I'm going to start off this video a little differently than usual.
While making this, I have a had a certain song stuck in my head the entire time,
and I feel the need to share it with you. Now, in order to avoid legal copyright
disputes--even though I believe this to be well within the boundaries of fair use--I
can't play the actual song, but I can show you somebody playing it on the keyboard.
So, without further ado, I'm going to hand things over to my son, Thomas.
Just so we're clear, that song--which if you don't know is the 1986 song "The Final Countdown"
by the Swedish rock band Europe--doesn't seem to be related to the subject of today's video.
Aside from a dubious, uncited entry in IMDb's trivia page that claims the song was inspired
by just the title of the film, the lyrics and tone have nothing in common with it, but hey,
since I had to have it in my head this whole time, now you get to have it in yours.
While on routine operations off the coast of Hawaii, the aircraft carrier the USS Nimitz
encounters a storm unlike anything seen before. Once on the other side of it, the crew of the
Nimitz discovers that something is very wrong: they've traveled back in time nearly forty years,
to December the Sixth, 1941, just one day before the momentous attack on Pearl Harbor.
With the firepower and technology of the future, they could easily intercept and
defeat the entire Japanese fleet, but what are the potential ramifications of messing with the past
and to what authority does the Nimitz answer? They must decide quickly, because
the Japanese draw ever closer with every passing minute, as the clock counts down to history.
Before we go any further, if you could please hit that like button, we might be able to prevent an
imminent disaster. If you really do like this video, don't forget to subscribe as well.
Thank you in advance. With that out of the way, let's get back to the subject at hand.
At the age of 23, Peter Vincent Douglas began working on the first film he would make as a lead
producer. Originally titled The Last Countdown, the script went through multiple writers--Gerry
Davis, Thomas Hunter, Peter Powell, and David Ambrose--and was dismissed by all
the major studios. However, Peter Douglas had an ace up his sleeve in the form of his father,
Kirk Douglas, who happened to have his very own independent production company:
Bryna Productions. Together, they were able to secure seven million dollars in
funding from The Film Finance Group, another independent company that would co-produce
the film with founder Richard R. St. Johns serving as executive producer.
Peter Douglas then got the enthusiastic support of the U.S. Navy, which agreed to
allow the film crew access to the USS Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that was
one of the largest warships ever made, with a total length of well over a thousand feet.
Now, for perspective, that's about as long as the Chrysler Building is tall.
To direct, they brought in the actor-turned-director Don Taylor,
known for Escape from the Planet of the Apes, the 1973 version of Tom Sawyer,
and the 1977 version of The Island of Dr. Moreau. While he did do several made-for-TV movies until
his death in 1988, The Final Countdown would be his final theatrical release.
Kirk Douglas wanted the role of the commanding officer of the Nimitz, Captain Yelland,
but Peter Douglas, worried about accusations of nepotism,
had to be convinced to cast his father in the part.
"Geez, this has got to be a dream."
Similarly, Kirk Douglas was keen on getting one of his other sons,
Michael Douglas, to play the lead, Warren Lasky,
but Michael was too wrapped up in post-production and marketing for his own self-produced film, The
China Syndrome. Instead, they got Martin Sheen, fresh off his star-making turn in Apocalypse Now.
"You still think it's a dream?"
"It's a nightmare."
The female lead--and indeed the only woman in the entire film--is played by Katharine Ross,
known for The Graduate, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Stepford Wives.
For her boss, the fictitious senator Samuel Chapman, they hired Charles Durning,
known for The Sting, Dog Day Afternoon, and of course, The Muppet Movie.
"Frog legs, frog legs, frog legs so fine! Hopper's is the place
you should dine!"
Other notable actors include James Farentino as the CAG officer, Commander Owens, who--spoiler
alert--turns out to be Lasky's secret employer when Farentino and Ross don some unconvincing
make-up in the final moments of the film; the Korean-American actor Soon-Tek Oh as the Japanese
fighter pilot Shimura, whose casting has caused controversy among those who don't realize that
many Koreans fought for Japan in World War II; and the film's two producers in cameo roles: Troma
co-founder Lloyd Kaufman as this communications officer, and Peter Douglas as the Quartermaster.
"War. We're at war."
Filming began in May of 1979, almost entirely on location aboard the USS Nimitz,
with a few weeks with the ship in port in Norfolk, Virginia, and a total of eight days at sea
off the coastlines of the Florida Keys. With the ship and crew under full operations,
the production was forced into very small time windows each day, though there were
plenty of opportunities to get footage of planes launching and landing from the carrier, including
one emergency landing that was folded into the film's plot. However, the film crew twice fell
victim to the jet blast of launching aircraft, once tumbling down the side of a runway and
another time falling off the deck of the Nimitz and into its safety netting. It's also worth
pointing out that most of the Nimitz crew you see in the film is made up of the actual Nimitz crew,
who naturally do a good job demonstrating the real jargon and operations of the Navy at sea.
Occasionally, though, it is pretty easy to notice that they're not professional actors.
"Hold it, hold it, hold it!"
"Go hold your own."
"Who said that?"
"Chrissakes, Chief, all we want to know is what's going on."
A few smaller scenes were also filmed at Pearl Harbor,
with the USS Kitty Hawk standing in for the Nimitz.
Most of the first unit filming went relatively smoothly--despite the
on-the-fly nature of composing, setting up, and filming individual scenes--but the Navy
got increasingly involved in the second unit work, which was extensive. All of the aerial
shots--the dogfights, the helicopter scenes, et cetera--were done with the second unit,
under the direction of Hollywood pilot J. David Jones, who'd worked before on Apocalypse Now,
the 1966 Batman movie, and most relevantly, the Pearl Harbor film Tora! Tora! Tora!,
footage from which actually made its way into the climax of The Final Countdown.
Though the Navy's enthusiasm and expertise no doubt helped
lend these sequences of The Final Countdown a lot of authenticity,
the technical complications were frustrating for the film's producers and strained the
budget to the breaking point, leaving almost nothing left for the post-production effects.
The biggest of these was the time warp that serves as the primary plot device.
Credited to Maurice Binder, most famous for the James Bond title sequences, they were created
with a relatively simple smoke and laser effect. Despite being an astonishingly cheap effect, it's
probably one of the most iconic things about the movie, popping up in all the trailers and posters.
The music was composed by John Scott, who put together a triumphant, bombastic theme
that blares over most of the film, and though I do find it pretty grating and repetitive,
I can't deny it matches the movie's tone perfectly.
"I think we should give 'em another shot."
That theme was used for many years as the Nimitz's breakaway music, which is a unique
tune used during replenishment operations, varying from ship to ship throughout the Navy.
The Final Countdown released in August of 1980 to mixed reviews from critics but a warm response
from audiences, who gave it a total domestic box office gross of sixteen point six million dollars.
It proved to be a big hit during the home video boom and became a fixture on cable television
throughout the 80's and 90's. It was also used as a recruitment tool for the United States Armed
Forces, but that didn't stop the US government from filing a lawsuit against the film's producers
for undercounting the amount of hours Navy planes were used exclusively for the film,
resulting in a hefty, four-hundred-thousand dollar settlement.
Personally speaking, I do have fond memories growing up with this movie,
and as a notoriously nitpicky time travel enthusiast,
I appreciate the airtight rules and the simple exploration of the basics of time travel fiction.
"Oh, God damn it, you can drive yourself crazy just trying to think about this stuff!"
Still, as an adult, I can't help but be a bit critical of the story, which doesn't bother to
explain anything and which doesn't really contain much in the way of thematic depth or character
development. It's frustrating that the logic of Martin Sheen's character's place in the story is
left unexplored, that the conveniently-calibrated time vortex has no reason behind it, that the
romantic subplot feels bizarrely understated, and that the central conundrum is only solved by the
sudden reappearance of the storm rather than by any kind of organic, character-driven conclusion.
It also feels a bit like a glorified commercial for the Navy, but since I was raised with a
healthy appreciation for the military, that doesn't bother me too much, outside of the
fact that the movie spends an inordinate amount of time showing off the Nimitz and its aircraft
rather than telling its story. For the time, which shockingly is further away
from the present day than the film is from the attack on Pearl Harbor,
it was a pretty deep look at Navy operations during the Cold War,
and though it is predictably a bit sanitized, it never quite crosses the line into pure propaganda.
So, for anyone looking for a basic time travel yarn with the exciting premise of
a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier placed in the path of the invading Japanese fleet on December 7,
1941, it's absolutely an entertaining ride, and it's also a sci-fi classic.
And that's all for today, my fellow Earthlings. What are some of your favorite time travel movies?
Let me know in the comments, and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe if
you haven't already. If you'd like to support what I do even more, consider becoming a patron
to vote on future topics, access bonus content, and more. Also make sure to check out my podcast,
The Streaming Heap, available wherever you get your podcasts, and my debut novel, Paradox,
available on Amazon. Links are in the description and also on my website at emagill.com,
where you'll find written reviews of plenty more sci-fi classics in both film and literature.
Until next time, though, when we'll take a trip to the middle of the planet, this is The Unapologetic
Geek, telling you to never be ashamed of what you love, as long as you're not hurting anybody.
"Then what do you do?"
"One step at a time."
"Yeah, like a minefield."