Discussing The Final Countdown 

I was onboard the Nimitz when the movie was being made. I was a jet engine mechanic with Fighter Squadron VF-41 the Black Aces which is the sister Squadron to the Jolly Rogers.

I'm not really keen on a remake because I think modern filmmakers WOULD add a lot of personal details and emotion. The professionalism is key to what makes it work. The actors brought enough nuance to the characters without destroying the illusion of it being a working military vessel.

I had this movie in VHS and now DVD.Never get tired of watching this gem.

My headcannon firmly says this is the sequel to The Philadelphia Experiment.

This movie always makes me think about the Twilight Zone episode where a tank crew from the 1950’s era 7th Cavalry on training maneuvers crosses....*gets to the end of the review where Chuck talks about that*....darn.

The novel series 'Axis of Time' is basically 'The Final Countdown' but the time travels get to alter history. In that series instead of one carrier its an entire multinational task force which gets teleported to the Battle of Midway. That would make a great TV miniseries.

"When are we getting to the fireworks factory?"

I remember liking this movie when I watched it. Not enough to watch it twice but it was interesting enough while I was watching it.

Japan did a riff on this film's premise where a Japanese destroyer from the future stays in the past and participates in history. It's mostly told from the Japanese crew's perspective as the crew struggles to balance their modern sensibilities and their duty / desire to defend their country when that country is WW2 Japan. It's called "Zipang".

And now we are 40 years ahead of the Final Countdown time period.

Putting into words why the F/A-18 would never capture the imagination like the Tomcat. Superb

Re: Kirk Douglas and this movie. What is often overlooked is this movie was essentially his older son's project. Not Michael. The older son Peter. Who was the executive producer behind it. Given exactly how this movie portrays the Military, as heroic stoic professionals doing the job put before them, it is not unreasonable to suspect that Kirk himself had a deeper hand in it than simply being the Captain. The initial seed money behind the movie probably came from Kirk. And it was likely Kirk that got the Navy on board. Considering how much they got right in this movie regarding the Navy and Carrier life, what stands out more is what they got wrong? In reality Kirk Douglas would not have been the Captain. He would have been a Vice Admiral (or a Fleet Admiral given that Nimitz was "Pacific Flagship" in the movie) . The XO would have been the ships Captain. The CAG is the Air Groups Captain. This is normal for any American Carrier and has been since at least early to mid WW2. I assume they just went with Captain and XO because most of the audience would understand that?

I really liked this movie. For me I first saw it while flying across the Atlantic to London. I will never forget it.

This film is dear to me. It was the 1st film I saw dealing with time travel. And perhaps inspired me to join the Navy

Great review; thank you. One of the things I appreciate about films like this (and Hunt for Red October, for example) is that the plot does not depend upon stupid mistakes, but rather shows professionals doing their jobs smartly. One could make the case that Tupolov in Hunt for Red October made a stupid mistake, but even Ramius anticipates his action as a likely tactic in battle.

The ending twist is incredible

I adore this movie, I love the entirety of it. The mention of lack of a final battle, was brilliant in my opinion. It gave the audience a reason to think "what if" rather than an unrealistic ending.

During the duel, the Japanese zeroes were flying as fast as it was designed to go. The Tomcats came close to stalling several times.

I had done an amatuer review for this movie (I didn't do a good job of it. basically it was me bitching about the climax) but I would be in support of a remake. In my opinion, they have one of three options on how to do a remake. - The first option is to just remake it shot for shot from the original movie just with updated special effects. (an option but a why bother) - The second option would be to allow the Nimitz and her aircraft to engage the Japanese fleet and crippling it to the point of removing the Japanese from the pacific theater of the war. - And the third option (my personal favorite) have the Nimitz engage the Japanese fleet to discover that the Japanese fleet was much larger than history states it was that the original American counter-attack at the battle of midway would have ultimately failed had it not have been for the Nimitz whittling down the Japanese fleet to the point that history indicates the appropriate size would have been. And the Nimitz would have been prevented from doing more because another portal opened up that the crew chooses to enter (which returns them to present time) where history is unchanged to the world but the crew of the Nimitz knew of what would have likely happened if they weren't there to keep history on track.

Showing the military hardware had a real-world point: advertising for the U.S. Navy. But it also had a literary point relevant to the plot: It directly related to the climax of the movie. It COULD HAVE been used, but wasn't. That was the big decision for the characters to make, or at least try to make, during the climax. The viewer was drawn in to the big "what if" of the time travel plot: What if we change history? We never got to see that choice executed, but the movie built up the POSSIBILITY that it could be done. The possibility itself was a central theme of the movie. You say that it was a failure to deliver, but showcasing the carrier's capability delivered the central dilemma of the movie and enabled the viewer to ponder what might have been, or perhaps, whether the rules of time travel even allow you to make that choice that the plot seemed to be building toward.

Listen to this and watched it for the first time. Loved the movie. Go Navy!

I would love to see a movie in which a Platoon of M1 Tanks disappear while training in the desert during a sandstorm, and reappear in 1836 right in front of the Alamo. That would be freakin awesome.

The bit at 8:58 was one of the things I liked about this movie. It seemed like a real organization in an uncertain situation trying to find out was going on. The presence of equipment and capabilities doesn't have to be used in the predictable way of violence. The hint of such an outcome was more powerful than the difficult question of what the aftermath of such an intervention would be. It might also have helped that I was sufficiently familiar with the military that I didn't need to see explosions to see dramatic implications.

"This would be an act of war." In "Behind Emey Lines" Admiral Reigart made it cristally clear: “Unless we're parked in San Diego Bay, you're at war every time you step on this boat.” And he is right.

Ahhh don’t those “Jolly Roger” F-14 Tomcats look good!

As a young kid I was hoping to see the F14's take out the entire Japanese air fleet, as well their carrier group

You did this video amazingly, good job. Clearly narrated, no annoying background music, well researched. I hope you direct the remake. There is a series of books that I read along the same premise called Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham. Great read if you can get hold of it. The sequels names elude me for the moment, but it is an entire fleet, not one ship that go back from OUR future with even more advanced tech, but are scattered. Various nations get hold of future tech and causes massive change. I read them many years ago but was gripped by them,

This is one of my favorite movies.

A lot of credit for the success of this film belongs to film editor and director Robert Lambert. Along with a cameraman they shot on the Nimitz and provided much of the footage that opened the film up.

What a great view of this movie. It all makes sense. I’ve watched Tomcat pilots and RIOs take on this movie, but this take even goes on beyond that. Great job sir.

Of course WW2 era planes are going to out turn a supersonic jet. A Sopwith Camel will out turn a Zero, too. The former in both those examples have no real chance against the latter, even if you equalized the firepower/durability, because speed is more important than turn rate.

I liked this movie well enough. As to why do they show all this great firepower on the Nimitz but then never deliver? What people don't get is that this movie isn't war propaganda. It is very specifically 'peace through superior firepower', cold war mmilitary spending propganda. The whole point is to show us the carnage of Pearl Harbor, so that we understand that the power of the Nimitz is why we dont have carnage like that in our day...and hence military spending saves lives.

Well put, Chuck. It wasn't that long ago I wrote about how the anime, Goblin Slayer, had proven that a very simple set up (in its case: a farm attack) can be sold as a gripping climax as long as you sell it just right.

This reminds me of the legendary Reddit post about what would happen if a modern day (2011) Marine Expeditionary Unit of 2200 men were somehow transported back in time to the Roman Empire. Look it up. It echoes Chuck's point about how the equipment they use would eventually be worthless without access to spare parts and fuel. The story rights were snapped up by Warner Brothers and got lost in development hell. It's worth a look, since I guess the first few chapters are still online.

I’m sure you’ve had this in the planning stages for a while, but it’s pretty crazy that it was ready to coincide with current events.

Wonderful and insightful review of this unappreciated classic. Personally it is one of my favorite movies from the time period and yes it is cheesy in some parts and acting was not top-notch despite of the big names in the cast; however, the mere concept of the movie in my opinion, is brilliant. You cannot change the past without consequences that are so complicated to understand it can drive one mad trying to make sense of it all and that’s the lesson of this movie. I guess the audiences and critics of the time did not understand this fact, they did not understand that for the movie to be as realistic as possible there could have never been any kind of battle, period. Changing the past will only create paradoxes, timeline tangents, the creation of parallel universes and the dreaded butterfly effect. But that is up for discussion another time. Thank you once again for the review 👍🏻.

G.I Samurai came even before Final Countdown and was able to do battles since it focused on ground units and ground battles. One thing G.I. Samurai does that Final Countdown doesn't is point out how even with the future tech of 1979 JDF (or 21st century for the reboot) that even going up against feudal Japanese armies is a slog due to being outnumbered and lacking reinforcements where every casualty on their end hurts wears down their capabilities permanently.

I have always been fascinated with the alternatives to what happens in the movie, if the Nimitz wasn't pulled back to the present in the end and was there in the 1940s to stay. This presented three options in regards to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Option A: Prevent the attack by striking the Japanese fleet first, Option B: allow the attack to begin and then strike so that history will still retain that the Japanese struck first, and Option C: Do nothing and allow the attack to occur as it did. All three have their own implications but the biggest question would be what they would do afterwards, if they revealed themselves and essentially handed the US a 40 year leap forward in technology, history would be forever altered beyond recognition. While this would be for the better or worse is another debate entirely, one thing that is not in dispute is the introduction of 1980s technology and ideas to a 1940s America. Never mind giving the US military the opportunity to reverse engineer the advanced weapons and nuclear systems, you have a mountain of tech that most 1980s Americans take for granted that would revolutionize the nation. From the mundane such as microwaves and color TVs, to even the pharmaceuticals in their medical bay, cures for diseases and injuries yet to be discovered would now be available, heck the polio vaccine if not kept on hand would be easy enough to engineer from the blood of the crew who have been vaccinated at birth. FDR could have been up and walking by the end of his 3rd term. Not only would the Nimitz provide technological influence to the country, but social as well. You have over 6,000 people who have been shaped by history, witnessed the cold war, the civil rights movement, etc. their values injected into American society could bypass some of the nations most difficult periods in it's history. The nation would be more progressive as it emerges triumphant from the war and technological achievements increasing the quality of life.

I first watched this movie on HBO after it's initial release. I always liked it, because it gave real thought to time travel implications. It's funny, your thought about an ongoing series where they have to deal with dwindling supplies is something Voyager failed to do. Another interesting thing would be a world where the Atomic Bomb was developed, but never used. Nimitz destroying the Japanese fleet before Pearl Harbor would not only have prevent that attack, but probably the battles of Coral Sea and Midway. That would leave the existing American fleet at full strength against a depleted Japanese one. MacArthur probably wouldn't have abandoned The Philippines and what war there was in the Pacific would have been much shorter. This would lead to more resources to fight in Europe. The Cold War, the space race, and even the communist takeover of China could have been very different or never happened at all. For example, if it hadn't already been used and the effects seen, might the US had used the Atomic Bomb against the Soviets?

As usual with SF Debris reviews, the backstory of the movie is sometimes more interesting than the actual movie.

They used to play this movie as movie special on network tv. dont remember which network but i think it aired on ABC. I may need to rewatched it. loved seeing it come a second time.

I always felt bad for Commander Owens being left behind in 1941. He had a life in 1980 despite him having no family. The fact is he is man out place in 1941 not just technologically but culturally as well. Let's say Commander Owens was the same age as the actor who played him in the movie (Age 42) Mr. Owens would have to come to terms with the fact a younger version of himself exists. In 1941 a younger version of himself would be just 3 years old. His parents, grandparents and everyone he knew would be alive but he wouldn't be able to have any direct contact with them for fear of time-line contamination. Imagine seeing long lost relatives alive again or your parents younger than yourself. I'm guessing it could drive a person mad. Imagine how rich one could be knowing all future events. You could literally start with nothing and be wealthy in no time just betting on sporting events. Then take that money and invest in Oil companies, General electric and other portfolios. Everything would have to be done incognito as to arise no suspicion with the authorities. A new identity ( Mr. Tideman) would be necessary. Imagine getting married and having children that are not that much younger than you and a wife that would be older than your mom. The possibilities are endless.

One of my favorite movies. Could the 1980 Nimitz have defeated the entire Japanese strike force in 1941?

It's generally referred to as "emergency breakaway music"... when I was there in the late 80s, they alternately played Lee grenwoods I'm proud to be an American song.

this was such a great movie

Does anybody else watching this video know the Destroyer men series? I actually listen to all those books on audible longs for seeing the final countdown. This film definitely inspired a lot of military Time travel fiction.

If like to see them go back to the days,when the Roman Empire ruled the sea,or the Vikings.

Theres an anime like this called Gate. I still like the movie until the ending. You are spot on. I wonder how they explain the deaths and helio

Good analysis. Great movie

I liked the ending. Owens had been arguing that you can't change the past and we come to accept that as a rule. But, he designed the Nimitz after serving aboard her. So it is a grandfather paradox in reverse. How did this loop start? Did Owen go back in time on a lesser carrier before designing a better one? Now that Lasky has had the experience, what will he be doing with Tideman? Also, to me the movie was about coming to grips with whether or not they were in the past and that issue was resolved.

I would pay the see a high quality serious Anime of the Final Countdown made. Complete with the mother of all one sided Naval Battles.

Commander Owens was the CAG (Commander Air Group) not a squadron commander.

The Final Countdown is one of the movies that I’ve seen.

Oddly enough, I watched this on December 7th last year.

The acting and story for the movie is fine and well suited to what it was achieving to do. I think you're probably being overly critical of it. For me, this and Top Gun are movies that probably helped recruitment for the Navy in depicting it's daily life in service for the country. I'm waiting for the 4K version that will be coming out hopefully soon. I also wasn't bothered by the ending because it's a fight that could never happen. You start to take it into Tarintino territory with rewriting history and said it yourself that everything on the screen is real, so an ending where an aircraft carrier destroys the Japanese navel fleet and the movie ending is a strange thing to do. Having time being fixed and can't change is perfect for this story.

I don't know if you recorded this before the sad events of 06JAN2020 but it most certainly is fitting.

I love this movie. There is however one really major gripe I have with it. The USS Nimitz was an Atlantic Fleet carrier at the time when the modern setting of the film takes place. Now I know to the casual viewer they my not know that. I guess it's just having a father that was retired Navy and being a veteran myself that I notice this.

One of my favourite movies of all time…and while the reviewer makes some good points, I sort of disagree with his key premise that the viewer is shortchanged. Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen are fabulous and this was an interesting story that showcased the Nimitz and its awesome air wing. What made this movie great was the fact that it was “sort of all believable” because of how the officers were portrayed in terms of their decisions and professionalism. Too many times with military movies, the script might be better (that this one) but the actions of the key characters is so off base…here Sheen/Douglas/Farentino nail real naval aviators…and the flying scenes are awesome.

The best scene is when the people from the 40s see the tomcats for the first time

If you're interested in the "long term effects of being stuck in the past" the thing to look for is "Zipang". It's a Japanese series that dumps a modern JSDF AEGIS cruiser into the middle of the Battle of Midway. It's a similar tale but takes on all kinds of interesting topics, like Japan's relationship to its imperial past. It also eventually delivers by setting the USS Wasp against the AEGIS destroyer.

Lacking or not, this movie always reminds Zod of watching it with dad and those are good memories.

See Hollywood? THIS is the sort of film you should be remaking. An amazing idea that still has name recognition, mostly due to that idea, but had serious flaws that made it imperfect - largely limited by the technology of the day. This is the easiest reboot candidate I've seen in a long time. ED: I wrote that before it was said in the video. lol

Reminds of Binkov's Battlegrounds analysis on what a Nimitz carrier can do if sent back to WW2

28:00: Did you know this movie had a tie in book released around the same time? I didn't until I googled it on a hunch lol.

7:00 Fire Fighting Personnel. Fire Control aim and maintain the guns, missiles and tracking radars and maybe, but not normally search radar. (Yes, being pedantic.)

I hate to sound pedantic, but the guard and the armed men in the camouflage were Marines, not sailors.

17:44 As someone who hasn't seen the movie: What Japanese pilot? I assume they rescued one of the downed pilots.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as a captain, Yelland never had the authority to send the escort ships away. This order only could have given by an admiral.

I would recommend to anyone interested an ongoing version of this story the manga Zipang or its anime adaption.

You're quite right, but I liked it anyway. Cheers.

Just make John Birmingham's Axis of Time trilogy and all will be set right. Amazing storytelling.

and now do the philadelphia experiment where the exact opposite happens

The final countdown II, The long retired captain comes aboard as the ship travels to Port to end its final tour, an ominous storm gathers overhead on what should have been a clear day....

I liked the movie.

Excellent movie. But I think there is another thought behind it....a man will do anything for his wife! Tideman builds a time machine to go back and collect his wife's dog!! ;)

15:51 Exactly.

Those pilots flying F-14-A models.... heros. Crazy heros, but heros. Lol

22:04 No, he can't be serious! He'll destroy himself! 22:14 They're from the future (1979). 26:38 Senator Chapman's gone, except Laurel lives.

I wonder how long the carrier would have been combat effective without a modern parts supply. I'm thinking about a lack of transistors and integrated circuits. Food, iron bombs, and jet fuel wouldn't be a big deal, same with cannon ammunition.

if time travel is possible imagine the possibilities of changing the past to create a different future and make yourself rich at the same time.

Did you really say this was Martin Sheen's last theatrical film??!!

I wonder what would have happened if the Nimitz got drawn back to 1980 before issuing the recall order-- what would have happened if the strike force pressed on and ended up stranded in the past without the ship. Were the jets going to Pearl Harbor to intercept the attacking aircraft, or heading for the enemy ships to ensure the Japanese fleet was deprived of its carriers in the future? If they go to Pearl Harbor, then what follows is easy enough: They fight and then land at Hickam and Wheeler in the aftermath. But, if the Nimitz air wing was going after the Japanese ships, would any of those planes have enough fuel to reach Hawaii afterwards? That is to say, what would have happened if a hundred naval aviators from the future ended up ditching in the water and were rescued, thus giving you these men with knowledge of the future but none of their actual technology?

I liked it.... I agree with much of the criticism tho.

Someone really should do a Netflix series based on the John Burlingame book trilogy 'axis Of Time'.

Amusingly the Zero was technologically behind the times even by 40's standards, adding even more to the gap. Though I suppose you could also argue the F14 was too far ahead of its own time, as shown by its cost... :p

I have seen this movie a number of times and I disagree that it does not deliver. This is a time travel movie. It's not, and never was, a war movie. This was probably one of the first, if not the first, movie that brought to the public the idea that changing history, were it possible, would be catastrophic. Because no one can see all the variables that would also alter with the changes you made. This movie sparked a lot of discussion of history and science fiction in my family. Lots of thought on "What If?" The captain of the aircraft carrier is caught at the end of the movie in a terrible conundrum: does he go to the aid of Pearl Harbor and attack the Japanese? Their nation is under attack, and as military men, they are sworn to defend her. But if they do, they face the devastating choice of changing history, and not just changing it a little, but changing it enormously. No one on the ship can even begin to imagine the repercussions of changing history in such a way. But in the end, the Captain makes the decision to go to the defense of their country in it's hour of need. I can't speak for anyone else, but I found this instant in the movie to be very exciting. Can you just imagine both the Americans and Japanese of the 1940's reaction to this gigantic ship, with it's jets and firepower, entering the battle? It would be like a UFO landing. Now obviously, we all know that no nuclear aircraft carrier came to the rescue at Pearl Harbor----so as the audience, we now have the additional excitement of seeing how this is prevented, and how the ship makes it back home. But when they are engulphed by the "time storm" again, they return to the present, but missing one man. That one man is unable to get back to the ship in time, and is left behind. I especially liked the twist that the one man who was left behind went on to live a full life, made a fortune, and was the man who was the person most responsible for the design and creation of the Nimitz. And the entire story comes around in a circle, when they all meet again when the Nimitz docks at Pearl Harbor, and we are shown who the mysterious billionaire in the black car is. I found the ending very satisfying. We thought Commander Owens lost in time, but instead he got a happy ending as well, just a different one.

FW-190 came from another dimension ?

I liked the day to day operations of the Nimitz and them going against the zeros. The idea of a modern era aircraft carrier and fighter jet's against the WW2 planes back then and the question of weather they should stop the attack. The movie had a lot of potential and was very well made. But I wish it would have shown the Japanese Fleet being destroyed, then they go back to there own time and see the world differently and not in a good way.

I love this film, as a kid I didn't notice, but the one special effect that really failed in this was the helicopter explosion. With the yacht and zeros they were able to use fairly convincing models, but they clearly didn't have the budget to do a model of a modern heli, and they couldn't blow up the real thing, so it's a cheap superimposed explosion clip art.

Maybe if they were out at sea experimenting with a new device that caused the time shift it may have worked better. A time shift just appearing out of the blue made us wonder if god wanted to rerun the battle.

It's... the Final Countain?!

Hang on? This isn’t a review of Europe’s 1986 hit ‘The Final Countdown’. I for one am leaving (together, but still it’s) fairwell!

Not wanting to push another channel on Chuck's video. But the synergy here within days is just a little to cool not to mention. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aMarzSNO5RI.html There is a fairly popular Fighter Pilot/Airline Pilot RU-vidr named C. W. Lemoine. Also known as "Mover". Well fairly recently he had done an "Actual Fighter Pilot watches The Final Countdown" video. Which is a fun little watch in and of itself. What he had not realized at the time was one of the Navy Pilots he had recently interviewed was one of the actual pilots flying for the movie. So they just did a nice little followup interview just talking about what that was like a few days ago. Worth a watch. It has a lot of neat behind the scenes stuff I had not heard before. It also put's why they shot it so wide in perspective. It's not real easy to keep F-14 Tomcats and T-34's dressed up as Zero's in the same shot. Yeah that story about the T-34's being able to outmaneuver the Tomcats? That's kinda myth. The truth were the two planes were like Cheese and Chalk. The Texan ne; Zero could fly slower and turn tighter. But they could barely keep them and the F-14's in the same 5 mile radius. Anyway here's the interview from one of the Tomcat pilots. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aMarzSNO5RI.html

CAG has his hands in his pocket?

"Hold it! Hold it!" "Go hold on your own!" "WHO SAID THAT??" Who else remembers this???

Marines aren’t sailors…..

There had to be an Alien intelligence behind the storm.

Good song. Oh wait

Fun fact: there exists a long running and somewhat popular japanese manga with a similar setup only there they end up joining in ww2 on japan's side unwillingly after shit gets super out of control. It is supposed to have a conflicting view between a modern man who knows imperial japan sucks, and a imperial japanese man who sees what will become of japan and that imperial japan kind of sucks and wants to change it... BUUUUUUUUUT it sort of fails to actually follow up on that conflict and just comes off as pro-imperial japan

Do do doooo do. Doot do do do dooooo