Detail is excellent, with precious few shots displaying any kind of noticeable softness, and instead a superb amount of detail pulled from the original stock.
Given precious little style, it's still quite hard not to find visual wonder in the grouped F-14s flying in formation, the opening take-off sequence reminiscent of an almost identical one which would kick-start Top Gun, and the Nimitz itself looking utterly majestic, particularly captured at sunrise. a fabulously organic native 4K image with Dolby VisionĪlthough constrained by a very limited budget, the millions - possibly even billions - of dollars of military machinery on hand go some ways towards concealing any production limitations, gifting it the kind of setting and 'stunts' that many blockbusters could only dream of. Your mileage may vary too, as really there are plenty of air shows for this kind of thing, but there is something to be said for the impressiveness of seeing real F-14s doing their thing, although there is no doubt that Top Gun found an infinitely better way to harness the potential of these iconic aircraft. Sheen, Douglas, and a bunch of others are shackled by a story that never really gets going, leaving the feature impressive on one front only: the military on manoeuvres. There's surely a lot of fun to be found in this wacky idea, and The Final Countdown eschews frivolity in favour of playing it utterly straight, and whilst this leaves it an - in many ways - surprisingly thoughtful sci-fi effort considering the premise, it also leaves it utterly flat in almost every other respect.
The story has Kirk Douglas's captain commanding the USS Nimitz, which is sucked through a vortex into 1941, on the eve of Pearl Harbor, leaving the captain and his unofficial civilian advisor (Martin Sheen) to ponder the quandary of whether to intervene and prevent the impending disaster, but risk potentially catastrophically changing history in the process. there is something to be said for the impressiveness of seeing real F-14s doing their thing, although there is no doubt that Top Gun found an infinitely better way to harness the potential of these iconic aircraft replica Zeroes from WWII, and a very intimate look at a fully operational Nimitz-Class nuclear aircraft carrier. It does, however, boast some real aerial action featuring F-14 Tomcats, A-6 Intruders, Sea Kings and. Predating the cheesy '86 classic, however, was actor-turned-director Don Taylor's The Final Countdown, a pretty dry affair which takes a surprisingly serious angle on an undoubtedly preposterous premise, jettisoning any potential for entertaining eccentricity in favour of a pretty mundane relating of unfolding events.
As CG evolved across the course of these features, however, the practical footage became infinitely less remarkable, leaving - once again - Top Gun standing out above the rest. Tony Scott's Top Gun is clearly the foremost example, but there are a few others across the decades, including Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down, Bay's Armageddon, and even the first couple of Iron Man films.
Final countdown full#
There is something to be said for watching relatively rare footage, and it is indeed relatively rare for the US Navy - and, in this case, the Department of Defence too - to give their full support to a film production. Ultimately little more than an advert for the US Navy - although with more of a documentary vibe than, say, Top Gun - The Final Countdown is still an interesting time capsule of an experiment.
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