The Final Countdown

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The Final Countdown
The Final Countdown DVD cover
Directed by	Don Taylor
Produced by	Peter Vincent Douglas
Written by	Thomas Hunter, Peter Powell, David Ambrose, Gerry Davis
Starring	Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross, James Farentino, Ron O'Neal, Charles Durning
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	August 1, 1980
Running time	103 min
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Final Countdown is also the name of an album and song by the rock band Europe.

The Final Countdown is a 1980 science fiction movie starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross, and the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. It was directed by Don Taylor.

1 Plot
2 Trivia
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The setting is the year 1980. Kirk Douglas is Captain Matthew Yelland, commanding officer of Nimitz, who has been ordered to take on a civilian observer Warren Lasky, played by Martin Sheen. Lasky's boss Mr. Tideman, watches Lasky's departure from inside a limousine, his face concealed from both the audience and Lasky, who has never actually met him face to face. Tideman helped design Nimitz, and Lasky's assignment is to watch and make recommendations while the ship goes on exercises near Hawaii. When Air Wing Commander Owen (James Farentino) mildly confronts him about disrupting the ship's operations that are working just fine, Lasky replies, "There are always alternatives, commander."

The ship encounters a strange storm vortex, which disappears after they pass through. Then they find that all the usual communication with shore has been cut off. There is only static, even from the White House, except for World War II broadcasts, and a very old Jack Benny radio skit. One of the crewmen overhears the senior staff's bewilderment before Yelland dismisses him, and he panics as he tells a disbelieving buddy that World War III has begun.

Yelland dispatches a reconnaissance plane to Pearl Harbor, and two F-14A Tomcats to patrol locally. The Tomcat pilots are surprised to encounter two "mint condition" Japanese A6M Zeros, as are the Zero pilots to see jet aircraft. They also fly over a pleasure craft, which has fictional Senator Samuel S. Chapman (Charles Durning), his secretary Laurel Scott (Katharine Ross), and Chapman's friend Harvey on board. They marvel at the speed of these "rocket planes," and Chapman wonders about the American insignia. His position in the Senate keeps him informed of all military hardware, but he's naturally never heard of anything like the Tomcats.

The Zeros strafe the boat to kill the passengers, so that they cannot warn Pearl Harbor of foreign aircraft. Chapman, Laurel, Harvey and Laurel's dog manage to dive off before the Zeros make another pass, which hits the ship's fuel tank and makes it explode. When the Zeros turn for another run, Chapman and Laurel remove their life vests so they can duck underneath the water's surface. They escape, but Harvey does not. Unwilling to remove his life vest, he shouts "I can't swim" a few seconds before being shot up.

When the F-14s report what happened, Yelland orders them to "play" with the Zeros but not destroy them. The pilots perform amazing maneuvers like diving toward the water and pulling up at the last second, feats impossible for World War II-era planes. (Though in truth, when this sequence was filmed, the Tomcat pilot tried to follow one of the Zero's slow barrel rolls, but miscalculated the low speed maneuver and lost a considerable amount of altitude, far more than intended, which prompted a hasty full-afterburner recovery at the last moment.) The Japanese pilots appear impressed but shoot at them anyway. Some of the bullets narrowly miss one of the F-14s, prompting the pilot to wonder what they were doing. Later, Yelland orders them to "splash the Zeros," which proves no difficult task. One F-14 fires a missile and obliterates one Zero, and the other fires its rotary cannon to down the other. That Zero's pilot survives the watery crash. He is also rescued when Yelland sends an SH-3 Sea King helicopter to pick up Chapman and Laurel.

The recon plane returns with a photograph that Lasky finds familiar. It perfectly matches one that Owen is using for his upcoming World War II book: the scene is of the Pearl Harbor naval forces on December 6, 1941, the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Now Captain Yelland has the dilemma of deciding whether to use the awesome power of the Nimitz to foil the Japanese attack and alter the course of history, or to stand by and allow history to proceed as "normal". (Thus, the standard dilemma in every time-travel film; if the history timeline is altered, it's possible the Nimitz might never be built. Which would mean the ship never travels back to 1941, which restores history, so the Nimitz does get built, etc., etc.) In a sub-plot, Martin Sheen's character realizes that Senator Chapman was originally reported missing in the "original" history; he should have been killed by the Zeros. By surviving the attack, Chapman is in line to become President Roosevelt's next running mate, then president after Roosevelt's death in 1945.

The one surviving Japanese pilot (Soon-Tek Oh) uses a moment of distraction for a soldier who isn't war-sharp to kill guards and take Laurel as a hostage. He is shot after Commander Owen distracts him by giving detailed information about the Japanese plans. Chapman demands to see the captain and questions Yelland about the information that Owen told the Japanese airman to shock him, then demands to speak by radio with Pearl Harbor. Yelland agrees, knowing what will happen. Once Chapman tells the radio operator at Pearl that he's aboard the Nimitz, the operator accuses Chapman of making a crank call. Chapman then looks around at the senior staff and asks what's going on, receiving only stares. Then he demands to be flown to Pearl.

To get the Senator and his secretary out of the way, Yelland pretends to agree, but he secretly orders Owen to take them to a desert island north of Oahu where they'll be safe. As they arrive, Chapman realizes that he's been conned, and attempts to hijack the helicopter, an SH-3 Sea King. During a struggle with one of the helicopter crewmen, he accidentally fires a flare inside, killing himself and the flight crew. Owen and Scott are stranded, and Nimitz's crew believes they, too, are dead. Meanwhile, Yelland makes the decision to intercept the incoming Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but during the attempt, the freak storm returns and sends the ship back to 1980.

At the conclusion, Tideman's limousine is waiting to meet the "Nimitz" ship on her return to her homeport. As the chauffeur introduces Lasky to "Mr. and Mrs. Tideman", Lasky sees that they are a now aged Owen and Laurel. They had become wealthy from Owen's knowledge of then-future technology.

[edit] Trivia

This was Nimitz' and the F-14 Tomcat's movie debut.
Nimitz was actually played by Ranger (CV-61), which would later play the part of the Enterprise in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Top Gun.
The F-14 Tomcats featured in the movie are from the VF-84 Jolly Rogers Squadron.
The photograph that is shown to have been from the recon plane was actually taken from a Japanese aircraft during the Pearl Harbor attack itself.
A novelization of the movie has been written by Martin Caidin.
The Philadelphia Experiment also features a US Navy ship traveling in time (but forwards).
The Axis of Time novels deal with a similar situation where a US-led naval task force from the near future is sent back in time to World War II.
In a different take on the idea, the manga and anime Zipang has a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Yukinami-class Aegis escort going back in time to just before the Battle of Midway.
Lloyd Kaufman, who played a radio man in the movie (his character was also called 'Lloyd') says that The Final Countdown was the movie that made him say he never wanted anything to do with a major studio movie again.^[1]
The episode of Jack Benny's program that is piped in over Nimitz' loudspeaker (the clip of Eddie "Rochester" Anderson trying to get an issue of Esquire magazine from Benny's polar bear) is the correct episode for the period — except that in reality, it was broadcast after the attacks had occurred on December 7, with periodic interruptions for breaking bulletins out of Hawaii. Benny's show was broadcast on Sundays at 7 p.m. on both West and East coasts.
'Ultimate Power #4", published in March 2007 by Marvel Comics, features the fictional S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, which looks very much like a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier (with the capacity to fly), flying through an inter-dimensional portal. The setting bears a striking resemblence to the events depicted in 'The Final Countdown'.