| I suppose you can't really blame us. We're the victims | | | | "We've had a problem" is certainly not as action |
| of our own popular culture. While everyone is perfectly | | | | packed as "We have a problem." "We've had" implies |
| familiar with the famous words, "Houston, we have a | | | | some prior event that has since ended, or nebulously |
| problem," those words were in fact not the ones | | | | so. "We have" means they're in the thick of it. They're |
| spoken from within the Apollo 13 spacecraft on April | | | | in trouble and they know it, but did they know it? The |
| 11th, 1970. The real exchange that took place between | | | | astronauts were reporting a Main B Bus undervolt that |
| the command module pilot, John Swigert Jr., mission | | | | had happened. They were not predicting the |
| commander Jim Lovell, and the CAPCOM (short for | | | | immediate and harrowing catastrophe that was then |
| Capsule Communicator) on duty at the time, Jack | | | | befalling them. They were actually using perfect |
| Lousma, went like so: | | | | grammar. |
| Swigert: "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here." | | | | So maybe the writers weren't concerned with |
| Lousma: "This is Houston. Say again, please." | | | | grammatical correctness, nor historical accuracy. |
| Lovell: "Uh, Houston, we've had a problem. We've had | | | | Maybe they only cared about the drama, but are the |
| a Main B Bus undervolt." | | | | actual words not somehow compelling? These men |
| Lousma: "Roger Main B undervolt." | | | | were drifting through space in a craft that looks like it's |
| The line everyone is so familiar with was a slight | | | | being held together by aluminum foil. Suddenly |
| historical revision, made by the writers of the film script | | | | something explodes on its exterior, and pure, very |
| for Apollo 13. Because it was the tagline for the film, | | | | flammable oxygen gas is encircling them like a halo. |
| the new phrase was repeated over and over on | | | | The uncertainty of "We've had" implies that the men |
| countless movie promotions and plastered across | | | | see, for a brief moment, the precariousness of their |
| every poster. This isn't necessarily a big deal. It | | | | position. It's the point before realization and action that |
| certainly doesn't modify the meaning in any irreparable | | | | can only be described as terror, and can't a man be |
| way. All they really decided to do was change the | | | | terrified about a very real threat to his life staring him in |
| tense from past perfect (have had) to the present | | | | the face? Even for a moment? |
| (have). | | | | Perhaps that's not heroic enough. They wouldn't be |
| But if we can accept that it's not a big deal to simply | | | | nearly as daring as they seem when they say, "We |
| change the tense, then why change it at all? Consider | | | | have a problem." What's more, if the writers were |
| first a possible argument on the part of the writers. | | | | looking to inflate their heroism, then Swigert and Lovell |
| Past perfect tense is, well, passive. | | | | could just as easily have been downplaying the |
| When you're writing a script you need an inciting | | | | severity for the ground crew and attempting to keep |
| incident, something that grabs the narrative flow and | | | | both themselves and their fellow crewmembers calm. |
| hurls it down its dramatic path. When writing a story | | | | Is that not heroic? |
| about the Apollo 13 disaster, it's hard, no impossible to | | | | Of course, we've already decided that this isn't that big |
| not set up this exchange as your inciting incident. As | | | | of a deal. The basic meaning remained, and American |
| the crux of the plot, the line was destined to be the tag | | | | public who would otherwise go entirely uninformed |
| line, and apparently it's insanity to write a tagline in the | | | | about the heroism of the Apollo 13 crewmen were |
| passive voice. At the outside, I can accept that. | | | | properly inspired one of NASA's finest hours. |