Cool fact. The transition between Russian to English during the zoom in on the officers mouth reading the biblical quote happens on the word Armageddon as its the same word in both Russian and English.
The translation is on screen and of the Russian to English if you set it correctly, but nobody ever does set it correctly, so it doesn't ever appear on screen correctly... Unless you saw it on TV or in the the theater... You need to set it correctly to see the Russian to English from the beginning of the movie which no one ever does from the source...
@@GD-tt6hl absolutely! The transition is even smoother when the words you are read and hearing all merge.. especially on Armageddon. Another vote for Das Boot... arguably the greatest submarine film ever made, and just damned good cinema whether you are into subs or not. Honestly, a guilty favorite is Wing Commander, just because we get to see Jurgen Prochnow in a submarine type situation again shouting to fire torpedoes (plus hours playing the game/story with Mark Hamill)
Also, the word "buckaroo" ( cowboy 🤠) is the same in English and Russian. (From the Spanish, Vaquero) . hence "buckaroo" appearing as a foreshadowing of its use near the climax
Russian and English have a lot of common words. And it makes travelling in Russia much easier for one who hasn't ever learnt Russian. And the Russian cyrillic alphabets are quite fast to learn for one you has already learned the Greek cyrillics, being anyone how's been in maths and physics classes.
As an ex-sub engineer/nuclear (U.S.) from the Cold War, I can attest to the accuracy of this movie and its many details. A few discrepancies that my kind would recognize, but the rest is spot-on. The politics of the era, and the attitudes and demeanor of the crews and officers, and the tech is correct. Tom Clancy legit knew his subject. A quick note from the beginning: open flame/smelling burnt papers: boats completely turned over the air every 90 seconds, and back then smoking was a very regular and accepted activity on subs of every country.
I was going to post a comment that they had been smoking just a few moments ago. The open flame and smell of smoke wouldn't be suspicious unless it set off the fire suppression system.
A bunch of the cast and crew got to ride along on _Salt Lake City_ under then-Commander Fargo, which is a huge part of them getting the demeanor correct. Glenn based his portrayal of Mancuso on that experience with Fargo.
Recommendation: Das Boot is considered by some to be the best WW2 movie ever made. And it is certainly one of the most accurate submarine naval war film ever made.
Personally, I recommend the 200-minute director's cut. In my opinion, it is the perfect screen adaptation of the book. And of course one more thing: Das Boot is like Rammstein songs. You can only watch them in the original, i.e. German language version, which means that you have to read the subtitles. Unless you know German.
If i remember correctly, Tom Clancy was interviewed by the Department of Defense because of his knowledge about military tactics and his technical expertise about US Navy subs and ships. They were wondering if he had insider knowledge (ie. somebody in the Navy was leaking secrets), but it turned out that all the information he had was public. He was just really good at putting it together into a great story
yeah, Tom Clancy had a friend, an officer in the Navy that started a new D&D style game called Proceedings that dealt with the military. in the opening scenes of the movie when introducing Jack Ryan and the camera is panning over a number of books, you will see the Proceedings book in the stack.
@@ronmaximilian6953 Red Storm rising is my all time favorite book. I have read and re-read that book over a hundred times in my life time. It was co-authored by Larry Bond, another great military writer.
My friend's uncle was a submariner and admiral, when he saw this movie in theaters he came out paper white and all he could say is "they shouldn't know that"
1:00 "This music is insanely epic" The composer is Basil Poledouris, who won a BMI Film Music Award for this film and also worked on such films as Conan the Barbarian, Robocop, and Starship Troopers.
The cook was GRU. He knew what the actual orders were and stayed behind to see. He was trying to ignite the first stage rocket motor of one of the nuclear missiles. The heat energy from the rocket motor would destroy the sub.
Did they say explicitly he was GRU in the book? The movie planted the idea of spies most likely being on board, but left it ambiguous like he might just have been a random no-name red-shirt ensign who could tell something was off and was just ballsy and patriotic enough to refuse to let them get away with it.
@@chrisleebowers yep. I just found the full text online. The politburo is talking about what to do and Padorin talking about the cook: “He is, in fact, a graduate of the higher naval school for political officers at Kiev and the GRU intelligence academy.”
I can't recommend reading the book highly enough! All of the things you were a little confused about (technical stuff)... are explained to the reader in a way only Tom Clancy could - interestingly! And, you get to read all the little sub-plots and nuances that the movie had to skip. It's a quick-reading book, because it engages you from beginning to end. Grab the Kindle version and binge read over a weekend. You won't regret it.
My favourite part is at the end after they have all been rescued and the russian crew has just watched E.T., everybody cried their eyes out and then someone asks what they should see next and everybody votes to see it again.
Yep. Little things like what will the crew find most amazing about America? The answer is something we Americans take for granted on a huge scale: Grocery Stores. At least in the non-Biden era always stocked with ridiculous variety of products including fruits and veggies even in the winter. Ryan tells them American farmers are even paid to not grow too much wheat which they don’t believe. Watch videos of folks from communist countries first time going to Home Depot, wal mart, Kroger’s, etc and you see the tears in their eyes.
@@puterbac I think you mean in the recovering from the Trump disaster pandemic not the non-Biden era. Trump was such a disaster handling both the pandemic and the economy that it's taking some time to recover especially as the QGOP is more interested in grabbing power than in supporting democracy in our nation.
The book is loosely based on a true story. In 1975 the Baltic based Soviet warship Storozhevoy experienced a mutiny in port led by the political officer. However defection was not the original plan. The political officer was hoping to start a popular uprising in depose the current corrupt Soviet leadership. The entire enlisted crew went along but only about half the officers supported the mutiny. Those against the mutiny were locked up below decks. One of the officers who voted for the mutiny actually escaped the ship during the night to raise the alarm. Realizing the jig was up the political officer set sail that night to make a run to Sweden. However the Soviet Navy and Air Force chased the ship down, attacked and disabled the ship about 20 miles from Swedish waters. The political officer was put on trial found guilty and shot. The rest of the crew were kicked out of the navy. The concept of placing the subs orders in a safe and not being able to read them until the sub put to sea is part of operational security (OPSEC) The route missile subs patrol along are highly classified so the sub's orders are hard copies that come direct from headquarters in a sealed packet to prevent enemy agents from finding out the sub's mission.
The opening text about a missile sub mysteriously surfacing in the North Atlantic might also be inspired by a real incident in 1986, where a Soviet missile sub surfaced, and he crew abandoned ship off Bermuda, after ere was an onboard fire. The real story of what happened didn't come out until several years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
K-19 was a different incident, from the 1960s. I was referring to the K-219 incident, which did have a made-for-TV movie made about it, which bore very little resemblance to the real event.
American boomers don't patrol along planned routes. They wander randomly around large swaths of ocean. Only they -- not even their group commanders -- know exactly where they are at any given time.
"Of all the souls I've encountered, his was the most...human." "I would've liked to have seen Montana." 2 of the few moments in movies were men choke up near universally.
Simone and George: "Are there any other good McTiernans you guys wanna recommend?" All of us McTiernan fans: "Please, CineBinge....could you watch 13th Warrior, please?"
Not only does the arming system require two keys to be turned simultaneously, the two keyholes are more than an armspan apart and must therefore be turned by two different people. By taking both keys for himself, Ramius has made a missile launch from his submarine impossible.
@@jeffburnham6611 Speaking of ground-based nuclear missiles, they still run on 5.25" floppy disks (the ones that were actually "floppy"). It does have the advantage of being so hilariously obsolete that it's harder to hack. If you feel like not sleeping tonight, look up Jon Oliver's segment on the professionality and keen maintenance of the US nuclear force, or, more precisely, the howling lack of enough of either of those things. It's... not ideal. God only knows what the state of nuclear forces in other nations might be.
Keeping one key would have been enough for that. So this whole "I'm keeping both" - especially without telling us that one man alone couldn't use both keys - is a bit of unnecessary fake drama. Considering that it never comes up in the movie again, it's even worse. But it's just a minor nitpick ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm so lucky I got to watch that movie _before_ playing any of the Elder Scrolls, because I can now only see it as a Skyrim adaptation of when Ulfric Stormcloak went to help Markarth.
@@BogeyTheBear'You're right. The forsworn :D and there is another movie named The Descent where you can see some Falmer like creatures and Flamer like behaviour :D
I served on a US submarine back in the day. In 1974 we picked up a Russian sub running back and forth over a distinctive underwater formation near Iceland. The Russians used to do this to reset their inertial navigation system. Then it turned away and disappeared. Looking at the chart, we realized that there was a canyon that ran all the way to American coast. The canyon would channel the sub's noise, making it virtually undetectable unless you were right above it. There were rumors that they were doing this but we had actually observed it happening. At the end of our patrol, we turned in a report on it to Naval Operations. When the book and the movie came out I felt like I had contributed just a little bit to the plot.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver _"Shorted it out completely! And it wasn't that lightweight stuff either, it was that chunky industrial weight puke! , Hey you wanna bite?"_
OMG, Crimson Tide was an awful movie. Especially if you know anything about the Navy, or submarines, or the military in general. Literally nothing in that movie could or would happen. The movie would have made some sense, if it had taken place in the 50's
@@emwungarand hence the reason I said MOVIE and not non fiction documentary. This isn’t a documentary reaction channel. They do react to fictional movies.😂
@7:50 The crew speaks Russian. They don't speak English for the most of the movie. We hear English due to movie magic. Ramius is not Russian, so he may actually have an accent. In Russian you'd hear a Lithuanian accent, but due to movie magic, you hear a Scottish one. The movie is relatively accurate in that. In the last part of the movie, some Russian officers do speak actual English, and actors put on a Russian accent for that.
There is a version of this movie that subtitles the Russian dialog into English ... but that DVD is heavily copyright protected. In the book, Ramius' wife was in the hospital with appendicitis. The doctor that was performing her operation was drunk and she died ... but because the doctor had excellent political connections, nothing happened to him and that was what drove Ramius to defect.
Yea its a shame they sidelined the backstory on Ramius' wife in the film. Its alluded to that her death played a role in the captain's defection, but they never follow through with it. Always felt like a last minute rewrite whereby they changed Ramius' ultimate motivation as him trying to restore the balance of power between the 2 superpowers....when in the book it was good ole fashioned revenge
It wasn't just the doctor. The antibiotic was replaced with water to inflate the production and make the factory look good. As I recall, she might have still recovered but for this.
So shortly after the book came out, Tom Clancy was investigated by the government because a lot of what he wrote in the book, they assumed, was stolen by either him or someone in the Navy. He was found innocent of the charges, he basically made a lot of intelligent assumptions about doctrines, tactics and how subs work that just turned out to be correct.
Not surprised. He's just that good. His audio commentary on The Sum of All Fears proves just how much you can figure out with knowledge and common sense. He points out EVERYTHING they got wrong in that movie. "They would not use that helicopter for that operation. They would use a...". The poor director sitting next to him must really have suffered. His military knowledge is precise and detailed. And within politics and espionage it becomes obvious how obvious the secrets are.
@@jmacd8817 Exactly. And he explained to the government that if "A" and "C" are unclassified, but "B" is top secret, it's possible to infer what "B" is, even though you're using unclassified information.
The Navy made production change some details on the set of the American subs because the set designs were too close to reality. Like Clancy, they didn't have any leaked information, they just made smart guesses as to what would make sense and a few of their guesses were too good for The Navy's comfort.
You have to watch Das Boot. The single best submarine movie ever made. And don't watch the original cinematic release but the directors cut, or even better the 6 part miniseries, if you can get a hold of it. And obviously you should not watch the dubbed version but original with subtitles.
I was wondering how long I would have to search before I saw someone bring up Jack Ryan's extensive history in Clancy's stories. I just wish Dirk Pitt would be as successful.
I once heard Alex Baldwin talk about his feelings when he, as a young actor, has to play in the same movie as the legend Sean Connery. He tried to tell himself that he could hold his own, but then Sean came to the set, in that white wig and beard, and he was just magnificent! Alex said that in every seen they had together he felt like he (Alex) become part of the furnitures ... 🙂
The 'true story' part was the mutiny onboard the Storozhevoy. If you're looking for an offbeat John McTiernan movie, Last Action Hero. It is a self-aware action schlock with Arnold in it.
Now that you have watched one great Submarine Movie, i hope that you'll take a look at another great Submarine Movie - Das Boot / The Boat. A german Movie about the Crew of a german Submarine during WW2, that is best viewed not as a Movie but as the ~300 minutes Miniseries, if possible in german with english subtitles. In German it also has a quite fitting tagline, which translated into english reads "a journey to the edge of the mind".
If you want to check out a Trailer first, this is imo the best english trailer i could find: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-d8mA4RmpCgQ.html
Crimson Skies is also another good more recent Submarine movie with Gean Hackman and Denzel Washington. Das Boot IS another good Sub movie too, should they watch it in German with subtitles? or dubbed in English??
@@Paul_Waller Right, i always forget Crimson Tides (which i think is the Movie you meant?), because while it is really good, it just gets outshone by the other two.
@@Paul_Waller While afaik the Status of the English Language Dubbing Industry isn't great (at least compared to the german dubbing industry), i have also heard that the English dub of Das Boot is pretty good. So it would in my opinion come down to availability between the different versions of Das Boot. The most important is to try to get the Miniseries. If that is only available in english, watch it in english. Otherwise in german with english Subtitles unless the viewing experience suffers too much from having to read subtitles all the time.
Simone was on point for this one! She got pretty early on that the Russian sub would have to fake some kind of accident to get the crew off and called it that Vasily would not make it in the end
Fair enough, but, I mean, in "Highlander" Connery played a character named "The Spaniard" with that accent. I think we've established that he probably can't do accents and we don't care.
"I said speak your mind Jack, but JESUS!" I definitely recommend reading the book...just so you can see how complicated the story was before they made it simpler for the film. LOL
@@johnabbottphotography They are fascinating yes. And while I understand that he's American, his heroes can become a bit tedious when the books reach double digits. The good guys are always righteous and compassionate and the baddies can't keep two tank tracks in parallel. And it's not just the military, in Red Rabbit Mrs Ryan was constantly comparing the British and American health care system, pointing out all the good stuff about the American system and ignoring all its flaws.
@@kathyastrom1315 But even with that one he basically stole from himself. The basic idea is the same as his non-Ryan book Red Storm Rising. Villain country gets into econimc crisis, decides to tough it out against another power, gets a few minor wins and then loses catastrophically because all the baddies' plans fail while our plucky heroes always have the luck on their side and of course always the bestest of tech evar.
Simone, you are wondering how Jack Ryan is getting his information. He's using educated analyst guesses based on personal knowledge of Russians tactics and how Admiral Ramius thinks because he traced his background and met him in person. The whole point of the Jack Ryan character is that he averts WWIII by using intelligence and intuition. That's how a COLD WAR turns into a REAL WAR. Since you can't talk to the enemy you have to understand your enemy to deal with them. Especially during the Cold War, where actions are based on the presumption of enemy tactics.
I was a sonarman on a fast attack when the book came out so Jonesy was a favorite. A friend was on the USS Houston when the cast came aboard to get an idea of what is was like and he was teamed up with Courtney Vance who played Jonesy and changed some of the dialog in the script to more reflect what is really said in the sonar room.
Tom Clancy writes some awesome stuff, including basically predicting 9-11 where a commercial plane was deliberately flown into a building to basically take out Congress. An excellent movie adaptation was Patriot Games - I’d highly recommend it. Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan and Sean Bean also starring in it.
You guys were surprised by Putin's death. The book is far more graphic. "Ramius kicked Putin's feet out from under him just as he was stepping away from the table. Putin fell backwards while Ramius sprang to his feet and grasped the political officer's head in his strong fisherman's hands. The captain drove his neck downward to the sharp, metal-edged corner of the wardroom table. It struck the point. In the same instant Ramius pushed down on the mans chest. An unnecessary gesture -- with the sickening crackle of bones Ivan Putin's neck broke, his spine severed at the level of the second cervical vertebra, a perfect hangman's fracture. The political officer had no time to react. The nerves to his body below the neck were instantly cut off from the organs and muscles they controlled. Putin tried to shout, to say something, but his mouth flapped open and shut without a sound except for the exhalation of his last lungful of air. He tried to gulp air down like a landed fish, and this did not work. Then his eyes went up to Ramius, wide in shock -- there was no pain, no emotion but surprise. The captain laid him gently on the tile deck. Ramius saw the face flash with recognition, then darken. He reached down to take Putin's pulse. It was nearly two minutes before the heart stopped completely. When Ramius was sure that his political officer was dead, he took the teapot from the table and poured two cups worth on the deck, careful to drip some on the mans shoes. Next he lifted the body to the wardroom table and threw open the door."
And now please "Das Boot" from Wolfgang Petersen, in german with english subtitles. I recommend the mini series or atleast the directors cut. And after that please "Land of mine" from Martin Zandvliet in original german/danish.
As for other movies by John McTiernan, the only clear recommendation would be to continue with the Die Hard franchise. He didn’t direct Die Hard 2 (which is good, but essentially more of the same), but he returned to direct the third movie Die Hard - With a Vengeance. That sequel achieves the rare feat of mixing up the formula but in a good way.
@@parallaxnick637 Also the story of how and why he was arrested in the aftermath of the Pelicano affair and the impact it had on Rollerball is very interesting.
if you want to see THE submarine movie Das Boot is a must, the TV series it is a cut down version of is actually better but comes in at around six hours
Legitimately… I’m am reliving my childhood with all the movies both of you have been reacting on… seriously this has been awesome and the lineup, also awesome! Thank you for the experiences!
I liked how they send the guy in the small rescue sub away. "Where am I supposed to go?" Could have been good after credits scene, him still just sitting in the middle of the ocean :-)
Well, he goes back to the _Dallas._ Failing that, he goes to the frigate on the surface, though that might be a little hard to explain to the Soviet sailors.
In case you're wondering what they did in the book, bear in mind the final sub battle took place _days_ after they got the Soviet crew off the sub. In the intervening time the Soviet officers got to watch movies off a VCR, ate an American breakfast for the first time, and learned all about supermarket shopping.
I read this, Clancy's first book, way back in the 80's. It was so full of technical details on American, British and Soviet subs that the publishers, the Naval Technical Press, had to cut 100 pages. He wrote it in three months, using publicly available technical information and guides to the Soviet and US navies. But it was so accurate that Clancy remarked in a 1986 interview: "When I met Navy Secretary John Lehman last year, the first thing he asked me about the book was, 'Who the hell cleared it?'". The film sticks to the book quite accurately except for one scene that I've always wanted to see recreated. In the book, the British or US Navy want to show the Russians that they know exactly where their surface ships are and that they could destroy them easily. They do this by flying, at night, four jets over one of the Russian ships. Two planes fly east to west and two fly north to south. They come in low over the sea, very fast, so they don't get picked up on the ship-to-air missile defence system, and then rise up and cross over the ship all together, going N-S and E-W. As they do so, crossing each others' paths, they drop a line of flares each, which fall onto the ship as the jets disappear over the sea, forming a glowing rectangle that sinks slowly down over the ship, outlining it in a lit oblong. Damn shame they never used it in the film. Or even in any film!
Air Force National Guard A-10s, I believe, lighting up (literally) the Kirov. I'm with you, that's an image I wished I could have seen on the big screen.
The movie is inspired by a true event. A Russian pilot Victor Belenko defected in a MiG 25 in 1976 by flying to Japan, landing at a US base and surrendering his plane to the US. It was studied, tested, dismantled and sent back to the USSR in crates. I believe Victor is still alive and living in the US somewhere. Probably driving a recreational vehicle and raising rabbits.
In 1975, the Soviet frigate Storozhevoy was commandeered by a mutiny led by its political officer. It was hunted down by half the Soviet Baltic fleet and stopped just shy of Swedish waters. A Master's thesis on the incident was read by Tom Clancy and became the basis for his novel, loosely.
A minor historical detail: the soviet ambassador's hat was a reference to a real life ambassador who was a legend inside the soviet bureaucracy: Andrey Gromiko. These small details are what make all the difference.
2:49 Fun Fact for you guys: That Navy officer telling Seaman Beaumont about Jones love of music is the COB(Chief Of the Boat). The actor who played the USS Dallas' COB is Larry Ferguson, who was one of the scriptwriters for this movie
While it is super heavy, I would love to hear your thoughts on the limited series, Chernobyl. It is amazingly crafted, and it is as close to true as it can be. They even have a podcast discussing the changes and why they did it.
Another “he plays a good villain” Stellan Skarsgård role - although he is not precisely a villain in Chernobyl. Incidentally, there are significant technical errors, exaggerations, untruths for dramatic effect, etc. in Chernobyl, which kind of undermines the series’ major theme of the value of truthfulness and the harm caused by lies.
The novel was extremely popular in the 80's. I can still remember the full page ad in the newspaper (Edmonton Journal) that teased the movie. All it had was a silhouette of the sub and the phrase "The Hunt Begins March 1990". A really cool full page ad.
Fun Factoid: The guy playing the Senator was played by Richard Jordan. He was in Dune in 1984 and in Logan's Run. In Dune he was Duncan Idaho and in Logan's Run he was Francis 6. He passed away in 1993.
Really cool thing about the end, all 4 sub captains(2 USA, 2 USSR) showed 4 very different styles of tactics that fit the individual personalities at command.
We got this movie on vhs shortly after it came out. My family thought it was OK but nothing special. Me? I was OBSESSED. I own it on every format it's been released on, and have seen it more than 2000 times. It's perfectly paced, perfect acted, perfectly filmed. I watch this movie all the time!
Did you have the Phillip's CDI video CD version? It was horrible with tons of pixelation especially in the underwater shots. It was one of many regrets I had about owning that particular system!
The "Dallas" was actually the USS Blueback, and its part in the movie was its last action on the sea. After the movie, it was sailed up the Columbia River and docked at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, Oregon, on the Willamette River. I've sat at the Conn and the radar station. Tight quarters all around.
A small scene that always gives me a chill. Tupelev in the pursuing alpha hearing engineer advises 105% on reactor possible but not recommended, go to 105 on the reactor. That is a Soviet nuclear reactor...they had more than one 'issue' with their seaborne nuclear plants, hell they had more than one issue with nuclear plants period. Old Soviet joke, how can you tell a Northern Fleet sailor? They glow in the dark.
There is a sort of fun "fan theory" that says "Ramius" was really a spy working for MI-6 who joined the Soviet Navy and worked his way up to become a Submarine Commander. He was known to MI-6 by his code name: Bond. James Bond.
fun fact I'd like to share (i read this somewhere years ago) On Red October, they flip from Russian dialog to English after the word "Armageddon". It's phonetically the same word in both languages (a little different is pronunciation, and definitely spelling) but it's very interesting since the plot of the movie is the overall prevention of escalations to nuclear war between NATO and the Soviet Union.
@ 1:38 Simone. Live long and prosper, fellow Star Trek fan. 🖖😎 But hey, there's another good submarine movie you guys should do soon called "Crimson Tide" (1995) with Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. And you being a Star Trek fan, definitely watch it. You'll see. ✌
Followed by the direct sequels: Patriot Games (1992) Clear and Present Danger (1994) The character of Jack Ryan is also the main character of The Sum of All Fears (2002) which was a reboot, and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), also a reboot.
Braveheart- A must see Patriot Games - 1992 Harrison Ford play Jack Ryan, the same character as Baldwin in this film Clear and Present Danger - 1994 Harrison Ford again plays Jack Ryan, the same character as Baldwin in this film Other movie mentions - The Kingdom. Glory, Empire of the Sun, We were soldiers, Crimson tide, Patriot
Another really amazing Submarine movie is U-571. The film stars Matthew McConaughey, Harvey Keitel, Bill Paxton, Jon Bon Jovi, Jake Weber and Matthew Settle. The plot is fictional and portrays a World War II German submarine boarded by American submariners to capture her Enigma cipher machine. Has the same feel as Red October did. It is Sofa King Good.
The 13th Warrior. It’s a film that was panned when it was released, but it’s become a cult favourite. It’s based on a Michael Chrighton (jurassic park) novel - the eaters of the dead - and mctiernan and chrichton had a huge falling out in the making of it, but chrichton had final cut, so he re-cut the movie in the end.
It's a pretty good adaption of the book, but the book is WAY more complex, including the final 'plot' to convince the Soviets that Red October really sank. The book's not strictly based on a true story (as far as we know...😉), but it was inspired by a real incident in which a Soviet surface warship attempted to defect to Sweden and ended up being chased across the Baltic by the rest of the fleet. IIRC that incident ended when the non-defecting crew overpowered the defectors and regained control of the ship. You may think that these kind of dangerous 'brinkmanship' games with submarines during the Cold War seem far-fetched, but believe me, some of the TRUE stories that have come out have been every bit as hair-raising.
14:50 1 knot is 1 nautical mile per hour. A nautical mile is one arc second at the equator or 1852m. 26 knots is 48 km/h. 31:32 not the torpedo, the nuclear missiles
This was Tom Clancy's first novel, and the first work of fiction to be published by the Naval Institute Press. I own a first edition hardback. The film leaves out one of my favorite parts. Tensions escalate between the American and Soviet navies in the Atlantic. A Soviet carrier fighter shoots an American F-14, the plane you see crashing on landing. To send a message four American A-10's, heavily armored tank killer jets, perform a mock attack on the Soviet battlecruiser Kirov. They drop missile defense flares instead of firing ordinance. But the Soviets understand they could have destroyed the Kirov if they wanted to.
Based on the strength of this movie I decided a couple of years ago to do a chronological read through of Clancy's Ryanverse novels. It's amazing how much more hard right his politics got. One of the later-written novels was set 3rd (or 4th) in the chronology, so there's a really abrupt shift back and forth between them. Cathy Ryan (who is established as a genius ophthalmologist) has taken a position at a prestigious hospital in London while Jack is stationed there. So she gets multiple segments throughout the book to rant against the NHS. "It must be nice to be paid by the hour instead of by the patient", or a bunch of seething when Clancy has the British surgery team nip off to the pub for a pint with lunch while the patient is still anesthetized.
This was the first 'Jack Ryan' novel by Tom Clancy. It established Clancy as an author because the book found its way into the hands of President Ronald Reagan, who loved it. In fact, some of Clancy's novels are required reading for American armed forces War College. This is the only time Alec Baldwin played Ryan, The next two Ryan films have Harrison Ford as Ryan in 'Patriot Games' with Sean Bean, and 'Clear and Present Danger' with Willem Dafoe. Ben Affleck played Ryan in 'The Sum of All Fears', which ended the Ryan films based on Clancy novels although there were many more books featuring him. Chris Pine played Ryan in 'Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit' directed by and co-starring Kenneth Branagh, with Kevin Costner. Now, Ryan is played by John Krasinski in the Amazon series 'Jack Ryan', which is based on the books, but loosely. The technical babble that is a part of the film is really a part of the Clancy novels...which is why Clancy was always called "The Father of the Techno-Thriller". One of my favorite John McTiernan films is 'The Thomas Crown Affair' starring Pierce Brosnan, Renee Russo, and Denis Leary...I highly suggest that one. It is a remake of an old Steve McQueen/Faye Dunaway movie (which is also good). It is not so much an action film, more of a character thriller...cat and mouse...where you are not really secure in who is the cat and who is the mouse.
Did you ever read his Red Strom Rising'? a non-Ryan one off. Fro me, a chilling telling of a ground war in Europe in the 80s. felt much more epic than any of the Ryan ones, of which i'm a huge fan too.
Scott Glenn really had no idea going in how he was going to play the captain. He spent some time aboard a nuclear submarine, and he said he basically just acted like the Captain of that submarine. There were some things he wasn't allowed to see and/or some times he wasn't allowed to be outside his quarters, but mostly he was just allowed to be around, to watch and listen.
If you're interested in watching more submarine films, I cannot recommend the following films enough: Das Boot, The Enemy Below, The Wolf's Call and Run Silent, Run Deep. Crimson Tide is merely OK but is still fun. As for other McTiernan films, Die Hard With A Vengeance is a must watch.
"There was a lot of techno stuff" that's why they often call movies like this or Jurassic Park a techno thriller. It combines elements of hard science fiction (as with a high degree of [perceived] scientific accuracy) with other genres and is often portrait as very realistic.
interesting note. the sonar on a sub and surface ships, as well as with whales, if you are a diver when they ping or click at the right frequency, it can actually liquify your insides.
I love watching your reactions to movies. You are both quite observant about little details. You asked about what a knot was. Perhaps a little historical background would be helpful. The standard mile as a unit of measurement is bases on the Roman "mille passus" (1000 paces) and was based on the left foot hitting the ground 1000 times. This equates to about 5000 Roman feet. When adopted as an English unit of measurement, the mile was equated to 8 furlongs (the length of a furrow - 660 feet) making it equal to 5280 feet. In 1959, Britian and the US made an agreement to standardize the mile as 1609.344 meters (though the US still predominantly uses 5280 feet). As navies began more accurate charting, they adopted the mile as their unit of measurement. This was soon found to be impractical. Rather than changing the unit again, the navies created a new unit called the "nautical mile". This unit was measured as one minute of arc along an earth meridian. This varied from country to country (since the earth is not perfectly spherical), but has since been standardized as 1852 meters or 6076.12 feet. A knot is 1 nautical mile per hour. This equates to 1.152 standard miles per hour or 1.85 kilometers per hour. **** Now for some suggestions. You might try the movies Tombstone, Centurion, and The Eagle. Happy movie watching!
I really liked that you guys were asking the appropriate questions all throughout the movie, and then figuring it out as the story progressed. I also liked that despite the fact that you seemed confused, you both correctly guessed certain plot elements before they happened. George correctly assumes that opening the torpedo tube outer doors would be a provocation to attack before the captain of the Dallas confirms it. He also figures out that they are going to "fake sink" the Red October, while Simone figured out how Ramius was going to get the crew off the sub before Jack figured it out. So you guys are actually quite astute for such a technical movie. 1) Is it a true story? Probably not. I say probably because there's no way to know with absolute certainty as any of this would be highly classified. All we know is that neither the US nor Russian government would ever acknowledge this as a true story whether it was or not. Could Tom Clancy have written this based on leaked information from a former, anonymous CIA agent? Possibly. But most likely not! 2) I don't think the Dallas Chief of the Boat or the sonar Ensign were giving Jonesy shit. The Chief was aware that Jonesy hasn't slept and was becoming obsessive, so he was using good humor and trying to find a way to relieve tension by making light of the situation. 3) The original incident of sabotage was the cook (who was the KGB agent and witnessed the Captain taking the political officer's missile key). He damaged the caterpillar drive to make it easier for the Soviet fleet to track them. The second act of sabotage (the fake radiation leak) was plotted by Ramius and the officers to create a reason for why the crew would want to get off the boat. Since there was already a previous incident of sabotage, the Doctor is easily convinced that this is simply the same saboteur. Ramius and Borodin (Sam Neill) are simply playing along in front of the Doctor and crew. 4) 26 knots is equal to 48 kilometers per hour (or 29 miles per hour). This would be considered "very fast" especially for a submarine trying to carefully negotiate tight turns in cavernous waters. Remember, Jonesy says that boats that big do not stop on a dime. This is why the Russian officer is complaining that they are going too fast. During the torpedo attack, the navigator tells the Ramius that it's time to turn based on their position/speed, but the Captain ignores him. He continues to count and then turns sharply at the last second because he wants to get the boat as close to the rock wall as possible so the torpedo will hit the rock and be destroyed. 5) The USS Dallas cannot fire on the Russian attack submarine. From their perspective, it was one Russian sub attacking another Russian sub. If the Dallas were to fire on Russian sub, it would be considered an act of war and possibly initiate World War 3. The reason the Dallas is able to maneuver in front of the torpedo and cause it to track them instead of the Red October is because it is also an attack sub. Attack subs are smaller, faster, and more maneuverable than ballistic missile subs like the Red October. Consequently, in an underwater "dogfight" they always have the advantage. Their mission is to find and kill ballistic missile subs! Subs like the Red October do have torpedo for defense, but realistically they would never win a dogfight with an attack sub. 6) The magnetohydrodynamic drive (caterpillar) is a real technology. However the way it is depicted in this film is somewhat fictionalized. For one thing, it would be a far less practical propulsion system since the size of the generator to produce the necessary power would be immense, and the speed it could achieve would be far lower than normal propeller drive. Also, the drive would not be "silent" or cause a sub to "disappear" from sonar. It would still produce noise and detectable magnetic fields, although it might sound like something other than a typical submarine. The movie fudges this a bit by having Jonesy discover this limitation, but the scene were the Red October "disappears" in front of the Dallas doesn't actually make any sense in that context. In reality, the sound of the submarine would simply change to confuse the computer's identification, but they would still know the submarine was there. The crew would logically surmise that the new sound is simply the same submarine that they were previously tracking.
In the book (and I think the film as well), all the acts of sabotage are staged by the chief engineer. The whole point is to make the crew nervous (new boat, lots of things to go wrong) and build up the tension inside the boat to the point where a reactor accident and the loss of the boat is believable.
@@Wien1938Yep. In the book the sabotage was staged to give the appearance of a radiation leak (the chief engineer arranged a tiny leak and the first officer put the radiation badges in the x-ray machine to contaminate them). The reactor 'accident' shut down main power and they could not get the auxiliary diesel engine to start. Out of battery power, the officers 'scuttle' the ship once the crew are rescued.
I watched this in theater with my father, who served in the Navy on nuclear subs. He was a major Tom Clancy fan, too. Clancy is one of very few civilians allowed almost full access to an active duty sub. He was only blocked from the reactor room itself, which most Navy personnel are also not allowed to enter. He also spent time on a carrier, where the crew was kind enough to advise him of tiny details that make his novels do good, even to which flavors of "bug juice" were favored by the crew.
