Astronaut Neil Armstrong embarks on a historic mission to the moon in 1969. Source: Universal Pictures
Buzz Aldrin has criticised a Hollywood blockbuster about the moon landing in the wake of a controversy over the film being "un-American".
First Man, starring Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, has come under fire from conservatives for failing to show the iconic moment when the US flag was planted, by Armstrong and Aldrin, on the lunar surface in 1969.
In his first response to the row Aldrin, 88, posted on Twitter a still from footage of himself and Armstrong planting the US flag.
Aldrin accompanied the images with captions including "Proud to be an American," and "Freedom," and "One Nation".
He also posted a photograph of himself in a T-shirt depicting an astronaut planting a US flag on Mars.
His apparent criticism of the $70 million Hollywood project, which looks set to be an Oscars contender, was echoed by another legend of American air and space achievement.
Chuck Yeager, 95, the first test pilot to break the sound barrier, said: "That's not the Neil Armstrong I knew."
Yeager was responding to a Twitter user who suggested that Hollywood had portrayed Armstrong as a "liberal progressive, anti-Trump (in spirit) non-flag waver".
Gosling, who is Canadian, ignited the controversy last week at the Venice Film Festival.
He suggested that Armstrong, who died aged 82 in 2012, had not regarded himself as an "American hero," and that the accomplishment of reaching the moon "transcended countries and borders".
Marco Rubio, the Republican senator, called that "total lunacy," adding: "The American people paid for that mission, on rockets built by Americans, with American technology & carrying American astronauts. It wasn't a UN mission."
Former American astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Photo / NZPA
Ted Cruz, his fellow Republican senator, called the film "consistent with Leftists' disrespecting the flag and denying American exceptionalism".
Pete Hegseth, a prominent Fox News host, called Gosling an "idiot" and said it was "an American achievement bar none".
Rick and Mark Armstrong, sons of the astronaut, have denied the film is "anti-American".
Damien Chazelle, the French-Canadian director, said he had not intended to make a political statement, and had wanted to focus on Armstrong's personal journey rather than images everyone already recognised.
