will this movie ever come out on DVD?
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modean — 20 years ago(March 21, 2006 12:13 AM)
tgs333,
Thanks for the comment! Actually the apparent dichotomy that occurs in the movie, the conflict between the Soviet politicians that are increasingly less comitted to the plan to blow up the pump station and the Soviet military team that is in the field attempting to carry out the mission, can be better understood if you understand the force structure of the Soviet military at the time.
The average Soviet (Russian) military unit had a slavic core composed mostly of Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian officers and enlisted men (mostly specialists) and were on average at 40% to 50% man power unless they were pushed to combat ready status where they would then be flooded with Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Uzbek, Khazak, Kyrgyz, Tadzhik, and Turkmen conscripts. This meant that while the Soviets could field an impressive army by sheer numbes, their average unit lacked the cohesiveness, training, and experience that could be found in any American or NATO unit. To address these factors they created the position of Political Officer, better known as the zampolit.
Elite military units, like the Soviet Vozdushno-Desantnye Vojska (Airborne Assault), were composed almost exclusively of slavs, dominated by native Russians, and kept at or near full strength at all times. Even so these units possessed zampolit as well. While some have speculated that the Soviet forces in the movie were meant to be SPETZNAZ, I doubt that. A SPETZNAZ unit on this kind of mission would almost certainly be an OZNAS unit, highly trained, fiercely loyal, and far too powerful for the small National Guard unit to handle. Also the commander of an OZNAS unit would never have considered abandoning the assault on the pump station as the Soviet Colonel did. Most likely it was a VDV unit specially selected for this mission, thus the Soviet Major was also the unit's zampolit and the reason he tossed the grenade was because failing to complete the mission was unthinkable to him, the kind of "flexible" thinking that the Colonel could indulge in he was conditioned to abhor. -
tgs333 — 20 years ago(March 22, 2006 02:46 PM)
Thanks modean! I'm currently reading a book called: The Bear Trap. It details in a lot of ways what you did about the soviet army, this in regards to the Afhgan war.
Here's anonther questionwhen the Guard Unit helicopters to the valve station, did they all fit in the two chopters? are do you think more than one trip was made??
"I'm a vehemently anti-nuclear, paranoid mess, harbouring a strange obsession with radioactive sheep." -
modean — 20 years ago(March 28, 2006 02:25 PM)
They'd have chopper'd in with UH-60 Blackhawks. Blackhawks fly with a crew of three and can pack a full squad for air assault missions. Given that Soul's unit amounted to about two squads, I'm assuming they made it all in one trip.
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jon-weiss — 17 years ago(January 03, 2009 10:12 AM)
As the Helos they had for the Movie were OH-58A's and they had two of them, the max they could have taken would be 3 people per trip. The OH-58A carries 3 + Pilot. That is also assiming no equipment as the payload of the "Alpha" Model is barely enough to carry the four pax.
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SoForgetIt — 20 years ago(March 25, 2006 11:54 PM)
gtjob wroe on Wed Mar 15 2006 @ 17:34:19
Maybe because it was originally an HBO movie it never made it.<<
Actually it originally aired on NBC as one of those 'Movie of the Week' special events during sweeps. It was a two parter if I'm not mistaken. -
tgs333 — 20 years ago(March 26, 2006 09:04 AM)
It did air on national tv back in 1982, as a two part mini-series. I thought it aired on CBS (Fox) movie. It later re-aired on local affilate tv stations and HBO back in the 1990's.
"I'm a vehemently anti-nuclear, paranoid mess, harbouring a strange obsession with radioactive sheep." -
terrondt — 15 years ago(January 22, 2011 07:11 AM)
it aired on cbs in feb. 1982. for years i searched for it. i found the vhs on amazon but i refused to pay 35 bucks for it. amazon only a a few of this rare tapes. i finally found a rare movies website. they charged me only 11 bucks for dvd. 4 bucks shipping and handling. it was copied off a vhs tape obviously but it was picture on tv was ok all things consider it was not digitally transferred or remastered like most professionally transfered vhs to dvd quality.
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tgs333 — 20 years ago(March 25, 2006 11:57 AM)
I purchased a DVD verision of this movie on ebay this morning. I'll get the movie by mail in about a week to 10 days. Lets hope it is not a 'bootleg'. The sellers swears up and down it is not. He has a great rating (on ebay), so here's hoping. I'll update on this again when I get the dvd in the mail.
"I'm a vehemently anti-nuclear, paranoid mess, harbouring a strange obsession with radioactive sheep." -
tgs333 — 19 years ago(April 21, 2006 09:17 AM)
Are you sure it was abc? I thought it aired on CBS (FOX). Then again, I was only 11 years old when it first aired on tv. I got the same deal you got moviebuff. I knew going in, that it was likely a burned dvd/vhs. Still it would be great to see a full dvd verision of this film, with editor and actor commentary. I always find it amazing, how Rock Hudson gets little credit for his role as President of the US in the movie. Perhaps one of his best "pre-aids" performances late in his career.
"I'm a vehemently anti-nuclear, paranoid mess, harbouring a strange obsession with radioactive sheep." -
fro1313 — 18 years ago(July 16, 2007 02:16 PM)
could you e-mail me the e-bay vendor's info on the movie; my e-mail is fro1313@aol.com. Many thanks.
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Squonkamatic — 19 years ago(August 30, 2006 09:15 PM)
Yeah the things people will make DVD-R copies of these days; I'd be interested to know how long that version runs. If you guys went to the COMBINED DETAILS link, you'd find:
Production Companies
- David Greene Productions
- Finnegan Associates
- National Broadcasting Company (NBC) <
Distributors - National Broadcasting Company (NBC) (original airing) <
==
I remember seeing this at about the age of 16 and enjoying every minute of it and am pretty sure it was an NBC broadcast spread over 2 nights. The ending really had a whallop, and I recall the Alaskan based combat vividly. This, Nicholas Meyer's THE DAY AFTER, something called SPECIAL BULLETIN and that first King Crimson album with "Schizoid Man" convinced me our world was doomed before I was even 17, still have yet to see evidence otherwise.
There was a home video release in Britain during the late 80's, probably the 186 minute runtime stated when corrected to 25fps PAL spool rate & combined into a single feature. I would imagine that's what your DVD-R was sourced from; They aren't that difficult to find & for $25 or so you could have an original. You'd still need a PAL converter to watch but them's the breaks.
I would imagine that the reason for no DVD or re-release in North America would be a soundtrack royalties issue, older made for TV films have a tendancy to have musical scores which can be difficult to re-license. Or NBC could simply be not interested in doing so for whatever reason.