Why didn't he turn back? (SPOILER)
Just got this marvellous tv movie on dvd. One question. Why, when George heard his son on the radio saying things that only his son would know, did he not attempt to turn around?
share[deleted]
MovieChat Forums > Fail Safe (2000) Discussion > Why didn't he turn back? (SPOILER)
Well I suppose the only explanation is that he had gone insane by that point. As you say, with that level of brain washing something had to short circuit.
shareHe had certainly not gone insane at that point, as you so eloquently put it.
lcb-11 has it right. The pilots had probably even specifically been told of the possibility of their own loved ones being forced to say things like what his son was saying to him. They (the enemy) could have told his son that if he cannot convince his father, they will kill him (Tommy), so he used their secret phrase only they knew about.
I also believe that even if Clooney had decided to abort (go against ALL his training!) that the Cheadle character would have incapacitated him and taken control and gone ahead anyway. His only option was to follow what he believed to be his orders.
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We come into the world naked, screaming and covered in blood. Why should the fun end there?
I haven't understand George too, okay Russians can fake famous president's voice and army commanders voices, but voice of his own child? What's chance Russians will know what's his voice and what is their secret code? What's chance Russians will kidnap his son and will be able to transmit these things through half globe into his plane?
I would say he did mistake, you must always use brain, even if you are soldier.
I don't understand why they didn't get instructions how check if is computer (fail safe box) screwed? They should be trained to check their own machines on plane. Even if they don't believe president, general or his son is on radio, they can check their controls/machines in plane and find if it's something really wrong.
George Clonney was behaving just as stupid American who killed at least ten million people, because he has blood of newyorkers on his hands too.
Just remember this name - STANISLAV PETROV, he was soldier also and used own brain and common sense, not like George.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
Peter Markoff
If you don't like my english, write it to me in my own language.
Oh I see, you must be an idiot who did not pay attention to the movie, so okay.
He thought his son was being forced by the Russians to try to convince him to turn back. How could he have known there was an error? The error was not in the plane's instruments.
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You cheated on me, when I specifically asked you not to?!
The error was in plane's instruments, otherwise they would just fix it and send them signal to go back.
And btw. I was writing about probablity that Russians have his son and are contacting them directly to plane.
Peter Markoff
If you don't like my english, write it to me in my own language.
I'll add that near the start he was talking to his son on the phone, so maybe he's thinking the Russians could use that phone conversation to get a boy to do a good impersonation. Or the phone call was just there for us the audience, to set up the point later on, not sure.
share...don't recall if they did this on the 2000 version, but in the book, Grady (George Clooney) and his crew switch the Fail Safe box to a secondary channel to make sure that there is the same result. However, I should mention that the issue itself isn't that the Fail Safe box in the fighter bomber malfunctions, but rather the mainframe at the main control center in Omaha. The Fail Safe box on the fighter bomber jet was working correctly; it was the mainframe itself in Omaha that was sending a false signal.
I did look up the wikipedia entry on Stanislav Petrov, and a further link in the entry for Vasili Arkhipov. It is amazing how close on these real life events that nuclear war could have broken out, if cooler heads had not prevailed.
First of all, this is a good movie, i haven't seen movie that put me to this tense without shedding one drop of blood (The whole movie is bloodless)
Back to the question, Soldier are train to follow order, they don't train to follow their brain (Not that you don't need to) regardless who was on the radio, even if he know that was his son, he still need to carry out the order.
If soldier can act on their own thinking, i think it will be hard to tell someone, anyone to go to war, it will be all like "Screw you, i don't like killing people or getting killed"
The fact to the matter is, the situation remain unchange, order was given, you need to following them, when you are in isolation, you don't know that much, imagine yourselve was in the plane, you get the go code, fly for a while, your buddies all got shot down, what do you do when your son suddenly raido you and tell you to turn around? there are no way to know the whole situation up there, not like they got CNN stream to their Bomber, you do what you are suppose to do, you do what you are train to do, that's why you are a soldier, not a civilian.
10 years of soldier make you numb.
"10 years of soldier make you numb."
Not as numb as one must be to become a soldier in the first place.
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The B-52 pilots were trained to follow orders, no matter what. If you want a movie with a happy ending watch "Twilight's last gleaming" with Rebecca de Mornay. She turned back. In actual fact the USAF knew that some of their pilots would refuse to follow orders, so they copilot was trained to shoot him and carry on.
The era of Mutual Assured Destruction is not over.