The greatest asset of The Final Countdown is its concept: a modern-day (modern as of 1980) United States aircraft carrier off the coast of Hawaii is transported back in time to December 6, 1941, the day before Pearl Harbor. In this situation, the crew must make an important decision: should it use its superior armament to stop the infamous attack and alter the course of history, or should it allow the assault for fear of changing the present?

Countdown... opens aboard the U.S.S. Nimitz, where Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen), a systems analyst, has been brought aboard the carrier for an efficiency evaluation. On board, he meets Captain Yelland (Kirk Douglas), a rather likeable old guy who is the ship's captain (as his title might suggest). Out in the Pacific Ocean some miles away from Hawaii, the ship is going through maneuvers when it encounters a freak storm. The fact that this bad weather is unexpected is a problem in itself, though the issue of the blinking blue portal that rests in the middle of the tempest is of even greater concern. Unaware of this wormhole until it is too late, the ship is sucked in and travels through a strange space-time rift, which is represented by a rather psychedelic mix of ear-piercing whistles and blue-tinted superimpositions.

When the crew wakes up, they are in the middle of the ocean and all is calm. Slowly, however, the sailors begin to realize that something is amiss when they start intercepting messages in Japanese code and hear a boxing match with Joe Lewis being broadcast over the radio. Eventually, the group begins to realize that they have indeed been transported back in time, to the eve of the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor. Now they must make a decision whether or not to intervene and change the course of history.

The Final Countdown raises a rather fascinating ethical dilemma that succeeded in intriguing me. Being that I'm notorious for not really enjoying war movies, this was no small feat, and I thought The Final Countdown had a good chance of holding my interest with its addition of moral debate to the war film equation. Sadly, I was let down. The movie's treatment of the issues it raises seemed terribly jejune, for these issues are really never properly addressed. Debate over this quandary is surprisingly limited, with characters seeming to change motivation from moment to moment. For instance, Lasky, the Martin Sheen character, talks in one scene about the dangers that altering the past holds in relation to the fate of the future, though later in the film he tries to persuade the captain to stay in the past and use his foresight to solve all sorts of historical problems that will rise in the coming 40 years. Similarly, the captain goes through a dramatic change of opinion during the film's abrupt climax, with no real motivation behind his sudden change of views. It's sad to see such an interesting premise squandered on a film that is barely willing to address it and which only averts the disaster initially predicted by Sheen through some terribly obtrusive deus ex machina. This is one film I wouldn't mind seeing re-vamped in our current era of remakes, on condition that it were by someone capable of properly handling the material.

Speaking of those capable of properly handling material, we come to the film's current distributor (newest in a long line), Blue Underground, which, with this release, once again prove themselves to be one of the best DVD-production companies in the market today. While the films' premise may have been mishandled, Blue Underground's package has been anything but.

Starting things off, BU has done one of its usual stellar jobs in remastering this film. Having never seen the movie before, I can't compare it to other versions, though I can say that, for a 25-year-old movie, it looks phenomenal. Colors are bright and vibrant, from the deep sapphire of the Pacific to the lush greens of a tropical island, and the print used is in amazing shape, with almost no dirt and very minimal grain present in only a few shots. Of course, BU has delivered some powerful audio tracks to match this fantastic picture quality. Final Countdown more than lives up to the high standards Blue Underground has set for itself. Of course, would we have expected anything less of this fine company? Once again, way to go, BU!

Rounding out the first disc are trailers (2 full-length and one teaser) and a couple of TV spots as well as a commentary by director of photography Victor Kemper that is moderated by David Gregory from BU. Sadly, aside from a few interesting anecdotes, it's not terribly involving. Discussions err on the technical side, when they relate to the film at all, for there are many lapses into unrelated stories about movie-making in general and about the Nimitz in particular. All of this would have been fine if it had just been touched on, but it tends to dominate the track; I would have liked to have heard more about this film in particular. To his credit, Mr. Gregory does try to keep things on track and provides some interesting trivia himself, though I still wasn't as interested in this commentary as I thought I could have been.

My review copy of this film was of the 2-disc edition (a single disc version is being released as well), and I still had quite a bit to go through even after having finished with the first DVD.

Starting things off on the bonus disc are four photo galleries (The U.S.S. Nimitz, Behind the Scenes, U.S. Pressbook, and Posters & Publicity Stills) and a well-written Kirk Douglas bio. Also included, as a DVD-rom extra, is an article called The Zero Pilot Journal, that chronicles the experiences of the pilots flying the Japanese planes in the movie. The article was originally published in a military periodical, and this is quite apparent when reading it as it features a good deal of technical jargon that the author seems to consider common knowledge, though I must protest that in my case it definitely was not.

Finishing the bonus disc off are a couple of featurettes. Starring the Jolly Rogers is a half-hour set of interviews with various pilots of the F-14 planes in the movie. Starting off a little general, this mini-documentary eventually finds its focus and covers some rather interesting information about the filming of the very well executed dogfight sequences as well as some general reminiscences about the movie, such as the Navy's view of it as a potential propaganda film and the pilots revenge on star Katharine Ross after she refused to make chit-chat with them. Toward the end, there's even a debate about the implications of the film's time-travel dilemma, which addresses the issue much more honestly than the film itself does.

Ending things on a high note is a fourteen-minute interview with Lloyd Kaufman called Lloyd Kaufman Goes Hollywood. This is definitely the jewel of the disc. Lloyd, as always, is candid and up-front in his opinions, never shying away from discussing many things about the shoot that dissatisfied him. Much of what he says is flat-out hysterical, yet it is always insightful, too. Anyone who has seen other interviews with the infamous head of Troma Studios will know that you could listen to him talk for hours, and this interview is no exception to that rule.

On the whole, I can't really recommend Final Countdown on its own merits. While it's well done on all technical levels and includes some spectacular aviation sequences, I felt that, in the end, it pussyfooted around the ethical dilemma that it raised. The writers seemed uncomfortable with forcing their characters to make a decision, and I think what could have been a fascinating film suffered because of this incertitude.

Of course, regardless of my opinion of the film, Blue Underground's restoration job is inarguably impeccable and highly laudable. It's also interesting to see the company take on a more mainstream project (this is the first movie that it has released in both widescreen and fullscreen editions, as well as the first movie they have put out on VHS). For members of the movie's apparently sizeable fan-base, picking this up will be a no-brainer, though if they want the two-disc version they should be made aware that it is limited 'sort of' to 100,000 units. For the rest of us, it might just be best to wait for next month's release of David Cronenberg's Fast Company.