Blue Thunder

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For other uses, see Blue Thunder (disambiguation).
Blue Thunder

Theatrical Release Poster
Directed by John Badham
Produced by Gordon Carroll
Phil Feldman
Andrew Fogelson
Written by Dan O'Bannon
Don Jakoby
Starring Roy Scheider
Malcolm McDowell
Music by Arthur B. Rubinstein
Cinematography John A. Alonzo
Editing by Edward M. Abroms
Frank Morriss
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date(s) May 13, 1983
Running time 109 min
Country  United States
Language English

Blue Thunder is a 1983 feature film that features a high-tech helicopter of the same name. The movie was directed by John Badham and stars Roy Scheider. A spin-off television series also entitled Blue Thunder lasted eleven episodes in 1984.

Contents

[edit] Plot synopsis

The film revolves around Francis McNeil "Frank" Murphy (Roy Scheider), a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) helicopter-pilot-officer and troubled Vietnam War veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His field partner is the newly assigned Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern in an early role), who is given the nickname "JAFO." Amid a family and employment crisis, he is selected to pilot the world's most advanced helicopter, nicknamed "Blue Thunder," which is essentially a military-style combat helicopter supposedly intended for police use as a surveillance platform and for large crowd control and riot missions. With powerful armament, stealth technology that allows it to fly virtually undetected, and other accoutrements (such as infrared scanners, powerful microphones and cameras, and a U-Matic VCR), Blue Thunder appears to be a formidable tool in the war on crime that the LAPD readily accepts.

But when the death of city councilwoman Diane McNeely turns out to be more than just a random murder, Murphy begins his own covert investigation. He discovers that a subversive action group, using the acronym THOR (Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response, the "proposed use of military helicopters to quell disorder"), is intending instead to use Blue Thunder to carry out an evil mission of their own, one that involves the secret elimination of political undesirables. Murphy immediately suspects that his old nemesis from the war, former United States Army Colonel F.E. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), who has become the primary test pilot for Blue Thunder, is hiding something. After following Colonel Cochrane and using the technology on board Blue Thunder to record a meeting Cochrane has with other high-powered government officials planning to use Blue Thunder for nefarious purposes, Murphy tries to get the video tape to a television station before he is killed, as Lymangood has already been.

The final showdown between Murphy and Cochrane, who flies a cannon-equipped Hughes 500 helicopter against Blue Thunder, takes place over the skies of Los Angeles and includes an initial battle with two Air National Guard F-16 fighters. After pulling off a spectacular 360° loop (a feat which he accomplishes primarily through use of Blue Thunder's turbine boost function and extremely painful effort on his own part), Murphy shoots down Cochrane, then destroys Blue Thunder by landing it in front of an approaching freight train.

[edit] Production

The first draft of the screenplay for Blue Thunder featured Frank Murphy as more of a crazy main character with deeper psychological issues, who went on a rampage and destroyed a lot more of the city.[1]

[edit] Main cast of characters

[edit] Blue Thunder helicopter

A mockup of Blue Thunder, as part back-lot tour of the MGM Studios, Florida.
A mockup of Blue Thunder, as part back-lot tour of the MGM Studios, Florida.
A mockup of Blue Thunder, as part back-lot tour of the MGM Studios, Florida.

The helicopter used for Blue Thunder was a French-made Aérospatiale SA-341G Gazelle modified with bolt-on parts and an Apache-style canopy. Two helicopters were used in the filming of the movie in case one was grounded for maintenance issues. The helicopters were purchased by Columbia Pictures and flown to Cinema Air in Carlsbad, CA where they were heavily modified for the film. Unfortunately, these alterations made the helicopters so heavy that various tricks had to be employed to make it look fast and agile in the film. For instance, the 360° loop-the-loop maneuver Murphy performs at the end of the film was carried out by a radio controlled model.

The two SA-341Gs were S/N 1066 (ex-N51BT) and S/N 1075 (ex-N52BT) and were produced in 1973. After the film was made, the helicopter was sold to Mike Groovy, an aviation salvage collector in Clovis, New Mexico. Groovy then leased it out to a film company that was filming Amerika, an ABC mini-series about Soviet occupation of the United States. For this production, the helicopters were painted black, and the surveillance microphones were stripped away. After Groovy got the helicopter back, it was dismantled and sold for parts.[3]

N51BT makes a brief appearance in the pilot episode of the TV show MacGyver near the 16 minute mark.

[edit] Cultural references

JAFO - Just Another Fucking Observer; which is police community jargon mentioned repeatedly in the film in reference to the helicopter's non-pilot second officer, in this case Daniel Stern's character of Richard Lymangood. In the related Blue Thunder (TV series), the reference is bowdlerized as Just Another Frustrated Observer.

[edit] See also

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Blue Thunder - Original 1979 First Draft Screenplay
  2. ^ This was one of Warren Oates's last films before his death in 1982, and it is dedicated to him. He made one movie and one TV episode that were released after Blue Thunder.
  3. ^ Blue Thunder, the helicopter: movie information

[edit] External links


Preceded by
Flashdance		 Box office number-one films of 1983 (USA)
May 15, 1983		 Succeeded by
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Thunder"
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