Final Countdown
Aug. 11th, 2004 02:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caraigWho-all remembers this movie? late 80's, came out about the same time the Intrepid became the Sea-Air-Space Museum of New York. Pretty much a Navy promo-film before Top Gun came along. Science fiction and with Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen.
The basic premise is that the USS Nimitz, a nuclear aircraft carrier, gets pulled back in time by a weird storm to 06 December 1941. It's been estimated that a modern CVN/CVA has firepower equal to all that expended in the Second World War. So obviously this should cause some serious ethical quandries. Well, it doesn't quite happen that way, which is a shame. Then again, the film was just a fun bit of fluff. And for some reason it depressed me.
I have very little idea. I remember enjoying the film quite a bit. Granted it appealed mostly to the technofetishist miligeek in me to see the modern jet fighters splash two propeller-era Zeroes. It also was cool seeing carrier operations. When I originally tried to get into naval aviation, the recruiter said that Top Gun had made a lot of people want to be fighter pilots, but I knew that hadn't been it. I never watched Top Gun in fact I had no desire to see Top Gun. I remember feeling bitter about that, since I felt that I hadn't needed some Tom Cruise vehicle to make me want to be a pilot. 'Course I'll never be a military pilot, not the least reason being that my vision is not nearly good enough. I'm just not, at this time in my life, cut out for the military life (nor do I want to be in the military again at this time, despite repeated dreams lately where I am again back in uniform. More on that after the cut.)
Anyway, back on topic. So it mystifies me why this should be at all remotely depressing. The story used to be rather cool to me, and it's a touch of nostalgia to watch the movie. The "surprise ending" was rather neat, and I know the movie affected my ideas for approaching time travel in fiction for... well, ever since, actually. And let's be reasonable, this was not Oscar quality work here! It's just supposed to be a fun film.
Well. I think this is one thing that'll have to be a mystery. The ending was kind of bittersweet.
Today coming out of the grocery store I had another one of those moments of memetic clarity, in that the air and wind was just right that it reminded me of one of those days in Florida when I'd be pushing my cart out of Albertsons for some after-class shopping and the clouds were starting to gather, but there was no cooling wind yet though you could tell that it was going to rain even if it didn't really feel like it yet.
Oh, yeah. And I had a buffalo burger again after so long. I don't know who of you out there have ever had buffalo, but let me tell you: if you haven't, you're missing out. The stuff is LEAN. A bit dry but with a touch of char-broiling it tastes... yum. I can do quite well without the fat, kthxbye. If you are at all omnivorous, carnivorous, or bambivorous you should try one.
Also finished reading Dan Brown's Deception Point. Same Dan brown of The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons. He's got a great attention to detail and stuff that at least sounds like it's scientific fact. And of course, the villain isn't quite who you expect it to be. Though I hope he doesn't pull that in many more of his books. it'll get so that you're going to start looking for the least likely person to be the villain and probably won't be disappointed.
So. Enough lollygaggling. Still bugged that a fluffy movie like Final Countdown got to me. There's no REASON for it to.
By the way, anyone know anything about an anime called RahXephon? It looks to be a bit different from the usual run of anime.
Okay, that's it for me for now. Pax. ^^
The basic premise is that the USS Nimitz, a nuclear aircraft carrier, gets pulled back in time by a weird storm to 06 December 1941. It's been estimated that a modern CVN/CVA has firepower equal to all that expended in the Second World War. So obviously this should cause some serious ethical quandries. Well, it doesn't quite happen that way, which is a shame. Then again, the film was just a fun bit of fluff. And for some reason it depressed me.
I have very little idea. I remember enjoying the film quite a bit. Granted it appealed mostly to the technofetishist miligeek in me to see the modern jet fighters splash two propeller-era Zeroes. It also was cool seeing carrier operations. When I originally tried to get into naval aviation, the recruiter said that Top Gun had made a lot of people want to be fighter pilots, but I knew that hadn't been it. I never watched Top Gun in fact I had no desire to see Top Gun. I remember feeling bitter about that, since I felt that I hadn't needed some Tom Cruise vehicle to make me want to be a pilot. 'Course I'll never be a military pilot, not the least reason being that my vision is not nearly good enough. I'm just not, at this time in my life, cut out for the military life (nor do I want to be in the military again at this time, despite repeated dreams lately where I am again back in uniform. More on that after the cut.)
Anyway, back on topic. So it mystifies me why this should be at all remotely depressing. The story used to be rather cool to me, and it's a touch of nostalgia to watch the movie. The "surprise ending" was rather neat, and I know the movie affected my ideas for approaching time travel in fiction for... well, ever since, actually. And let's be reasonable, this was not Oscar quality work here! It's just supposed to be a fun film.
Well. I think this is one thing that'll have to be a mystery. The ending was kind of bittersweet.
Today coming out of the grocery store I had another one of those moments of memetic clarity, in that the air and wind was just right that it reminded me of one of those days in Florida when I'd be pushing my cart out of Albertsons for some after-class shopping and the clouds were starting to gather, but there was no cooling wind yet though you could tell that it was going to rain even if it didn't really feel like it yet.
Oh, yeah. And I had a buffalo burger again after so long. I don't know who of you out there have ever had buffalo, but let me tell you: if you haven't, you're missing out. The stuff is LEAN. A bit dry but with a touch of char-broiling it tastes... yum. I can do quite well without the fat, kthxbye. If you are at all omnivorous, carnivorous, or bambivorous you should try one.
Also finished reading Dan Brown's Deception Point. Same Dan brown of The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons. He's got a great attention to detail and stuff that at least sounds like it's scientific fact. And of course, the villain isn't quite who you expect it to be. Though I hope he doesn't pull that in many more of his books. it'll get so that you're going to start looking for the least likely person to be the villain and probably won't be disappointed.
So. Enough lollygaggling. Still bugged that a fluffy movie like Final Countdown got to me. There's no REASON for it to.
By the way, anyone know anything about an anime called RahXephon? It looks to be a bit different from the usual run of anime.
Okay, that's it for me for now. Pax. ^^
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 07:36 am (UTC)First time I'd ever seen a weather systems successfully sneak up on somebody, especially a carrier.
Going by some comments he has made, John Ringo is looking at taking the concept from that, and turning it into a novel, though with a different ending ... and not a carrier, I think he was talking about some kind of Marine carrier or something, I can't remember clearly.
RahXephon, I've seen all of it, and did like a lot of it. Though I got to say, it does come across a lot of the time like an Neon Genesis Evangelion clone ... with differences.
Some bits are better, some bits are worse, and unlike NGE, at no point did I really get the intense feeling the writers had moved past doing a few tabs of acid, and into mainlining LSD by the liter, while whacking off over their typewriters. (ok, I had a few 'issues' with the proper ending movie for NGE, I admit it)
It's certainly watchable, and some of the toys the 'good guys' have in it are fairly cool, I just love the first look you get at one of their fighters in the sky over Tokyo.
I think that's the first time in anime I've seen a fighter launching counter-missiles, as opposed to just decoys or flares, or shooting them down with gunfire.
Another anime with cool mech action I saw around the same time that I enjoyed more then either was Gasaraki, which I highly recommend.
Brett
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 08:43 am (UTC)Ra Xephon has the flaw of really totally unlikeable "loner asshole" characters. I am much more enjoying "Last Exile", which is Studio Gonzo's anime from last year.
I used to have the 12 LP of the soundtrack to "The Final Countdown". I so wanted the Carrier to stop the attack, but no.. it didn't. A bit of a disappointment. Another Carrier Movie I liked was "FLight of the Intruder", which wasn't about Fighters for a change. :-)
Scott
Scott