Neil Armstrong Didn't Forget the Flag

History is usually airbrushed to remove a figure who has fallen out of favor with a dictatorship, or to hide away an episode of national shame. Leave it to Hollywood to erase from a national triumph its most iconic moment.

The new movie "First Man," a biopic about the Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, omits the planting of the American flag during his historic walk on the surface of the moon.

Ryan Gosling, who plays Armstrong in the film, tried to explain the strange editing of his moonwalk: "This was widely regarded in the end as a human achievement. I don't think that Neil viewed himself a...