Why do I do this? It's a movie, not real...

As I always tell my children, it’s just a movie, they can do whatever they want. That being said, there are many threads about one of my guilty pleasure movies that I find interesting and am just going to blunderbuss in one shot and sorry for the long post.

Let me start with the things I think were missed like a senior level student involved in high energy laser research at a prestigious west coast university not realizing the resultant product wasn’t going to be used for military purposes. By 1985 (movie release), Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars program was well underway. Carnegie Mellon had a mobile panel truck by 1986 with a mounted laser. I find it hard to believe that any student working on the project thought they were working on some mobile laser light show for Pink Floyd. No student would have been so heads down into the pure research, so focused on a singular problem, that they wouldn’t have understood the larger purpose. We all knew what we were doing and every kid wanted to build a laser gun just like in the movies.

Professor Hathaway may have been the program manager, but most likely not since he would probably be from the physics department while the guts of the entire system such as targeting and avionics (I got the impression that the B-1 was remotely piloted but will not argue the point) are computer based, he would have been in a sub-contracting role. So, he might have been concerned about finding a chip laying on the floor, but being able to sit down and actually manipulate the electro-optics to see where the shot went, would be unlikely.

Speaking of the view from the target camera. Even if the actual demonstration took place from Edwards AFB outside Los Angeles (almost 80 miles as the crow flies), the “gun” camera angle was well below the altitude of an actual test for a space based laser and would not be able to see over the mountain ranges. The altitude and angle of the house from the targeting system was way too low. (I know, it’s a movie.)

I seriously doubt that the base security at Edwards would let two civilian engineers without proper clearance through the gates, let alone out on the flight line of a very top secret program’s test run. Most, not all, programs where an Air Force Major is in civilian clothes tended to be pretty high level. Many working out of the El Segundo or Irvine offices of Hughes and TRW (satellite divisions) for example and they very rarely wore their military garb.

No one seemed to be concerned that there was a major fire on-board and that the aircraft may be in danger.

Okay, finally the threads…

If they were so concerned about the fire-treated popcorn and birds eating it during the filming, what about the kids playing in the stuff and Kent’s character swimming in the stuff. Couldn’t some of the retardant find its way through his skin? Also, would a 7’x10’ ball of popcorn be able to fill a large two story home enough to bust through not just glass, but also timber construction? How in the hell did it snake around the hallways and through the doors and still first fill all the empty spaces inside causing enough pressure to break through wood studs? I can’t remember, but was there any discussion about decreasing the power of the laser so it wouldn’t just burn a hole through the foil and kernels? How in the hell could they have known the altitude that the aircraft would be firing to determine the angle of attack to the house so the laser wouldn’t hit the wood, but the window and not start a fire! (It’s a movie.)

Yes, it is a double standard and shouldn’t be but at 15, I wish I could have had a Mrs. Nugil waiting for me.

The dean and congressman would not have been concerned about the laser. The dean would have known full well where the funding for much of the college’s research was coming from and what the ultimate purpose would be. Hell, college(s) researched how to turn the cell’s own lysosomes against their own cell. It was funded by the military and I am sure the students, staff and administration had a pretty good idea that the idea wasn’t just to turn animals into goo.

And finally, I will end this long winded thread with how in the hell didn’t any of the students hear all of Lazlo’s mechanical equipment. Those types of wall spaces seem to exist only in movies and to be able to put a mechanical capable of moving the metal car around would make enough noise that everyone in the entire dorm would have known about his hideout, especially the plant facilities staff.

I loved the movie when it came out and so wanted the last two years of my college life to be just like the movie. Well, life aint like the movies.