Philadelphia Experiment (1984 franchise)

A series of (generally unrelated) films about the urban legend about a botched U.S. Navy cloaking device experiment that sent the cloaked ship through time and space; the most famous films in the series are the 1984 film The Final Countdown produced by John Carpenter, and the 1980 film The Philadelphia Experiment starring Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen. An only conceptually-related sequel to the 1984 film was made, and a remake of the 1984 film also appeared.

Summary

A promotional image from the 1980 film The Final Countdown

The Final Countdown: "The U.S.S. Nimitz: trapped outside the boundaries of time and space... 102 aircraft... 6,000 men... all missing!" A Pacific aircraft carrier enters a time warp and finds itself transported from 1980 to 1941 - just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The captain is forced to decide whether to strike at the approaching Japanese fleet and change the entire course of World War II.

The Philadelphia Experiment: "The experiment that should never have happened 41 years ago is still going on!" A United States Navy destroyer escort participates in a Navy "invisibility" experiment that inadvertently sends two sailors forty years into the future. In the sequel, a government scientist's quest to build the ultimate fighter plane leads to a time-tripping nightmare in Nazi Germany. In the 2012 remake, in 1943, a top-secret experiment aboard a Navy destroyer backfires and two sailors are propelled to 1984.

Details

• Release Date: The Final Countdown (1980); Philadelphia Experiment 1984 with a technically unrelated sequel (The Philadelphia Experiment II) added in 1993, and a remake appeared in 2012
• Country/Language: US, English; Canada, English
• Genres/Technical: Sci-fi, Adventure, Drama
• Setting: 1940s/1980s ocean, Weird World War, Delta Green
• Runtime: 1 hr 29 min
• Starring: Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross (1980); Michael Paré, Nancy Allen, Eric Christmas (1984); Brad Johnson, Marjean Holden, Gerrit Graham (1993); Nicholas Lea, Michael Paré, Ryan Robbins (2012)
• Director: Don Taylor; Stewart Raffill; Stephen Cornwell; Paul Ziller
• Writer: Thomas Hunter (story), Peter Powell (story) (1980); Michael Janover (screenplay), William Gray (screenplay) (1984); Wallace C. Bennett (characters), Don Jakoby (characters) (1993); Andy Briggs, David Sanderson (2012)
• Producer/Production Co: Peter Douglas, Peter Douglas, The Bryna Company (1980); New World Pictures, Cinema Group Ventures, New Pictures Group, John Carpenter (1984); Trimark Pictures (1993); Cinetel Films, Movie Central, Rainbow Pictures (2012)
• View Trailer: (link)
• TVTropes: (1980), (1984)
• Wikipedia: (1980), (1984)
• IMDB Page: (1984), (1984), (link), (2012)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: PG or PG-13 (mild Violence and Profanity)

These films generally contained mild military violence and mild profanity.

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)

There was a Weird element to descriptions of the original experiment, but few of the weirdest details made it into these movies, which generally focused more on the ethics of time travel and meddling in history. The films assume that the experimental device opened a stable portal between the 1940s and 1980s, allowing the crews to travel more or less safely back and forth between those two eras.

In contrast, according to the original legend, an elaborate device for bending electromagnetic radiation around a ship was used as an experimental "cloaking device" to hide a U.S. Navy ship, the U.S.S. Eldridge, from enemy radar and vision; the ship was tested with a live crew, and when the device was turned on, the ship vanished from radar and sight, and, for a short time, from existence. When it re-appeared, pandaemonium had broken out on the ship: some of the sailors had gone stark, raving mad, others had clawed out their eyes, and still others were found fused into the solid metal plates of the ship's floors and bulkheads; the Navy's best theory of what happened to the ship was said to have been that it had been teleported through time and space, and the surviving, insane sailors had seen gulfs of time and space that the human mind is too fragile to handle! The urban legend played straight is, of course, also the basis of the plot for the resultingly more Lovecraftian Event Horizon (1997 film)....

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

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Synopsis (SPOILERS)

 Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)

A top-secret experiment aboard U.S. Navy ships allows them to travel through time between the 1940s and the 1980s, forcing the sailors to make difficult decisions that could alter the course of history. Generally, these movies ended on a more or less upbeat, if fatalistic, note in which disaster is averted by sailors willing to make sacrifices to ensure that history proceeds as the writers assume it was meant to.

Notes

Comments, Trivia, Dedication

• According to a military "urban legend" cited by conspiracy theorists, on October 28, 1943, the military was testing a powerful and dangerous "degaussing" technology meant to block ships from radar on a crewed ship, the destroyer U.S.S. Eldridge then anchored in the Philadelphia Naval Yard, when something went wrong: survivors reported seeing a green haze, and then noticed equipment and sailors disappearing from the ship. From land, observers reported that the entire ship disappeared from sight. At about the same time, eyewitnesses reported seeing the ship at Norfolk Harbor, almost 400 km away, before the ship disappeared from sight there as well. The ship would soon re-appear in Philadelphia harbor, with its crew in pandaemonium: most crew of the Eldridge had gone made from the experience, some had clawed out their own eyes, some had gone missing, some had fused into the ship's armor plating and decks as if occupying the same point in space-time. Those sailors who could be treated, were sent to a secret facility to have their memories of the event removed and replaced using psychedelic drugs, electroshock, hypnotism, and brainwashing techniques.

Associated Mythos Elements

• film: compare/contrast with Event Horizon (1997 film) (which is, weirdly, one of the more faithful adaptations of the legend)
• (TO_DO)

Keeper Notes

• The investigators are unwilling (or perhaps volunteer) participants in a military "stealth technology" gone horribly wrong, resulting in a nightmarish displacement in time and space, leading to mind-shredding terror and stomach-churning body horror.
• The investigators are unwilling (or perhaps volunteer) participants in a military "stealth technology" gone less horribly wrong, resulting in a more stable displacement in time and space, in which the investigators successfully travel through time and space, decades, centuries, or longer into the future or past, leading to a Weird adventure.