Sfdebris.net

https://sfdebris.com/videos/films/finalcountdown.php

I think it was a decent review.

A thoroughly decent review of a perfectly cromulent movie.

Well, here's my opinion: nothing happens in this movie. Even in something like The Man from Earth, there's discussion, we get insight into the characters. Here, the Nimitz just kinda dithers about, indecisive about what to do. It's like the first part of a story; Martin Sheen meeting the forty-years older commander in the car ought to setup to something else, as opposed to "Welp, that happened."

The short length of the synoptic review can probably credit the minimal narrative to why it was so short by comparison to others. For example, The Matrix and The Contagion review were both an about an hour long. Even if you say half the review was Chuck going off on tangents, both spend more than twice the time than this one on the synopsis.

I will just repost the link to my blog on this movie.

I watched this for the first time on Netflix back in 2013.
I generally found it disappointing.
https://rocketboy1313.blogspot.com/2013 ... tdown.html

I watched this film once frankly it feels like an overlong episode of the twilight zone or the Outer Limits. I was puzzled by Chuck's claim that was Martin Sheen's last feature film because I'm pretty sure he's done films since then.

Was the famous song written for the film? Everything I can find says that it was written long after.

I haven't seen this film, but when Chuck showed the scene of the Nimitz contacting Pearl Harbour, only for them to ignore their warning, I could only be reminded that this kind of thing happened for the real Pearl Harbour, how a lack of communication and indecisiveness lead to Japans declaration of war not being sent on the time is was supposed to and the people in-charge not taking action until it was too late.

Also if anyone is interested in a Pearl Harbour film, I highly recommend Tora! Tora! Tora!

unknownsample wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 4:02 am I watched this film once frankly it feels like an overlong episode of the twilight zone or the Outer Limits. I was puzzled by Chuck's claim that was Martin Sheen's last feature film because I'm pretty sure he's done films since then.

Pretty sure he was talking about the director when he said it was his last feature film.

Link8909 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 11:14 am I haven't seen this film, but when Chuck showed the scene of the Nimitz contacting Pearl Harbour, only for them to ignore their warning, I could only be reminded that this kind of thing happened for the real Pearl Harbour, how a lack of communication and indecisiveness lead to Japans declaration of war not being sent on the time is was supposed to and the people in-charge not taking action until it was too late.

Also if anyone is interested in a Pearl Harbour film, I highly recommend Tora! Tora! Tora!

Not just that--there was a very intense bureaucratic turf war back in 1941 between various branches of naval intelligence that prevented decrypted intelligence from getting disseminated to Kimmel's command staff at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Edwin Layton (who would rise to greater prominence at and after Midway, where he and his command staff cracked the Japanese battle plan) was particularly bitter about this, and a few years after this movie was released, published an account of that in the book, "And I was There." The gist of it was that the office of naval intelligence in Washington tried to hold a monopoly on all codebreaking and, though it had deciphered Japanese diplomatic messages, did not provide them to Hawaii--instead giving contradictory and confusing warnings about the possibility of Japanese strikes on the Philippines, Malaya, or the Soviet Union.

Otherwise, I'm with Rocketboy1313--the movie fizzles out before anything really interesting happens. If it were made today, when studios bank on a franchise lasting a decade and convincing effects shots can be provided relatively cheaply, it would have been done differently, I think. But back in 1980, when these kinds of franchises were still in their infancy, that's a harder sell for a studio.

But Chuck's point about this movie being, in many ways, the spiritual predecessor of Top Gun (in that it's basically Navy-glorifying military porn starring the F-14 Tomcat) is one I hadn't considered before. I hadn't thought about the contrast between this film and the earlier, more cynical Vietnam-era war films.

youtu.be/NNiTxUEnmKI


Well if Chuck's not gonna play it... I WILL