THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: 4K Blu-ray (UA/Bryna Productions, 1980) Blue Underground

Okay. So, there is logic, and then, there is movie logic. Quite often the two are irreconcilable, or worse, seem to be operating at cross-purposes and from the perspective of hyper-suspension in disbelief, meaning, all it takes to enjoy such fluff and nonsense is a pair of eyes and an open mind – or, at least, one utterly vacant of any reasonable thought process. I get a fiendish delight suspecting cotton, hay and rags is what the small entourage of writers had in their heads while toiling on director, Don Taylor’s The Final Countdown (1980). The ‘what if?’ scenario cobbled together by writers David Ambrose, Gerry Davis, Thomas Hunter and Peter Powell (based on a story by Hunter, Powell and Ambrose) is a doozy, augmented with a cast front-lined by Hollywood veteran, Kirk Douglas…who ought to have known better. Let us set aside, just for a moment, the un-likelihood of not one, but two time-travel wormholes swallowing whole a U.S. aircraft carrier, to be teleported back in time, at the cusp of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and then, much later, restored to its rightful wrinkle in time. And let us not to question the paradox in the movie’s cryptic finale, where one of the crew, having traveled 40 years in reverse, ostensibly to have lived another 40 in that hermetically sealed past, now emerges from a black limo in the present to confront himself in the present as a young man exiting the ship, which means somewhere along the way, his genomes were carbon-copied to produce a doppelganger. Huh?!?  

No, The Final Countdown is such a badly bungled claptrap, it staggers not only the imagination – as to how it could have been green, even by Douglas’ indie production house, Bryna – as it rather stupidly portends to invest us all in its pseudo-history-altering moment, alas, never to be. I suspect, the concept of having a modern-age, nuclear-powered carrier doing battle with all those retrospectively primitive Japanese kamikazes on the edge of their own ill-fated destiny against the U.S. stronghold in Hawaii, captivated someone somewhere along the creative food chain.  Yet, despite The Final Countdown’s launch as a pseudo sci-fi/actioner, the body count here totals a measly 13 – hardly, what you would expect. Nevertheless, the picture was banned in most communist countries, including Hungary under a claim it glorified the U.S. Armed Forces. I’ll bite. There is a bit of that good ole American flag-waving patriotism going on in The Final Countdown – particularly as much of the footage, handsomely photographed by cinematographer, Victor J. Kemper, takes place aboard the real USS Nimitz under the full co-operation of the US Navy and the participation of 48 of its actual personnel – some, even given speaking roles in the movie. To suggest the Navy was calling the shots here is a bit much, though their recommendations, after perusing the script, were adopted by Taylor and his crew. And even more impressive are all the full-scale stunts achieved by stunt pilot, Richard ‘Fox’ Farrell and Archie Donahue, flying revamped Tomcats and AT-6 Texans – retrofitted to look like Japanese Zeros, barreling through a series of literally death-defying and definitely white-knuckled maneuvers, to come dangerously close to their own combative, aerial Armageddon. It’s nail-biting sequences like this that help buoy The Final Countdown beyond its otherwise indigestible and often cringe-worthy plot.

Pragmatically, The Final Countdown was shot in the Atlantic, not Pacific Ocean where the story is actually set, as the Nimitz was already an Atlantic vessel and would not cross over into that other body of water until 1987. To minimize costs, much of the ‘attack’ footage here is cut and paste from 2oth Century-Fox’s costly misfire, Tora, Tora, Tora (1970), while the rather primitive SFX of the black hole to consume the Nimitz are a holdover from the all but forgotten, The Lathe of Heaven (1980). Even Taylor’s shoot aboard the Nimitz was cut short when the vessel was recalled by the military to take on the badly conceived liberation of hostages from the U.S. Iranian Embassy. In the eleventh hour, the Navy attempted to market The Final Countdown as a bit of recruitment propaganda, while star, Kirk Douglas, applied a bit of family nepotism to secure his son, Peter’s participation as the picture’s producer – his first credit, and not altogether a successful one either.  The elder Douglas had also campaigned for his other son, Michael, to take on the role of Warren Lasky (eventually filled by Martin Sheen, after Michael’s involvement on 1979’s The China Syndrome ran long).

I suppose, given the extreme suspension in disbelief required to enjoy The Final Countdown, it matters not a hoot the character of Senator Samuel Chapman (Charles Durning) is wholly imagined, as is the fictional Senate Defense Committee he co-chairs. In 1941, such responsibilities would have fallen to the Committee on Military or Naval Affairs. While Samuel Chapman Massingale was a real person, he only served as a House Democrat from Oklahoma until his death in 1941, making his participation in this movie quite impossible.  Director Taylor’s competence in juggling such large-scale stunts under the strain of a crew who were prone to dissention and intermittently replaced throughout the production, as well as wrangling the creative austerity of its star – Kirk Douglas – who also happened to be executive producer – likely convinced Taylor to retreat from the fray. The Final Countdown would be Taylor’s last theatrical release. Taylor, who had begun his career by hitchhiking to Hollywood and becoming a Metro contract player in the mid-50’s, appearing in such high-profile fare as Battleground (1949), Father of the Bride (1950) and Stalag 17 (1953), comfortably moved into TV production for another 8 years before retiring.

Such as it goes, our story begins in 1980 with the departing aircraft carrier, USS Nimitz preparing for some routine naval exercises in the mid-Pacific Ocean. Accompanied by a civilian observer, Warren Lasky, a systems analyst, working as an efficiency expert for the U.S. Defense Department on orders from his Howard Hughes-esque employer, Cdr. Richard Owens/ Mr. Tideman (James Farantino), the Nimitz encounters an electro-magnetic vortex. Unable to avoid it, the Nimitz sails through this cosmic maelstrom, quite unaware the space/time continuum has been upset. Captain Yelland (Kirk Douglas) fears a nuclear strike on Hawaii or the continental United States and orders his RF-8 Crusaders on a reconnaissance mission. However, when the aircraft return to base, the images they photographed suggest a Hawaii, not as only just left behind, but rather, circa 1941, with the Pacific Fleet moored at Battleship Row at Pearl Harbor. Now, the Nimitz intercepts a Japanese assault on a civilian yacht, rescuing its crew. This includes prominent U.S. Senator, Samuel Chapman (Charles Durning), his aide, Laurel Scott (Katherine Ross) and one of the downed Zero pilots (Soon-Tek Oh) who attacked the vessel. The Nimitz’s Commander Owens recognizes Chapman as the politico who ought to have been Franklin Roosevelt's running mate, if only Chapman had not mysteriously disappeared shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. So, the plot thickens…or rather, begins to curdle.

Now, one of the Grumman E-2 Hawkeyes discovers the Japanese fleet amassing in these unpatrolled waters and Yelland suddenly realizes they have been teleported back in time to the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Given the opportunity to alter history towards the good, Yelland instead choses to do nothing. Meanwhile, the Zero pilot manages a daring escape, killing his Marine guards and taking Laurel, Owens, and Lasky hostage. Predictably, he is subdued, leaving Laurel and Owens to fall in love. Chapman is disgusted at Yelland’s refusal to intercept the Japanese and alter the course of history. So, Yelland orders Owens to fly the civilians, along with sufficient supplies, to one of the nearby Hawaiian Islands where they will presumably be rescued, although much too late to make a difference in the fate of the world. Discovering the ruse, Chapman attempts to gain control and fly everyone back to Pearl Harbor. Alas, after having dropped Laurel and Owens on the island, Chapman’s rashness causes an explosion that kills everyone on board. Now, in the eleventh hour, the Nimitz launches a massive strike against the incoming Japanese. Tragically, the space/time porthole returns, sucking the Nimitz back to the future, circa, 1980. Upon their re-entry, the Pacific Fleet admirals are baffled by the Nimitz's bizarre disappearance. In the penultimate moment of unsettling alter-reality, Lasky departs the ship with Laurel's dog, Charlie, only to encounter Tideman face-to-face. We realize Tideman is Owens, and are further startled to find he has since wed Laurel. The couple, now aged, suggest to Lasky they have much to discuss.

Despite the involvement of his more high-profile father, ostensibly, Peter Douglas was the guiding force behind The Final Countdown, working from an ambitious – but flawed screenplay and on a budget incapable of realizing the picture’s more ambitious sequences. Most of the picture was shot near the Naval Air Station in Key West and Naval Station Norfolk off the Florida Keys, over a 10-week period. Neither of the Douglases were particularly impressed with Don Taylor’s workmanlike handling of the picture. Although competent, Taylor seemingly fails to capture the spark of adventure and immediacy, essential to this storytelling.  By contrast, the picture steadily becomes something of a plodding mess. The bookends of this movie are far more fascinating than what comes between them, the dramatic low point, the romantic involvement between Owens and Laurel and their faux ‘capture’ and hostage crisis aboard the Nimitz. For the aerial sequences, Taylor had the weighty Panavision cameras mounted onto various aircraft and helicopters. Alas, what ought to have been the movie’s pièce de resistance – the attack on Pearl Harbor – is cobbled together from extemporaneous B&W stock footage shot for Fox’s Tora, Tora, Tora, leaving the climax of The Final Countdown a rather anticlimactic experience indeed.  Given all the splendid effort poured into its production, it is somewhat disheartening the ‘final’ results in The Final Countdown play like only half a high concept brought to fruition, the other half either left on the cutting room floor, or presumably, never photographed due to time and budgetary restrictions.

The special effect to suck the Nimitz back in time, then regurgitate her just as easily like a cosmic hiccup brought to bear by the Heimlich, is rudimentary SFX 101, looking cheap and shoddy, and clumsily matted against the live-action stuff.  The penultimate, and never-to-happen showdown between the Japanese and aircraft launched from the Nimitz, but then almost immediately recalled by Yelland mere moments before everything gets pulled back into the present, is a convoluted plot twist at best. Does Yelland do this because he suffers from an acute attack of clammy-sweat-soaked fear over what his gallant, last-minute intervention will do to the inevitable course of world events? Or has he merely recognized, with the Nimitz sent ahead to 1980 his planes will have nowhere to land in the past, after their mission is complete? Don’t know. Doesn’t matter…not, to this plot. The screenwriters are not interested in philosophical debate, which begs the question – why give the audience time to contemplate? There are lots of ‘dead air’ moments in The Final Countdown where the mind can wander, wonder and ponder. But with so many narrative loopholes left unexplained, this is never a good thing. Pitched as a summer blockbuster, the picture is more of an intimate walking tour of the Nimitz with a pseudo-documentary feel that gets repeated submarined by the wham-a-doodle clumsy ‘dumb show’ concocted for our (choke!) benefit.

The Final Countdown was made by Kirk Douglas’ indie production company, Bryna, but given worldwide distribution through United Artists in 1980 – the same year the company was reeling from its $40 million financial fiasco of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate. Although The Final Countdown hit VHS & Betamax home rentals, and was later – by way of a rights acquisition – to get a sell-thru release from Warner Home Video in 1983, something must have happened shortly thereafter. The Final Countdown has long endured some utterly shoddy home video releases from bargain basement, fly-by-night distributors, stamping out their copies from what appears to be badly sourced VHS or 16mm prints.  Since the advent of DVD, and later, Blu-ray, The Final Countdown has reemerged several times in far better incarnations, the latest sourced from a 4K master of the 35mm OCN in native 4K from Blue Underground. In native 4K one could scarcely ask for better. This is a quality affair even if the movie is not.  There are some extremely minor fluctuations in density, mostly during the optical SFX shots, but otherwise, color saturation here is impressive. The image is thick, with a lot of grain looking indigenous to its source. Shadow delineation is excellent. Color grading, given the HDR bells and whistles, is superb. The image is rock solid with zero age-related artifacts to intrude. Comparatively, the standard 1080p image, while impressive, illustrates the differences between regular and UHD Blu-ray, especially where density fluctuations and fine detail rendering are concerned. While there are no complaints about the standard Blu (it is, what it ought to be), the 4K alternative offers an infinitely more engrossing visual representation of what this movie must have looked like, projected theatrically from a genuine film source.

No less than 3 audio tracks accompany this release – a 7.1 Dolby Atmos, a 5.1 DTS, and a 2.0 DTS. The Atmos augments the dated audio with a few instances of spatial intensity that, while sounding solid, really take us out of the storytelling. Sound mixes in movies are supposed to be so indigenous to their visuals, the audience is not aware of all the hard efforts gone into their foley. This isn’t the case here. Extras on the 4K disc, include 3 trailers and 3 TV spots in 4K. Cinematographer, Victor J. Kemper unloads with an archival audio commentary that, if memory serves, was recorded for the DVD release, and has appeared on all other previous digital releases of the movie. We also get, in standard hi-def, Lloyd Kaufman Goes to Hollywood – 14 minutes of reflection where the producer recalls how the original concept materialized. There are some interesting anecdotal back-stories here. We also get Starring The Jolly Rogers – a 32-min. puff piece, with reflections on what it was like to serve on Nimitz while making the picture.  Lastly, there is a press kit of digital materials (posters, ads, etc.). All of these extras are repeated on the standard Blu-ray. Arguably, the pièce de resistance here is John Scott’s original motion picture soundtrack, produced by Screen Archives, and, running almost 54-mins., included as a limited edition ‘bonus’, complete with liner notes and reversible cover art.  This CD will only be included in the first minting of The Final Countdown. So, if you are a die-hard fan, my suggestion is to get your orders in on the double. That said, at nearly $60 a pop, The Final Countdown UHD 4K release has to be one of the costliest yet to come down the pike. Is it worth it? Fans of the movie will undeniably say ‘yes’. But The Final Countdown, regardless of its immaculate home video presentation here, is really only a so-so movie that has not improved with age.  Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

4K disc - 5+

Standard Blu-ray - 4

EXTRAS

5+