A real-life story of a Mexican-American farmworker-turned-NASA flight engineer is the inspiration behind Amazon Studio’s latest hit, which is now available to stream online.
A Million Miles Away follows the story of José Hernández, and his journey to becoming the first Mexican-American astronaut. Based on Hernández’s autobiography, “Reaching for the Stars: The Inspiring Story of a Migrant Farmworker Turned Astronaut,” the film was originally tapped for Netflix, before being greenlit for Amazon Prime in February. A Million Miles Away is now streaming online free for Amazon Prime members.
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Directed by Alejandra Márquez Abella, the film stars Michael Pena as Hernández, whose early life sees him joining his family as migrant farm workers in California’s San Joaquin Valley. As Hernández details in his book, Reaching for the Stars, he didn’t learn to speak English until he was 12, and he often found himself being teased or bullied in school. Worse, many of his peers went on to a life of street crime, skipping school and joining gangs.
But the ever-inquisitive Hernández always had big dreams, even if his circumstances seem to dictate otherwise. And he credits his early love of space travel to one show in particular: “I came from a world bordered by limitations, primarily financial ones,” he writes in his autobiography. “Fortunately, as a child, I occupied myself with something that did not require any dinero, or money, because it was free. No one knew about my special hobby because I did not talk about it. Fueled by the scenes of Star Trek, I spent my time looking up at the sky, especially at night. At the time, I did not know exactly what had me mesmerized, but there was something up in the sky, or cielo, that had me fascinated. I spent hours in my bedroom, gazing through the window and staring up at the stars. I became oblivious to time. When I would finally fall asleep, it was to images of stars still latent in my mind.”
Amazon
After earning an engineering degree, Hernández would eventually end up joining the Johnson Space Center in Houston, but his dreams of heading into space were seemingly still far-fetched. Hernández was turned down by NASA eleven times before finally donning that now-famous orange space suit.
A Million Miles Away tells the inspiring tale of Hernández and his family’s journey from “their home in rural Mexico, to the fields of the San Joaquin Valley, to more than 200 miles above the Earth in the International Space Station.”
As Amazon says in a press release, the film is “a dazzling tribute to the loyalty and tenacity of the entire Hernández family, as well as anyone who dares to dream.”
Released in conjunction with Hispanic Heritage Month, A Million Miles Away is rated PG with a runtime of two hours and two minutes. Watch the movie online for free on Prime Video here.
