The "teen" fighters were more an outgrowth of the F-111's failure to meet specific goals of the various services. But back then there were people in the Pentagon (the Fighter Mafia) that stood up against the bean counters behind the F-111 and got us all those marvelous aircraft. That type no longer exists, so now we have the F-35.
@@martykarr7058 fighter mafia had nothing to do with F-15 and F-16 past begining phases. Those delusional old man claimed everything is because of them but in reallity they were as currupt as bumber mafia. Stop spreding lies they spread, if it was by them, missiles wouldnt be as advanced as today and most fighters would be short range dogfighters with no radar. F-111 ended up being more effective then Fighter plane mafias favorite A-10 that holds the record for most firendly fire incidents of all US aircraft and F-35A for its cost is best beng for you buck for what you can chose from export market aircraft (currently is cheaper then Rafale and Eurofighter).
Their hyperbolic talk of the safistication of every new Soviet weapon often drove Western countries to overengineer and overcompensate the manufacture much better stuff than they otherwise may have. If only we could get along.
@@martykarr7058 the F-35 isn't the fastest or most agile fighter but it's built to combine a weapon set and defensive measures that allow it to do some things no other fighter bomber can do. Particularly the Israeli Air Force has done some impressive flying missions with their versions of the F-35. They've pulled off mission sets no other aircraft could pull off.
I was in my early 20s, and in the Navy, when this came out. I have to admit that I found the concept of super-advanced Soviet technology to be hilarious...especially since I had read Belenko's book a few years previously. I also wondered just how good voice activated weapons would be ... I can pull the trigger on a gun faster than I could tell it to shoot...and the trigger never misunderstands me. Aerodynamically, the nose also looked a bit funny given the idea that the aircraft was supposed to be exceedingly fast. The F-117 later had something similar and it wasn't exactly quick.
Yeah, I always thought that the weapons were the last thing I'd want "thought control" on. Now direct brain interface on flight controls, that has some potential. Mostly to go horribly wrong when it doesn't work right, but the concept at least has merit.
There’s no way Alexa could successfully fire any armament, it can’t even turn off my alarm when I say “Alexa, stop alarm”. “I am unable to play Fire Alarm from Splexa on Spotify” Alexa, FOX 3! “Dumping fuel”
Precisely why the testing/implemention of voice activated controls were discarded 20 years ago. They required >95% accuracy. Which wasn't achievable at the time.
Funny enough, the MiG25 "superfighter" spawned the closest thing to a super fighter of that era in response, the F15 Eagle, the most successfully air to air combatant to exist, 102-0
105-0. Also the most successfull air to air fighter was the F-14, because the F-14 was the big bad boogeyman for the US adversaries. While ultimately the Phoenix is less capable than an AMRAAM, the fact that the AWG-9 provided TWS, saw hundreds of miles, and could fire missiles from a hundred miles away (theoretically, in reality it was a bit less, depending on alt, speed, etc of ownship and target), made it scary to the point that adversaries rather turned away. And what could be a more effective weapon than the one that prevents fighting altogether? Or have you ever heard of a US carrier fleet attacked? Exactly. Why it did not rack up kills during Desert Storm, was because the Air Force was hellbound on calling dibs on as much as they could, and the F-14s were not really put to use.
@@104thironmike4 and, every time the F-14 turned on it's radar, the Iraqi migs would go evasive and run away. Experience of fighting against the F-14 of the Iranians.
Soviet cockpit ergonomics were so bad with vital instruments and switches placed wherever the last subcontractor in could find an empty space, that it would have taken an untrained pilot a few months to figure out how to fly any new type. Glass cockpit? Not at that time. Eastwood single-handedly made the movie work.
This movie always makes me melancholic. It was partly shot in Vienna/Austria, where I live - and I always smile when I recognize the tube station "Stadtpark" or other prominent sights I used to see then on a regular basis. (Some sites changed completely.)
The version of Soviet military leadership I found most fitting in fiction was in the James Bond movie (the one with the title that youtube won't let me post, probably) where one Soviet general wants to start a nuclear sneak attack on the west but the Premier shuts it down angrily and proclaims "World socialism will be accomplished through PEACEFUL means!" A true believer in socialism - misguided, perhaps, but he didn't want a worldwide nuclear war that only a madman would want. He just thought world socialism would be best, preferably under Soviet rule, I assume.
I love the location you chose for this video! Showing off a lot of the finest aircraft the US produced during the cold war in the background really drives the point home about quality Vs. Quantity! Where was this video shot? Or would you rather keep your location Classified? Firefox for me is three things: 1) A great movie to watch on a Saturday afternoon! 2) A somewhat crappy Laser Disc Atari arcade game I remember from youth! 3) The Namesake of the Web Browser I'm using right now!
It was shot at Ellsworth AFB (the decommissioned B-1 still has its tail code) though my ideal location for this one would have been Wright-Patterson 20 years ago, when their XB-70 was still outside. I never had a chance to play the old Firefox game. It looked amazing for its time, but I never came across one of the arcade machines.
Amazingly the game was available at Shannon Airport in Ireland. Professional civilian pilots queued up to play it. I remember begging my father to let me have another 50p coin to play it again. This was about a week's pocket money when I was 11. An Aeroflot pilot took pity and handed me a fist full of loose change. Thanks for bringing back that memory. 👍
My thoughts exactly. Firefox is a perfect example of Cold War American mythologizing. Building semi-mythological wonder-weapons like the Mig-25 fits in with Soviet and Russian strategic and tactical doctrine called Maskerovka. This goes all the way back to the time of the Tsars, when Potemkin built a fake villlage to impress the Tsarina. If you can't build it, make them think you did anyways.
Like omg the high potency bs brew you made here...mig 25 never was mythological wonder weapon, that was what the west came to believe on its own. Its just extremely quick flying brick interceptor that makes sense cause Ussr was vast, even today mig31 enjoys some successes because of its uncommon advantages like big radar and speed. This has nothing yo do with diversion or completely unrelated Potemkin story that you think Russians have in their genes.
There was no effective way to portray the thought-controlled weapons system in the movie. The novel covered this in a much better way, right down to the Firefox's systems having safeguards planned so a pilot couldn't shoot down a "friendly" aircraft with "evil thoughts". The whole thought-guided system stemmed from a Soviet scientist who had created a wheelchair for quadriplegics that could be controlled by thought. The Soviet government saw the potential military use for thought-guided control of weaponry, and forced the scientist and his team to work on the Firefox.
Reminds me of The Hunt for Red October... we overestimated Soviet technology right up to the end of the Cold War... laughed when I saw the MIG-37 Model, had it as a kid!
I loved this movie as a kid as well, one of my favorite movies from Clint Eastwood. I actually enjoyed how vulnerable he seemed in it, but as you said the PTSD is kinda predictable for movie needs.
@@NostalgicGamerRickOShay Pretty sure it's from the Yojimbo-inspired "A Fistful of Dollars". He explains to a group of thugs that although he knows they were just joking around, his mule doesn't. Now, if they would just apologize to his mule...
yah I rode a 1970s Lada Soviet taxi in Guangzhou China in 1995, well it was OK except for teh air conditioning was a computer fan taped to the dashboard .
I took pictures of AIRWOLF at THE VAN NUYS AIRSHOW IN 1984. On the ground and I the air. The helicopter was sold and crashed in Germany 🇩🇪 in 1989 as I heard on TH-cam. This a CLINT EASTWOOD MOVIES. GOOD BOOK. They also shot the movie at the AIR NATIONAL GUARD FACILITY THERE AS WELL.
Same here one of my most fave cold war movies of the cold war, another one is Falcon and the Snowman which I am currently watching. watched that one in the cinema back int he day and I believe I still have the original cassette tape of the soundtrack with Bowie and Pat Matheny.
Thank you for another interesting essay where actual history and pop culture interact! As an avid model builder, I appreciated your shout-out to the iconic Testors-Italeri "MiG-37B Soviet Stealth Fighter," which was released to compliment their "F-19 Stealth Fighter." This kit is still periodically available and comes in both 1/72nd and 1/48th scales. As for the real Foxbat; I was 16 - 17 when Soviet Pilot Viktor Belenko defected to Japan with his then hyper-secret MiG-25. About 100 days later, Hasegawa Models (whose people were allowed to examine the actual aircraft) produced a state-of-the-art kit, complete with box art showing the landed aircraft partially covered with tarpaulins on the Japanese Airfield. The 1/72nd scale model - which sold for a whopping $3.00 - caused a big stir at local hobby shops. But we almost got a kit of this plane a little sooner . . . . Sometime later, I read an article about the history of Aurora Models that showed an acetate prototype for the MiG-25, (at the time, thought to be designated "MiG-23,") proposed in the late 1960's. Though it would have been less accurate, it would have been cool to have had it almost a decade before the Hasegawa kit. If memory serves, the same article also featured a photo of a proposed Aurora Yak-28; which we wouldn't get an injection-molded model of until after the turn of the century . . . . When the MiG-25 was finally returned to the Soviet Union, it was disassembled and sent back in crates. According to various rumors I heard, some wise guy tossed in a copy of the Hasegawa model kit instruction sheet. A better version of this tale was that a few cases of the kits were included with the returned plane as a kind of backhanded thanks. 619th Like.
@@feralhistorian Another story I heard was about the Renwal and Revell Cutaway Submarine kits (The USS George Washington and the USS Ethan Allen) that supposedly gave away "classified secrets," and that employees at the Soviet Embassy were seen "buying up cases" of this kit. About 30 years ago, we had a neighbor from the Soviet Union, (Ukraine, actually,) who was also a model builder. When I mentioned that story to him, he had a good laugh, and provided a more plausible explanation. Yes, the Soviet Navy and the KGB wanted these kits, but not in the amount being bought. Actually, Western model kits were in high demand on the USSR's Black Market (maybe not as much as a pair of Levi's or a Beatles Album, but there was a market for these kits.) Typically, a Soviet modeler would keep one for themselves, and use the others for trade. I'm not really interested in adding an Su-57 to my collection. But I recently got my hands on a vintage VEB Plasticart Su-7 (from East Germany!) to add to my collection!
This video is great! It has all the nostalgia from fiction and actual history. Fire Fox. Model airplanes. Soviet jets. Stealth tech. Brilliant narration with dry humor. Thank you.
I have always admired the fictional 'Mig 31'. I lament no kit manufacturer has offered an accurate injection moulded plastic product of this scene stealing design.
As did I. I remember when there was a rumor that Monogram was going to come to our rescue with a, "kit from a movie," that we all thought was going to be the "Firefox," but it turned out to be the "Blue Thunder" helicopter. Not a bad kit - and to be fair, we were hoping someone would bring that out, too - but we wanted a "Firefox." Maybe my grandkids will come to my rescue and write the code for a 3D Printer to make this one . . . .
As Firefox was written by a British writer Craig Thomas. The mission was a British one. The reason they used a US pilot was because at the time their piolts had combat experience. The book was written about the late 70's. So after Vietnam and before the Falklands war.
It was a lot less implausible in 1979. The USSR had a tradition of surprising complacent Americans with technical developments we never expected -- Sputnik, Gagarin. Even the Mig-25. Belenko had torn the mask, but when the plane was first reported we really DID think it was a super-fighter, because we assumed the Soviets built it using the same assumptions and philosophy we would.
Image the movie if the Firefox was a realistic 80s era Soviet fighter. Gant walks into the hanger deck and exclaims: "What a hunk of junk!" plot twist.
not to big up the soviets - but the F117 was only possible because of a soviet scientific paper on how to calculate radar refections - its also ironic that the mig25 was made from stainless steel while the SR71 was made from titanium purchased from russia
I always found it a bit odd that people either puffed up the Soviets as genius monsters bent on world domination or downplayed them as bumbling incompetents. As usual, the truth was much more subtle.
@@feralhistorian I feel the Russians were and are so amazingly paranoid, that they were dangerous. As soon as Gorbachev showed peaceful intent, the west embraced him. It was always the paranoia.
@@feralhistorian Heard a good one in that respect: "The enemy tank is never as good as your general tells the politicians and never as bad as he tells you."
We're all standing on the shoulders of giants. It's our global accumulation of knowledge that let's us do the stuff we do. Imagine the things we could accomplish if we could stop killing each other.
As a 7 & 8 year old I loved this movie. I remember my brother & I had to ride with our mom to this itty bitty small town in Western Georgia & it has an older style marquee movie theater on main Street. She sent us there to watch FireFox while she was in a very long meeting for the restaurant "Po Folks". I loved this movie. It really hit a child's imagination button hard. Especially a kid that loved aircraft.
The movie probably needs to be re-done, the book was a favourite of mine when a teen, there was also "Firefox Down" a sequel, & "Winter Hawk", where Gant is required to fly one of 2 Mi-24 Hinds on a mission of great importance (movie producers missed some opportunities with this series, but times changed, I guess) They definitely made it look cool, it still looks cool af (& the EuroFighter has canards lol)
CLINT COULD HAVE BUT THE EXPENSE? MAYBE HIS SON SCOTT? DID A DOCUMENTARY ON AIRCRAFT CARRIERS. SPENT 24 HOUR'S ON 1. PROBABLY HAD A LOT OF MEMORABILIA FOR THE SENIOR OFFICERS? 1 CHIEF RECOGNIZED HIM AS EASTWOOD KID.
I recently watched this film and I liked it. Definitely a time capsule of its time, just like Red Dawn. For similar myth making of Soviet prowess, play Freedom Fighters. Originally released in the 2000s on Xbox, PS2, and GameCube. It was remastered on Steam. Worth a play.
In all fairness to the Soviet armaments industry, the t-72s that we faced in the first Gulf War were late 1960s monkey export models armed with well out of date ammunition. The Soviets would keep all the best stuff for themselves and export the ersatz version to any third world country dumb enough to buy it. Interestingly, the Iraqi Army was armed with the same self-propelled howitzers the US Army had that were built by Chrysler.
@@ericjohnson2024 The whole 'monkey model' trope has already been debunked. The soviets never scaled down or made special export versions of their their tanks and planes. They really were just that bad.
@@jsssss2674 it is common practice not to export your latest and greatest model. The most recent example is the m1 tanks that we sent to the Ukrainians. those things came out of National Guard inventories and were stripped down to the export / monkey model.
I used to read Air Force magazine in my high school library, cannot believe the pacifist librarian even ordered it. Thumbed through that issue and read that exact article! Fun seeing it again. I loved Firefox as a kid, great flick.
I just came across your channel... excellent content! I was in the US Navy when I saw this movie with some shipmates off our sub. We all laughed at the scene where the sub surfaces through the ice and uses steam nozzles to create a runway for the MiG31.
I loved this movie when I saw it in theaters. It's one of those that as a kid you enjoy the spectacle but as an adult you appreciate it's subtler themes. You should do a video on The Philadelphia Experiment or Blue Thunder. Both good 80s movies that have subtler elements you appreciate more as an adult.
Yep not only the grain, the USSR economy survived by selling oil to western countries the very same countries they were ready to invades across the Fulda Gap. USSR collapsed due to its centralized poor mismanaged economic system. which could not last long and relied on export of its natural resources, when the oil prices in the 80s collapsed to 31 USD in the mid 80s from a high of 147 USD in 1980, the SOviet economy went down with it. massive Soviet spending went to maintaining perceived military parity with the USA but also maintaining all of its deadbeat warsaw pact , communist world puppet allies. Yep, I remember by Russian co worker telling me, that before the USSR collapsed the leaders of the three most important Soviet republics namely Russia, Ukraine and Belarus met and planned the break up, Kazakhstan found out and was let in on the talks. After the talks, the uSSR collapsed and the other Soviet republics were quite suprirsed and were not told , and were told in the end, good luck you are on your own. My co worker was stationed in Baku , Azerbaijan USSR, as part of Soviet troops sent to quell protests etc. when the USSR collapsed so did law and order in Baku collapsed as it was every man for himself, local militias fought each other. They did not target the Soviet troops since the troops had the best firepower. They were eventually repatriated later back to Russia and he emigrated to Canada in the 90s .
Thought control ? In 1982, IBM CPU's ran at 1MhZ ! Even at the time of writing, an Intel 14900K chip (running at 6GHZ) is incapable of anything remotely approaching reading thoughts in real-time.
Great video! I love this movie from way back! Love the witty remarks! Love the background of the South Dakota Air and Space Museum near Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota. Many good memories there too. Thank you for posting.
Fun fact in the first GI Joe live action movie they referenced Firefox with the Cobra interceptor and the Anime Super Dimension Fortress Macross Plus the YF-21 has a similar system to the firefox's man machine interface.
Thanks for covering this movie! I have some nostalgia for it, since it was one of the first PG-rated movies I saw without parents, and the first Clint Eastwood movie I saw in theaters. It was impressive, and the special effects were decent, even if they weren't ILM. My friend who saw it with me was an ethnic Latvian, and he was quite mortified when the missile cruiser Riga was introduced! 😄 Of course I believed the hype, and the Soviets building Bond-villain level stuff, because it was 1982 and we all knew the Commies were working on superweapons. This was before the Israeli-Syrian War, Afghanistan, and Desert Shield/Storm ruined the mystique and threat. Oddly enough the Firefox was sort-of copied for G.I. Joe as a Cobra heavy fighter.
Actually, that's a bit of journalistic invention. In the US armed forces vernacular, "RS" stood for "Reconnaissance-Strike", since in the early stages of development it was envisioned that there would be a strike-bomber version of the -71. As the strike version never happened, the job being taken over by ballistic missiles, the -71 became solely a Strategic Reconnaissance plane, for which the designation was "SR". This was decided by General Curtiss LeMay before Johnson's speech but after there'd been a bunch of paperwork done on the "RS-71" which was released after the announcement.
Good video. At one point you bring up what we all wondered during the Cold War: would our quality beat their quantity? Fortunately, we never found out.
I totally agree and appreciate your thoughts. As Eastern-Germany feld back to West-Germany, the NATO got their hands on NVA Mig 29. and the engineers were impressed what they found in the airplane. Simple technic, no. Well experienced when they thought. My father was flight Engineer and he told me from his work back in the days… 1990. wow. This is a heck long ago. But the story ma father told me, i‘ll never forget. Keep up the good work.
Yep, as a kid, always watched FireFox when it came out on HBO back in the 80s. I wanted a model kit of that plane SO BAD, but no one made one, which surprised me. Then a few years back, I found a company that made a 144th scale kit and have it in a display box. I did read the sequel also from Thomas 'FireFox Down!' and for years wondered if a movie would ever be made. And then a web browser comes around and steals that name (sigh!)....
One idea that you see in many of the better-thought-out sci-fi universes (and which, if I'm not mistaken, you might be giving a little nod towards in your discussion of better vs. more) is that, in general, a faction's main battle tank will tend not to be the best thing they can make, but rather, the best thing they can *standardise*. Fancy super-tanks are all well and good, but their battlefield life-expectancy will be greatly reduced if it's impossible to source spare parts for them.
I totally agree with your point about the military industrial complex’s ability to “raise concern” over some new design out of the east. Still, an SKS may not be as refined as an M1 Garand, but it can still do the job. Still going on today in order to justify huge defense spending (more like wealth transfer). I did 20 years in the Air Force as an F-15 mechanic, and had the opportunity to give a MiG-31 and Su-27 an up close walk around (still have the pictures) in 1990. Crude, rugged, and essentially sub-par by our standards. Where we had the edge was combined arms doctrine and training, along with the software/hardware interface. Totally digging your videos
4:15 "comrade, our new plane can read the human mind for its FCS" "good, what about the automotive progress" "we are working on an engine that dosnt require you to mix oil into the fuel, its 20 years out but progress is being made"
Saw that movie when I was in elementary school. Later in life I became a Russian speaker. It´s funny how ignorant I was bout that part of the world. I didnt know the difference between Moscow, or Kazakhstan.
One of the coolest Cloak And Dagger films ever. I remember reading about MANPRINT in the 1980s and it was supposed to be as close to thought control as they could get.
It's been a while, but if I remember correctly, it's pointed out to Gant that his cabin sits on federal land and if he doesn't cooperate, he's getting booted off it
They billed this as an awesome sci-fi movie. As a kid, I was so disappointed because I didn't understand most of it. Even now as a adult who understands Cold War spy movies ... I still thought it was kinda boring.
They did explain how they convinced him. They told him that if he refused the mission he would be evicted from the land he was living on, but on the other hand, if he succeeded he would get to keep the land.
Russia is far ahead of the West in terms of 5th-generation aircraft! Just recently, they set 2 records - being the first nation to shoot down a 5-th generation aircraft in air-to-air combat, as well as being the first nation to lose a 5th-generation aircraft in air-to-air combat! Sure, both were in the same incident, and it was a SU-57 shooting down its wingman drone, when it developed self-awareness and craved the taste of freedom (and on subsequent examination of its wreckage didn't even seem to have any radar-absorbent material at all), but still!
Great video, matches my feelings almost exactly. I saw the movie with my dad in 1983 and read the book. One of the interesting outcrops of the movie was the resulting arcade game - much vaunted at the time because it was one of the first to use semi-photographic backgrounds. Even at the time, that whole "thought controlled weapons system" seemed a bit mad. And if there was one group of people who were (and who still are) fond of overstating the capabilities, and reliability of Russian weapon systems, it was the Russians themselves.
i watched this with the guys in my family when i was 8. i loved that plane and wanted to be a pilot because of this design. sadly my eyes would not allow for that. but still i have fond memories of going to the theater and being given quarters every week when we went to the pizza place so i could play the video game. the movie was utterly boring till clint stole the plane. at least to my 8 yr old self.
I'm probably not the only kid that grew up during this cold War mythologizing and essentially saw the big govt spending as a huge and exciting career opportunity. But after completing some fairly heavy stem type education, the focus moved to more boots on the ground stuff and cool projects like !omg lazor space rokkits! felt like it evaporated before we even got a chance to see it. I was able to pivot into an internet/tech career probably like many other genx kids but I often do think about what life would have been like for us in the alternate universe of lab coats and wild, secret government projects lol.
Great look back. The Soviet Union was a thing back in the day, and most people forget. But it is fair to pick on the fact that they sucked at making cars...
What's so interesting is how often our adversaries come up with a counter, then also try to duplicate our development. The same time the Soviets were working on the MiG-25 to intercept the XB-70, they were working on the Sukhoi T-4, a near copy of the 70. And then there's the striking resemblance between the TU-160 and the B-1. And it's still happening, now with China, who on one hand claims to have made aircraft carriers obsolete while at the same time building a fleet of them themselves. And it's a shame that they never made the sequel book "Firefox Down" into a movie.
Was this the first movie to open with a military superman living in a cabin in the sticks being chased home by an American chopper full of job offers? Airwolf, Sniper, others copy the trope, but any before the 1980s and Firefox?
Good movie, watched it a few times in the 80s, on bootleg betamax and laserdisc. also read the book, including the sequel Firefox down. both were OK. Movie and book were good. decades later in Vancouver, I had a Russian watch the movie, he was laughing at the British actors playing the Soviets, he said their Russian was atrocious, and funny, it was like a Brit talking in Russian haha(well they were), but of course not as funny as Arnold talking Russian in Red Heat they found that the most amusing. . The Russian co worker of mine used to serve in the Soviet army in the 80s,(his last posting was Baku USSR, before the collapse, ), he stated that people in the Soviet army did not talk that way as they did in the movie, and he found it most amusing about the Soviet troops calling one officer Comrade col. hahhaahah.
Hunt for Red October is another one with atrocious Russian. I mean my Russian is on the level of an above-average chimp but I'm listening to some of that dialog thinking "even I know that's wrong."
I learned Russian at DLI. Laughingly the KGB wasn't asking for papers throughout the movie, they were asking for paper.
Toilet paper, they'll let you pass with a little bribe that keeps them out of the tp lines.....
Chi-Ling! DLI in da house!
Soviet bog roll shortages
I need to write down a phone number, comrade, do you have any paper?
Most realistic thing in the movie, in a corrupt country that has men in space long before toilet paper factories.
The MiG 25 did lead the US to develop the F-15 though, which is not a bad thing for a myth
The "teen" fighters were more an outgrowth of the F-111's failure to meet specific goals of the various services. But back then there were people in the Pentagon (the Fighter Mafia) that stood up against the bean counters behind the F-111 and got us all those marvelous aircraft. That type no longer exists, so now we have the F-35.
@@martykarr7058 fighter mafia had nothing to do with F-15 and F-16 past begining phases. Those delusional old man claimed everything is because of them but in reallity they were as currupt as bumber mafia. Stop spreding lies they spread, if it was by them, missiles wouldnt be as advanced as today and most fighters would be short range dogfighters with no radar. F-111 ended up being more effective then Fighter plane mafias favorite A-10 that holds the record for most firendly fire incidents of all US aircraft and F-35A for its cost is best beng for you buck for what you can chose from export market aircraft (currently is cheaper then Rafale and Eurofighter).
Their hyperbolic talk of the safistication of every new Soviet weapon often drove Western countries to overengineer and overcompensate the manufacture much better stuff than they otherwise may have. If only we could get along.
@@martykarr7058 the F-35 isn't the fastest or most agile fighter but it's built to combine a weapon set and defensive measures that allow it to do some things no other fighter bomber can do. Particularly the Israeli Air Force has done some impressive flying missions with their versions of the F-35. They've pulled off mission sets no other aircraft could pull off.
@@Harley-D-Mcdonald But like so many other weapons systems the Israelis have bought from us it isn't the "stock" version, they've done some modding.
I was in my early 20s, and in the Navy, when this came out. I have to admit that I found the concept of super-advanced Soviet technology to be hilarious...especially since I had read Belenko's book a few years previously. I also wondered just how good voice activated weapons would be ... I can pull the trigger on a gun faster than I could tell it to shoot...and the trigger never misunderstands me. Aerodynamically, the nose also looked a bit funny given the idea that the aircraft was supposed to be exceedingly fast. The F-117 later had something similar and it wasn't exactly quick.
Yeah, I always thought that the weapons were the last thing I'd want "thought control" on. Now direct brain interface on flight controls, that has some potential. Mostly to go horribly wrong when it doesn't work right, but the concept at least has merit.
"Awe, shoot" - Mater, Cars 2
You served under Regan? I started under clinton
There’s no way Alexa could successfully fire any armament, it can’t even turn off my alarm when I say “Alexa, stop alarm”.
“I am unable to play Fire Alarm from Splexa on Spotify”
Alexa, FOX 3!
“Dumping fuel”
Precisely why the testing/implemention of voice activated controls were discarded 20 years ago. They required >95% accuracy. Which wasn't achievable at the time.
Funny enough, the MiG25 "superfighter" spawned the closest thing to a super fighter of that era in response, the F15 Eagle, the most successfully air to air combatant to exist, 102-0
105-0. Also the most successfull air to air fighter was the F-14, because the F-14 was the big bad boogeyman for the US adversaries. While ultimately the Phoenix is less capable than an AMRAAM, the fact that the AWG-9 provided TWS, saw hundreds of miles, and could fire missiles from a hundred miles away (theoretically, in reality it was a bit less, depending on alt, speed, etc of ownship and target), made it scary to the point that adversaries rather turned away. And what could be a more effective weapon than the one that prevents fighting altogether? Or have you ever heard of a US carrier fleet attacked? Exactly. Why it did not rack up kills during Desert Storm, was because the Air Force was hellbound on calling dibs on as much as they could, and the F-14s were not really put to use.
@@104thironmike4 and, every time the F-14 turned on it's radar, the Iraqi migs would go evasive and run away.
Experience of fighting against the F-14 of the Iranians.
Not a pound for air to ground.
The F-15 is still ahead of other new planes.
@@ChipmunkRapidsMadMan1869 "The F-15 is still ahead of other new planes.:" -- F-15EX has entered the chat...
Soviet cockpit ergonomics were so bad with vital instruments and switches placed wherever the last subcontractor in could find an empty space, that it would have taken an untrained pilot a few months to figure out how to fly any new type. Glass cockpit? Not at that time. Eastwood single-handedly made the movie work.
This movie always makes me melancholic. It was partly shot in Vienna/Austria, where I live - and I always smile when I recognize the tube station "Stadtpark" or other prominent sights I used to see then on a regular basis. (Some sites changed completely.)
The version of Soviet military leadership I found most fitting in fiction was in the James Bond movie (the one with the title that youtube won't let me post, probably) where one Soviet general wants to start a nuclear sneak attack on the west but the Premier shuts it down angrily and proclaims "World socialism will be accomplished through PEACEFUL means!" A true believer in socialism - misguided, perhaps, but he didn't want a worldwide nuclear war that only a madman would want. He just thought world socialism would be best, preferably under Soviet rule, I assume.
Certainly, capitalism hasn't gone very well. Except for the 1/8 of 1% 😢
th-cam.com/video/x99njmZxaMA/w-d-xo.html for reference
That was general secretary Leonid Brezhnev and the young aggressive general...was Vladimir Putin when young.
@@richardscathousewritten on your iPhone while being perfectly well fed.
I love the location you chose for this video! Showing off a lot of the finest aircraft the US produced during the cold war in the background really drives the point home about quality Vs. Quantity! Where was this video shot? Or would you rather keep your location Classified? Firefox for me is three things: 1) A great movie to watch on a Saturday afternoon! 2) A somewhat crappy Laser Disc Atari arcade game I remember from youth! 3) The Namesake of the Web Browser I'm using right now!
It was shot at Ellsworth AFB (the decommissioned B-1 still has its tail code) though my ideal location for this one would have been Wright-Patterson 20 years ago, when their XB-70 was still outside.
I never had a chance to play the old Firefox game. It looked amazing for its time, but I never came across one of the arcade machines.
Amazingly the game was available at Shannon Airport in Ireland. Professional civilian pilots queued up to play it. I remember begging my father to let me have another 50p coin to play it again. This was about a week's pocket money when I was 11. An Aeroflot pilot took pity and handed me a fist full of loose change. Thanks for bringing back that memory. 👍
@@feralhistorianI recognized the background but, did not know if you wanted it divulged. Sorry. Too many OPSEC briefings, I suppose.
I loved this movie as a kid and would
Always rewind the dogfight scene at the end on vhs. Blue thunder was also one of my favorite cold war movies.
Blue Thunder was not a Cold War movie, it was a post-Watergate "Don't trust the government " movie.
My thoughts exactly. Firefox is a perfect example of Cold War American mythologizing.
Building semi-mythological wonder-weapons like the Mig-25 fits in with Soviet and Russian strategic and tactical doctrine called Maskerovka. This goes all the way back to the time of the Tsars, when Potemkin built a fake villlage to impress the Tsarina. If you can't build it, make them think you did anyways.
Like omg the high potency bs brew you made here...mig 25 never was mythological wonder weapon, that was what the west came to believe on its own.
Its just extremely quick flying brick interceptor that makes sense cause Ussr was vast, even today mig31 enjoys some successes because of its uncommon advantages like big radar and speed.
This has nothing yo do with diversion or completely unrelated Potemkin story that you think Russians have in their genes.
There was no effective way to portray the thought-controlled weapons system in the movie. The novel covered this in a much better way, right down to the Firefox's systems having safeguards planned so a pilot couldn't shoot down a "friendly" aircraft with "evil thoughts". The whole thought-guided system stemmed from a Soviet scientist who had created a wheelchair for quadriplegics that could be controlled by thought. The Soviet government saw the potential military use for thought-guided control of weaponry, and forced the scientist and his team to work on the Firefox.
It is, still, perhaps one of the most lethal looking aircraft ever designed. It's menacing as hell when we first see it in the hanger.
Reminds me of The Hunt for Red October... we overestimated Soviet technology right up to the end of the Cold War... laughed when I saw the MIG-37 Model, had it as a kid!
The USSR had superb designers, their failure was their lack of large scale production and a deep testing program.
We never overestimated their (lack of) sea power. We knew more about their subs than they did lol!
I loved this movie as a kid as well, one of my favorite movies from Clint Eastwood. I actually enjoyed how vulnerable he seemed in it, but as you said the PTSD is kinda predictable for movie needs.
8:55 remember when we all played F19 and that curved Liberty Bell design? See also Tom Clancys "Night of the Frisbees" in Red Storm Rising.
My fav Eastwood film is the Western where he says "You insulted my horse. My horse doesn't like being insulted." 😂
Actually it's his mule that was insulted, not his horse.
Is that the one where he's a wandering preacher?
@@NostalgicGamerRickOShay Pretty sure it's from the Yojimbo-inspired "A Fistful of Dollars". He explains to a group of thugs that although he knows they were just joking around, his mule doesn't. Now, if they would just apologize to his mule...
GO AHEAD? MAKE MY DAY?
RIGHT TURN,CLYDE.
My mule doesn't like being called a horse.
yah I rode a 1970s Lada Soviet taxi in Guangzhou China in 1995, well it was OK except for teh air conditioning was a computer fan taped to the dashboard .
Outstanding video. If you're like me you probably grew up watching AIRWOLF, hint, hint.
I took pictures of AIRWOLF at THE VAN NUYS AIRSHOW IN 1984. On the ground and I the air. The helicopter was sold and crashed in Germany 🇩🇪 in 1989 as I heard on TH-cam.
This a CLINT EASTWOOD MOVIES. GOOD BOOK. They also shot the movie at the AIR NATIONAL GUARD FACILITY THERE AS WELL.
Same here one of my most fave cold war movies of the cold war, another one is Falcon and the Snowman which I am currently watching. watched that one in the cinema back int he day and I believe I still have the original cassette tape of the soundtrack with Bowie and Pat Matheny.
Thank you for another interesting essay where actual history and pop culture interact!
As an avid model builder, I appreciated your shout-out to the iconic Testors-Italeri "MiG-37B Soviet Stealth Fighter," which was released to compliment their "F-19 Stealth Fighter." This kit is still periodically available and comes in both 1/72nd and 1/48th scales.
As for the real Foxbat; I was 16 - 17 when Soviet Pilot Viktor Belenko defected to Japan with his then hyper-secret MiG-25. About 100 days later, Hasegawa Models (whose people were allowed to examine the actual aircraft) produced a state-of-the-art kit, complete with box art showing the landed aircraft partially covered with tarpaulins on the Japanese Airfield. The 1/72nd scale model - which sold for a whopping $3.00 - caused a big stir at local hobby shops. But we almost got a kit of this plane a little sooner . . . .
Sometime later, I read an article about the history of Aurora Models that showed an acetate prototype for the MiG-25, (at the time, thought to be designated "MiG-23,") proposed in the late 1960's. Though it would have been less accurate, it would have been cool to have had it almost a decade before the Hasegawa kit. If memory serves, the same article also featured a photo of a proposed Aurora Yak-28; which we wouldn't get an injection-molded model of until after the turn of the century . . . .
When the MiG-25 was finally returned to the Soviet Union, it was disassembled and sent back in crates. According to various rumors I heard, some wise guy tossed in a copy of the Hasegawa model kit instruction sheet. A better version of this tale was that a few cases of the kits were included with the returned plane as a kind of backhanded thanks.
619th Like.
I have heard the story of the Hasegawa instructions being tossed in before, which strikes me as just the right level of snark for the situation.
@@feralhistorian Another story I heard was about the Renwal and Revell Cutaway Submarine kits (The USS George Washington and the USS Ethan Allen) that supposedly gave away "classified secrets," and that employees at the Soviet Embassy were seen "buying up cases" of this kit.
About 30 years ago, we had a neighbor from the Soviet Union, (Ukraine, actually,) who was also a model builder. When I mentioned that story to him, he had a good laugh, and provided a more plausible explanation. Yes, the Soviet Navy and the KGB wanted these kits, but not in the amount being bought. Actually, Western model kits were in high demand on the USSR's Black Market (maybe not as much as a pair of Levi's or a Beatles Album, but there was a market for these kits.) Typically, a Soviet modeler would keep one for themselves, and use the others for trade.
I'm not really interested in adding an Su-57 to my collection. But I recently got my hands on a vintage VEB Plasticart Su-7 (from East Germany!) to add to my collection!
This video is great! It has all the nostalgia from fiction and actual history. Fire Fox. Model airplanes. Soviet jets. Stealth tech. Brilliant narration with dry humor.
Thank you.
I have always admired the fictional 'Mig 31'. I lament no kit manufacturer has offered an accurate injection moulded plastic product of this scene stealing design.
As did I. I remember when there was a rumor that Monogram was going to come to our rescue with a, "kit from a movie," that we all thought was going to be the "Firefox," but it turned out to be the "Blue Thunder" helicopter. Not a bad kit - and to be fair, we were hoping someone would bring that out, too - but we wanted a "Firefox."
Maybe my grandkids will come to my rescue and write the code for a 3D Printer to make this one . . . .
As Firefox was written by a British writer Craig Thomas. The mission was a British one.
The reason they used a US pilot was because at the time their piolts had combat experience.
The book was written about the late 70's. So after Vietnam and before the Falklands war.
It was a lot less implausible in 1979. The USSR had a tradition of surprising complacent Americans with technical developments we never expected -- Sputnik, Gagarin. Even the Mig-25. Belenko had torn the mask, but when the plane was first reported we really DID think it was a super-fighter, because we assumed the Soviets built it using the same assumptions and philosophy we would.
MiG 15 too, as "simple" as it is and considering the powerplant is basically a RR Nene.
Image the movie if the Firefox was a realistic 80s era Soviet fighter. Gant walks into the hanger deck and exclaims: "What a hunk of junk!" plot twist.
not to big up the soviets - but the F117 was only possible because of a soviet scientific paper on how to calculate radar refections - its also ironic that the mig25 was made from stainless steel while the SR71 was made from titanium purchased from russia
I always found it a bit odd that people either puffed up the Soviets as genius monsters bent on world domination or downplayed them as bumbling incompetents. As usual, the truth was much more subtle.
@@feralhistorian I feel the Russians were and are so amazingly paranoid, that they were dangerous. As soon as Gorbachev showed peaceful intent, the west embraced him. It was always the paranoia.
@@feralhistorian Heard a good one in that respect:
"The enemy tank is never as good as your general tells the politicians and never as bad as he tells you."
Yup, see Pytor Ustimev.
We're all standing on the shoulders of giants. It's our global accumulation of knowledge that let's us do the stuff we do. Imagine the things we could accomplish if we could stop killing each other.
As a 7 & 8 year old I loved this movie. I remember my brother & I had to ride with our mom to this itty bitty small town in Western Georgia & it has an older style marquee movie theater on main Street. She sent us there to watch FireFox while she was in a very long meeting for the restaurant "Po Folks". I loved this movie. It really hit a child's imagination button hard. Especially a kid that loved aircraft.
Watched it on a Pam Am flight from Tampa to London in October 1982.Great movie.
"...the type of Ork-work I do in my garage." --nice!
The movie probably needs to be re-done, the book was a favourite of mine when a teen, there was also "Firefox Down" a sequel, & "Winter Hawk", where Gant is required to fly one of 2 Mi-24 Hinds on a mission of great importance (movie producers missed some opportunities with this series, but times changed, I guess)
They definitely made it look cool, it still looks cool af (& the EuroFighter has canards lol)
It could probably be redone using China instead of Russia. But they would probably screw it up like top gun
CLINT COULD HAVE BUT THE EXPENSE? MAYBE HIS SON SCOTT? DID A DOCUMENTARY ON AIRCRAFT CARRIERS. SPENT 24 HOUR'S ON 1. PROBABLY HAD A LOT OF MEMORABILIA FOR THE SENIOR OFFICERS? 1 CHIEF RECOGNIZED HIM AS EASTWOOD KID.
I recently watched this film and I liked it. Definitely a time capsule of its time, just like Red Dawn.
For similar myth making of Soviet prowess, play Freedom Fighters. Originally released in the 2000s on Xbox, PS2, and GameCube. It was remastered on Steam. Worth a play.
Complete with the ‘intellectuals are in on it, too’ trope. 😂
"Is 1 M1 better than 5 T72s?"
Gulf War says yes
In all fairness to the Soviet armaments industry, the t-72s that we faced in the first Gulf War were late 1960s monkey export models armed with well out of date ammunition. The Soviets would keep all the best stuff for themselves and export the ersatz version to any third world country dumb enough to buy it.
Interestingly, the Iraqi Army was armed with the same self-propelled howitzers the US Army had that were built by Chrysler.
Ukraine war says no. All tanks are extremely vulnerable, though still necessary.
@@ericjohnson2024 The whole 'monkey model' trope has already been debunked. The soviets never scaled down or made special export versions of their their tanks and planes. They really were just that bad.
According to Scott Ritter, it only comes down to one thing, no night vision on T72😢
@@jsssss2674 it is common practice not to export your latest and greatest model. The most recent example is the m1 tanks that we sent to the Ukrainians. those things came out of National Guard inventories and were stripped down to the export / monkey model.
I used to read Air Force magazine in my high school library, cannot believe the pacifist librarian even ordered it. Thumbed through that issue and read that exact article! Fun seeing it again. I loved Firefox as a kid, great flick.
Good novel, too.
Your FireFly lost cause video got you in my recommendations and man im happy it did, im loving all your videos.
To be fair, a few pieces of soviet military tech (i.e. the T-64 Tank) where far more advanced then their western contemporaries.
We could always out print them dollar for ruble, nothing really to brag about,😢
I just came across your channel... excellent content!
I was in the US Navy when I saw this movie with some shipmates off our sub. We all laughed at the scene where the sub surfaces through the ice and uses steam nozzles to create a runway for the MiG31.
I loved this movie when I saw it in theaters. It's one of those that as a kid you enjoy the spectacle but as an adult you appreciate it's subtler themes. You should do a video on The Philadelphia Experiment or Blue Thunder. Both good 80s movies that have subtler elements you appreciate more as an adult.
Yep not only the grain, the USSR economy survived by selling oil to western countries the very same countries they were ready to invades across the Fulda Gap. USSR collapsed due to its centralized poor mismanaged economic system. which could not last long and relied on export of its natural resources, when the oil prices in the 80s collapsed to 31 USD in the mid 80s from a high of 147 USD in 1980, the SOviet economy went down with it. massive Soviet spending went to maintaining perceived military parity with the USA but also maintaining all of its deadbeat warsaw pact , communist world puppet allies. Yep, I remember by Russian co worker telling me, that before the USSR collapsed the leaders of the three most important Soviet republics namely Russia, Ukraine and Belarus met and planned the break up, Kazakhstan found out and was let in on the talks. After the talks, the uSSR collapsed and the other Soviet republics were quite suprirsed and were not told , and were told in the end, good luck you are on your own. My co worker was stationed in Baku , Azerbaijan USSR, as part of Soviet troops sent to quell protests etc. when the USSR collapsed so did law and order in Baku collapsed as it was every man for himself, local militias fought each other. They did not target the Soviet troops since the troops had the best firepower. They were eventually repatriated later back to Russia and he emigrated to Canada in the 90s .
Thought control ? In 1982, IBM CPU's ran at 1MhZ !
Even at the time of writing, an Intel 14900K chip (running at 6GHZ) is incapable of anything remotely approaching reading thoughts in real-time.
Great video! I love this movie from way back! Love the witty remarks! Love the background of the South Dakota Air and Space Museum near Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota. Many good memories there too. Thank you for posting.
Wow! This is a great presentation.
Agreed!
Fun fact in the first GI Joe live action movie they referenced Firefox with the Cobra interceptor and the Anime Super Dimension Fortress Macross Plus the YF-21 has a similar system to the firefox's man machine interface.
Thanks for covering this movie! I have some nostalgia for it, since it was one of the first PG-rated movies I saw without parents, and the first Clint Eastwood movie I saw in theaters. It was impressive, and the special effects were decent, even if they weren't ILM. My friend who saw it with me was an ethnic Latvian, and he was quite mortified when the missile cruiser Riga was introduced! 😄 Of course I believed the hype, and the Soviets building Bond-villain level stuff, because it was 1982 and we all knew the Commies were working on superweapons. This was before the Israeli-Syrian War, Afghanistan, and Desert Shield/Storm ruined the mystique and threat. Oddly enough the Firefox was sort-of copied for G.I. Joe as a Cobra heavy fighter.
I remember this film back in the early 80s. It was fun to watch. Not typical of Clint films but it was a great one.
Saw it in the theater. I would tell the pilot's I knew? It is a EASTWOOD MOVIE?
Man living in it and looking at it is a hell of an experience.
Excellent analysis, Feral Historian. Concise and on the money. Subscribed.
Cool review. Hit all the points. Basically, a poor script but anything Clint touches turns to at least silver.
The SR 71 was actually called the RS 71 but the American president at the time made a mistake in a press conference so they went with SR.
Actually, that's a bit of journalistic invention. In the US armed forces vernacular, "RS" stood for "Reconnaissance-Strike", since in the early stages of development it was envisioned that there would be a strike-bomber version of the -71. As the strike version never happened, the job being taken over by ballistic missiles, the -71 became solely a Strategic Reconnaissance plane, for which the designation was "SR". This was decided by General Curtiss LeMay before Johnson's speech but after there'd been a bunch of paperwork done on the "RS-71" which was released after the announcement.
I'm 33 now and saw these film around 10 yrs old. I didn't appreciate it then but now I might give it another watch
Don't bother, Clint Eastwood doesn't improve with age, sadly 😢
@@richardscathouse I don't know? Grand Torino was pretty good. And Unforgiven was a classic.
This is an EXCELLENT analysis of the movie and its context.
The Firefox looks like something out of anime of the period.
Good video. At one point you bring up what we all wondered during the Cold War: would our quality beat their quantity? Fortunately, we never found out.
If just 1/4 of their nuc-icbms worked, we'd all be glass, so no argument really 😢
@@richardscathouse I was talking about conventional weapons. (I.e. their tanks vs. our tanks, their planes vs. our planes, etc, etc)
My late father and i loved this movie. Dad knew it was fake, but he loved these types of films
I totally agree and appreciate your thoughts. As Eastern-Germany feld back to West-Germany, the NATO got their hands on NVA Mig 29. and the engineers were impressed what they found in the airplane. Simple technic, no. Well experienced when they thought. My father was flight Engineer and he told me from his work back in the days… 1990. wow. This is a heck long ago. But the story ma father told me, i‘ll never forget. Keep up the good work.
Yep, as a kid, always watched FireFox when it came out on HBO back in the 80s.
I wanted a model kit of that plane SO BAD, but no one made one, which surprised me.
Then a few years back, I found a company that made a 144th scale kit and have it in a display box.
I did read the sequel also from Thomas 'FireFox Down!' and for years wondered if a movie would ever be made.
And then a web browser comes around and steals that name (sigh!)....
One idea that you see in many of the better-thought-out sci-fi universes (and which, if I'm not mistaken, you might be giving a little nod towards in your discussion of better vs. more) is that, in general, a faction's main battle tank will tend not to be the best thing they can make, but rather, the best thing they can *standardise*. Fancy super-tanks are all well and good, but their battlefield life-expectancy will be greatly reduced if it's impossible to source spare parts for them.
I totally agree with your point about the military industrial complex’s ability to “raise concern” over some new design out of the east. Still, an SKS may not be as refined as an M1 Garand, but it can still do the job. Still going on today in order to justify huge defense spending (more like wealth transfer).
I did 20 years in the Air Force as an F-15 mechanic, and had the opportunity to give a MiG-31 and Su-27 an up close walk around (still have the pictures) in 1990. Crude, rugged, and essentially sub-par by our standards.
Where we had the edge was combined arms doctrine and training, along with the software/hardware interface.
Totally digging your videos
Loved your review and commentary but don't forget ..."He wants you too, Malachi!" 😊🎉
5:29 I gotta say, your deconstruction of the 1970s USSR is pretty Hindsight 20/20 here in the 2020s.
If you shot this on Moffet Field, that wasn't a bunny -- it was a hare. A wild-eyed, soothsaying, apocalyptic prophety HARE.
4:15 "comrade, our new plane can read the human mind for its FCS" "good, what about the automotive progress" "we are working on an engine that dosnt require you to mix oil into the fuel, its 20 years out but progress is being made"
Hey, their cars weren’t that bad, just look at the Trabant.
Oh, yea… 😂
Saw that movie when I was in elementary school. Later in life I became a Russian speaker. It´s funny how ignorant I was bout that part of the world. I didnt know the difference between Moscow, or Kazakhstan.
One of the coolest Cloak And Dagger films ever.
I remember reading about MANPRINT in the 1980s and it was supposed to be as close to thought control as they could get.
I think this has to be one of the best videos I've seen on this topic
The AH-64 allows it's chain gun to track wherever the pilot looks. Not quite reading their mind, but pretty cool in itself.
Great for quelling riots.. not much good in combat. 😢
Rioters tend not to have chain guns of their own 😢
Love this film, the was also a Laser Disc Arcade game that used the effects from the film and was a sit in cabin like the Star Wars X-Wing game!
I truly enjoyed this video. Thank you.
The Soviets actually did make a super jet, in response to the mig 25 we built the f15. The greatest fighter jet to ever live
This is such an underrated movie. Watch it and I’m sure you’ll really enjoy it.
this has to be the most unbiased take on the time and histror i really like the movie was great
Pretty spot on analysis. Although NATO during the '70's and '80's was also pretty much a conscript ground army. (Apart from US & UK)
A friend of mine drives a Mini SUV Lada. He says it is more reliable than modern cars. It is very basic tough.
My Favorite Line is "You'll Be Flying the Fastest, Most Sophisticated Warplane on the Face of This Here Earth" Firefox.
It's been a while, but if I remember correctly, it's pointed out to Gant that his cabin sits on federal land and if he doesn't cooperate, he's getting booted off it
The most unbelievable aspect of the movie was how competent and efficient the US military was in refueling and plotting the jet.
The thought control system was the one thing I didn't like about the movie.
I had learned to forgive it's primitive special effects long ago.
They billed this as an awesome sci-fi movie. As a kid, I was so disappointed because I didn't understand most of it. Even now as a adult who understands Cold War spy movies ... I still thought it was kinda boring.
Clint Eastwood really wasn't much of an actor 😢😢
In Morecambe UK we had the laser disc version of Firefox the game you sat around watching a video and had chance to put input in
Russia in movies: 20 feet tall coming for blood!
Russia in reality:is one president better than four Premiers?
They did explain how they convinced him. They told him that if he refused the mission he would be evicted from the land he was living on, but on the other hand, if he succeeded he would get to keep the land.
Russia is far ahead of the West in terms of 5th-generation aircraft! Just recently, they set 2 records - being the first nation to shoot down a 5-th generation aircraft in air-to-air combat, as well as being the first nation to lose a 5th-generation aircraft in air-to-air combat! Sure, both were in the same incident, and it was a SU-57 shooting down its wingman drone, when it developed self-awareness and craved the taste of freedom (and on subsequent examination of its wreckage didn't even seem to have any radar-absorbent material at all), but still!
Great review. Firefox Down was also worth the read. Not sure about the third book in the series.
I didn't even know there was a third book.
Great video, matches my feelings almost exactly. I saw the movie with my dad in 1983 and read the book. One of the interesting outcrops of the movie was the resulting arcade game - much vaunted at the time because it was one of the first to use semi-photographic backgrounds. Even at the time, that whole "thought controlled weapons system" seemed a bit mad. And if there was one group of people who were (and who still are) fond of overstating the capabilities, and reliability of Russian weapon systems, it was the Russians themselves.
i watched this with the guys in my family when i was 8. i loved that plane and wanted to be a pilot because of this design. sadly my eyes would not allow for that. but still i have fond memories of going to the theater and being given quarters every week when we went to the pizza place so i could play the video game. the movie was utterly boring till clint stole the plane. at least to my 8 yr old self.
The Soviets were very good at illusion, that was not the problem. The problem was it became their reality.
IMO, they just weren't as good at printing money. You can do almost anything with infinite money, 😢
I'm terms of armoured vehicles, experience in Ukraine has exploded the myth of western superiority.
To be fair we never did send our best reactive armor. Or from the pictures any reactive armor at all. Cheap 🇺🇸
I'm probably not the only kid that grew up during this cold War mythologizing and essentially saw the big govt spending as a huge and exciting career opportunity. But after completing some fairly heavy stem type education, the focus moved to more boots on the ground stuff and cool projects like !omg lazor space rokkits! felt like it evaporated before we even got a chance to see it. I was able to pivot into an internet/tech career probably like many other genx kids but I often do think about what life would have been like for us in the alternate universe of lab coats and wild, secret government projects lol.
Great look back. The Soviet Union was a thing back in the day, and most people forget. But it is fair to pick on the fact that they sucked at making cars...
I so wish they made a sequel to this movie.
The book had a sequel.
With movies like this, you also mention the vehicle design of the GI JOE toyline of the 1980s.
All be honest I totally expected this to be about the old Nintendo franchise Star Fox for some reason.
Do a barrel roll!
Didn't want to debate the EMP technological utility of the MiG-25 tubes, but just HAD to comment on the engine and intakes at the end, hmmm??? 😃
No emp utility. Hardened electronics is the way
Yea! I wish he didn't end the video off like that. I wanted to hear his explanation as to why they wouldn't work.
That classified project was the MiG-1.42/1.44. Very interesting aircraft but still very much a product of the 80s.
What's so interesting is how often our adversaries come up with a counter, then also try to duplicate our development. The same time the Soviets were working on the MiG-25 to intercept the XB-70, they were working on the Sukhoi T-4, a near copy of the 70. And then there's the striking resemblance between the TU-160 and the B-1. And it's still happening, now with China, who on one hand claims to have made aircraft carriers obsolete while at the same time building a fleet of them themselves. And it's a shame that they never made the sequel book "Firefox Down" into a movie.
Was this the first movie to open with a military superman living in a cabin in the sticks being chased home by an American chopper full of job offers? Airwolf, Sniper, others copy the trope, but any before the 1980s and Firefox?
Good movie, watched it a few times in the 80s, on bootleg betamax and laserdisc. also read the book, including the sequel Firefox down. both were OK. Movie and book were good. decades later in Vancouver, I had a Russian watch the movie, he was laughing at the British actors playing the Soviets, he said their Russian was atrocious, and funny, it was like a Brit talking in Russian haha(well they were), but of course not as funny as Arnold talking Russian in Red Heat they found that the most amusing. . The Russian co worker of mine used to serve in the Soviet army in the 80s,(his last posting was Baku USSR, before the collapse, ), he stated that people in the Soviet army did not talk that way as they did in the movie, and he found it most amusing about the Soviet troops calling one officer Comrade col. hahhaahah.
Hunt for Red October is another one with atrocious Russian. I mean my Russian is on the level of an above-average chimp but I'm listening to some of that dialog thinking "even I know that's wrong."
@@feralhistorian yes comrad col. and your papers are not in order from Firefox was a laugh riot. same with the lines from Red heat haha
Loved the movie and video game. It was on laser disk IIRC.
I remember the video game. It was in times square arcade back on the day.
Great movie! 😎
.Man. I'm 52. I loved it. Yeah it creaked but it was a huge buzz.
I enjoyed that. Well done!