If you’re trying to be backhanded about First Man, it wasn’t about the first men, it was about the first man, singular. Hence the title. It wasn’t supposed to be some grandiose space epic that focused on the moon landing as a patriotic historical achievement. It was an intimate biopic about one particular person and how his career and familial struggles affected him.

Also not to mention that the entire flag process was a shitshow during Apollo 11 and would’ve been really stupid to include in the movie. They fumbled around with that thing for 20 minutes and barely got it to stand up for the couple of hours that they were on the Moon. Buzz said it fell over when they took off to rendezvous with Collins. We didn’t need to see the flag to be reminded that those were Americans on the moon, if you can’t make the connection without seeing the flag then you need to pay more attention.