Sci-Fi Classic Review: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980) 

A crew member in CIC at this time. In September '79 Nimitz began a Med cruise. At Christmas stand down we got new orders to form up with USS California & USS Texas to depart the Med and transit down around the tip of Africa and up to GONZO station where we spent the next 144 days before arriving back in Norfolk in May of '80 about two days after Mt St Helen blew it's top. Fair winds and following seas to my fellow shipmates. Salute!!

Your son did a nice job playing the theme song. 😁👍

Fun Facts: 'Carrie' (76) gave us William Katt as the Prom King and Nancy Allen as John Travolta's twisted GF. 'The Final Countdown' (80) gave us an aircraft carrier which time-warps thru an ocean storm into Pearl Harbor (1941). 'The Greatest American Hero' (81) gave us William Katt as a school teacher gifted (by aliens) with a SUPER SUIT, but having lost it's op Manuel, Katt fights crime by luck and laughs. One of Katt's students... Michael Pare'. 'The Philadelphia Experiment' (84), gave us a scientific accident aboard a Navy vessel which transports two sailors into...1984. One of them, Michael Pare', meets Nancy Allen. Later in the 80s, a silly Rock group came and went with magazine looks and two popular songs. Most hit and run groups then had a rocker, and a ballad (for the girls). 'Europe' provided two which were COINCIDENTALLY titled: The Final Countdown'... Carrie. Trust me, the 80s WERE the Yellow Brick Road!!!

Man, I haven't seen this in maybe 30 years? Absolutely loved this film when I saw it on VHS. Looking forward to this review of the film. Thanks!

From what I recall from the novelization, the time storm was a deliberate result of technology developed by Tideman Industries.

The "Back To The Future" films and some of the STNG episodes

Oh I loved this film, and I still do even today. It's just so goofy. As stated there doesn't seem to be any reason why the time storm happens, but who cares, its just fun from start to finish. It's up there with the Philadelphia Experiment and Time Rider as being of its day, but good enough to become minor classics. Great review. "Splash the zeroes" :)

If anyone is interested, John Birmingham wrote a trilogy of books 'Axis of Time.' Has ships time traveling to WWII around the Midway battle.

It was a huge hit in Germany. The first movie as a 14 year old that I saw that had so many viewers that the cinema opened it’s balcony

The novel it was based upon was written by Martin Caidin who also wrote the novel "Cyborg" than inspired "The Six Million Dollar Man"

Time Bandits is one of my favorite time travel movies.

I like this film, and have watched it more times than I could count. "Splash the Zeros" has to be in favourite quote from the film.

'WE'RE LEAVING FOR VENUS!!!' (Your Son nailed-it by the way!) Loved this Flic when I was a kid! Actually had a discussion with my Mom's fiancé at the time (a retired Army Colonel) on a single U.S. Flattop defeating the entire Empire of Japan.

The music soundtrack by film composer John Scott was memorable!!!

I'm a.big fan of this movie, even though they cut Kirk Douglas saying "little bastard" when they brought him aboard the NIMITZ as a prisoner, knowing that.the pilot had strafed Katherine Ross and Charles Durning. Watching your review I was reminded of a scientist saying that unless gravity trumps time, time traveler's would depend on tons of luck, since the earth might not be in exactly the same place when they get to where they're going and coming home. Thx for reviewing a favorite of mine. And looking at a website for scientists, they all agreed that 2012 was the least accurate sf film and.THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD one of the most accurate.

Love this movie, and thank vinyl siding companies for giving me gems like this on a Sunday afternoon

Reminds me of the STarfighters-the 1960's era Scifi film about a squadran of F104's that where the plot was subsumed by gootage of aircraft taxiing, taking off, flying overhead and refueling inflight. They had a ball with it on MST3K.

One of my favorite sci fi / fantasy movies. Thank you for this! Well done on the part of your son and I confess, I have the song on my car memory stick!

I sort of have the reverse "problem." I saw the movie when it came out in 1980, so now when I hear the song I always think of the movie.

The jokes on you, that song was already in my head.

I love this movie... My Dad, now late Dad, and I actually went to the theatre when The Final Countdown was released... I have a copy of the movie on Blu-Ray...

Great work thomas 👏 and great review buddy! I haven’t seen this film, but you’ve sparked my interest 😁

Thank you for this video! I had seen this movie many moons ago, so a little time tunnel of my own has just occurred :-) By the way, what is the incidental music you use in this video, sounds similar to part of Psycho III's soundtrack....

This film remains as one of the sci-fi classics. The part where Japanese pilot is told what is about to happen in PH is chillingly unforgettable and I like a more mature stance of "we shouldn't meddle because consequences could be too dire" instead of going full blast at the Japanese fleet. That would make it over the top sci-fi action film just for sake of throwing as many action scenes as possible instead of serving a story. The characters seem fine to me, most of them are career military personel on a job, not civilian characters on a vacation. There are some quick comments and jabs here and there, but otherwise everyone act in a professional way as to be expected.

Always thought Badlands put Martin Sheen on the map

It's hinted that there was something....special....about the Nimitz that either generated or was about to go through...the time warp. A blink and you will miss it type thing....

Saw this in the Theatre. It could of used a writer like Rod Serling.

I can't recall the reason exactly why the ship winds up time-traveling to the specific one-day-before Pearl Harbor date? Off hand, this reminds me of the tv series THE TIME TUNNEL where almost every week the time-falling guys just happen to wind up at a precise super-important time (and place) in history---like on board the Titanic. But, does this film avoid that problem? The premise and setting I recall as intriguing but, also recall leaving the theater with us shrugging our shoulders in vague disappointment.

I always loved this movie growing up. It has some of the best footage of navy planes ever shot for movies. There's a famous shot where one of the F14s almost went into the water during the dogfight with the Zeros, and it actually made it into the movie. The pilot says it was all intended, but he was still within 100 feet of the water on that maneuver. Here's an awesome interview with one of the 2 F-14 pilots who took part in the movie. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aMarzSNO5RI.html

I kept meaning to see this film since it came out, but strangely only managed to see it a few years ago when i picked up a DVD copy at a flea market. I like the film thou it misses quite a few opportunities! Yes to hell with it i did want to see the Nimitz obliterate the attackers of Pearl Harbour , to hell with the time line (: I could sit n watch this stuff all day long love the US Navy. Mmm favourite time travel movie ? Probably the George Pal Time machine or Terminator don't know if that counts (:

Have you already reviewed The Philadelphia Experiment? A fun time travel film. Yet had some pathos as well.

My favorite time travel movies: Time After Time and the Time Machine. I could also cite Run Lola Run. Admittedly, people may view it as being like a video game, but I did see it that way when I watched the movie. Since Lola seems to be willing the restarts to the "saved point", it seems like a time travel movie with people changing things and the movie showing the consequences of those changes.

The ending of this movie pissed me off. I WANNA SEE F-14's FIGHT ZEROS! Like seriously, I wanted to see a full squadron of F-14 Tomcats fight the Japanese Zeros attacking Pearl Harbor. But It never happened, and now I'm left with an insatiable desire to watch World War 2 planes get blown up by modern jets.

Kids playing 1980s music, that is a parenting win. My 17 year old can play the tune on his saxophone 😄

I love this movie.

I also like your son's rendition of "The Final Countdown". Maybe more in the future.

A great song! 😆

Cool concept, but this movie outcome is just to do another US Navy advertisment. Still waiting for a movie that use the "high technology travel in the past of humanity and contaminates it" in a satisfying way. As for what I've seen, the only scene that I found that really works is the twin uzi attack to rob a gold carriage in Timecop.

Is the origina "Journey to the Center of the Earth" your next review? I first watched "The Final Countdown" at a drive in. The real star of the movie was the USS Nimitz. Often times forces are beyond anyone's anyone's control. In that sense it's faithful to "The Time Machine" novel. It also takes the "past can't be changed" version of time travel. The 1960 version of "The TIme Machine" is my favorite time trave movie.

Agree fully with this review, I could have said some of the exact words as you. Great movie the first time I saw it, less great on later viewings and as I got older.

I saw it on HBO back in either 1981 or 1982 although The Philadelphia Experiment is a little more better then this. Always was there two characters played by James Farentino living the same time in this movie. This was Martin Sheen last theatrical movie due to his being hard to work with due to his drinking. Enjoy your RU-vid videos always intriguing

Would have been good if James Farentino hadn't polluted it with his presence. No one has forgotten how he terrorized Tina Sinatra.

Stunning the gubmint sued the production when they did noting but benefit from it. I often forget Katharine Ross has been around so long. We just saw her in the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode called THE DIVIDING WALL. KUDOS to your son.

A guilty pleasure of mine. I like it. Agreed, kinda thin story, but good cast 🎭. Ironic…I just watched this last week on Tubi TV. Popcorn movie 🍿. Europe, “The Final Countdown” a MTV regular back in the day!

It was an interesting story plot. I liked the movie but didn’t care for how it was carried out. Trivia… a friend of mine the navy was on the carrier they filmed the movie on. He said it was interesting to watch but was disappointed that Kirk Douglas was very unfriendly and sort of snobby.

One modern day aircraft carrier in the past could pretty much win the entire Pacific War for sure! It would have been nice to see the crew have to make some truly terrifying decisions if the time warp never came back to them...Not like a nuclear powered aircraft carrier is going to be able to hide out forever. A more permanent solution would have to be sought if you catch the drift 😉

You know, the number of youtubers who say something like "the copyright bots prevent me from exercising fair use" makes me wonder if there's a class action lawsuit in here somewhere. I know the American legal system has largely been corrupted to solely funnel more money to Google, the RIAA, and Disney etc, but while "Fair Use" is still on the books it's possible that some judge somewhere might see reason...

Always reminds me of this clip: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_m5PfKTwMFY.html

I love this movie but hated the ending.until I saw a RU-vid video on what would happen if a modern carrier...And I then saw what I wanted to see: not a lot of destruction of the Japanese navy beyond the initial destruction of their pearl harbor bound fleet. The reason? Fuel for the carrier and jet fighters and no way to charge the nuclear whatevers. Then the video proposed sending back a carrier task force,.to conserve the nuclear whatevers and to protect the carrier once it and its planes ran out of fuel. And again, not much more of ruling the sea. Fuel and other stuff. Two other complaints, but very minor. When the film came out and on its home video and HBO appearances, Kirk Douglas sees the captured Japanese pilot being brought aboard on the deck, and he pops loose with a very human "little bastard" under his breath. I think this has been permanently cut from all home watching media. The other is the time travel conundrum I could have.lived my life happily without ever hearing or reading about. That is the fact that if one travels any amount of time forward or into the past, one better hope that gravity trumps time or else one would find oneself materializing in space. I don't know what science says, but it certainly would give ME pause. P.S. I feel safe asking you, a.reviewer, about movie reactors. Do they really and truly go in blind? I read. somewhere that believing they do is like believing IMDb and Wikipedia gets its facts.straight or believing in a flat earth. A lot of reactors seem to spontaneously come up with just the right joke or quip or bon mot, where in their intros and outros they mangle the English language. Just asking because I feel like you'd know a reactor or two. And.boy, they make me feel old. Not knowing who Paul Newman or Marlon Brando are? Gore equals scares? Old movies.are from the 80s and back? Yikes! PPS Can you do longer.reviews? Like for when you do Howard Hawks' Monkey Business or Tom Tryon's creepy I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE? Thx. PS....do movie reactors really and

I was disappointed with this film. There was no major battle scene between the modern aircraft carrier versus the 1940 Japanese navy. I kept waiting for this epic military confrontation but it never happened.

Love time travel movie’s enjoyed this one but the acting was terrible and story felt disconnected.

Great movie, terrible review. Senator Samuel Chapman was a real person. Do some minimal amount of research before posting mistakes. Two thumbs down.

The ONLY thing I don't agree with is your ascertation they used too much naval footage; imo they REALLY put in just enough airplane pr0n and tastefully paced it

Subbed, I loved it!!! Grow your following with Promo'SM!

You know,nobody really cares what you think of this movie.If you can write a storyline,get an agent,get a film crew to shoot the film and get a movie studio to release it,then by all means do it.