Roy Scheider plays Frank Murphy, a cop in L.A.'s Astro Division. Frank has had trouble letting go of his Vietnam experience. His latest crack up has him partnered with Richard "JAFO" Lymangood, played by Daniel Stern. They are given an opportunity to pilot a new experimental military aircraft codenamed BLUE THUNDER. This new aircraft has state of the art data resources and can find out anything about you. It also has state of the art surveillance and recording. When the duo overhears something they aren't supposed to, it is a race against time to get the story exposed.
Which came first? The chicken or the Apache helicopter? There are some interesting historical observations to see in this movie. The start of design and testing of the Apache helicopter that we all know today from the Gulf War to the War in Iraq happened right about the same time as the movie was released. Many of the tools you see on Blue Thunder are available on the Apache. Even the look, with its faceted cockpit structure, is strangely coincidental. If Star Trek gave us flip phones, did Blue Thunder give us the Apache?
In the featurette for the film, the main focus was not on the helicopter, it was on the idea of a World Wide Web of computers and information banks that allowed people to know everything there was to know about you. This was scary to many people. Strange how most of us accept this on a daily basis today.
I really enjoyed watching Blue Thunder. It was a great flick to take you back to how movies were done in the 80's. It was also a great way to be reminded how old I am, as my father and I saw it in the theater back in '83. It is cheesy as hell and I loved every minute of it. Get past this and pay attention to where the world was when this released, and you have more fun with that aspect.
