Firefox (film)
Firefox is a 1982 Warner Brothers film with Clint Eastwood as director, producer, and star. It was based on a novel by Craig Thomas.
The film details a joint British-American plot to steal a highly advanced Soviet fighter aircraft (MiG-31 Firefox) which is capable of Mach 6, 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 and a network of dissidents and sympathizers. Gant makes his way to the fictional Bilyarsk air base, where two prototypes of the Firefox have been built. His goal is to fly one back to the United States for analysis. However, the KGB is already hot on his tail.
At the time the film was made, President Ronald Reagan had referred to the Soviet Union as the "evil empire" and the Cold War was at a new peak. Naturally, 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.
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.
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Produced by Clint Eastwood
Written
by Alex Lasker
Wendell Wellman
Tagline
His job...Steal it. ...the most devastating killing machine ever built...his job...steal it!
The
original Firefox from the novel was (cosmetically) nearly identical to the MiG-25,
of which it was an advanced version. Incidentally, 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.
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).
An interesting note about the movie version of the Firefox is that 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. The Firefox also carries its weapons internally, similar to the F-102 Delta Dagger, F-106 Delta Dart, and F-22 Raptor.
In addition to the Firefox, several real-world
aircraft are featured in the film, listed below in order of first appearance:
MH-53 Pave Low, F-105 Thunderchief, F-4 Phantom II, A-1 Skyraider, F-5E Tiger II, F-111 Aardvark, T-38 Talon, Tupolev Tu-154, Tu-16 Badger, Mi-24 Hind
The cockpit shots of the Mi-24 helicopter gunships are re-used from the movie Blue Thunder, while the submarine special-effect footage is taken from Ice Station Zebra.
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"
Cast
Clint
Eastwood - Mitchell Gant
Freddie Jones - Kenneth Aubrey
David Huffman
- Buckholz
Warren Clarke - Pavel Upenskoy
Ronald Lacey - Semelovsky
Kenneth Colley - Colonel Kontarsky
Klaus Löwitsch - General Vladimirov
Nigel Hawthorne - Pyotr Baranovich
Stefan Schnabel
- First Secretary
Thomas Hill - General Brown
Clive Merrison - Major
Lanyev
Kai Wulff - Lt. Colonel Voskov
Dimitra Arliss - Natalia
Austin Willis - Walters
Michael Currie - Captain Seerbacker
The
MiG-31 Firefox
The first mentioned trait of the Firefox is its remarkable speed:
Mach 6.
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 23mm cannons.
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