Firefox (film)

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Firefox

Firefox theatrical poster
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
Editing by Ron Spang
Ferris Webster
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) 18 June 1982
Running time 136 min
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Budget $21,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Firefox is a 1982 Warner Bros. film with Clint Eastwood as director, producer, and star. It was based on a novel by Craig Thomas.

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.

Tagline: The most devastating killing machine ever built. His job... steal it!

Contents

[edit] Plot

The film details a joint Anglo-American plot to steal a highly advanced Soviet fighter aircraft (MiG-31, NATO code name "Firefox") which is capable of Mach 5, 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 (due to his Russian mother) and a network of dissidents and sympathizers. His goal is to fly the Firefox back to the United States for analysis.

However, the KGB has gotten wind of the extraction operation and is already hot on Gant's tail. It is only through the hard work of the sympathizer agents that Gant remains (barely) one step ahead of the KGB and reaches the fictional air base of Bilyarsk, where the Firefox prototype is under heavy guard. Gant manages to infiltrate the base with the help of the dissident scientists who had developed the Firefox and even constructed a secondary, air-refuelable prototype. Even though Gant's presence at the air base is revealed and his helpers summarily executed by base security, Gant manages to start the Firefox and escape, just as the First Secretary, who was to witness a test flight of the Firefox, arrives.

Gant attempts to reach the Arctic Circle for refueling. The Soviet military tries its best to bring him down, but the Firefox's technical superiority and Gant's experiences render conventional attempts completely futile. The second Firefox prototype sent out to finish him eventually finds him and a hard dogfight ensues. During the battle, Gant uses rear firing missiles (fired using his ability to "think in Russian" and enable the thought controlled weapons system) which fire backwards and destroy the second MiG. He then flies his MiG back home to the United States.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production

The film was based on the creation of a "mythical" super fighter: the MiG-31 Firefox. The original Firefox from the novel was (cosmetically) nearly identical to the MiG-25, of which it was an advanced version. 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 Valkyrie) was created specifically for the film. In the sequel novel, Firefox Down, the Firefox's appearance is described as matching the one in the film.[1]

Special effects supervisor John Dykstra pioneered a new technique for shooting the complex flying sequences. Reverse bluescreen involved coating 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).[1]

Although the movie was released in 1982, the angled nose area has some surprising similarities to the U.S. F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter revealed in 1988. Possibly even more significant is that in Firefox Down the Firefox is submerged in a lake for much of the novel, but when it is brought back to the surface it shows up on radar; a common criticism of the F-117 is that when it gets wet, it has an increased radar signature.[citation needed] The Firefox also carries its weapons internally, similar to the F-102 Delta Dagger, F-106 Delta Dart, F-22 Raptor, and F-35 Lightning II.

The MiG-31 Firefox, as seen in the movie
The MiG-31 Firefox, as seen in the movie

In addition to the Firefox, several real-world aircraft are featured in the film, listed below in order of first appearance:

The cockpit of the Mi-24 helicopter gunships used the mock-up from the movie Blue Thunder, while the submarine special-effect footage is taken from Ice Station Zebra.

[edit] Fictional MiG-31

The first mentioned trait of the Firefox is its speed capabilities: Mach 5. 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 AA-6 Acrid 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 in which it was designed.

The Firefox is also a stealth fighter, although this term is not used in the movie. Undetectable by radar, the Firefox can be targeted only by the heat of its enormous engines. To counter this, the Firefox carries a number of rear-firing explosives to neutralize pursuing missiles. The Firefox's armament is rounded out by a pair of 23 mm cannons.

[edit] Popular culture

Craig Thomas was so impressed with the movie and Clint Eastwood's portrayal that first editions of his sequel novel Firefox Down carry a dedication to Clint Eastwood stating: "For Clint Eastwood - pilot of the Firefox".

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] See also

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Thomas 1982 p. 29.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Culhane, John. Special Effects in the Movies: How They Do it. New York: Ballantine Books, 1981. ISBN 0-345-28606-5.
  • Hardwick, Jack and Schnepf, Ed. "A Viewer's Guide to Aviation Movies". The Making of the Great Aviation Films, General Aviation Series, Volume 2, 1989.
  • Thomas, Craig. Firefox, New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1977. ISBN 0-03-020791-6.
  • Thomas, Walter. "Filming Firefox." Air Classics Vol. 44, No. 9, September 1982.

[edit] External links

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Films directed by Clint Eastwood
1970s
Play Misty for Me (1971) • High Plains Drifter (1973) • Breezy (1973) • The Eiger Sanction (1975) • The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) • The Gauntlet (1977)
1980s
Bronco Billy (1980) • Firefox (1982) • Honkytonk Man (1982) • Sudden Impact (1983) • Pale Rider (1985) • Heartbreak Ridge (1986) • Bird (1988)
1990s
2000s
Space Cowboys (2000) • Blood Work (2002) • Mystic River (2003) • The Blues: Piano Blues (2003) • Million Dollar Baby (2004) • Flags of Our Fathers (2006) • Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) • Changeling (2008) • Gran Torino (2008)
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American films of the 1980s
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