I watched this on Friday with the gf and at the end I told her I bet the ratings from the US go down while other countries go up. I have no clue if that happened, but in general, Americans don't like non-closure and boy, this movie didn't even give you the hint of closure.

maybe there's another movie?

I also, said "what" aloud

Just finished it
First 30 minutes were absolutely incredible
So well done
Then, it just ends
Really pissed me off

THIS

I just watched this on Sunday. I was like WTF?

Ha, I knew I recognized GEN Karbler in that one scene in the GOC, he was the STRATCOM chief of staff when I was there. I left before they opened the new HQ but that scene of the STRATCOM CC & J3 walking into the building looked very accurate from what I remember of the facade just before it opened.

I actually didn't really mind the ending personally, I'm much more interested in the depiction of all the processes and how this would all go down but realize I'm probably in the minority here. Although the one thing I could've done without was the SECWAR just walking right off the side of the building. That was a bit over the top.

With all of the OPIR capabilities the whole premise of not having attribution is a bit unrealistic.

Also, I suspect a seal hasn't ever carried the football. Could certainly be wrong though.

Also, on a somewhat related note, anyone know if the day after is on any streaming service? Been a while since I watched that.

The entire movie is free on Youtube. Still great.



The attack scene is dated but still holds up for a TV movie made in 1983

Terribad

War Games did it better.

Watched it last night. I feel the same as most of you.

A really odd movie -- the first two acts were really good, well acted and super tense. Even with that, I kept thinking "why is this movie being made today?"

Then the third act comes along and it was just bad; it's like they decided that the President needed his own act so they forced it in to the movie but it was just repetitive and overly preachy at times.

I didn't even think the ending was terrible, it fit because I thought the movie had lost steam about 30 minutes prior.

Watched this on Saturday night with the wife. One too many cocktails after a day of travelling back to Dallas from Tampa - fell asleep at the end during the President's part - sounds like I didn't miss anything. I will say I was enjoying the movie and was looking forward to seeing how they ended it.

Wife was yelling "Is that it?!?" and woke me up.

Oppenheim did extremely well guiding the project to Diverse casting. I enjoyed the film overall, and was impressed by this progress.

This was an ensemble of over 100 principal roles and extras, and casting director Susanne Scheel also deserves a lot of credit here.

Idris Elba and Rene Elise Goldsberry were, as always, excellent, and both deserve many more opportunities. It made me feel good to think about him as president, almost as much as Morgan Freeman.

Always enjoy seeing Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, and Aminah Nieves. Really hoping they get bigger roles. Greta Lee and Brian Tee likewise.

Edits:
Forgot to mention there was, sadly, limited to no LGBTQ+ visibility, BUT those identifying as women do hold some key operational roles, such as Walker's oversight of the Watch Floor. That's definitely a critical decision when a missile is launched.

TCTTS said:

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Just FYI, this is now out on Netflix.

Super curious to hear if others are as disappointed as I was.

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Just finished and I was pissed off. I was like oh dang not much time left. What happens?? And then the credits started rolling.

And said out loud WHAT THE ****?? That's it!?!?!?

SECcess12 said:

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TCTTS said:

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Just FYI, this is now out on Netflix.

Super curious to hear if others are as disappointed as I was.

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Just finished and I was pissed off. I was like oh dang not much time left. What happens?? And then the credits started rolling.

And said out loud WHAT THE ****?? That's it!?!?!?

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Ditto.

Chickened out on the ending. Supposed to be thought provoking. Sure. Whatever.

Houston Lee said:

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The premise of the movie was off.

1-There was only 1 missile. They kept acting like the President would lose any chance to respond if he did not counter attack BEFORE the Missile made impact.

2-They didnt know for sure who launched the missile. Who are you going to counter-attack?

3-Waiting for impact would let you know if there was a detonation. Absorb the one nuke and then you can do some investigation and communication with the world to figure out who actually fired it. Then you can strike back with all vigor.

4-If a second missile or second wave was launched after the first impact, we would be ready and watching. No way they get off more launches without us knowing who launched. Then you for sure counter-attack with everything we got.

5-There is no way our side has not war-gamed this exact scenario of just one missile being launched with no clear idea of who launched it. There would already be a clear list of potential actions to take and there would not be such a cluster of nobody knowing what to do.

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Agreed this was pretty much my tactical thought process.

So I thought it was sort of unrealistic overall although tense and engaging.

There is no way you launch a full scale retaliation in that scenario - against who?!?!?! With one inbound assuming you can't incapacitate it you ride it out. You have plenty of time to respond if anything else is detected and everyone is already on high alert. Because the response to your retaliation on any scale really is all out nuclear war.

You wait and find out after and then you have a targeted response.

The actual failure was just launching 2 interceptors. With a 60% success rate after separation that's not enough to ensure you get it. You launch 2 and then 2 more and then 2 more a couple of minutes apart each wave.

The idea that you want to save back 50 of them for some massive wave of missilles is ludicrous because they are not sending 50 in that case they are sending 2000 and the 50 interceptors do not matter. You put everything into stopping the one missile.

Just for fun - I'll tall ya'll where I THOUGHT this was going and how I think it could have been much better.


So after the first 1/3 I was intrigued.
Second 1/3 I was kind of going...where is this going then.... and of course expecting a 3rd perspective.

And then it hit me - because my mind was wandering a bit and I had time to consider this from a (amateur) writer and avid reader of political/military/thriller perspective....

• We had never seen the President on screen in the other two perspectives which struck me as weird.
• I knew it was Idris Elba from the voice and also the casting was public so it's not like it was going to be a surprise (like when Kevin Spacey showed up in Se7en)
• When we do finally get the Presidents perspective we are presented with a very nervous Naval guy guarding the briefcase - before anything happened - why was he nervous, why were they showing the secretary looking at him weird
• He's talking to his wife so we make a personal connection and care and he's out there meeting kids and interacting with them so we know he is a good guy....

I totally thought the naval briefcase guy was going to be in on it and keeping the President under duress to make sure he responds the way they want (maybe by no response at all) instead of retaliating. And everybody on the other sides of the joint call has to go along with what he decides cuz he is the President and he says the codes that authenticate it but we find out he is being coerced. Maybe when he calls his wife in the jungles of Africa we see her taken hostage and they tell him he has to comply of she gets killed. They even had them alone on Marine 1 other than the pilots who are focused on flying and not seeing whats going on in the back.

Now you could go two ways with that - somehow they figure out he is not acting rationally and they relieve him of duty and get the VP to do it... OR someone goes rogue on the US side (like a sub captain) and it triggers things to happen despite them controlling him and our missiles are launched anyway like the doomsday scenario.

Now THAT would have been at least one intriguing and controversial ending. He let's 8M people die to save his wife or a scenario they think they have under control but it spirals out of control anyway.

I don't know. Something. Anything. Could have gone there some way: unambiguous and really tense and dark. Blow it all up.


I loved when T3 just went ahead and blew it all up.
I loved when Dr. Strangelove ended with a volley of nuclear weapons and global war set to classical music. Beautiful.
Or Armageddon where they can't really stop it, V for Vendetta, Fight Club, etc.

Maybe that's just me. But I wanted something poetic and dark.

this is just such a lazy and stupid take

it's like saying the Sopranos SUCKED because THE ENDING WAS INDETERMINATE and was left up to the individual viewer!

it demonstrates the callow nature of this society and literal lack of imagination and ability to think for oneself.

when literally the entire point of the movie is to show how decision makers should be making the most critical decisions by putting the viewer IN THE POSITION OF THE DECISION MAKERS.

thank the lord so many are NOT in the military and having to plan for these kind of things- but guess what?

you cannot know the ending!

can't this also be a setup for a sequel?

as they stated in the movie, the rationale for total retaliation is that this was only step one of a series of attacks.

so they wanted to PREEMPTIVELY take out as many of the enemy missiles as possible before they could be launched against us.

I agree that is stupid strategy when you are currently only facing one incoming missile

but at least it was a rational argument they were making