random item

Troperville

Tools

Find recent edits by troper:

back to: Main / TheHuntForRedOctober

edit article | go to discussion page

13th Mar '13 9:24:26 AM Nohbody

Send Nohbody a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 3 (click to see context) from:

to:

17th Jan '13 10:20:41 AM erforce

Send erforce a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 3,4 (click to see context) from:

to:

22nd Nov '12 10:41:35 PM PaulA

Send PaulA a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

namespace split

22nd Nov '12 10:37:58 PM PaulA

Send PaulA a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 1,181 (click to see context) from:

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bloghuntoctober_4-1_6927.jpg]]

-->"'''''RIGHT FULL RUDDER!'''''"
---> '''Captain 1st Rank Marko Ramius'''

The first and [[FirstInstallmentWins most famous]] novel by TomClancy, first published in 1984 and adapted reasonably closely into a 1990 film starring SeanConnery (playing the Lithuanian captain) and AlecBaldwin, playing Jack Ryan. It is the fourth novel to take place chronologically in the [[Literature/JackRyan Ryanverse]].

It's a ColdWar tale of the fictional [[CoolBoat "Typhoon" class missile submarine]] ''Krasniy Oktyabr'' ("Red October"). In the film, the sub has an [[SovietSuperscience experimental magnetohydrodynamic propulsion system]] (more easily referred to as Caterpillar Drive, and in the book it's just a ducted tunnel drive -- basically a scaled up jet ski engine), which allows it to run more quietly than any other ship at sea; effectively making it nigh-invisible to SONAR detection. On its first deployment, Captain Marko Ramius murders his political officer, taking his [[TwoKeyedLock set of keys]] for the ''October'''s nuclear missiles. Conspiring with his senior officers, Ramius notifies his crew that they will be testing the ship by evading both the U.S. and Soviet navies to reach the eastern coast of the United States itself...

Not desiring to lose their sub or the secret of the Caterpillar Drive, the Soviets send their surface and attack-sub fleets after it, an amount of activity that's suspicious to the other side.

The Americans must find the sub before it is destroyed, assuming that CIA analyst Jack Ryan is right that the officers plan to defect - as opposed to just [[ANuclearError unilaterally launching their missiles]]...

The ''Typhoon''-class submarine is real, and the largest submarine in the world. The submarine in the story, though, is quite considerably different to its real-life counterpart, to the point where they can't really be considered the same vessel, mainly because of its fictional "silent" propulsion system and due to a lot of details of the ''Typhoons'' having been classified at the time. On the other hand, the film maintains PlausibleDeniability by specifically stating it to be a prototype variant of its class, and at least alludes to [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp future Soviet political instability]] as a good reason why they never got around to producing more.
----
!!The book contains examples of:.
* AntiMutiny: The GRU mole, placed there as a final line of defense against an act of barratry or defection.
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Seaman Jones. In just a few hours, he finds a way to beat the Red October's top secret stealth propulsion system and track the sub.
* BadassBookworm: Jack Ryan: CIA academic and retired Marine, with a doctorate in history. He also speaks Russian, but only in the film.
* BadassBureaucrat: Jack Ryan starts as this. He is considered completely incorruptible and can figure out any [[FogOfWar riddle]] that [[GambitPileup international politics]] can bring to bear.
* BasedOnATrueStory: the story was inspired by a real-life mutiny on board a Soviet frigate (the ''Storozhevoy'', mentioned in the book) in 1975, but differs in several key respects from it.
* BotheringByTheBook: The President had the Attorney General dig up some precedents in maritime law that would have granted America the right to keep the Red October until such time as the Russians paid the US Government a finder's fee as determined by a salvage court - which had a one year backlog of cases to go through before even attempting to assess how much the Russians would have to fork over to get their sub back. However, since the Navy and CIA worked out a plan to trick the Russians into thinking that the Red October had been destroyed, this scheme never got past the planning stage.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Jones is described as weird even by Navy sub sonarman standards.
* TheCaptain: Bart Mancuso of the USS ''Dallas'', and Marco Ramius of the ''Red October''.
* ChekhovsGunman: Loginov, the cook's assistant who witnessed Ramius taking the political officer's keys, [[spoiler:is the GRU sleeper agent]].
* CIAEvilFBIGood: Mostly averted though it is acknowledged that the CIA does some DirtyBusiness.
* TheConsigliere: Jeffrey Pelt is the President's National Security Advisor.
* DaddysGirl: Jack Ryan always remembers to get his daughter a present, even when busy saving the world.
* DeathByFallingOver: How Ramius disposes of Putin.
* DefectorFromDecadence: See ItsPersonal.
* EveryoneKnowsMorse: {{Justified|Trope}}: the British Signals Officer is the one who sends the message via blinker from ''HMS Invincible'' to the ''Red October''. It is described as a slow and rather jerky process since the officer is a bit rusty at it. On the other hand, Ramius knowing Morse is entirely believable, since he's from an older school of military.
* {{Expy}}: Andre Narmonov is one for Soviet premier Konstatin Chereneko; when he died 11 months after taking office, later novels would turn him into an expy of Gorbachev.
* FeedTheMole: The CIA uses [[spoiler:Henderson]] to feed the KGB false data about the operation to acquire the titular submarine of the novel.
* FourStarBadass: Admiral Greer
* HeroicSacrifice: Played with in that [[spoiler:the crew of the ''Red October'' end up believing Ramius and the officers scuttled the sub to prevent its capture by the Americans.]]
** Ramius' second in command plays this straight; pushing him out of the way of the GRU agent and taking a fatal bullet for his troubles.
* HistoryMarchesOn: The fall of the Iron Curtain led to the revelation that a number of Clancy's guesses about the Soviet stuff were completely wrong:
** The ''Storozhevoy'', the RealLife basis for the story, is mentioned in the novel as attempting to defect to the West. The political officer who led the mutiny (and was later shot) was actually attempting to mimic the actions of the ''Avrora'' in 1917: sail into Leningrad, denounce the cronyism of the Brezhnev regime, and demand reform among Leninist lines.
** Many technical details about the Red October and the ''Typhoon'' class in general, particularly the internal arrangement of these vessels, which would have invalidated several plot points.
** ''[[ThePoliticalOfficer Zampoliti]]'' didn't have authority over combat matters, were strictly subordinate to the commanding officer, and functioned similarly to a chaplain in a Western military.
** Most Soviet vessels weren't named; then again, ''The Hunt for K-139'' doesn't really sing or dance.
** The reactor accident that sinks the first Alfa would be impossible; they used a liquid metal cooled nuclear reactor that wasn't pressurized. Ironically, the use of a liquid metal plant rather than an American-style pressurized water reactor is mentioned as a faulty guess by U.S. military intelligence.
** The "Crazy Ivan" technique, existence of which was still highly classified when the book was written, had by and large been rendered obsolete by the use of towed-array sonar equipment.
* HotSubOnSubAction
* IfIWantedYouDead: The Americans, being understandably nervous about the Soviet fleet off their shores, give them several such moments, with the SugarWiki/CrowningMomentOfAwesome being [[spoiler:having four A-10 Warthogs zoom in under the radar horizon and box the ''Kirov'' with flares]].
* InformedFlaw: Ivan Putin is characterized as an evil man with no conscience despite only appearing in a single chapter in the book, during which he exhibits none of these tendencies.
* ItsPersonal: In the book Ramius' main motive was to punish the state for the fact that [[CrusadingWidower his wife had died]] in a botched operation directed by a surgeon who had got the job from [[UpperClassTwit Party Patronage]]. The movie emphasized his desire to prevent nuclear war; perhaps it was quite reasonably felt that the audience would prefer a more grand motive for treason than revenge even if it was treason against an enemy.
** Not only was his wife's routine operation botched, but the "antibiotics" given to correct the botch were Soviet-manufactured "bonus" drugs. (In Clancy's version of the USSR at least, the workers are given a bonus for exceeding quota, and those products produced just to make quota were often poor or fraudulent, bypassing quality control completely). Further, what he considers the greatest crime is the State's suppression of religion that robbed him of "the hope, even if it ''was'' a lie", of seeing his wife again.
*** Several of Ramius' officers have similar stories of being screwed over and subjected to indignities by the state. One was repeatedly denied promotion for ''decades'' because his parents, despite being loyal Communists, were Jewish; another was sexually propositioned by a superior officer, and was subsequently ''punished'' for reporting the impropriety because the man was the son of an extremely high-ranking party official.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: One of first actions taken by Ramius is to break Ivan Putin's neck and then set it up to look like he slipped on spilled tea and fell backwards into the corner of a table. This is largely done to fool Doctor Petrov and the enlisted men so that they would not discover the officers' plans.
* TheMedic: Doctor Petrov, naive but caring about his men, as well as a good officer who keeps order when the ''Red October'' is being evacuated. A quite WorthyOpponent -- in the movie, anyway, where he's played by TimCurry. In the book he's described as being a doctor of dubious competence.
* MrExposition: Melekhin, the officer in charge of the nuclear power plant aboard ''Red October''. As one of his subordinates thinks, he's the slowest and most methodical man in the world when he's trying to demonstrate an important point; his detection and repair of the supposed "sabotage" and radiation leak is accompanied by a detailed lecture to the subordinate in question as to how it was done and why this "leak" was so hard to find.
* MrFixit: Skip Tyler
* TheMutiny: Inverted. An American officer calls it a mutiny only to be told that mutiny is when the crew rises against officers. When the ''officers'' try to steal their ship it's referred to as barratry.
* NamesTheSame: [[{{Bioshock}} Jack Ryan]].
* NerdsAreSexy: It's stated the ship's sonar officer, despite not being hugely attractive, gets a lot of "action" on shore leave.
* ANuclearError: {{Averted|Trope}} -- it's [[DiscussedTrope specifically stated]] that A) if he had wanted to and were capable of doing so, Ramius could have launched from the dockside and his missiles would still have enough range to hit the U.S. and B) Soviet controls against a rogue launch are even stricter than their NATO equivalents.
* ThePoliticalOfficer
* RammingAlwaysWorks: Justified by ''Red October'' lacking enough manpower to fire torpedoes and Ramius' expert knowledge of how Soviet submarines handle (and their commanders behave), being effectively the submarine captain version of a test pilot for new designs. And because they plan to dissect the sub anyway so a little damage is less of a big deal.
* ReportingNames: A Soviet officer is asked what his sub is actually called and doesn't answer - in case you wanted to know, a ''Project 671''
* SavingChristmas: What a time for a possible WorldWarIII! It ''would'' have to happen then, now wouldn't it?
* TheSmartGuy: Submarine warfare is probably the geekiest form of war yet invented by mankind and this book is practically an orgy of smartness. Nevertheless Seaman Jones the sonarman is closest to the classic model, with the Executive Officer of the ''Dallas'' mentally commenting that Seaman Jones has the highest IQ on the boat by a healthy margin.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Lt. Kamarov.
* StockBritishPhrases: TomClancy's attempts at writing dialogue for the British character [[DidNotDoTheBloodyResearch fall short of reality]].
* TheStrategist: Ramius, whose plan sets everything in motion. Jeffrey Pelt, Admiral Greer, and to some degree Jack Ryan. And the unnamed President who does not show up in the movie.
* TechnologyPorn: Several pieces of military hardware in the US (and Russian, to a lesser extent) get paragraphs of description.
* TechnoWizard : Seaman Jones
* TitleDrop: "'We will find him and finish him,' Tupolev said calmly, fully caught up in the hunt for Red October." 
* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: The titular Hunt is called off about 80% through after the ''October'''s apparent going down. Cue [[spoiler:a lingering Soviet attack sub]].

!!The film contains examples of:
* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene: Between the crash on the aircraft carrier and Jack's harrowing arrival aboard the ''Dallas'', there is the scene of Ramius talking about fishing when he was a boy.
* AdaptationDistillation
* AerialCanyonChase: At least twice, in a missile submarine.
* AgeLift: In the novel, Mancuso is said to be in his mid-thirties, young for a command of this level; Scott Glenn, however, was 48 at the time the movie was made.
* AllStarCast: What else do you call this combination? SeanConnery, AlecBaldwin, SamNeill, TimCurry, StellanSkarsgard, JamesEarlJones, ScottGlenn, even [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Gates McFadden]] ([[DeletedScene briefly]]) ...
* AmericansAreCowboys: Ramius worries that his scheme won't work if the captain of the sub that meets them is some sort of "cowboy," then Mancuso shows up wearing his sidearm:
-->(Ramius sees Mancuso's sidearm and says to Borodin that Mancuso is a ''&#1073;&#1072;&#1082;&#1072;&#1088;&#1091;'' (sounds just like the English "buckaroo"). Ryan laughs.)
-->'''Capt. Bart Mancuso:''' What's so funny?
-->'''Jack Ryan:''' Ah, the Captain seems to think you're some kind of...cowboy.
** This is an inversion from the book, where it is Ramius who is described as having the "cowboy" personality.
* TheArtifact: When Ryan is trying to convince his superiors that Ramius is defecting to the United States, he mentions that, "today is the first anniversary of his wife's death," leaving it unexplained why this is significant.
* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Political Officer Putin]], according to 2nd. Lt. Victor Slavin.
* AudienceSurrogate:
** Seaman Beaumont early on. Seaman Jones is able to deliver quite a bit of exposition to the audience while training him.
** Once they arrive on the ''Red October'', Jack Ryan takes on this role, having the situation explained to him by Mancuso and Ramius.
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Jonesy
-->A torpedo passes by the sub just after Ramius and Mancuso share a handshake
-->'''Russian Sailor (in English)''': Another torpedo. The Americans are shooting at us again!
-->'''Seaman Jones''': [[HyperAwareness Pitch is too high]]. [[OhCrap The torpedo's]] ''[[OhCrap Russian]]''.
* BadassBoast:
-->'''Kamarov:''' Stop pissing, Yuri. Give me a stopwatch and a map, and I'll fly the Alps in a plane with no windows.
* BasedOnAGreatBigLie: Inverted. The film opens with a disclaimer to the effect that, according to American and Soviet authorities, it is ''absolutely '''not''''' BasedOnATrueStory. The audience is left to draw their own conclusions.
* BigDamnHeroes: in the movie, ''Dallas'' swoops in to drop a couple of decoys and save the Red October.
--> '''Jones''' Way to go, ''Dallas''!
* BilingualBackfire: When the Americans first meet Ramius and his crew.
* BilingualBonus: The [[OminousLatinChanting Ominous Russian Chanting]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPsL2WVhFCc backing]] the [[http://www.justsomelyrics.com/1187123/Theme-Hunt-For-Red-October-Lyrics awesome]] [[TheReveal reveal]] of the ''Red October''.
* CaptainObvious
--> '''Steiner''': Hey, I think someone's shooting torpedoes!
--> '''Mancuso''': No [[PrecisionFStrike shit]], buckwheat! Get the hell out of here!
* CharacterAsHimself: Stanley the stuffed toy Teddy bear is listed "as himself" in the end credits.
* CasualDangerDialogue: Marko Ramius quizzes Ryan about Ryan's books while a torpedo is homing in on their sub.
--> '''Ramius''': What books did you write?
--> '''Ryan''': Well, I wrote a biography of Admiral Halsey called ''The Fighting Sailor''
--> '''Ramius''': Oh, I ''know'' this book, your conclusions were all '''wrong''', Ryan! Halsey acted stupidly.
* ComingInHot: With the aid of [[JustPlaneWrong anachronistic]] StockFootage and EjectEjectEject instruction heard from the tower.
* CompressedAdaptation: The movie gets rid of the British role entirely, ditches the FeedTheMole sideplot and most of the fleet-level conflict between the U.S. and Soviets, and cuts out most of Clancy's rhapsodizing about the intricacies of sub warfare.
* CunningLinguist: Jack Ryan.
* CutHimselfShaving: An inconvenient political officer "slips on his tea."
* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler:Borodin.]]
* DescriptionCut: Ramius mentions to Borodin that a "buckaroo" will be sent to meet them - and we immediately cut to Ryan in the plane, bouncing about uncomfortably in the turbulence.
* EurekaMoment: When Ryan figures out the last part of Ramius' plan. "How do you make a crew want to get off a ''nuclear'' subma..."
* EveryoneKnowsMorse: Mancuso sends Morse messages to Ramius (watching by periscope) with a light blinker, asking for an active sonar ping to signal Ramius' agreement. It's at least discussed, as Mancuso says, "My Morse is so rusty, I could be sending him dimensions on [[{{playboy}} Playmate of the Month]]."
* ExpospeakGag: Teaching Beaumont to use the sonar, Seaman Jones describes the contact he's found as a "biologic":
-->'''Beaumont:''' A what?\\
'''Jones:''' A whale, Seaman Beaumont, a whale. A marine mammal that knows a heck of a lot more about sonar than you do.
* HeroicBSOD: While a few of the officers are bothered by [[spoiler: Ramius killing Putin, see WhatTheHellHero below,]] they are, [[TheStoic with one exception,]] shocked out of their minds when he reveals that he [[spoiler: sent a letter to Admiral Pedorin telling him of their plans to defect.]]
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Borodin [[TakingTheBullet takes a bullet]] from the saboteur.]]
** The crew of the ''Red October'' end up believing Ramius and the officers did a collective one since they were fooled into thinking that they got them off so they could scuttle the sub rather than have it captured.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Tupolev, thanks to a MisguidedMissile. [[spoiler: It was his own torpedo, cunningly baited to head right back towards him]]
* HyperAwareness: Seaman Jones, [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in that veteran sonar operators in RealLife really are that good, to the point of identifying individual ships by the sound of their engines.
-->'''Seaman Jones''': [[AwesomenessByAnalysis Pitch is too high]]. [[OhCrap The torpedo's]] ''[[OhCrap Russian]]''.
* IfIWantedYouDead: Subverted in the film, after the Red October evades a torpedo launched from a Soviet anti-submarine patrol plane, one of the crew asks "Why's our own navy shooting at us?" and is told by the first officer "If they were really shooting at us, we'd be dead."
* ImADoctorNotAPlaceholder: Ryan to Ramius:
---> '''Ramius''': Ryan, sit here.\\
'''Ryan''': I'm not a naval officer, I'm with the CIA!\\
'''Ramius''': CIA?\\
'''Ryan''': I'm not an agent, I just write books for the CIA!\\
'''Ramius''': ...whatever.
* IWasNeverHere: "Now understand, Commander: That torpedo did ''not'' self-destruct. You heard it '''hit''' the '''''hull'''''. And [[TropeNamer I...]] ''[[TropeNamer was never here]]''."
** Also starts with text saying that officially, "[[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial None of what you are about to see ever happened]]".
* LaymansTerms: Jones explains "biologics" are whales.
* MarriedToTheJob: Ramius regrets he figuratively widowed his wife the day he married her.
* MassiveMultiplayerScam: Ramius and the Americans pull a huge one to trick the Soviets.
* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: After the Soviet [[ReportingNames Bear]] bomber drops its torpedo [[hottip:*: The first attempt by the Soviets to destroy ''Red October'']], the co-pilot looks towards the pilot with a horrified look on his face.
* MisguidedMissile: Thanks to some clever maneuvering and disengaged torpedo safeties, and a bit of help from ''Dallas'', the ''Red October'' manages to string around a pursuing torpedo so that it hits the very attack sub that fired it.
* MrExposition: Jones while explaining all sorts of basics of sonar and sub tactics to Beaumont, some of which anyone on board a sub ought to already know.
* NauseaDissonance: Ryan hates flying because of turbulence. When he's on a turbulent flight to the ''Enterprise'', the navigator goes into excruciating detail about a ''really'' rough ride on his last mission, mentions he vomited, and then offers him a bit of the candy bar he's been munching on. 
* NervesOfSteel: Marko Ramius quizzes Ryan about Ryan's books while a torpedo is homing in on their sub.
* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Most of the actors playing the Russian characters, but especially Sean Connery.
* ANuclearError: [[RuleOfDrama In order to heighten tensions and give a deadline for the affair,]] the movie never explains what the book did about the range of SS-N-20s or Soviet safeguards against rogue launch.
* OfCourseISmoke: Jack Ryan makes a point about how he doesn't smoke, repeatedly turning down cigarettes. However, after arriving aboard the ''Red October'', he accepts a cigarette from one of the Russian officers. Ryan's coughing amuses the Russians, and helps to ease the tension between both sides.
* OhCrap: Subverted. Tupolev's second officer, when he finds out [[spoiler: that their torpedo is now going to hit them instead]], he doesn't freak out, but simply points out to his captain how much of an arse he had been.
* OldMaster: Captain Ramius's nickname? The Vilnius Schoolmaster. He trained many of the Soviet navy's sub skippers, including Tupolev.
* [[OminousLatinChanting Ominous Russian Chanting]]: ''Hymn to Red October'', the movie's theme.[[hottip:*:which is not, contrary to popular belief, any official Soviet national song, but created specifically for the movie]]
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Gates [=McFadden=], from her short scene as Caroline Ryan, as starts with a British accent before going to an American accent.
* OpeningScroll: Contains a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial.
* TheOtherDarrin: Alec Baldwin's only appearance as Jack Ryan. He'd be replaced by Creator/HarrisonFord, then Creator/BenAffleck.
* PrecisionFStrike: "You arrogant ass, You've killed ''us''!"
** "You son of a ''BITCH!''" "[[DeadpanSnarker Do you have something you'd like to add to our]] ''[[SarcasmMode discussion]]'', [[DeadPanSnarker Doctor Ryan?]]"
* PunchClockVillain: Putin. "I am only doing my job, it ''is'' my responsibility!"
* RefugeInAudacity: When Tupolev fires torpedoes at the ''Red October'', Ramius orders the crew to make the submarine close with the torpedoes at full speed. He correctly deduces that by getting close to the torpedoes shortly after they've fired, he can catch them while their safeties are still on and ram them with minimal damage. [[CasualDangerDialogue All the while calmly asking Ryan what kind of books he writes.]]
** TruthInTelevision: Soviet submarine doctrine called for submarines under attack to close with the torpedoes and dive, the idea being to generate a miss due to the speeds involved and rapid aspect change. American doctrine, as seen with ''Dallas'', running away from the torp, launching countermeasures and going higher (though not always involving an emergency blow).
* {{Retirony}}: "I would have liked to [[spoiler:have seen Montana]]."
* RousingSpeech: At the start of the mission, Captain Ramius delivers a one so magnificent that it prompts the sailors to chant the national anthem. It's rife with BadassBoast. 
* RuleOfSymbolism: The first word when Russians start speaking English is "Armageddon" (which is the same in both languages), hinting at the reason Ramius did what he did.
* RunningGag: Jack Ryan impersonating various ship captains.
** Also whenever he's doing something unpleasant or dangerous;
-->'''Ryan:'''"Jack, next time you get a bright idea write a goddamn memo!"
* ShownTheirWork: The portrayal of submarine life and submarine warfare is pretty realistic.
* SilentRunningMode: Submarines are of course designed to do this from the very start. ''Red October'' is a particular example in that its caterpillar drive makes it unusually quiet even for submarines.
* SleazyPolitician: A National Security advisor hangs a SelfDeprecation lampshade after a staff meeting.
-->'''Jeffrey Pelt''': Listen, I'm a politician, which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops. But it also means that I keep my options open.
* SmugSnake: Capt. Tupolev.
* TheStoic: Engineer Melekin, the only officer who doesn't share in the HeroicBSOD. In fact, despite the extremly tense situation surrounding him the entire movie, the only event that gives him any visible distress is the sabotage to the caterpillar drive, as it was the first sign that they had a genuine saboteur onboard.
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: In the OpeningScroll, which bothers to remind you that this movie is totally fictitious. ''Honest.''
* SwitchToEnglish: The first part of the film is entirely in Russian, til the Political Officer reads from the Bible the Book of Revelations. Mid-read, the camera zooms in on his mouth, where he begins speaking English, then pulls back again. The language switch is done on "armageddon", a word pronounced the same way in both Russian and English.
* TensionCuttingLaughter: When Ryan, Captain Mancuso and Seaman "Jonesy" Jones arrive aboard the titular sub, there is dead silence as the Americans and Russians stare at one another. But when Ryan accepts a cigarette from one of the Russian officers, he coughs while smoking (earlier, he'd explain that he doesn't smoke, repeatedly turning down cigarettes), which amuses the Russians and soon eases the tensions between both sides.
* TranslationConvention: Well executed switch from Russian-speaking Russians to English-speaking Russians early in the film; the switch occurred as they used a word that is pronounced identically in English and Russian. Clever.
** Once the Americans meet them, they switch back to subtitled Russian, as only Ryan can understand it, and Raimus speaks English.
* VictoriousChorus: The main theme, the "Hymn to Red October".
* WeUsedToBeFriends: Tupolev and his old teacher, Ramius. Subverted, in that ''Tupolev'' believes they were friends and holds Ramius in high regards, while Ramius appears rather disdainful of Tupolev.
* WhatTheHellHero: Twice, in the same scene:
** The assassination of [[spoiler:ThePoliticalOfficer]]. When the rest of the command crew bring this up to Ramius over dinner, Borodin defends Ramius's action, saying "Did you think he would just go away and sulk while we carried out our plans?" Only one of them objects on the basis of murder being wrong; the rest are worried the crew will find out and mutiny.
** When Ramius reveals he [[spoiler: told Russian fleet command that they're defecting.]] Even Borodin, who respects Ramius greatly and waits until the others leave to voice his own objection, is shocked.
-->'''Kamarov:''' In the name of god, ''why?''\\
'''Ramius:''' When he reached the new world, Cortez burned his ships. As a result, his men were well-motivated.\\
'''Kamarov:''' You have signed our ''death warrants.''
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Jack Ryan broke his back in a helicopter crash when he was a Midshipman at the Naval Academy, and spent over a year in the hospital recovering from his injuries. He is shown early in the movie being entirely unable to sleep on airplanes (before the helo crash is brought up in the film). Later, he has to ride in the back of a small airplane getting bounced around in order to get to the ''Enterprise''. And ''then'', he has to ride in a helicopter in order to link up with the ''Dallas''. Even once he's on board the sub, he seems to find its initial dive disquieting. However, by the end of the film, being forced to [[FaceYourFears confront this fear so many times]] seems to have cured him of it, as the final scene shows him [[BookEnds sleeping peacefully in broad daylight on his plane journey home]].
* WorthyOpponent: Capt. Tupolev; also [[spoiler:the Russian mole aboard the Red October as well]].
* ZippingUpTheBodybag: Early in the film, we see Political Officer Putin being zipped up as Captain Ramius expresses his regret over the unfortunate death from [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch slipping on some spilled tea.]]

to:

22nd Nov '12 10:35:58 PM PaulA

Send PaulA a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Mnogo Nukes is a Useful Note, not a trope.

Deleted line(s) 52 (click to see context) :

22nd Nov '12 10:34:52 PM PaulA

Send PaulA a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Trivia. Mnogo Nukes is a Useful Note, not a trope.

Deleted line(s) 92 (click to see context) :

Deleted line(s) 119 (click to see context) :

Deleted line(s) 136 (click to see context) :

Deleted line(s) 155 (click to see context) :