Why didn't she say anything useful? Instead she says exactly what you would expect, "don't drop the bombs, there's no war, this is not a trick" I mean she should have said something better like what he had for breakfast or the last time they had sex
shareWhat else do you expect her to say? She's only got seconds to tell Col. Grady to turn back. She did what anyone in her position would do.
But Grady wouldn't have listened anyway. The point of that scene was Irony, how Grady became the product of his training. It wasn't so much just a malfunction of the equipment, it was the Soviet jamming AND his training, combined with the fact that he and his flight crew just had their asses microwaved on HI minutes before, and they were seconds to the target.
By the way, chances are she couldn't tell him what he had for breakfast, because he was in Anchorage and she managed to get to Omaha, which tells me they're not permanently stationed in Alaska. As for the sex bit, odds are he wouldn't remember. I don't personally log each time I get it on with my girlfriend, and I doubt the good Colonel did either. So both of those suggestions probably wouldn't work.
However, what would've worked is if the Colonel decided not to be a machine and thought about the situation for a minute. The odds of the Soviets patching into his aircraft, knowing precisely who he is when he had six aircraft in his group, then impersonating the President AND General Bogen AND Grady's wife would be astronomical. But it was completely on him. When you got dead pilots out there as the result of Soviet AAA and fighters, and they just tried to nuke you moments before, it's a bit tough to think clearly.
[Spoilers follow, so beware.]
Although I like your point that there is tragic irony in Grady being a product of his training, I take issue with your description of the flow of events.
The colonel is juggling the check-in with bomber command, a radio transmission from his wife and the pursuit Soviet guided missiles. At the last he switches off the radio just in time to fly below the concussion of the missiles blast. His bomber escaped the blast but not the radiation. It is here that Col. Grady decides that they will perish when they deliver their payload over Moscow rather than drop the bombs and attempt to escape Soviet airspace. Grady makes the decision based on the belief that there will be nothing left on his side and that in any case the radiation exposure from the missile blast has doomed them.
It is a fine point but we have to accept that Grady and his crew were professional warriors and were also more than mere automatons simply following orders. The genius of the scene is that Grady has no time to consider the logical possibility that, yes, indeed, that must be his wife calling him off the mission. He is under immediate and lethal attack and so he uses his training and tactical wiles to escape.
Be seeing you...
You're right, my mistake. I hadn't seen the film in awhile.
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I don't know how the wife scene is handled in the book, but the film version frustrates me no end. There is ALWAYS something between a married couple that only the two of them would know, I don't care how diabolical the KGB is. It could be a nickname that is only uttered in bed, or the name of the first movie or TV show you watched together, or the name of a maternal grandparent's pet goldfish. The wife in the film is not allowed to shout anything like the aforementioned, only cliches.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
Except he could actually be convinced it really is his wife talking to him, but possibly being held captive by Soviet agents and begging him under duress to call off the attack.
Okay folks, show's over, nothing to see here!