Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktAnybody else a fan of the 1979 movie, Time After Time? A lovely, prim performance by Malcolm McDowell as H. G. Wells, David Warner as Jack the Ripper . . . and a lovely and young Mary Steenburgen. And it touches on the obduracy of time, the classic time travel trope where, no matter how hard you try (you time-travelling rapscallion, you), time does not want to be changed.
This is a clip from the movie. This (below) is the trailer, but trailers in 1979 were mostly appalling. It gives you no real sense of the movie, although perhaps does give you a sense of some of the over-enthusiastic music.
If you’ve got the DVD subscription on NetFlix, they have it. You could do worse.
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All Things in Moderation 
"Anybody else a fan of the 1979 movie, Time After Time? A lovely, prim performance by Malcolm McDowell as H. G. Wells, David Warner as Jack the Ripper . . . and a lovely and young Mary Steenburgen. And it touches on the obduracy of time, the classic time travel trope where, no matter how hard you try (you time-travelling rapscallion, you), time does not want to be changed."I still like The Final Countdown as an example of this genre. Particularly as it has no CGI, but real F-14's and real A6M Zero's dogfighting.
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I was glad to be reminded of that movie, and I would have chosen that clip, too.
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The Final Countdown is a great flick
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Mark: I was glad to be reminded of that movie, and I would have chosen that clip, too.I love the lead-in, as well, when H.G. Wells is explaining his time machine and Wells espouses the virtues of socialism, is distraught when he finds Jack the Ripper has used his time machine to go to 1979, saying: "I've sent him to utopia!" And, of course, when Malcolm McDowell begs David Warner to let Mary Steenburgen go. That part just broke my heart as a 10 year old, first time I saw it. Final Countdown is a classic. I also enjoyed The Philadelphia Experiment, although I thought it was slow in places, I liked the concept. Although I haven't seen that film in 20 years.
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jnc/NoVA:Very weird. I saw The Final Countdown in the theater when it first came out in, what, 1979 or 80? I hadn't thought of it in years, and then about a month ago one night I was flipping through Netflix instant watch movies and noticed it, so I watched it again. Now this.Charles Durning as a hard-ass Senator whose boat gets shot up by Japanese zeroes? What's not to like.
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Kevin:when Malcolm McDowell begs David Warner to let Mary Steenburgen go. That part just broke my heart as a 10 year old, first time I saw it. "Sorry, HG, it's checkmate and you've lost again."OK…if we are doing great time travel movies, you just can't leave out 12 Monkeys. Perhaps Brad Pitt's greatest performance ever as, a complete lunatic. And whats not to love about Madeleine Stowe?
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"Charles Durning as a hard-ass Senator whose boat gets shot up by Japanese zeroes? What's not to like."The best is the little subtleties, like the Senator's suspicion that the U.S.S. Nimitz with the jet fighters has been secretly built by the Roosevelt administration in preparation for getting the U.S. involved in the war.
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I remember that movie, too [Final Countdown]. Wasn't Kirk Douglas the lead?
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Mark:That's the one. Martin Sheen was in it as well.
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IMDB – The Final Countdown (1980)
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jnc, did they use real zeros in that movie? I thought we only had one left.I know we used either T6s or P47s painted like zeros in some movies.There was a great war novel by Brit Donald Robinson called "Piece of Cake" about the Spitfire pilots at the beginning of GB's involvement in WW2. It was made into a Masterpiece Theater miniseries that I know is available. Black humor. Death. But lots of great flying sequences. They used all 6 active Spits in the series and made them look like any number they needed by simulation.Hard to find these old planesnow, but I think there are a lot of T6s left.
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If you never read or saw "Piece of Cake"… that was the macho response of the pilots to any question about what they could actually do in the Spitfire. And it plays throughout the novel in all its irony. I think the novel is classic, but the MP Theater production is pretty damned good.
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"jnc, did they use real zeros in that movie? I thought we only had one left."I believe they were reproductions, but they were good ones built from the ground up as A6M's, not repainted American planes. Since it was made in 1979, there may have been some real A6M's available.
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Opps. I'm wrong."The rarity of flyable Zeros accounts for the use of single-seat North American T-6 Texans, modified externally and painted in Japanese markings, to stand in for the fighter in the films Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Final Countdown, and many other television and film depictions of the aircraft, such as Baa Baa Black Sheep (renamed Black Sheep Squadron). One Model 52 was used during the production of Pearl Harbor."Mitsubishi A6M Zero
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"oops" – for me too. "Piece of Cake" is by Derek Robinson, not Donald Robinson.
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