Countdown to Looking Glass
The nuclear powered aircraft carrier U.S.S. Nimitz (CVN 68) was portrayed in this movie by the museum ship U.S.S. Yorktown (ex CV 10) moored in Charleston Harbor, Charleston, South Carolina. The T-2 Buckeye jet trainer which is being towed across the deck during one of Michael Boyle's (Scott Glenn) reports is one of the Yorktown Museum's exhibits.,A news report is coming from "Carswell, Texas," with mountains in the background. Carswell Air Force Base was in Fort Worth, Texas, surrounded by suburbs and trees with no mountains within hundreds of miles.,Don Tobin: Twenty years ago, I used to spend a lot of time talking about... hypothetical nuclear war scenarios with a man who was one of the pioneers in that form of prophecy... he's dead now... really believed in his craft. He said to me once, "Don, I'm convinced that sooner or later there will be a nuclear exchange - but I'm also convinced that when the leaders confront the terror of that exchange, they'll realize they can't get away any longer with playing war games, and they'll turn around... if there's anything to the power of prayer.",One thing has changed since this movie was shown in 1984. ... At the time, it had been a decade since the war in Vietnam had ended. America had lost its stomach for war, and this film about getting into another one would touch lots of nerves.

Now, three or four wars later (who's keeping count anymore?), it should be required viewing.

"Looking Glass" is the name given to the President's flying command post, called that because there are two such planes that look very much alike, mirror images of each other. One is real, the other is the decoy. A chilling piece of information that would convey, if the two planes ever took off, that we really are in a shooting, nuclear war. And as the steps towards the Big War are taken, there is a "countdown" to the takeoff of the Looking Glass command post and decoy. Hence the title.

Gritty realism, a strong strong strong feeling in my gut that, if "it" ever happened, "it" could look exactly like this. I remember that sober churning inside, when I saw this some time in the 1990s. Only this week I was reflecting on how little they actually spent on special effects, but what an explosive wallop they got out of the effects they had, fast paced by the script, the sets, the commentators, everything that HBO had available to tell the story from a network's point of view.

The film had to make me think, and I immediately realized what was the most hard hitting memorable scene for me.

(Not a spoiler, discloses nothing, and is very early in the film) The news anchor turns to interview a "talking head". It is Newt Gingrich, as he was back then, a young young congressperson on his way up.

The anchor points out that the crisis is very deadly. Gingrich agrees.

"We may die," the anchor persists. Again, an agreement.

Then the anchor asks "Is there anything worth dying for?" And Gingrich responds "Tragically, the answer is 'yes'".

He points out that if the US were to back down, we would be submitting to slavery, and that our freedom is worth dying for. Freedom does not come cheaply and should not be yielded. He comes across as more than a leader, certainly a statesman, and in this film performs the thankless job task of saying something we might not want to hear.

I have said this before -- I say a movie is very, very good if I have continued to remember and ponder on it, years and years later. And Looking Glass has stayed with me in that way.,