| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
 Posted - 06/28/2008 : 7:38:16 PM
|
FOREWORD
I bought this movie about seven months ago when I saw it lying in a Gotta-Get-Rid-Of-It bin at a local supermarket. I didn’t remember anything about it other than Scheider and the helicopter. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I had ever seen it start-to-finish. I knew I had seen bits and pieces on the family Betamax, but that was it as near as I could recall. But out of that 80s nostalgia that’s lately gone from being a playful gentle tugging to an insistent constant yanking in my wandering mind, I bought it. It triggered extremely pleasant memories, even though for all intents and purposes, I was watching this for the first time. The DVD contains a commentary track by director John Badham, and I'll be referring to it many times throughout this dissection.
Here’s an interview with Dan O’Bannon, the co-writer of Blue Thunder, that was released shortly before the movie’s release:
http://www.uplink.com.au/airwing/bluethunder/index.cgi?act=page&f=articles/danobannon1
I know nothing about the guy; he could be the most likable guy on earth for all I know; but FWIW, I think he’s full of s**t in this interview. I also find it revealing that he would base "social commentary" around something as comparitively trivial and selfish as him being grouchy about being woken up at night. I wonder how many other "poignant" movies get their start from stuff this piddly.
**shrug** No matter.
All right! Put on some Quiet Riot and put up your Catherine Bach posters! Just in time for the 4th of July, it’s time for BLUE THUNDER!!!
Here we go!
As the Columbia Pictures mascot appears, we hear police radio chatter. This is heard over the intro text: “The hardware, weaponry, and surveillance systems depicted in this film are real and in use in the United States today.” As Badham acknowledges, this was not quite true. It’s actually pretty amusing to listen to him make a bunch of addenda to this introductory claim.
Shot from inside a police air traffic control tower, a pair of choppers fly off towards the skyline of Los Angeles. Nice way to start. Workmanlike. On the pad, a young pilot makes a mild fool of himself chasing the handful of papers that got blown out of his hands. This is Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern), and this first scene sets the tone of his character: A klutzy rookie. He’ll be handled pretty well, an almost-OCR.
Then we get our first shot of our star, Roy Scheider (** the crowd goes nuts!**). He plays Frank Murphy, LAPD chopper pilot. He’s acting weird, setting his watch on a 30-second countdown and standing there with his eyes closed. Lymangood tells him that he’s wanted on the pad. After his strange ritual is complete, he and Lymangood set off. This brief exchange between Lymangood and Murphy sets the stage for their relationship: Experienced veteran mentoring an eager rookie. Watching the two of them interact throughout this movie will be one of the most pleasant things about it.*
[* - Since Murphy and Lymangood spend much of the movie together, I’ll refer to them as M&L.]
Then we get introduced to a third character, Police Captain Braddock, played by the late Warren Oates, to whom this movie is dedicated. Oates died about a month after this movie was completed. He made his career by excelling at playing, as Badham puts it, “the kind of cop who pisses Jack Daniel’s,” and that’s exactly what he does here. He lays it on as thick as cranberry sauce in Blue Thunder, and I love it! He tells Murphy that Lymangood is his new partner. Murphy’s answer to “Feeling any pressure?” is a kick.
So we’re only 2:20 into the movie, and it’s already given us three of the five main characters. Doesn’t waste time, does it?
Close-ups of hands flipping switches, feet moving pedals, rotors whirring into life, all set to what is supposed to be either a triumphant or majestic synth score, but fails to come off as either one. An extra exposits to Braddock that if it were up to him, he wouldn’t let Murphy fly at all. Braddock seems to understand his concern, but doesn’t believe there’ll be any problems. Sounds like typical Loose-Cannon-With-Sterling-Record garbage. But this movie mixes it up at least a little by never mentioning just what Murphy’s record is.
Another close-up of the rotor as the movie’s title is typed across the screen in blue computer font. Since the title character hasn’t shown up yet, I can see why they went for a close-up rather than a full-body shot of a chopper. Still, when I pause it on the title, it does look kinda amiss.
In the control tower, there’s a bunch of radio chatter. Badham says that the guy who did that was both an actual Air Traffic Controller and an actor and could keep up the chatter nonstop forever. In between the chatter is exposition to the effect that Murphy likes get a bit insane with the choppers, leading his previous partner to quit the Air Patrol entirely. The chopper flies off into the sunset.
In the night sky, Murphy and Lymangood deliver smooth exposition in get-to-know-you fashion. Lymangood is a transfer from ground patrol who expects Air Support to be quieter and less violent. This is really played well. Lymangood talks about himself with a little more detail than is needed, as an eager beaver who wants to impress/make conversation with a senior partner will do. Murphy reacts to everything with a quiet air of knowing something Lymangood doesn’t, and Lymangood doesn’t notice it. But Murphy doesn’t seem haughty or aloof. When Lymangood mistakes an undercover cop for a drug pusher and then explains that yes he was at the briefing he just….forgot…., Murphy chuckles and tells him that he’s gonna fit right in. This is really good stuff. Because during my Navy duty, I was just like Lymangood, and my superiors came in all different stripes. The ones I have the most pleasant memories of are the ones who were like Murphy. So I’m lovin’ this. Also interesting is the fact that this was filmed in a studio, with the streets below realized through rear-projection. It’s the single smoothest rear-projection scene I’ve ever seen. The darkness helps, of course; and so does having moving reflections projected onto the cockpit glass. It looks damn near perfect. Badham speaks with great pride about making it seem like these actors really are in a moving vehicle traveling above the streets, and it’s pride well-earned. It looks excellent!
M&L receive a radio call about a robbery in progress, so they head off in that direction. This scene is here simply to show what a police Air Support unit does: Assists the ground cops by shining the light on the fleeing perps, communicating with the groundies where other perps might be, occasionally getting shot at (“Welcome to Air Support!”), and in extreme pinches, “dusting” the perps; that is, lowering the chopper so the spinning blades kick up a poopload of dust and wind and essentially disorient the perp into near-immobility. All of this happens here. The ground cops and air cops are already close enough to the scene that the perps don’t even get one block away before being caught, and one perp is dressed rather garishly for a robbery (Scheider actually gets a line pointing that out). The other perp must’ve bolted the Oakland A’s cap onto his head for it to stay on like that, especially with that afro of his. It ain’t Oscar Gamble-level, but still (besides, in 1983, who in the LA area would be caught dead wearing that thing?). But the most noteworthy aspect of this scene is M&L. The two of them play this out beautifully. Murphy gives terse-but-not-edgy commands, while Lymangood carries them out quickly but with a bit of a fumble to it, a brief “Oh!” or a slight stammer to his voice. It’s a tiny detail, but it’s a really convincing show of a seasoned vet talking the nOOb through the motions.
With the bad guys taken care of, Lymangood works up the nerve to ask Murphy what the ritual with the watch was all about. Murphy says that the first sign of insanity is loss of one’s sense of time, so by counting to 30 with his eyes closed, he insures that he’s still sane. This is actually a residue of the early drafts of the story, in which Murphy was a much more disturbed character. Dan O’Bannon’s original idea was for him to be a bit of an antihero. Badham changed that to a more likable type. Still, this bit remains as do a couple others. The reasons for his insanity are only partially explained (Vietnam, natch), but it really doesn’t need to be explained too much, and it does make Murphy’s later unusual behavior a little more believable. So although the brink-of-insanity aspect is unnecessary, I think it’s just fine.
Their chat is interrupted by Murphy spotting an abandoned Chevy with no license plates parked on the side of a road. Lymangood again rookie-stumbles his way through calling it in, pausing to marvel at Murphy’s ability to even spot something like that. I’m kinda skeptical myself. This seems like another scene designed to flesh out what Air Support does, but it is actually a key scene to the plot, and it will also create a massive implausible coincidence in the plot as well. Besides, from the shot we see, it doesn’t look THAT abandoned. It’s simply parked on the side of the road. So Lymangood’s question is valid, how did Murphy spot that?
In an action movie that tries to be “relevant,” a mixed signal can sometimes sneak into the script. That’s precisely what happens in the next scene. Murphy decides to take Lymangood through Air Support initiation: Hovering outside the window of a famous actress and spying on her as she does nude yoga. Lymangood practically busts a load in his flight suit. I’m serious, he is just over-the-top gaga here. The lady is admirably lithe and supple, and her body is excellent; but good God, Lymangood. You’re watching her through binoculars and through both the chopper glass and the window glass, so whatever you’re seeing, it can’t be THAT big of a thrill. Murphy is having a mellow good time of it, as he’s been here before. The problem this creates for the “relevance” of the movie is that it shows our hero doing precisely that which the movie wants us to oppose: Spying. This movie’s entire message is that spying is bad. Yet here’s lovable ol’ Murphy, played by Roy Scheider, spying on someone for the sheer thrill of it. Sloppy. The scene tries to make an excuse for it by having Lymangood ask, “Do you think she knows we’re out here?” to which Murphy replies, “All she has to do is look out the window.” The implication is that she knows damn well they’re there, and she doesn’t mind and likely enjoys the attention. So it follows that the movie is saying that it’s okay for Murphy to spy, because the target of his spying is someone who doesn’t particularly mind. But even that fails to hold up, because this is the first of two times Murphy spies on someone just for kicks, and the second time will have no such fig leaf rationale to hide behind. So make up your mind, movie.
Remember the abandoned vehicle with no license plates that M&L reported? Well, by sheer blind coincidence, there is an 80s TV goon crouched behind the wheel. He now starts the car up and follows another car being driven by an oblivious distinguished-looking 40-ish black lady. Coordinating with another carful of goons, the two cars are able to follow the lady’s car into the driveway of her gated mansion. They assault her in TV fashion (unconvincing punches and dialogue like “Get her briefcase!” This could be an early scene from a Knight Rider episode). Back in the chopper, M&L are notified of a “rape in progress.”
Buh?
How are cops notified of a rape….”in progress?” As we can see, the cops aren’t even there yet, it’s just one lady being assaulted by three goons in the driveway of her massive abode. Not to fault LA’s finest too much, though, because both the ground cops and M&L arrive supernaturally quickly. The goons are still doing to the lady whatever it is they’re doing when the boys in blue arrive. **shrug** Maybe the goons were havin’ a blast and decided to keep it up for a while and just lost track of time. The ground cops shoot one of the goons near the backyard swimming pool. Guess where his body lands. The other tries to climb the chain link fence surrounding the yard. Halfway up, he gets shot in the shoulder, causing the briefcase to fly out of his grasp, spilling its paper contents on its descent. That’s a movie trope that I don’t think has ever been mentioned: Briefcases spring open awful easily.
The lady victim screams for the cops to just let the goon go, but gets shot in the neck by that selfsame goon. Goon gets shot again himself, loses his grip on the fence and falls to the grass. Watching this from up in the chopper, Murphy experiences a traumatic flashback to an Vietnam incident in which he was piloting a chopper (and not looking a day younger than the present) while a random Asian dude was pushed out the open door of the craft and plummeted to his offscreen death. The recollection is a bit much for Murphy, who temporarily forgets what he’s doing until Lymangood snaps him out of it. Mmmm……I’m not sure I buy that. Traumatic Vietnam flashback I can buy, but a flashback that causes a cop to forget what he’s doing right in the middle of a police situation?
Having requested an ambulance to the scene, M&L begin to head home. Murphy immediately noticed that the abandoned vehicle has disappeared. The editing of this makes it seem like M&L are still hovering over the mansion shoot-out scene. So this would have to mean that Murphy noticed the abandoned (although it didn’t look it) vehicle near the as-yet-unremarkable mansion, this abandoned vehicle that Murphy happened to notice carried goons to assault the lady, Murphy flew to spy on the nude yoga chick and then got called to a rape in progress at that very same mansion, and after assisting in a police combat mission with shots fired and everything plus a flashback traumatic enough that he had to be jolted back to his senses by Lymangood, he not only managed to notice that the abandoned vehicle was no longer there, but also found it’s absence relevant. Sorry folks, that’s a bit much.
Back at the cop shop, Braddock cusses out M&L. This is an excellent scene for Warren Oates, because he gets a couple straight minutes where he just goes full-tilt ham-o-mania. You can tell he’s havin’ a blast, and it’s a blast to watch. He tears M&L a new one for spying on the yoga chick. He makes a point of the fact that the majority of the general public already dislikes cops and resents police intrusion and surveillance. That was pretty much Dan O’Bannon’s core motivator to write this script in the first place, so I’m glad it’s here; and Braddock doesn’t seem like a bad guy when he says it, either. But the plot part of this scene is the details of the shootout. Braddock is sick with the irony that the victim of shooting and attempted rape is part of the Mayor’s Special Counsel on Urban Violence. Murphy perks up, objecting that there was no rape.
Waitaminit. How would Murphy know? He arrived on scene as the perps were already fleeing. Furthermore, he never landed after the perps were shot, so he didn’t conduct any examination more detailed than aerial. So he has no idea what happened before he got there.
Murphy tries to bring up the abandoned vehicle, saying that it must’ve been the stakeout. Braddock catchily phrases that is was just a pair of lovebirds who couldn’t afford a motel. Murphy counters with M.O. stuff that I’m not sure is relevant to broke lovebirds, but Braddock brushes it off, saying the case is closed. Then he yells some more, and rules that M&L are grounded. No more flying for them. Kicking Lymangood out of the room, he more calmly tells Murphy to stick around. I like Braddock’s change of tone once Lymangood is out of earshot. He genuinely is miffed, but his bluster is at least a little bit of show for the rookie, while Murphy is old enough to know better and hence can be treated with less showmanship. Braddock tells Murphy to see the police psychiatrist, which Murphy does the patented Roy Scheider weary-voiced “Aw, c’mooon.” This, too, is a residual from the earlier draft with a less likable Murphy. The psychiatrist scene itself was filmed, but left out of the final cut. The DVD has a few photos from it in the Making Of feature, but the scene itself is presumably lost forever. John Badham says that it still would’ve been contextually appropriate but would also have created a speed bump in the pacing.
Cut to Murphy getting into his Trans Am. He sets his watch for his 30-second countdown, then floors it out of the parking garage. Maybe this comes off differently without the psychiatrist scene, but as it is, watching Murphy’s car zigzag around orange cones while the tires make a screeching racket only makes him seem like a bit of a crybaby. And I don’t see what the deal with the watch is. I suppose he might be timing himself to see how fast he can exit the parking garage, but that’s not how it comes across.
Cut to Murphy arriving home. His home is a nice little bungalow with a great view of the skyline of LA. As Murphy parks in front of said skyline, we can see the gorgeous…..sunset? No, because he was spying on Yoga chick at 10:30 pm…..sunrise? No, because in a minute, dialogue will give the present time as 3 am. Careless? Yup!
Murphy paces around the place to allow the answering machine to give background expo on the character we’re about to meet. An ex-lover of his who seems to want to get back together.
A shadow on the front porch has Murphy reaching for his pistol….but it’s the same lady (Candy Clark), in the flesh, carrying her sleeping son who looks to be about 3-5 years too old to be carried by his mother anymore. He snaps at her for scaring him to death, and she says that a burgler wouldn’t come through the front door with a key (?!?). This is a bizarre way of introducing the leading lady (the only lady, actually). While I suppose the answering machine followed by an in-person entrance does allow for exposition to be given more smoothly, the answering machine message doesn’t have much exposition other than she and Murphy are not still together and that she wants to get back together, both of which are made clear by her face-to-face with Murphy anyway. So I have no clue what the movie is going for here. Incidental and very VERY minor blooper: When Murphy points the gun at her, she shouts, “For Christ’s sake, Murphy!” Unusual that she would address an ex by last name, especially as she calls him Frank for the rest of the movie. **shrug** Maybe in post-breakup bitterness, she conditioned herself to think of him by his last name, I dunno.
By the way, her name is Kate, but she isn’t given a name until later in the movie.
I guess I should mention her appearance, as well. She is absolutely adorable to look at. Mousy unremarkable shoulder-length hair style, dressed in everyday clothes (and will for the rest of the movie), cheeks a tad full; and since she’s always wearing either a sweater or jacket, it’s impossible to gauge her bust. She ain’t stunning, she ain’t a Hollywood-lookin’ leading lady, even by ’83 standards. But if she worked in the same department with me, I’d be talking to her, no question. Classic everywoman* without seeming too obvious about it. I love it!
(* - Is it just me, or has the phrase “girl next door” thoroughly lost its original meaning of a everyday lady and become just another make and model of siren?)
Murphy is clearly none too happy to see her (“at 3 o’clock in the morning?”), although whether because he almost shot her or because of whatever happened in the past is unclear. She wants to get her blender that she had left; she also still wants to get back with Murphy. Her romantically pathetic phrasing of “I came to make friends” probably hits close to home for anyone who’s been in Murphy spot. She finds the blender, stumbles across….a lace tablecloth, I’m guessing….that Murphy reluctantly reminds her was a gift from him to her (dig his “Oh, dammit” look when she first finds it). She gleefully throws it over their heads and they begin playing tonsil-hockey. Murphy’s aloofness towards her vanishes instantly as he throws his arms around her. See? All the time, he missed her, too. Isn’t this sweeeeeeeeet?
In a vacuum, sure. But as part of a subplot, not the least bit. From here on out, they might as well have never broken up (divorced? It’s never said.) in the first place. I wanna say that I’m not sold on the two of them even being attracted to each other, but then I remember that we actually never find out anything at all about this lady besides the facts that she’s a mother (which won’t enter into anything) and a bit of a hellion behind the wheel (which will). **shrug** Maybe that’s the attraction: They’re both vehicular goof-offs.
Cut to him walking her to her car. They talk nonsense to the effect that she is now re-entering his life (and FWIW, the kid was faking asleep the whole time). Waitaminit. If the Tense Relationship of a Returning Ex-Lover subplot was only one scene, then what in the world is it even in here for in the first place? The only guess I can make is a standard wife or girlfriend wouldn’t be very consistent for someone Murphy’s early-draft mental instability, and this scene was left as was. The scene’s coda of Murphy putting his head to his temple with his eyes closed as soon as Kate is out of sight would indicate so.
Cut to a TV station’s mixing board, or whatever you call it. The guy in the yellow shirt in the background is John Badham making a tastefully silent director’s cameo. M. Day Shayamalan, pay attention! A TV newscast gives us exposition that the rich lady who got shot has died in hospital (and he pronounces “vertebra” properly! Hurrah!); the LA police chief is convinced that, given the lack of any ID or vehicle ID on the perps, the perps were “probably Latin American and almost certainly illegal aliens;” and that it’s uncertain what effect this will have on already-strained race relations in the city. That quoted bit is irritating. Given the lack of any ID at all but the posthumous existence of faces, I don’t see how citizenship or lack thereof would be more ascertainable than ethnicity. This reeks of stacking the deck, and had this movie turned out the way O’Bannon intended, I say that that’s exactly what it is. However, the LA cops will be given a fair shake from here on out. Incidentally, Badham tells an amusing anecdote about filming the tiny bit shot at the hospital involving Badham, the hospital’s chief exec, and proximity to speaker phones.
Cut to Murphy driving up to the mansion where Ms. Urban Violence Task Force got shot. It’s nighttime, and the news bit gave the time of death as 8:47 AM, so this isn’t the same night. The place is deserted. Not even any police tape. Garbage. Murphy pokes around the backyard, finding a scrap of paper that got blown into a tree limb. He pockets it. This is the only scene in the movie where the handheld camera became distracting. There is a fair bit of wind, maybe that’s what causes it.
Responding to a page from his boss, Murphy is recalled back to the police station to meet some Shady Gov’mint Spooks. He’s been put back on flight status and assigned to special detail. The spooks exposit that they’re testing an experimental aircraft and have their own pilot; but since LA is the chosen testing site and the LA mayor wants local participation, they must confide in the LAPD and its pilots. This is a nice believable reason why they would want Murphy in on it, but later it’ll become implausible that they keep him on it.
On the ride to the airfield, dialogue reveals that Murphy served in Viet Nam and was sent home after his second chest wound. The spooks tells us that with the Olympics soon approaching, with the resultant publicity and potential for mayhem, crowd control is what this secret project is all about. Murphy is instantly skeptical, citing Viet Nam as an example of crowd control from the air being an iffy proposition. The oiliness of the spooks and Murphy’s understated certainty makes this seem like a Floyd/Murphy Is Always Right™ moment. A bit early in the game to be taking sides, movie. The ’84 Olympics in LA were indeed something for which security measures needed to be taken seriously. The murders committed at the ’72 Munich Games were barely a decade in the past, and the Soviet-led 15-nation boycott of the ’84 Games wasn’t announced until May of ’84. There was also the concern of standard-issue crazies wanting attention with explosives, like the whoevers who set off explosives at the ’96 Games in Atlanta for which Richard Jewell was blamed by the press and later cleared. So I can’t dislike the spook here.
At the Weapons Evaluation Facility just before sunrise, all the men ascend a spectators’ platform while Murphy mentions that it is illegal to arm police helicopters. Murphy, you dork, get the f**k on the ball. If the operation is under the auspices of the federal government, and the chopper is owned by the federal government, this is a federal helicopter, not a local police helicopter. Of course Murphy would know this, but the movie wants us to get that Murphy is already leery of this operation, hence so should the audience. Ok movie. We get it, and if it’s all the same to you, we, not you, will decide how we feel about the operation.
The spook says that someone gave a nickname to the chopper: Blue Thunder. Cut to the shot of title character approaching the camera, silhouetted by the sun.
Awesome shot!!!
Badham says that this is filmed exactly as it appears: The chopper flew a few miles out, lined up with the sun, and flew in towards the cameras as they rolled. It looks fantastic! It’s not kinda-slo-mo, but it takes it’s time. Blue Thunder doesn’t charge the camera; it glides towards it for a few seconds, letting us appreciate its insect-like visage. Cut to a tracking shot at normal speed as is rockets past the camera and out over the sun-kissed desert plain towards the awaiting guests.
Another awesome shot!!!
Wow! It’s amazing sometimes how much of a charge a well-executed dramatic entrance can be. This is one of my favorites. I almost wanna shout “F**K YEAH!!!”
Assorted military and government types take their seats as a microphoned sergeant (Ed Bernard, a still-active long-time TV actor) begins the formal presentation as Blue Thunder hovers behind him over the firing range. This is a fun little bit, as the sergeant’s Southern Black accent and reference to Blue Thunder in the feminine sense give an sense that while he is enjoying the opportunity to crow about his “lady,” he also is genuinely proud of her. Here’s the entire bit, because I like it so much:
“Ok, gentlemen take your seats……She don’t look normal!…She don’t fly normal!…’Cause she ain’t normal!…This whole ship is heavily armored with Nordoc NATO armor, one inch thick…This ship is equipped with a forward-mounted 20-millimeter electric cannon. Its six barrels are capable of firing 4,000 rounds of ammunition* per minute…And THAT, gentlemen, is one hell of a s**tstorm in ANYBODY’S language!!!…Now let’s take a look, and watch this lady strut her stuff!”
[* - He’s got the Southern accent down so perfectly that he even pronounces “ammunition” as “amminition.” Tops!]
Can you stand it?!? This guy just pops out of nowhere and rocks me to the bone!
During that speech, we get alternating cuts of the crowd with mostly unreadable expressions, and Blue Thunder herself. Badham says that she (now he’s got me doing it!) is pretty much a cross between the French Alouette’s body and the American Apache’s cockpit, only with more cockpit glass. I’ll add that the French Alouette, as its name indicates, is a rather feminine-ish design, while the American Apache was (any maybe still is, I dunno) the alpha male of the US attack helicopter fleet, or squadron, or whatever. Overall, it looks like a nicely natural mix. I’m guessing that the reason for the extra glass is so we could actually see the actors during shots filmed from outside the aircraft. Retrospectively, I’ll add that while we think of this movie as about a “super-helicopter,” it actually rather low-key as far as armament or general badass imagery goes. Unlike Apaches or the Russian Mil choppers (like in Rambo III, e.g.) it has no wings, and hence, no racks of Hellfires or FFARs or Sidewinders. Just one nosegun 20-mm cannon. While a 20-mm cannon seems like deadly awesomeness when Jesse Ventura tears down men and trees with it in Predator, on a military chopper it’s kinda to be expected.
After giving us that rousing speech, the movie now gives us off-puttingly obvious exposition, as Gov’t Spook gives tells Murphy what’s about to happen; the same Murphy who the spook already knows flew choppers in Vietnam and probably already knows all this. Red wooden dummies in gun-toting poses pop up all over the firing range, as do white wooden dummies in holding-hands-with-kids poses. The spook says:
“Red dummies represent terrorists. The whites are civilians, innocent bystanders. The object if for our pilot to knock out the red dummies and the black car. He shouldn’t touch any of the others. In a riot situation, we just want to get the bad guys and protect the innocents.”
Christ, I have no idea why the decision was made to explain it to the audience in this fashion. It would’ve gone down much much easier had the sergeant explained it himself. After all, in a gaggle of government types, we can easily assume that there are at least some civilians in the bunch who’ve never seen an aerial firing range before. Clunk!
In a snappily edited sequence, Blue Thunder blasts the s**t out of the red targets and the black car while completely missing all white targets.
A nicely subtle hint is given at 32:06: There’s a shot of a uniformed soldier who looks like David Caruso. Behind him and to the right is the man who drove the abandoned vehicle when the rich lady got shot. I didn’t notice it on the first few viewings.
Murphy is morbidly impressed at Blue Thunder’s lethal selectivity, and Gov’mint Spook assures him that this kind of firepower would only be used in extreme crisis situations. Blue Thunder makes another pass through the range, taking out more red targets but also hitting a few white ones. Here we get a bit that inadvertently sets up a contradiction of Murphy’s character. When Spook mentions that the reds are blown to hell, Murphy counters that a few whites are, too. Spook says that the ratio of hell-toward reds/hell-toward whites is acceptable, Murphy says, “Not if you’re one of the civilians.” Murphy’s actions later in the movie will contradict the holy motherf**kin’ s**t out of this. Blue Thunder (just “Blue” henceforth) makes a final run, again hitting all manner of reds but still hitting some whites, causing the pilot to swear angrily in a British accent.
Blue lands, and everyone gathers around. The pilot exits and testily brushes off the compliments on his shooting. He’s still miffed about his poor accuracy. So am I. When the title character gets a grand introduction, it kinda dampens the whole effect when he/she/it immediately makes an unimpressive show of his/her/itself. Even if the title character is a McGuffin, and maybe even especially if it’s a McGuffin. For example, take Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Ark is first revealed with all due splendor and Biblical majesty. Would that splendor and majesty have stood if the Ark, upon being hoisted up by Ohio and Sallah, had a few pieces of itself break off? Or leaked the powdery Ten Commandments all over its slithery guardians? Not likely. Blue Thunder should’ve been treated similarly. Blue will be a morally ambiguous character, so why not let it be totally badass for at least its intro?
With a hearty “Goddammit!” Blue’s pilot removes his helmet, and it’s Malcolm McDowell, playing Colonel F.E. Cochrane. Badham has a very interesting and impressive story about McDowell’s participation in this movie: Badham says that McDowell was a last-minute replacement for an Australian actor who had to drop out. Badham enlisted McDowell without knowing that McDowell was already so afraid of flying that he had a formal no-fly clause as an automatic condition of any contract he’d sign. McDowell didn’t know that Badham didn’t know about it. So McDowell signed under the impression that he wouldn’t have to fly. But after seeing Scheider, Stern, the flight crew, cameramen, and sometimes Badham himself get into the choppers and fly, McDowell decided to balls it out. Badham still didn’t know until after the first flying scene McDowell did, a simple getting-in-and-taking-off scene. Upon landing, McDowell removed his helmet, tooked a couple steps, and barfed on the spot. So Malcolm McDowell wins The Trooper Award for going through personal phobia to complete the movie. Hell yeah!!! **cue the Iron Maiden intro riff**
As Cochrane is introduced to the assembled men, Murphy recognizes him. When Braddock asks, Murphy says with a fake British accent that Cochrane tried to have him court-martialed in Viet Nam. Murphy and Cochrane have a mild stare-down before parting. When Murphy is out of earshot, Cochrane tells the spooks that he would’ve had Murphy court-martialed if Murphy’s combat injuries hadn’t beaten him to the punch. He declares Murphy totally unsuitable for their purposes but that he can handle Murphy himself. Returning to Blue, where sergeant is giving a brief run-down of the on-board capabilities, Murphy and Cochrane have another mild ego-clash that culminates with Cochrane telling Murphy to be on the pad to go on a test flight with him the next day. He ends put pointing pistol-like at Murphy and saying “Catch you latah.” This will be the Designated Witty Catchphrase of the movie.
Cut to the next day back at the Air Support HQ, where Murphy and Lymangood are prepping for their flight with Cochrane. We meet Montoya, Murphy’s ex-partner who was driven to switch to day shift because he couldn’t take any more of Murphy’s wingdings in the sky. Strangely, he doesn’t seem too miffed about it. He and Murphy exchange playful banter as Murphy hands him the scrap of paper he snagged from the crime scene. The writing is all in Spanish, so Murphy needs Montoya to translate. Montoya is happy to do it and will get to Murphy later cuz he’s gotta get to work right now. Montoya also greets Lymangood, who sports a black ballcap with “JAFO” on it. He asks what JAFO means, and it told that he’ll find out later. This is a running joke whose payoff won’t be particularly worth it. On their way out to the helipad, two things happen: Cochrane conducts some suspiciously simple sabotage of a police chopper. He simply breaks the metal tie on a bolt-and-nut and loosens the nut a little. I know nothing at all about aviation mechanics, and if I’m wrong I hope someone will correct me, but I’m just not sold on this simple form of sabotage being enough to cause the results we’re about to see. Secondly, Lymangood excitedly asks Murphy if it’s true that he looped a chopper. Murphy confirms it, chalking it up to the stupidity of youth. Lymangood says no way, and the approaching Cochrane gets to be British smug, saying that looping a helicopter is aerodynamically impossible and that Murphy is as damn liar.
I don’t mind Cochrane coming off as villainous, but villainous-through-implausible-ignorance is f**kin’ garbage. There are some models of chopper that can indeed be looped. See for yourself, third question down: http://www.copter.com/ica-1006.htm
Or here, bottom left of the main page: http://www.rjhelicopters.com/r22.htm
Not only can some choppers loop, but Harold E. Thompson looped a Sikorsky S-52 ten times in the early 50s. If I wanna be super-duper generous, I could say that since Cochrane only heard the tail end of the conversation, maybe he assumed that they were talking about looping one of these particular choppers here on the pad. But if so, there’s no indication of it. So this is typical junk characterization. Villainous through implausible ignorance. I hate that.
Cochrane haughtily tells them that he’ll fly Blue while they “follow my leadah” in the regular chopper. Murphy makes fun of his accent, and Cochrane does the “catch you latah” thing again. That’s twice in rapid succession he’s said that. That’s when it became clear that this was, in fact, the movie’s catchphrase.
Flight scene! Cochrane in Blue Thunder and M&L in a regular chopper soar and bank and climb and dive over LA, filmed in beautiful sweeping shots. Great stuff! Unlike the night flight scene earlier, this time Scheider and Stern (and McDowell) really were up in airborne choppers. Since someone has to fly the thing, we don’t see M & L in the same shot together except a couple sky-background shots, because when one of them is one the screen, the actual pilot of the craft is just off-screen where the other guy would be. Murphy makes fun of Cochrane’s accent the whole time as Cochrane gives in-flight instructions. But eventually, the bolt Cochrane loosened comes off entirely, causing….I don’t know exactly what, but the chopper starts arcing down to its doom. Murphy keeps his wits about himself and manages to execute a hard landing on the foreman’s shack in a construction yard, scatting yardbirds everywhere but causing no injuries. In a nice touch, rather than offer assistance, the yardbirds scream and cuss at Murphy for almost killing them.
Cut to the police parking garage. Murphy, wearing a sling (ace landing!) is getting into his car when Cochrane pulls up in his fine-ass grey car. I’m no good with cars, but it might be a Lamborghini. Badham says that the dialogue in this scene is horrible, and says that the reason is because he himself wrote it. He’s right. With “Back off” and “Are you threatening me?” this is noticeably corny. It also contains the third “Catch you latah,” only seven minutes after the first. Irritating! If there was any doubt that Murphy will use this back at Cochrane later, this scene almost makes it mandatory. Serious! Rattled by Cochrane, Murphy screeches out of the parking lot.
Cut to latah, with no catching at all going on. Murphy is riding with Kate and her son on their way to a….train ride. Some kid’s thing, I guess. When the kid yells that Mom has just driven past the train ride, she merrily pulls a U-ey on the one-way street and evades the cars honking and swerving as she and the kid beam with pleasure and Murphy cowers in the back seat. The scene ends with a shot of Kate and kid riding on some Disney-style train ride thingee, like a ground-level roller-coaster.
The purpose of that scene is to establish Kate as a reckless, but not entirely incompetent, driver. Plot point? Ooo yeah. But for some reason, that last shot of her and the kid on the train sticks with me. What is that thing? Most such trains, like at theme parks, are part of theme parks and actually take you somewhere neato. The train ride itself can be fun, especially if it takes you past something cool to look at, but its just an incidental thrill. This train ride, though, actually has a blue street sign labeled “Train Ride” complete with silhouetted train, like a “Gas” or “Food” or “Lodging” signs with their silhouettes. I’ve never seen anything like that before. Does it really exist? Also baffling is the adult dude sitting at the front of the train ride. He’s sitting about a dozen seats in front of Kate and kid. He might be Murphy, it’s hard to tell as the train goes past, but he’s wearing a brown sport jacket while Murphy was wearing a grey one. If that ain’t Murphy, then where did Murphy go? And if it is Murphy, why is he sitting a dozen seats ahead of his lady? **shrug**
|
Edited by - Food on 06/28/2008 8:20:06 PM
|
|
|
Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2008 : 7:39:29 PM
|
Cut to what I’m guessing is the same day, as Murphy hasn’t changed clothes. Montoya is telling him about the scrap of paper Murphy gave him to translate. There’s nothing noteworthy about it, except the word “THOR” in big letters that means nothing to Montoya or Murphy. It’ll come into play later.
At Kate’s home, a TV report describes the funeral of the shot lady, and increased racial tensions throughout the city. In the single cheapest move of this entire movie, said tensions are depicted by showing footage of the Watts riots. Come the f**k on, movie! Imagine if By Dawn’s Early Light had depicted the nuclear detonations by using the A-bomb test footage of the house being blown apart. Ridiculous, right? So it is here, too.
Kate finds that Murphy has curled up to sleep in her son’s room. Murphy is dreaming the same Vietnam flashback from earlier. Remember in Brad’s 2010 review that Scheider’s acting during the aerobraking scene was the least convicing part of it? That’s kinda how this plays out, too. He scrunches up his face and squints and draws his eyebrows together in mental anguish, and it just seems over the top to me. At least he doesn’t bolt upright upon waking. Of course, he doesn’t wake on camera, so maybe he saved that for later.
Scene at Blue Thunder’s hangar. The sergeant, still proud of Blue, points out the wonderful features to Murphy, like the super-duper mikes that can “hear a mouse fart at 2,000 feet,” the onboard computer data links, and especially the helmet-guided cannon. Wherever the pilot looks, the guns point. It probably makes firing during an obstacle-filled flight tricky, but no biggie. Lymangood gets info about the flight recorder tapes. In a baffler so obvious that it must come into play later, each tape has its own code number and can only be erased if the tape is inside the case. Bizarre!
Braddock enters and cusses Murphy out for threatening Cochrane in the garage. He tells Murphy that the feds seem to be after Murphy, so he’d better watch out. This brings up the obvious question: If the feds are leery of Murphy (and Cochrane did say earlier that Murphy was “totally unsuitable for our purpose”), then why in the world is Murphy even allowed to fly the thing at all? Is he the only pilot the LAPD has? Especially after the last chopper he piloted, he crashed. Granted, Murphy no longer wears the cast (which is the only indication of the passage of time), so maybe all the associated inquiries and paperwork already got settled. Still, I’m not buying Murphy still being the designed LAPD pilot for Blue Thunder.
That night, Blue Thunder is about to take off, M&L piloting. Cochrane doesn’t like the idea, but the other spooks tell him not to worry because it’s just an orientation flight (which one of these gov’t men are in charge, anyway?). Off Blue goes into the LA night sky! The photography here is beautiful. The LA lights stretch out as far as the eye can see, and the wide shots of Blue make me wish I could be in the cockpit myself. One he engages the Turbine Boost, Lymangood is like a teenager in his first car (“Momma!”). Appropriate, as this scene is pretty much a joyride until it gets serious.
M&L spot a prostitution solicit in progress. Using Blue’s super-duper zoom-in camera, they’re able to look right down the lady’s awesome-yet-liver-spotted cleavage. How the camera image is staying so steady while they’re circling around, I have no clue; nor have I a clue as to how neither the client nor the provider are unaware of the chopper circling right overhead. M&L haven’t engaged whisper mode yet, so Blue should be making an unholy racket. I’m also blown away that Blue mike’s are that unidirectional. I mean, being that sensitive, shouldn’t they be picking up all sorts of sounds? And while I can share Lymangood’s interest in the scenery, he acts like a 12-year-old.
M&L activate the whisper mode. This is one technological feature that definitely did not exist at the time of the movie and still doesn’t exist today. Spotting a police motorcycle parked in front of a home, they zoom in with Blue’s cameras and get the license plate. Murphy recognizes it as belonging to a co-worker nicknamed “Double Dork.” The juvenility of that nickname made me aware for the first time that Murphy is pretty much a juvenile in an adult body. Take Hawkeye Pierce and remove the preach, and you’ve got Murphy. And M&L together are a mellow forerunner of Beavis and Butthead.
M&L decides to have some fun at Double Dork’s expense. Punching the onboard computer reveals that the lady of the house is in residence. In Residence, as in physically there right now. Murphy is incredulous, and so the f**k am I. He asks Lymangood how the computer could know that, and the answer isn’t too believable. Aiming and activating the microphones (which can hear perfectly clearly through walls!!!), they catch the tail end of a brief sexual encounter that the lady didn’t find very satisfying. M&L and whoop it up and have a great time before deciding that they’ve had enough fun at D.D.’s expense for one night.
This is irritating. That’s the second time M&L and have gone spying on somebody just for s**ts and giggles, in a movie that is supposed to be cautionary tale about the abuse of surveillance abilities. Yet we’re supposed to be on M&L’s side. The first time, the nude yoga chick, tried to fashion a fig leaf out of her probably knowing and not minding that she was being spied on. This time, though, there is not so much as a fig blade-of-grass to hide behind. So any attempt at being a “relevant” movie has now completely gone to s**t. Its only hope now is to be purely entertaining.
While Murphy marvels in open appreciation at all the Blue Thunder can do, Lymangood explains that Blue computer terminal is “hooked into every data bank there is.” Uh…..no. Lymangood demonstrates by entering his name and watching his complete data file come up. But when he punches up Murphy’s, the computer has no file. Ominous synth music plays and Murphy wears a puzzled frown.
Then we get f**kin’ goofy. Cochrane orders Blue Thunder to return to base. Upon receiving acknowledge, he and a spook make to leave while another spook wants to stick around until he sees Blue safely back on the pad himself. But just as Blue is about to land, M&L spot Cochrane’s silver Corvette screeching out of the police parking lot. With Blue Thunder now hovering about a dozen feet over the helipad, Murphy punches up Cochrane’s file and finds that Cochrane is assigned to project THOR. Remember THOR? From the scrap of paper Murphy found at the crime scene earlier? It turns out that THOR stands for Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response. The purpose of THOR is “proposed use of military copters to quell disorder.” Murphy realizes that the feds have got bigger plans for Blue Thunder than they’ve been told, and decides to ignore the commands to land Blue, and follow Cochrane. During all this, the air controllers at the pad are asking Blue if everything is all right. Murphy tells them several times that they’re coming in garbled, and at one point he actually starts making static noises. Farcical!
What I don’t get is why he’s surprised about the real purpose of Blue Thunder. Was he expecting the feds NOT to use it for something like this? Did they think that after the Olympics the feds were just gonna retire the thing? And how is “Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response” any different that the purpose of Blue Thunder that Murphy was told up-front and in plain English? And incidentally, the business about Murphy’s personal file being blank never enters into anything, so I don’t know why that bit was even there.
They follow Cochrane to the Federal Building, and using infrared (through walls!!!) locate him in the building and listen in on his conversation (through walls!!!). I know that government offices are pretty strict about the whole 9-to-5 thing, but I can’t imagine that there would be nobody in the place at all except Cochrane and his men.
Back at the cop hangar, the remaining spook tells Braddock that Murphy is finished with the Blue Thunder project. Braddock sticks up for Murphy and gets the most quotable line in the movie when the spook points out the Murphy checks his sanity with his wristwatch.
Back to M&L listening in on Cochrane and the feds. The exposition is that the lady who got shot earlier had pieced together what Blue Thunder was all about and was about to go public with it. Cochrane says that Murphy needs to be assassinated and offers to do it himself. This is a bit excessive given that Cochrane doesn’t know that Murphy knows a whole lot about Blue’s real purpose. The scene ends with a most excellent shot of Cochrane pulling open the drapes (seen both from his POV and Blue’s). The shot from his POV of Blue silently hovering there….I swear that Blue is wearing a facial expression, only without the face. The image seems to say, “Surpriiiise!” Having recorded the entire conversation, Blue hightails it back to base, where Braddock wants to cuss out Murphy.
In Braddock'ss office, Braddock gets to chew the scenery some more, cussin’ out Murphy for the extended flight, and grounding M&L for the second time in the movie. Murphy wants to tell him about the little detail of the assassination-in-progress of Braddock’s favorite semi-psycho pilot, but he can’t do so because the remaining spook is sitting right there, and Braddock ain’t in the mood for it anyway. Spook gets a phone call, and we cut to Lymangood retrieving the incriminating tape from Blue. Back in Braddock’s office, spook sets the phone down and abruptly bolts from the room. Murphy sees on a CCTV monitor (in the Braddock’s office room?) that Lymangood has got the tape, and takes off himself. Spook gets to the helipad, finds that Lymangood has already split with the tape, and darts off. Murphy, seeing that, does the same. Intrigue!
Cut to later. Lymangood returns to his home carrying a sack of groceries. Condo, looks like. But two gov’t goons have already broken into the place, with a third outside in a car, and quickly bind and gag him! Props to the movie for having super-ugly goons, particularly the guy doing the questioning. They demand the tape, but he ain’t talkin’. When one of the goons goes out to check Lymangood’s car, Lymangood makes a break for it (taking out the goon on the stairs is a giggle). Hands still bound behind his back, he runs for his life for a few blocks, before colliding with a lady bicyclist. Sprawled out on the asphalt, he’s a sitting duck for the vehicular goon, who plows straight into him, killing him outright. Badham says that it was a tough choice whether to kill him or simply injure him, and that today he’d’ve opted to just injure him. But to give Murphy enough motivation for what comes later, down he goes.
The body bag scene (That pretty 12-ish girl in the foreground is Badham’s daughter). Murphy arrives at the scene and hangs in the back as he sees Lymangood’s corpse being zipped into the body bag. With screeches tires, he leaves the scene. Brief bit of a police chopper responding to a dispatch that Murphy is to be detained for questioning in the death of Lymangood. How in the world Murphy became a suspect, and this quickly at that, I have no clue.
Then we get a bit that I just don’t understand at all. Murphy is at a pay phone. As the phone is ringing, he’s holding some kind of device up to the mouthpiece, I don’t know what. The first message he hears is from Lymangood, saying that if he wants to know where the tape is, the cockpit tape in Blue Thunder contains the info.
Anal blood.
First of all, I can grant that maybe Lymangood didn’t wanna leave the info in the message Murphy is hearing now because he felt it’d be too easy for someone else to intercept. But I do NOT buy for a moment that Lymangood would leave the key to the tape’s location in Blue Thunder when he had to know damn well that there was no f**kin’ way anyone was gonna let Murphy near Blue Thunder again. Lymangood knew the following:
- That M&L had been grounded once already.
- That they had taken Blue on an extended run while the air controllers were yelling at them to land the thing.
- That Cochrane and Co. were planning to have Murphy killed.
So why in the *&$^*#*&^@#*^% would he leave the secret to the tape’s location in the very vehicle that is at the heart of all this? On top of that, HOW did he leave it there? We saw Lymangood remove the tape containing Cochrane’s conversation from its slot in Blue’s rear area. Soon after, a spook showed up looking for him only to find him gone. The interval in between is the only time he could’ve recorded the location of the tape and hidden it in the cockpit. This would have to mean that he sat there in the cockpit recording a message to Murphy while the ground crew are crawling all over the craft as we saw them do. And to cap it all off, it also means that Lymangood must’ve recorded the location of the tape before he had even gone to hide it.
Absolute garbage.
While Murphy is hearing that message at the pay phone, a cop car pulls into the parking lot Murphy is in with its headlights shining. Murphy hears another message, this one from Kate saying that she heard about Lymangood and feels bad and if you want to talk just call me BEEP. Waitaminit, how did she know Murphy would be the one to call her? Then the cop car turns about 20 degrees to its right, and its headlights reveal an empty payphone in front of Murphy’s empty car with the driver’s door wide open.
That was extremely sloppy editing. As it looked, there’s no way the cops could’ve pulled into the place without immediately seeing Murphy. Careless! Both in editing and in plot, careless! It’s so sloppy I had to go outside and have a smoke so I could refocus.
Incidentally, have you heard about all the fires Calfornia’s been having lately? I haven’t seen any, but a smoky smell has been in the air for four straights days (it’s now 9:30 PM on June 26), and it was so thick this evening that the setting sun was just a disc that I could look straight at without squinting of being blinded or nothing. I hope the fires didn’t get the Jelly Belly Factory. I love those things.
At the police hangar, Murphy evades both cameras and personnel as he creeps into Blue’s dickpit. Topside, Cochrane and spook exposit that they can’t just erase the incriminating tape because Lymangood changed the code numbers (when was he able to do that?!?), and of course both of them are looking away from the monitor when Murphy walks right into its field of view. Cochrane also doesn’t care for Yankee tea.
Murphy plays the last message from Lymangood. He’s stashed the tape in the dumpster of a drive-in theater that he is kinda sorta sure doesn’t get dumped ‘til Monday. In fairness to the movie, he does say that he is going to hide the tape, not that he already had at the time of recording. Okay, the movie was paying attention. Good stuff. Lymangood’s last words are that he found out that JAFO stands for Just Another f--- in’ Observer. Not really worth the buildup, especially because any acronym that starts with J.A. is going to be Just Another something.
A mechanic pounds on the glass and tells Murphy to get out of there. Murphy pulls a pistol and says “You talkin’ to me, @$$hole?” If he’s channeling Al Pacino, I really wish he wouldn’t do that. Pacino bores me to tears, Scheider doesn’t. Have you read what Cracked.com says about Pacino’s acting technique? I’m in full agreement.
Shout-out to Neville: You snuffleupabitch! You’ve got me hooked on that site! You’ll never know how many otherwise-productive hours at the hospital have been lost! Because of YOU!!!
Murphy takes off in Blue Thunder, and everyone goes nuts. All right! We’re in the home stretch! Murphy uses the Bat-phone to call a TV station to tell them to expect a package to be delivered that day. Then he calls Kate and tells her to go to the drive-in theater and wade around in the dumpster until she finds a package with a videotape in it and to bring it to the TV station and give it directly to Mario Marchado or Alf Hewitt, nobody else. Mario Marchado is listed in the cast in the closing credits, so I’m guessing he’s the TV commentator we’ve seen a couple times so far. They must be pretty famous, because Kate gets all that (despite Murphy talking over the sound of Blue’s engines) without writing it down or anything. Hell, he doesn’t even tell her what the thing looks like, it’s just “a package.” Granted, he himself doesn’t know, but still, that’s one loyal chick.
So loyal, in fact, that I kinda feel that Murphy is exploiting her here. Putting her directly into harm’s way without even telling her that there’s any danger involved. In Blue’s first scene, he expresses concern for the innocent bystanders. But now here he is throwing an innocent bystander into this potential meat grinder. Even allowing that Murphy really has no choice but to enlist someone’s help for what he needs to do, still, you’d think he’d give her more of a heads-up about the danger involved than “Don’t stop for anything and anybody.” Sloppy, movie!
At the cop shop, the feds have traced Murphy’s calls to the TV station and Kate’s place and are scrambling into action.
Kate gets to the drive-in, no problem. Seeing no one there, she runs through the gate, which prompts a janitor to call the cops. Unnecessary, as Murphy is calling enough attention to the place by hovering over it to see that she finds the package. Hovering low enough over it that Kate is can’t stay on her feet and just jumps into the dumpster, which Murphy laughs at. Real heroic! Btw, there are two dumpsters there. She digs in one for so long that you’d think she’d give up and try the other.
She finds it just it time to flee the cop car that has arrived (Badham says that Candy Clark did her own driving stunt for this scene while he himself was hunkered down in the back seat. He was terrified.). She evades the cops and heads for the TV station.
Up in the air, Murphy is following her until two cop choppers full of SWAT men with M16s appear and order Murphy down. Montoya, Murphy’s former partner and still-current friend, does a believable I-don’t-wanna-have-to-shoot-you bit, then opens fire. The bullets are useless against Blue Thunder’s thick steel hide. Murphy, who by now is having fun with it, makes quips and opens fire. Montoya’s chopper is disabled and lands safely. When the men in the other chopper fire away, Murphy gives a “follow MY leadah” quip, ostensibly rousing action music kicks in, and it’s time for a way cool chase scene!
Ever since Murphy took off, the movie has done great with giving us a wide variety of camera angles of Blue: Long shots (and a couple throwaway shots of a newschopper to make it seamless, like newschopper POV), VERY long shots that show the skyline in the background, cockpit shots facing forward, and cockpit shots facing Murphy with buildings visible below. This brings home the verisimilitude. There really were choppers zooming over Los Angeles to make this movie and show us a good time. It’ll continue throughout this chase scene and the next, and it sends the badassery through the ceiling.
Murphy leads the Cop Chopper (sounds like something from an infomercial, doesn’t it?) into the LA aqueduct, and for about a minute and 45 seconds, away they go weaving between the concrete pillars. It’s exciting, especially the long shots. Imaging you’re driving over any of those bridges and you see something like that going on below, tell me you wouldn’t be slowing down. Eventually, the Cop Chopper clips a pillar and is brought down on its side. From very high up, we see the crew of the chopper flee on foot as its fuel tank explodes. Notice, just the fuel tank, not the whole goddamn vehicle. Nice touch!
The fact that Murphy just took out two choppers filled with cops without causing any casualties is the best proof that this movie exists to be fun, not to be some pigs**t social statement. Dan O’Bannon can be as miffed as he wants, but I can’t imagine that this movie would’ve benefited from “relevance.” This is great stuff as it is! A good-time rollicking likable fun comic book of a movie. An aerial Mad Max with a smile!
At street-level, we take a corny turn. Why not? This movie is at its best when it’s airborne. Kate gets pulled over by cops while crossing over some bridge. One of the cops point his gun at her head from about one foot away (Ken’s Rule of Guns) and demands license and registration.
Waitaminit.
There are two possibilities:
1. Either these cops knowsthat this lady just evaded police at the drive-in and caused a little bit of property damage in the process, in which case why bother with license and registration? Just make the arrest!
2. These cops are unaware of all that and simply saw her speeding on her way to the TV station, so they pulling her over for speeding and/or reckless driving or whatnot; in which case why draw the f**kin’ gun?
When she fumbles around to stall for time, she is ordered out of the car. Then we get the most iconic image of the movie, an image that has been ripped off time without number since: With the unsuspecting cops in the foreground, Blue Thunder slowly rises up into view behind. It’s an absolutely badass awesome sight, although the cops don’t notice it for a while (are they deaf?!?). While they gape in understandable shock, she gets back in the car and peels away.
Not to be a wet blanket on such an awesome visual, but how in the world did Murphy find her? Spatial agnosticism sucks!
The cops resume their pursuit, but this time Blue Thunder is right behind. Murphy locks on the rear of the cop car and blasts it clean off! The car splits in half! Too awesome! The front skids for quite a ways, causing a few rearenders and fenderbenders (the innocent civilians issue again) before smacking into a car in the process of being towed, so we know that nobody was in it.
Kate continues on, weaving on the wrong side of the road and causing all sorts of horn-honking and swerving (filmed in long shot, too, so it looks great!) until a motorcycle cop enters the chase. Lookin’ pretty good until for no reason at all, the cycle just spins out and cop and cycle go sliding smack into a semi rig. **shrug** Don’t know what that was all about, but whatever. Badham says that the stuntman actually broke his ankle on that shot. From my angle, it wasn’t quite worth it as the stuntman could’ve been a mannequin and it wouldn’t’ve looked any different.
At the cop shop, a TV exposits that there is a sniper over the skies of LA and has already shot down two police choppers and one police car. The…Chief of LAPD, I’m guessing…is introduced to a couple men from the US Air Force who offer a pair of F-16 Hornets to blast Murphy out of the sky. The man on the right at 1:27:20 is the ugliest poor soul I’ve ever seen. How does something like that happen? Capt. Braddock objects on the reasonable grounds that an F-16’s explosive ordinance could rack up a bit of a innocent body count. Cochrane, now with British evil on full and looking rather intellectibadass that leather jacket of his, counters that F16s could surgically remove him like a tumor, no problem.
|
Edited by - Food on 06/28/2008 7:50:28 PM |
 |
|
|
Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2008 : 7:52:07 PM
|
Uh……it’s not quite that simple. The history of aviation doesn’t contain much in the way of dogfights between airplanes and helicopters, but it’s generally understood that it’d be a royal bitch for both parties. A helicopter’s sprint speed is roughly the same as an airplane’s crawl speed, which creates the obvious problem for the chopper; but it also creates a problem for the plane, because slower speed = tighter turn radius. Planes need yards and yards of room to make turns, and more importantly, so do their missiles; while choppers, as we will soon see, can make turns over city intersections. Granted, the wider intersections, but still. Should a chopper move into an obstacle-filled area, like say…those skyscrapers that LA has a few of…it’s gonna be awfully hard for the planes to hit with any fired missiles. The plane would then have to make a huge sweeping turn before making another attack run, during which that chopper could be doing anything (except making an attack of its own because it can’t keep up with the planes), and if a missile can’t execute a turn as tightly as a chopper, it’s gonna smash into something, hopefully not something populated. So what you’d have is several minutes of boredom punctuated by a couple seconds of weapons fire, and with metropolitan structures being in the line of fire, this has got disaster written all over it. So Braddock is right: Bad idea.
Shot of F-16s taking off. These were realized by models, and it’s obvious.
Kate arrives at the TV station. On the Making Of feature, there’s a bit of a deleted scene in which Kate goes down and alleyway and drives on two wheels for a bit. It was deleted simply because it was too goofy. Good choice. From above, Murphy sees that she’s arrived, and he is pleased.
This begs the question: With the tape now having reached is destination, why is he still airborne? The tape that will expose this conspiracy, root out the evildoers, avenge Lymangood’s death, and restore whatever good name Murphy has lost is now in the hands of those who can make it happen. As long as Murphy remains airborne, he’s just racking up one federal, state, and local indictment after another.
LAND!!! You’ve done what you needed to do! Hell, since you’re right over the TV station, land in the parking lot and make sure the tape gets to the right people and gets what it needs. You’re not helping anybody, including yourself, this way! And btw, Murphy, if you’re not gonna land, then at least keep your comments to yourself. She’s doing this for YOU, you ingrate.
Except us, cuz this is fun, so never mind.
At the TV station, Kate enters the packed and near-panicked lobby and asks for Mario Marchado or “Abe” Hewitt. Cool, she blew the name! Realistic! The security guard/greeter tells her to get lost because there’s “crazy guy up there in the helicopter.” One of Cochrane’s spooks introduces himself as Machado’s producer and offers to bring it to him. She refuses, saying that Murphy said to give it to “Mr. Mosher” (again, neat!) directly.
Cut to…the feds’ luxury suite, I guess…where the goon who killed Lymangood says that even if they retrieve the tape, Lymangood changed the code number so it can’t be erased anyway. Older fed dude orders him to “erase them ALL!” I guess whatever the remote-erasure system is, it allows tapes to be erased individually as long as the code number is entered, but if a panerasure (there! I invented a word!) is executed, the code number becomes meaningless. I don’t quite get it, but I dunno.
Back to the TV station. A pleasant-looking man approaches Kate and spook and introduces himself as Alf Hewitt. He clarifies that he doesn’t know this guy who claims to be Mr. Machado’s producer. Spook tries and fails to muscle the tape away, coming away with only the tape’s case (which, if you remember, the tape must be in for erasure to occur). He draws his gun, and but it dropped by the white-haired security guard with the most unconvincing pistol-whip to the shoulder I’ve ever seen. I’m serious, it’s like something out of Murder, She’s Written. It’s that bad. Close-up of the tape case with the red light on it flashing to indicate erasure. That was TOO CLOSE! Crap.
I hate that scene. For four reasons:
1. It only makes me wonder why the whole deal with remote erasure and changing the code numbers and panerasure was even there in the first place. The plot wouldn’t be changed one bit if they were ordinary tapes that have to be either placed in ordinary tape-playing devices or flat-out destroyed in order to be erased. Dorky!
2. Since the TV station is broadcasting that this renegade pilot is a dangerous sniper and the security guard himself is buying it, why does the spook play this coy instead of making a flat-out arrest and/or confiscation then and there? Hell, if he got there before she did (and it looks like he did), why not coordinate with the guard beforehand?
3. With the spooks having a pretty good idea of what’s on the tape and what will happen if it becomes public, why is there only ONE spook there to intercept it?
4. This is Candy Clark’s last scene in the movie. Dammit, she adorable. I wanna see more. She’s still adorable today. Here, take a look: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2007/08/23/DDNBRMLBT.DTL&o=0
The F-16s arrive on the scene. I shouldn’t fault how fake the matting in of the models is, but the dearth of matting in until now only makes it stand out. **shrug** No biggie. They identify the target from 13 miles out. How realistic that is, I have no idea. One of them launches a missile. Murphy notices them in turn. That’s not realistic at all unless Blue has capabilities that nobody mentioned. This sets up the most gleefully goofy scene in the movie, and Badham sounds damn proud of it, calling it the most insane thing he’s ever done.
Murphy fakes out the heat-seeking missile by hovering over the smokestack of a BBQ shack, in which minority blue-collar workers are lovingly preparing hundreds of chickens. Hearing the chopper overhead, the workers panic and flee the place. Why would they do this? Because the movie doesn’t want to show Murphy-induced collateral damage after Murphy’s chief expressed concern about Blue Thunder was precisely that. So they all flee, Murphy peels away at the last minute, and the missile smashes full-tilt into the BBQ shack, causing it to explode in a huge fireball. The blast lifts a van fully off its tires, cars are skidding and squealing,……and then hundreds of chickens come raining down onto asphalt, cars, cops, and pedestrians.
That was clown-fart insane!
It gets better. Badham says that since real chickens were cheaper than fake chickens (2.50 apiece to 20 apiece, respectively), real chickens were used. The street was actually pre-greased beforehand, and it shows. The street looks slick, as if after a mild rain. He adds that after the shot was complete, homeless people swarmed out of nowhere to scoop up the chickens. I don’t know why, but I get a kick of visualizing all that.
The planes come around for another attack. Props to the movie for the shot of them approaching the skyline that looks to be about 20 miles away. Someone did their homework! Murphy hovers in place in between a couple of REAL tall skyscrapers (one of them is the Arco tower, dunno about the other one). Brief shot of police evacuating the gawkers. Notice how they all take off running on cue…a little TOO on cue. It’s a kick. Another missile is launched, and Murphy hits the gas at the last moment. Since the missile can’t change course that quickly, it smashes into the Arco tower, punching a fiery five-story hole in it. Realized by miniatures with nothing to scale it against, this is a solidly realistically looking scene. When the fighter pilot shouts, “Oh, my God!” we can share his mixture of horror and embarrassment. It’s well done! So is anybody at the office that day, but nevermind.
Shot of huge chunks of debris raining down on the gawkers, and I mean RIGHT on top of them, some of them get hit. Brief shot of a lady in a convertible taking a vicious broadside by a screeching sedan. Hey movie, c’mon, now you’re just calling attention to your refusal to show casualties. Don’t be afraid, we won’t hate you if there’s some civvy death in here, serious.
Improbably, Murphy is able to lock onto one of the planes as they move right-to-left from his angle (speed of the planes again), and blasts away with the cannon. He scores a hit, and the movie treats us to the pilot ejecting and parachuting gracefully down to sea level. God.
At the cop shop, the Chief calls off the entire shoot-Murphy-down operation just as Cochrane is boarding a 530MG Defender, a beetle-like combat chopper. He requests permission to take off, is denied, and takes off anyway (This was Malcolm McDowell’s first flying scene, the one where he threw up as soon as it was over.). All right! Gladiatorial fight to the deaf! Only we don’t need no rubbish cage match, the skies over LA ARE the cage!
But wait! Before we can have the Rumble Over the Jungle, we have to watch two, count ‘em TWO, separate shots of Murphy watching the parachuted pilot land safely. Imagine if old-time Westerns were like this. Every baddie who gets shot, we’d have to watch their funerals and stuff. This movie cares more about the well-being of its cannon-fodder than any I’ve ever seen. Good thing G.I. Joe cartoons didn’t do that, each episode would’ve been three hours long. In fairness, though, the movie ties this into the action in a moment.
Murphy in Blue Thunder and Cochrane in his camouflage-painted Defender are moving parallel to each other on opposite sides of a huge building under construction. When they get to the end of the building, close-up of Murphy shows that he’s still watching the parachutist! Cochrane is all over the opportunity, firing a stream of ammo into Blue Thunder starboard side. Most of the shells bounce harmlessly off, but one of them pierces the window and straight into Murphy’s shoulder, spraying blood all over the glass.
Shoulder blood.
The 530MG Defender is an attack helicopter, with two 7.62mm General Electric M134 Miniguns. (Military aviation nuts, remember a C64 game called Thunderchopper? That was a Defender.). Taking a shot from one in the shoulder would likely tear the arm off altogether, and the shell would likely keep going straight into the thoracic region, ripping through whichever internal organs are there. At best, taking this kind of shell in the shoulder will result in much more blood and much more pain than we see here. So when Murphy reacts with merely a Scheiderific “Gaah!” I’m not buying it.
Cochrane also manages to hit Blue’s nose gun, damaging it. It still fires, but it no longer swivels. It only points and fires forward from here on in. This is okay, stacking the odds against the hero to make his victory more satisfying.
More flying footage, excellent stuff, especially the shots from inside the Defender watching Blue ahead. Murphy has another Vietnam flashback of the dude getting thrown out the chopper, only this time we get to see him hit the dirt. In the flashback, Murphy in the pilot’s seat turns to look, and Cochrane, having just killed the dude, calmly tells Murphy, “Back to base.” This explains why no great detail is given about Murphy’s PTSD nor Cochrane’s attempt to court-martial him. This tells us everything we need to know. I’m not quite sure how necessary it is that Murphy’s trauma is related to Cochrane that specifically. After all, Murphy is not single-mindedly after Cochrane, it’s the other way around. **shrug**
At the TV station, brief bit of Alf Hewitt watching the recording the Cochrane and Co. discussing the assassination of the lady from earlier and the future assassination of Murphy. Hewitt marvels at this, telling his boss to hold up on bashing Murphy because this guy may be the real good guy in all this.
More flying around. Murphy leads Cochrane among the buildings just a few stories above street level. I can’t emphasize how awesome this stuff is. Shot of a glass-filled skyscraper with the reflections of both choppers as they pass. Gotta love it! I also love the long shot from 1:38:59 to 1:39:03 of Blue doing a broad 180 at a three-way intersection with cars and pedestrians right there. At the last minute, the Defender crosses the next intersection over. Look at that! Imagine you’re in one of those cars and suddenly this wicked-cool chopper comes into view. This rocks!
About a minute more of this, and Murphy decides to get creative. He glides into a building-flanked parking lot across the street from what looks like a seedy apartment complex. He waits. When Cochrane zips into Murphy’s kill zone, the Defender brakes sharply and I swear I can see an “Oh s**t!” thought balloon over the chopper’s head! These vehicles have character! Murphy blasts away! The shells tear all sorts of holes in the apartment building, but nothing hits the Defender, and it slips under Murphy and peels away. The chased is now the chaser.
More flying stuff. Notice the shot of Cochrane at 1:40:57. Badham cites this as proof of how terrified McDowell was. I believe it. He’s bugging his eyes out like Don Knotts. Badham says that those were actually retakes because on the first takes, McDowell looked even more terrified. Props to McDowell! If he hadn’t been an Iron Man about it, we’d have to watch mattes or bluescreen or rear projection or some such crap that would’ve make this much less exciting . Instead, we get the genuine article! You rule, Malcolm!
From 1:14:20 to 1:14:25, a shot of Blue and Defender flying less than 10 feet over the ground through an abandoned industrial yard, Defender blasting away. I’m guessing those are squibs, but still, seeing the Defender obscured by smoke from its own shots because it’s flying so low is impressive! Badham exults at this.
The abandonment of the industrial yard allows lots of bullets explosions free of the burden of…**gasp**….casualties. So we get bullets and explosions. Neat!
Murphy decides enough of this crap. He clicks on the Turbine Boost (a play on Knight Rider’s Turbo Boost?), and begins to execute a loop. Earlier, Cochrane said that looping was impossible, but at the time it didn’t feel like foreshadowing. Murphy ascends, Cochrane tries to follow. Murphy completes the loop, Cochrane shouts, “That’s impossible!” and Murphy gets Cochrane’s underbelly right in his sights and blows him out of the sky.
“Catch you later.”
The Murphy/Cochrane dogfight was just over seven minutes long, but it was exciting enough that it felt much longer. I’m sad that I never got to see this in the theater, I prolly woulda been going apes**t.
That.
Was.
F**kin’.
AWESOME!!!
Epilogue. Murphy spots a train running below him (sure got dark quickly, didn’t it?). He sets his insanity-watch and lands Blue Thunder right on the tracks. Due to either inexplicably bad editing or an inexplicably bad artistic flourish (Badham himself says nothing), it looks as though Murphy is about to get out of the chopper, but freezes upon seeing the train bearing down on him. Closeup of the watch ticking the last few seconds, then WHAMMO!!! Blue Thunder explodes in a huge fireball as the train plows into it! Badham says that this was filmed exactly as it looks. The train company didn’t mind having one of their trains plow into Blue Thunder, and it was filmed from four different angles. We get to see each one. The fourth is a long shot at regular speed with Murphy walking towards the camera with Blue in the background. Scheider was unprepared for the explosion and gives a genuine start when it happens. Nice touch! Still, it looked for all the world like Murphy got plowed into along with Blue Thunder. Maybe it was some rubbish meta thing. Maybe the movie is saying, “You weren’t keeping track of time. Are you sure of your sanity?” I don’t think that’s correct either, though. I counted with the DVD timer, and the 30 seconds on Murphy’s watch exactingly correspond with the 30 seconds in real time that elapse. I don’t buy Murphy setting his watch, landing, exiting, and getting that far away from Blue in 30 seconds. Look how far away he is when Blue explodes behind him. He did all that and got that far away (while wounded, no less!) in 30 seconds. And he’s walking. Not running or even trotting. Sorry movie, but that could’ve been done better.
A newscaster’s voice-over gives the closing expo. Upon the airing of the tape, the investigation into the death of the lady at the mansion has been reopened, and may also be connected to the death of Lymangood. Several LAPD cops and several feds have been detained for questioning. Freeze on Murphy calmly strolling towards the camera.
Roll credits.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
I love this movie. Sure, its got its flaws. The impossibilities, plot holes, and characters’ actions not matching their motivations make this movie useless as a social commentary or cautionary tale; but as the fun rousing good-time action flick Badham meant it to be, Blue Thunder is tops!
A Blue Thunder TV series was spawned from this but only lasted half a season before cancellation. I remember liking it as a kid, but today all I remember is that Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith co-starred. I loved those guys from their NFL days and Miller Lite ads. But by all accounts from those who remember it more clearly, it totally stunk. Roy Scheider was asked to star in it himself. He declined, making his refusal to appear in Jaws: The Revenge seem even more likely to be the mark of a man who won’t embarrass himself if he can avoid it.
Cheers to you, Mr. Scheider.
BOTTOM LINE
The 80s did it best. Oh, f**k yeah!
|
|
|
|
Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2008 : 09:39:22 AM
|
quote:
Shout-out to Neville: You snuffleupabitch! You’ve got me hooked on that site! You’ll never know how many otherwise-productive hours at the hospital have been lost! Because of YOU!!!
LOL The best thing is I don't even know what are you talking about. I guess some of the silly videos I linked in the message board came from cracked.com. My apologies.
BTW, great job with the review. I remember re-watching the movie a few years ago, thinking it was pretty silly, but you're right about the aerial footage and the action scenes, they rock.
Actually, they rock a lot more than they did, because now we're too used to the CGI wizardry. It's a good thing that lately several action films seem to be trying to do most of the action the-old-fashioned-way, it really looks a lot better.
I just wish they did use more miniature and back projection work, I still find it more convincing than computer generated stuff. |
|
|
|
Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
|
|
Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2008 : 12:43:37 PM
|
Thank you kindly, Neville! This was one of the funnest dissections I've ever done. And you're right: Today's studio magic heightens one's appreciation for the genuine article. Real aerial footage with real helicopters is exciting!
Thanks for those youtube links, as well, because I feel I didn't adequately emphasize how impressive Malcolm McDowell was for facing his own acrophobia. On the grand finale link you gave, if you pause at 8:37, you can see the bug-eyed bit I mentioned. Then at 8:53 to 8:55, look at the ground underneath McDowell. That must've been at least a 45-degree roll. For an acrophobe to go through that is like an arachnophobe like me not only being in the same room with a Goliath Bird-Eating Spider, but to also let it crawl on me. Malcolm McDowell is an Iron Man! |
|
|
|
Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2008 : 12:49:29 PM
|
| And he killed Kirk, let's not forget that! |
|
|
|
Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2008 : 12:54:02 PM
|
| He would've told Kirk "Catch you latah," but in the Nexus time has no meaning so there is no "latah." |
|
|
|
Capt. Nemo
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
630 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2008 : 7:42:30 PM
|
Great review of a great movie. But because I'm a rapid OCD case. I wanted to clarify some points.
- The 80's TV goon is a Clint Eastwood regular.
- I don't remember the cars following the lady city official Diana McNeally. The way I remember it the goons just flashed their headlights at each other because they were hanging around outside the mansion. One then jammed the security gate while the other two drove and rammed McNeally's car.
- Look at the goon who fell in to the pool. One moment he's dead and then when his partner grabs the stolen briefcase, he comes back alive.
- The scene where Diana McNeally is shot is kind of odd. I don't think the goon was aiming at her. But just firing wildly. In fact, if you look closely, the bullet hits the wall right next to her and ricochets back in to her neck.
- Murphy's observation about couples going to Mulholland are, I think, adequate. Why wouldn't lovebirds want to go Mulholland?
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulholland_Drive[/url]
- The reason's Murphy got assigned to the special detail are a bit fuzzy. But it's there. Remember the reason why Capt. Braddock grounded M&L the first time? It wasn't because of the assassination. It was because someone had sent a complaint to Braddock concerning M&L's peeping Tom episode. Braddock was worried about what would happen if someone investigating started to ask questions about why his officers were outside their patrol zone. So in his words, "I need figure where I'm going to hide you for two weeks until this crap blows over!" And this goes back to your coincidence thing. I just so happens that Braddock assigns them to Blue Thunder to get them out of his department for a while. The movie makes it clear that the feds had no input on this. That they were basically submitting to the Mayor's wishes that local people be brought in.
- During the demo scene, I thought Cockran was miffed because the gun wouldn't stop firing even though his finger was off the 'fire'(or 'live') button.
- During Double Dork's quickie, you forgot to mention that Lymangood rigs the mikes to Blue Thunder's speakers and broadcasts his embarassing situataion all over the neighborhood. I guess that wife won't be married for very long.
- You have to remember that Murphy first heard about THOR from a piece of evidence from the McNeally assassination. So I would say Murphy's fears would be justified.
But that brings us to the biggest problem with Blue Thunder. WHAT WERE THE FEDS UP TOO? From what little I can gather from the movie, it seems that the feds were sending people in to the poor sections of Los Angeles and stirring up trouble. In other words, trying to ferment a situation for the Olympics to bring Blue Thunder in to play. WHY?!?!?!?!?!
- When Murphy is outside the federal building, I thought the movie was clear in that there WAS more people in there. If fact, you can hear some of the voices as Blue Thunder is scanning the building. The excuse they give, is that Blue Thunder's computers somehow locked in no Cockrane's voice. I don't buy it either.
- Did you notice Lymangood's hands come apart when he smashes in to that cyclist?
- That device Murphy holds up to the mouthpiece hopelessly dates this film. During that period, if you wanted to get messages off a answering machine in a remove location, you needed a device that would beep in to your phone. That in turn would tell your answering machine to play back your messages. It was quite a staple in those days. Rockford of The Rockford Files fame had one. Now all you need to do is type in a code from a touch tone phone and your can get your messages that way.
- How the heck did Kate know to ram that fence to get out of the drive-in theater?
- That wasn't the Chief of LAPD. That was the mayor.
- You noticed that the F-16's are models. You are more right than you know. This movie didn't use a scratch built model. Instead, they actually went out to a hobby store and got a kit. This movie was at the midway point between actual models and computer models. What they did here is they built the models and then mount them and the camera on robot arms to give them a fluid movement. We will probably never get shots like that again.
- Another did you notice it moment. When the barbeque shack explodes, did you notice the small piece of telephone pole behind the van? Actually, it was underneath the van. To get the van the jump as high as it did, they sunk this pole in to the earth and pushed it up threw a hole in the van. At the top of the pole, they put explosives so that all of the pressure would be directed upward and get that van sky bound.
- The Arco tower explosion was another practical effect they'll never do again. Just take a look at the similar scene in Armageddon with the Empire State building. Here they built a enormous model of the towers. Then on the inside, they put little pieces of furniture and squibs. Then all they did was fly a model of Blue Thunder by it. Models vs. Computers. You decide.
- The scene were the train plows in to Blue Thunder is done with a plywood mockup. Watch it again. Notice that when the rotors start the come apart you can see the wood underneath the black paint. They the rigged the mockup with explosives and gas to create the fireball.
Still and all. It's a great movie. A sleeper hit. And one of Schieder's great works.
Rest in Peace bud.
________________________________________________________________________
"Ward, the Beaver blew up the 7-11 again."
"I'll have a talk with him Dear" |
|
|
|
Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2008 : 8:38:14 PM
|
Good stuff, Capt. Nemo! You caught all sorts of stuff I missed.
I'm still not quite sold on the "makeout, not a stakeout" bit, though. I can buy Murphy knowing that Mulholland Drive is the preferred make-out spot, but his "that's not their pattern" in reference to using a different and lesser-known makeout spot just rings false. If a makeout spot is popular enough that even the cops know about it, then naturally at least some of the maker-outers would be finding different spots.
I'm not sure what Cochrane's exact miff is in Blue's first scene. He says, "I had another stoppage." I don't know what a stoppage is.
Thanks for the clarification about Murphy's phone answering machine device! I had no clue what that was. Another bit that dates the film that I didn't mention was that when Murphy is calling the TV station from Blue Thunder, he has to call the mobile operator who then connects him. No biggie, though.
I also didn't say anything about the theme music. So I'll do so now: It sucks. It sounds like a synth variation on E.T. You'd never guess it was the soundtrack to a movie about a super-helicopter. Airwolf's theme song kicked its @$$ (of course, Airwolf's theme song kicked pretty much everyone's @$$, so that's okay). |
|
|
|
Capt. Nemo
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
630 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2008 : 9:47:18 PM
|
I remember that Cochrane was definitely having trouble stopping the gun. He clearly pulls back the safety button but the gun continues to fire. He pounds his fist on the control panel and says "Damn it, Bloody Gun." Then as he is doing his final pass, he's frantically throwing switches trying to stop the gun from firing. Luckily, he pulls up before he reaches the stage and is able to stop the gun.
One other thing, how did the reports glean so much info from that tape. With the exception of Mr. Holmes, no one identifies themselves. And who is Mr. Holmes anyway? Does Alf Hewitt know? I doubt it. Particularly when he hasn't seen the video all the way through.
________________________________________________________________________
"Ward, the Beaver blew up the 7-11 again."
"I'll have a talk with him Dear" |
|
|
|
BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2008 : 9:48:57 PM
|
Food, you pretty much picked out all that went right and wrong with that movie. My congratulations to you, sir!
One thing I remember that, well, kindasorta makes me want to look the other way when Murphy does that stupid imitation static thing: later on, Braddock comes back on him and tells him that gag got old half an hour after the radio was invented.
No, it's still lame.
I LOVED the look on Malcolm Macdowell's face when he drew the curtain and saw Blue hoverin' outside ten feet away. I also liked Murphy's "Uh oh, UH OH!"
My uncle put together a model of Blue Thunder when I was about twelve or thirteen. Very detailed, you could see the computer guy's station in the cockpit. Coolest damn chopper I'd ever seen, and it still is. |
|
|
|
Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2008 : 4:17:49 PM
|
That's funny. When I was a kid I remember a local toy company also releasing a chopter model that had a striking similarity to the Blue Thunder, although they marketed as a traffic control helicopter, I guess in order to avoid paying any royalties. I was the proud owner of one.
As for the stuff about models Capt. Nemo mentions, you can see the F-16 models in action, as well as the exploding skycraper miniatures, in the first YouTube link I provided. It's a 10 minute amateur making-off, put together by one of the model operatos who worked in the movie. Great stuff.
I'm noticing that I miss a lot the old school FX, like miniatures, models and even matte paintings. CGI keeps getting better and better, and filmmakers thankfully have learned not to overused as much as in its early days, but I really notice my chest pounding when I see good miniature action. Can't help it. |
|
|
|
Gristle McThornbody
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Germany
186 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2008 : 09:35:42 AM
|
quote:
Originally posted by Capt. Nemo
But that brings us to the biggest problem with Blue Thunder. WHAT WERE THE FEDS UP TOO? From what little I can gather from the movie, it seems that the feds were sending people in to the poor sections of Los Angeles and stirring up trouble. In other words, trying to ferment a situation for the Olympics to bring Blue Thunder in to play. WHY?!?!?!?!?![/*]
For the same reason the CIA invented Crack, and some secret government agency invented Gangsta Rap: The Man just has to keep someone down.
:)
And Food - great review. It's been a long time since I last watched BT, but I think I'll check it out again soon.
"Hi, I'm Bob Evil!" |
|
|
|
Capt. Nemo
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
630 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2008 : 9:17:01 PM
|
I think that in the end, Blue Thunder was the last film to get away with not being clear on all of its plot points.
This was a time before movie rentals REALLY caught on. The average new pre-recorded movie cost $60. So you couldn't have people go over your film with a fine tooth comb.
So you really didn't need to polish the film to a shine. Nowadays, the flaws in Blue Thunder would be seen as laziness on the part of the director.
________________________________________________________________________
"Ward, the Beaver blew up the 7-11 again."
"I'll have a talk with him Dear" |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Blue Thunder (1983)
Forum Locked