Firefox (film)
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| Firefox | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Clint Eastwood |
| Produced by | Clint Eastwood |
| Written by | Alex Lasker Wendell Wellman |
| Starring | Clint Eastwood Freddie Jones |
| Music by | Maurice Jarre |
| Cinematography | Bruce Surtees |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | 1982 |
| Running time | 136 min |
| IMDb profile | |
Firefox is a 1982 Warner Brothers film with Clint Eastwood as director, producer and star. It was based on a novel by Craig Thomas.
The film details an American plot to steal a highly advanced Soviet fighter aircraft (MiG-31 Firefox) which is capable of Mach 6, is invisible to radar, and carries weapons controlled by thought. Eastwood stars as Maj. Mitchell Gant, a Vietnam veteran who infiltrates the Soviet Union, aided by his ability to speak Russian and a network of dissidents and sympathizers. Gant makes his way to the fictional Bilyarsk air base, where two prototypes of the Firefox have been built. His goal is to fly one back to the United States for analysis. But the KGB is already hot on his tail.
At the time the film was made, President Ronald Reagan had referred to the Soviet Union as the "evil empire" and the Cold War was at a new peak. Naturally, Russian filming locations were not possible, and the producers selected Vienna and other locations in Austria to simulate many of the Eurasian story locations. The film was shot on a $21 million budget.
In 1983, the film was converted into a laserdisc game of the same name by Atari, and is the only such game made by the company.
[edit] The MiG-31 Firefox
The first mentioned trait of the Firefox is its remarkable speed. In an era where American designs begin to melt at Mach 3, the Firefox is capable of maintaining speeds over Mach 6. (Such a speed in a fighter would likely qualify the aircraft as an Interceptor. Similar to the MIG-25, built to catch the XB-70 Valkyrie.)
The Firefox's most remarkable system is a weapons console controlled by the pilot's thoughts. Sensors in the pilot's helmet detect his neural impulses, and relay the commands to the fighter. Thus the pilot can launch his missiles without pressing a button. The moment he detects an enemy, he is already sending a missile toward it. The catch to that is that the command has to be thought in Russian, the language it was designed to be used in.
The Firefox is also a stealth fighter. Undetectable by radar, the Firefox can only be targeted by the heat of its enormous engines. To counter this, the Firefox carries a number of rear-firing explosives to neutralize pursuing missiles. (Much more effective then flares and chaff used in most aircraft to fool infrared and radar guided missiles respectively.) Firefox's armament is rounded out by a pair of 23mm cannons.
[edit] Interesting Notes
The original Firefox from the novels was cosmetically nearly identical to the MiG-25, which it was an enhanced version of. Incidentally the real MiG-31 Foxhound is also almost identical in appearance to the MiG-25 and generally regarded to be an enhanced version of the original. The more intimidating version seen in the movie (somewhat resembling a scaled-down XB-70) was created specifically for the film. Firefox contains appearances from actors from other notable films such as "Star Wars", "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance".
Special effects supervisor John Dykstra pioneered a new technique for shooting the complex flying sequences. Reverse bluescreen involved painting the model with phosphorus paint and photographing it first with strong lighting against a black background and then with ultraviolet light to create the necessary male and female mattes to separate the foreground model and the background footage. This enabled the shiny black model to be photographed flying against a clear blue sky and gleaming white snow (compare with traditional bluescreen technique on The Empire Strikes Back).
An interesting note about the movie version of the Firefox is that although the movie was released in 1982, the angled nose area has some surprising similarities to the U.S.'s F-117 stealth fighter revealed in 1988.
While the Mozilla Firefox web browser is not related to either the Firefox novel or film, message board requests for help with the browser are sometimes answered with a quote from the movie: "You must think in Russian."
[edit] External links
- Firefox at the Internet Movie Database
- Detailed online resource focusing on the technical and design aspects of this fictional aircraft
