Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,530
edits
m (remove unneccessary quote box template) |
No edit summary |
||
(8 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{
[[File:chinasyndrome_2158.jpg|frame]]
1979 political conspiracy thriller starring [[Jane Fonda]], [[Jack Lemmon]], [[Michael Douglas]] and a good-sized nuclear reactor in California that won't behave.
A local TV newswoman, Kimberly Wells (Fonda), is frustrated that her station (KXLA) won't let her cover serious news (she's stuck with [[Yet Another Baby Panda|
Thinking they've got a big story to report, Kim and Richard are instead told by their network bosses to keep quiet and have the film placed in storage while their lawyers figure out their liability. Meanwhile, Jack tries to warn his bosses that there's something fishy with the plant, only to have his bosses insist there's nothing wrong. An investigation into the incident gets rubber-stamped. Meanwhile, the company responsible for the construction of that plant is busy trying to get another one built in a hurry...
Line 10:
At every turn separately and then as a team, Jack, Kim and Richard try to find out what happened and try to warn others that something's wrong. By the time {{spoiler|Richard's friend is hurt trying to sneak the film of the accident to a regulatory committee}}, Jack's paranoid and frustrated enough to seize a security guard's gun and take control of the reactor. Kim tries to interview Jack live on television (breaking into KXLA's regularly-scheduled programming of ''[[The Magnificent Marble Machine]]''; no, seriously) to help him report what went wrong, {{spoiler|but the power company SCRAM the reactor in order to take control away from Jack - during a SCRAM it runs fully automatic for a short time. The power company kills the TV signal and sends in a SWAT team to shoot Jack. While he lies dying, the faulty main coolant pump goes to maximum power ... during which the reactor goes through a terrifying few minutes of OMG it's gonna blow! The pump is finally shut down just as it completely breaks free of its moorings}}. At the end {{spoiler|with the power company trying to paint Jack as a madman, Kim approaches Jack's friend Ted and gets him to say that Jack was sane and that there needs to be a full investigation}}.
''[[The China Syndrome]]'' came out during the Post-Watergate era, at a time when the public was in a paranoid mood about the people - [[Strawman Political|politicians]], [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|the corporations]], [[Strawman News Media|the media]] - who seemed to be in charge of things. What made this movie stand out was that on March 28, 1979 (two weeks after ''Syndrome'' was released) [
Note that nothing actually happens in or to China; the title comes from a joke that if a nuclear reactor did have a meltdown it [[
{{tropelist}}
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: {{spoiler|Jack dies, and the company tries to pin the blame on Jack by calling him insane. Kim finds Jack's friend Ted and forces him on live television to admit Jack [[Moment of Awesome|"was the sanest man I know"]], and that there ought to be an investigation into the disaster.}}
** Unless {{spoiler|it's an [[Inferred Holocaust]] instead}}.
* [[Book Ends]]: The film opens and closes on a shot of a TV monitor showing bars and tone.
* [[Cool Pet]]: Kim has a pet tortoise.
* [[Digging to China]]: The conceit behind the joke name for a meltdown -- that it would burn all the way through the Earth to "China".
* [[Foreshadowing]]: The second tremor that Jack felt during the accident. It haunts Jack until the end, when it's {{spoiler|revealed to be the main coolant pump cavitating as it goes to maximum power during a SCRAM, which stresses its sub-standard welds}}.
* [[Oh Crap]]: Pretty much everyone's expression when they realize that the water level indicator they've been using through the incident has been stuck on "high", giving very false indications. Jack Godell taps the glass and the needle drops down to a level only a few inches above the reactor core falling dry.
** A second Oh Crap moment occurs when Jack realizes that the X-ray pictures of the pump welds were falsified during construction.
* [[Properly Paranoid]]: Think the corporation you work for doesn't like how you're digging into how the nuclear plant was built and how the quarterly safety checks were forged? Wondering about that car behind you on the highway carrying guys who could take on the Steelers' defensive front? Terrified that your own co-workers - and even your best friend Wilford Brimley! - are talking about bringing the reactor [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?|back online at full power]]? Welcome to Jack's world!
* [[Silent Credits]]▼
* [[The Seventies]]
▲* [[Silent Credits]]
* [[Think of the Children]]: The anti-nukes, during the safety hearing for the power plant, hold up pictures of their children and read out their names.
* [[You Fail Nuclear Physics Forever]]: Terrifyingly averted during the first accident: everything they talk about happening could have been disastrous to say the least. Subverted when Richard is able to sneak an 'expert' in to see the film, to have the expert comment on what he thinks happened: said expert talks in [[Techno Babble]] instead, and also [[Title Drop|Title Drops]] the movie.
* [[You Keep Using That Word]]: '''Nucular.''' Mike, you're a great actor and we're sure you put your heart and soul into the project but for the word is '''nuclear'''.
Line 33:
[[Category:Films of the 1970s]]
[[Category:The China Syndrome]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:China Syndrome, The}}
[[Category:
|