise in my head is finally quiet. That fifty years of dreams have been captured in two films that I am, without reservation, proud of.

Thank you for being part of this. All of it.

— Jeffrey