The Final Countdown (1980)
Directed by Don Taylor

Poster for The Final Countdown
Click for an enlargement

Kirk Douglas plays Captain Matthew Yelland, commander of Nimitz, who has been ordered to take on a civilian observer Warren Lasky, played by Martin Sheen. Lasky's boss, Mr. Tideman, helped design Nimitz, and Lasky's assignment is to watch and make recommendations while the ship goes on exercises near Hawaii .

Though at times you get the impression you are watching a recruiting film for the US Navy this film combines a good paradoxical time travel story with some great flying scenes, Mitsubishi A6M5's (Zeros) with a top speed of 351 mph versus Grumman F-14 Tomcat's with a top speed of Mach 2+...Ouch!

A modern nuclear aircraft carrier carries as much fire power as the whole Pacific fleet did in 1941. The potential for ending WWII in the Pacific before it even really began was not lost on Kirk Douglas, the captain, and the other men on the Nimitz.

Their ethical and time paradox dilemmas and their meeting with some very startled inhabitants of 1941 makes this one of the best time travel movies I have ever seen.

One thing the story does well is get one thinking about the 'what-if' scenario having the most modern carrier in today's fleet taking on the Japanese Navy almost 40 years prior. What a mismatch that would be in much the same way that Combat Air Patrol (CAP) Tomcats rendered the 'Zero's ' splashed! But, the very nature of Paradoxes would have rendered intervention potentially destructive to Nimitz and all aboard! That was the dilemma faced; Do we change history because we feel a conscious duty to tilt the war in our favour or do we choose to let nature take its course knowing full well the outcome if nothing is done? Four more Years of war and millions of lives or win a decisive victory and save all of the agony yet to come at the possible expense of destroying the fabric of space/time... Thorny, eh? As it turns out, history in this film was changed in a minor way but then again... was it? Possible predestination paradox, meaning events were supposed to happen the way they did.

If the Nimitz had stayed to fight, logistically it would have been possible... for a short time. Without access to spare parts, jet fuel and other means of support, the ship would have been nearly useless. True, this vessel class can steam for over 20 years on a fresh set of plutonium rods, but jets can't fly without fuel or spare parts! And just imagine trying to provision that ship with its crew of 5000 plus with 1940's technology! This ignores what the U.S. Government would have done once they got their hands on Nimitz and her technology back then! The debriefing would never end for those people! And imagine the changes to history then! (Could be a whole other movie!)

There are loads of great "movie moments," including the Tomcats vs. Zeros dogfight, the captured Japanese pilot refusing to surrender, the time-travelling dog and, especially, the many moments of befuddlement from the rescued Senator who can't believe he hasn't been let in on the "secret" of the Nimitz and shock that at least one senior officer on the carrier is black.

Once Senator 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, Captain Yelland (Kirk Douglas) pretends to agree, but he secretly orders Wing Commander Owens to take them to a desert island north of Oahu where they'll be safe. After they arrive, Chapman realizes that he's been conned, attempts to hijack the helicopter, an SH-3 Sea King, accidentally firing a flare inside the chopper, killing himself and the flight crew. Wing Commander Richard T. Owens (James Farentino) and Scott, the Senator's secretary played by Katharine Ross (she would have been 39 going on 40 when this film was made & looks absolutely radiant) are stranded, and Nimitz's crew believes they, too, are dead. Meanwhile, during the attempt to intercept the Japanese fleet, the freak storm returns and sends the ship back to 1980.

At the end of the film it turns out that Owens and Scott who marry became wealthy from Owen's knowledge of then-future technology and own the company that built Nimitz, and that he, "Mr. Tideman," was the one who requested the civilian Lasky to sail with Nimitz.

But there are problems in the script that could have been addressed to make it a more convincing movie. The characters spend way too much time pondering "should we or shouldn't we change history?" when in reality as intelligent, pragmatic problem solvers they likely would have been addressing other immediate difficulties:

1) Traveling through the time storm, the Nimitz arrives in 1941 without its accompanying destroyer escorts. While the film pretends that the 1980s technology is pretty much invulnerable, that isn't the case, particularly given carriers' status as large targets. Not only would the carrier have launched air patrols (as done in the film) but its officers immediately would have been spending considerable effort in trying to decide how to defend against possible submarine attack. (The Japanese had excellent torpedoes, quite capable of sinking or severely damaging a carrier of any vintage.)

One possible solution would have been to rendezvous with the existing 1941 American carriers at sea (remember, the Nimitz has a Pearl Harbour expert on board who would know their location), thus gaining a destroyer screen and being able to lead a combined attack on the Japanese fleet. (BTW, this follows the military principles of concentration of force and surprise, both well known to serving officers.)

2) However, this introduces another difficulty. Tensions were fairly high at the time, and a strange aircraft carrier appearing near Oahu would have been assumed to be a hostile Japanese ship and likely attacked on sight (just as an actual Japanese miniature sub was sunk before the air assault on Pearl Harbour). Thus the other big problem would have been how to make contact with American forces and provide warning. This should have engaged considerable attention, particularly given that even their historical expert wouldn't likely know specific codes, frequencies, recognition signals and the like. The many possible plot complications are obvious. Since the characters don't know that the Nimitz will return to 1980 at film's end, they would be assuming contact to be necessary. (The Nimitz can't wander around unseen and unsupplied for the rest of WWII. It will have to make contact.)

3) I won't say too much about the possible violations of the space-time continuum involved, but all of you who are "Back to the Future" fans can fill them in. If we take these seriously contact becomes very difficult and the movies ending seems almost inevitable.

4) A possible solution with minimal effect on the continuum and taking advantage of the contact difficulty would have been for the Nimitz to launch its own mock attack on Pearl Harbour in advance of the Japanese attack (preferably before dawn, so its planes could not be identified as alien to the time). This would alert US defenses and greatly reduce US casualties and damage.

5) Whatever the Nimitz's possible intervention, it would not be able to prevent US entry into WWII, since other Japanese attacks on US bases, most notably in the Philippines, would bring the US into the war, as would any hostile action by the Nimitz. The historical expert on board would know this, as would all the senior officers, products of an excellent educational system. Figuring this into their deliberations would have added considerable interest. Destruction of the Japanese fleet aircraft carriers six months before it actually happened (at the Battle of Midway) might have considerably shortened the war.

Thus, the biggest logical flaw in the film is not that aircraft carriers cannot go travelling through time portals. That's a part of the film's premise and we have to accept it or immediately leave the theater. Rather, the film doesn't take the very real problems that would be faced by its decision-makers quite seriously enough, as suggested above. The more seriously these are dealt with within the limitations of screen time, the better the film would have been.

Final Countdown dog fight scene between Mitsubishi A6M5's (Zeros) with a top speed of 351 mph & Grumman F-14 Tomcat's with a top speed of Mach 2+...Ouch, can be see at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyjNInIH4Hw.

Final Countdown Trivia:

• 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 actual Pearl Harbour attack.

• In one of the scenes on the Nimitz bridge, Kirk Douglas is sitting in the captain's elevated chair on the port side of the bridge. Far in the background, in the executive officer's elevated chair on the starboard side, can be seen the real-life captain of the Nimitz, CAPT. (later RADM) John R. Batzler.

• The image of carrier life is especially good. An interesting aside is that several Navy people got fired because of this film. This was before the "Top Gun" mentality, and Navy Brass were not too thrilled about the level of access given to the film crew. It was claimed that mid level officers gave approval for use of the Nimitz for this film without proper authority. This was before the Navy woke up to the recruiting potential of such films, so use of the Nimitz was regarded as fraud, waste and abuse. Most of the effects were shot using real aircraft, again a controversial issue at the time. It's a shame that some people suffered professional punishment for making Navy resources available to make this film when the Navy rewarded people involved in "Top Gun," in many ways a much less realistic film.

• The actor Charles Durning who plays the roll of Senator Samuel Chapman was one of a few survivors to the infamous attack on American POWs at Malmedy, Belgium on 17th December 1944 during the "Battle of the Bulge" in the Ardennes. The surrendering engineering battalion, caught behind enemy lines when the main American Forces retreated, were gathered together and brought to a large field when German machine guns which had been hidden in lorries (trucks), were brought to bear upon them. Only a few men survived this attack and were witnesses to the event. More than 100 US Servicemen died. The scene was re-created in the movie, Battle of the Bulge, starring Henry Fonda.

• The episode of Jack Benny's programme 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.

• Don Taylor who directed The Final Countdown was born in Freeport, Pennsylvania on 13 December 1920, Taylor studied speech and drama at Penn State University, and hitchhiked to Hollywood in 1942. He was signed as a contract player at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and appeared in small roles. Drafted into the United States Army Air Forces (AAF) during World War II, he appeared in the movie Winged Victory (1944) when he was credited as "Cpl. Don Taylor".After discharge from the AAF, Taylor was cast in a lead role as the young detective in The Naked City, which was notable for being filmed entirely on the streets of New York City. After Naked City he appeared as the husband of Elizabeth Taylor in the comedies Father of the Bride (1950) and Father's Little Dividend (1951), with Spencer Tracy. In 1953, he played Lt. Dunbar in Billy Wilder's Stalag 17. His last major film role was in I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955). In the late 1950s Taylor turned to directing movies but mainly TV shows through the late 1980s. One of his memorable efforts was the musical film, Tom Sawyer which boasted a Sherman Brothers song score. Other films include Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) and Damien: Omen II (1978). Don Taylor died of heart failure on 29th December 1998, in Los Angeles, California, USA.

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