Film / Special Bulletin

Commercial Voiceover: Move on up to RBS!

Chorus: We're movi–

Announcer: We interrupt our regular programming to bring you this Special Bulletin from RBS News...

Thus begins this 1983 NBC Made-for-TV movie and one of director Edward Zwick's pre-Hollywood works, about a group of domestic terrorists who claim to have a homemade nuclear bomb aboard a tugboat in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. They want to make a stand against the proliferation of nuclear weapons; unless they receive the detonating modules from all 968 nuclear weapons in the Charleston area, which they will then dump into the Atlantic to render those weapons useless, within the next thirty hours, they will detonate their own bomb.

The media doesn't just cover this event, but is also part of it: an RBS affiliate's field reporter and cameraman, covering an unrelated story on the same dock, are kidnapped during the terrorists' initial gunfight with the Coast Guard. One of the ideas the film examines is whether the presence and promotion of the media makes such events more likely to happen; by the next morning, RBS's coverage is no longer generic interruptions with the above "special bulletin" announcement, but a lively graphic introduction naming the coverage "Flashpoint: America Under Siege," with the stars and stripes, a zoom-in on South Carolina and the city of Charleston, and an up-tempo music track.

The movie recreates the look of a "live" TV broadcast, being shot on videotape rather than film, with faux-impromptu dialogue (hesitations, stumbles, overlaps) and minor technical glitches (as often occur during a live telecast) intensifying the effect. The camerawork resulted in one of its four Emmy wins (it also won for Outstanding Drama Special, Outstanding Video Tape Editing for a Limited Series or a Special, and Outstanding Writing in a Limited Series or a Special).

More than a decade later, the same formula was used again, only in an alien invasion context, for 1994's Without Warning.

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Gives examples of:

• All for Nothing: Both the government and the terrorists come out on the losing end. For the terrorists, just after they appear to get what they want, a Delta Force commando squadron bursts in and guns down all but two of them, bringing Barton into custody and goading McKeeson (the only person who can deactivate the bomb) into killing himself to avoid capture. As for the government, the NEST team brought in to defuse the terrorists' nuke end up setting it off when they accidentally activate one of McKeeson's safeguards, causing the device to explode and Charleston to be destroyed.
• Affably Evil: Other than Jim Seaver, who's... not really fit to function in society, the terrorists are largely polite, charming people. Especially at the start, they call the news anchors Mr. Woodley and Ms. Myles, fill their speech with "please" and "thank you," and are clearly making a genuine effort to show that they're doing what they're doing because they care about the world at large and everyone on it. The government, however, only sees them as lunatics who are willing to play God with an American city, and gun down all but one of them, including Lyman himself, who was noted as being one of their top strategic weapons planners.
• And the Adventure Continues: Albeit using it in a very realistic way. After the intense events of the main story, the movie ends with the news summing up the disaster's aftermath and moving on to several other unrelated stories as the credits roll, a grim reminder that - especially for the news - no matter how horrible any one story is there's always more happening and life can and must always go on.
• Anyone Can Die: Don't get too attached to any of the characters located in Charleston.
• Apocalypse How: Class 0, with the destruction of Charleston.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • While it makes for an impressive moment, Meg's camera could not have caught the mushroom cloud or the blast wave, since the initial flash would have wiped its optics. Not to mention the EMP would likely have destroyed all electronics in the near vicinity.
  • The filmmakers appear to have misunderstood the term "firestorm" as a fanciful way of describing a large conflagration. If Charleston really did become a firestorm, the air would be thick with black smoke and the fire would be using up all the available oxygen, suffocating people to death. The reporter would most certainly not be able to run around the streets of Charleston burning, yelling into a microphone with his suit completely unscathed.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: David McKeeson, during his rant on the media and its behavior, remarks that "NBC would kill its mother for this footage."
• Bittersweet Ending / Downer Ending: Thanks to the combined actions and reactions of the terrorists and the government, Charleston becomes America's own Hiroshima. The small silver lining is that the ordered evacuations limit deaths to thousands instead of hundreds of thousands. However, to twist the knife a bit, the closing narration makes passing reference to a nine-year-old child who committed suicide due to the stress of the event. It's also hinted that the area where Charleston once stood may stay a radioactive desert even decades after the detonation.
• Book Ends: The movie starts with RBS announcing a new game show premiering "on most of these RBS stations". It ends with Susan Myles announcing "more news later on most of these RBS stations".
• Deadline News:
  • Steve Levitt, the reporter being held hostage, is still at the docks when the terrorist's bomb goes off, as he was unaware that McKeeson's safeguards were tripped and it's no longer the timed detonation he had to worry about.
  • Meg Barclay and her cameraman, who had set up two miles away on board the USS Yorktown, survive the explosion itself, while their third crew member is killed. Both, however, are seemingly stranded in the city in close proximity to ground zero of the blast, directly exposing them to the resulting radiation. Whether they survive or not is never revealed.
• Death by Irony: "No, things seem... pretty calm here right now. There's not a–"
• Death of a Child: Even beyond the already harrowing fear of nuclear attack or a terrorist situation escalating into mass death and destruction, the wrap up notes that scores of children are orphaned after their parents died or went missing after the explosion. One such child, who was only nine years old, is so traumatized that they committed suicide.
• Death Seeker: McKeeson. It's revealed that he was the one primarily responsible for the construction of the bomb, and also seems to have the least reservations out of any of the terrorists about setting it off. It's later revealed that he contracted radiation sickness and possibly leukemia while building the bomb, and a psychologist on the newscast points this out as a sign that he's willing to carry out the threat because he's already a dying man.
• Delayed Explosion: Averted. The video showing the mushroom cloud has it going off, followed almost immediately by a blast wave.
• The Extremist Was Right: The government dupes the terrorists into thinking their demands are being met, then send a squad of Delta commandos aboard their ship, who gun down all but one of them (including an innocent wife and mother) in cold blood. The commandos also goad McKeeson, the only person who can disarm the bomb, into committing suicide, out of a prideful belief that the NEST technicians could disarm both the bomb and his safeguards. Thanks to their "shoot first, talk later" mentality, their treating a group of desperate extremists as run-of-the-mill terrorists, and their unending pride throughout the situation, the government ends up triggering and detonating McKeeson's nuke, destroying Charleston and causing the very disaster they tried to stop. All in all, Lyman's claims that the US government cares about its nuclear arsenal, its military prowess, and the idea that America can win a nuclear war far more than the lives of its citizens are confirmed to be true.
• False Reassurance: Walter Letteau, the Department of Energy (DOE) spokesman, spends most of the first half of the movie assuring everyone that the terrorists' threat is a hoax of the kind they've received in the past, and that it only appears credible because it's actually being covered by the news.
• Foreshadowing: When showing off the nuclear bomb, David McKeeson makes it pointedly clear that not only is there a series of anti-tamper devices built in that can and will set off the bomb, but that he is the only person who knows how to disarm it. Once he kills himself during the raid near the end, the NEST technicians tasked with disarming it ultimately set it off by accident.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • Had David McKeeson not killed himself, the NEST technicians could have avoided tripping the many anti-tamper devices that set off the bomb.
  • WPIV Reporter Steve Levitt and his cameraman George Takashima were initially at the Charleston docks to report on a workers' strike. Unfortunately, this ultimately leads to them being at ground zero of the nuclear blast.
• From Bad to Worse: The raid, and the whole effort to protect the nuclear weapons, is invalidated when the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) fails to notice the safeguards on the terrorists' bomb, causing it to detonate.
• The Ghost: George Takashima, Steve's cameraman, despite having some background information revealed, is never seen onscreen, mainly because he keeps filming everything during the hostage situation.
• Glasses Pull: Evoking Walter Cronkite, Press Secretary Robert Grafton does this when announcing the detonation of the bomb in Charleston.
• Hope Spot: One for the terrorists and one for the government, in rapid succession. The government announces, slightly late, their intention to comply with the terrorists' demands and are bringing the detonators to the dock. The terrorists are celebrating their victory until their television feed cuts out, rousing their suspicions. Then the Delta Force commandos storm the ship, gun the terrorists down, and rescue Steve and George. All that's left to do is to disarm the bomb. No points for guessing how that plays out.
• Ignored Expert: David McKeeson makes it glaringly clear that the terrorists' bomb has several anti-tamper failsafes of his own design built into it that can and will detonate it if activated, and because of this he is the only person who can disarm the bomb. Once the commandos board the ship, he kills himself to avoid being taken into custody, leaving no one left to properly deactivate the bomb. Thanks to their initial refusal to believe him, and then egotistically believing that they could deactivate said failsafes themselves when they did believe, the destruction of Charleston is placed firmly on the government's hands, since the NEST team sent to defuse the bomb trigger said safeguards and activate the device by accident.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: "OH, NO, LARRY, WE'RE LOSING IT, NOW! LARRY, COME BACK–"
  • See also Death by Irony.
• The Last Dance: It eventually comes to light that David McKeeson contracted radiation sickness and leukemia while building the terrorists' bomb, and as such, he's willingly taking part in their threats to detonate it because he's going to die no matter what happens.
• Loophole Abuse: The reason why reporter Steve Levitt and cameraman George Takashima are kept on the ship: the terrorists agreed to release the hostages in exchange for their live feed. Which they proceed to do... the Coast Guard hostages, that is.
• Mood Whiplash: In-Universe, shortly after Steve Levitt and George Takashima are freed, Levitt expresses giddy relief and triumph to the news team that he and the cameraman had survived. The giddiness turns somber when he sees medics pull out the bodies of the dead NEST members off the boat and load them into a nearby ambulance.
• Never My Fault: The government, while announcing the destruction of Charleston, announces that "they know nothing else at this time" to hide the fact that they're the ones who activated the bomb in the first place.
• Oh, Crap!: "OH NO, LARRY, WE'RE LOSING IT, NOW!" The NEST technicians know what's coming, as does Dr. Neils Johanssen, trying to provide layman's commentary on the RBS broadcast ("They have just put a match under the whole pile!"). Pretty much nobody else does, until about 15 seconds later...
• Old Media Are Evil: One of the main themes of the program is not only if the media should give terrorists exposure to national airwaves, but if the mere presence of the media makes these kind of attacks more likely. Several characters debate the ethics of allowing RBS to broadcast the feed from the tugboat (though almost none of them note they were more or less forced to do it by the terrorists holding their reporter hostage) and later on McKeeson accuses RBS of exploiting the crisis for the sake of higher ratings.
• Phony Newscast: The show is in the format of a live television broadcast covering a terrorist attack at the Charleston Navy Yard.
• Red Alert: When the bomb defusing starts seriously going south, a warning siren is tripped on the dock by the NEST detection equipment... far, far too late.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Dr. Lyman and his followers firmly believe that the US Government, should they refuse to give in to their demands and force them to detonate their bomb, cares more about the idea of waging and winning a nuclear war than the lives of their own citizens. When the terrorists are lulled into a false sense of security and gunned down without mercy, the NEST team tasked with defusing their bomb set off one of McKeeson's anti-tamper safeguards and detonate it, destroying Charleston in the process. It just goes to show that Lyman knew all along what he was talking about, and that his beliefs of how the government will be responsible for a nuclear conflict were correct, though not in the way he originally thought it would play out.
• Right Man in the Wrong Place: Steve Levitt was originally trying to film a report on a dock workers' strike when the Coast Guard drove in and got into a gunfight with the terrorists, whereupon he and his cameraman are taken hostage.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After the NEST technicians accidentally trip one of the anti-tamper devices built into the bomb, one of them panics and bolts from the ship. Not that he has any chance of outrunning a nuclear detonation...
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: In this case, the "shaggy dog" is the entire city of Charleston.
• Shown Their Work: The effects of the blast, essentially a 10 kt ground burst, in all their Nightmare Fueled glory.
  • After the bomb goes off, Meg and her crew on the U.S.S. Yorktown, 2 miles distant, live or die based on whether they are shielded from the blast. Meg managed to hide behind a steel wall and survives with minor injuries; her cameraman Stuart was partially shielded and sustained severe burns, while her partner Gary was in the open and killed by the blast. The question of whether Meg and Stuart are destined to die of radiation, however, is left unanswered.
• Silent Credits: As well as the movie having no underscore (the only music comes from network jingles), the end credits run with only faint newsroom sounds as Susan Miles reads the news of the aftermath of the blast and moves on to stories elsewhere in the world.
• Spot the Thread: After the feed in the tugboat's TV goes out, John Woodley personally tells Bruce Lyman that the reason is that there was a power failure at a transmitter in North Charleston. The television transmitters for Charleston are in Awendaw.
• Strawman Political: Subverted. The terrorists aren't swarthy religious types or militiamen, they're a group of all-American anti-nuclear demonstrators (and one Ax-Crazy criminal) whose overall goal is nuclear disarmament, not money or destruction. Dr. Lyman even lampshades that he and his crew are only threatening to blow up Charleston and destroy all the nuclear detonators in the area out of a desperate plea for the safety of the world and its populace, claiming that there is no other option to get their point across since persusasion, guilt, and religion have failed.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: The DOE spokesman comes back later and orders an evacuation of Charleston "as a precaution."
  • Similarly, when the NEST team accidentally activates the bomb and blows up Charleston, the government voices to the teary-eyed press that they "know nothing else at this time" about the detonation, covering the fact that it was essentially themselves who blew up one of America's most famous cities.
• Tempting Fate: One of the nuclear experts, while the NEST technicians begin disarming the bomb, states that disarming a bomb is easy. "It's equivalent to pulling a plug. The problem here is getting to the plug..."
• Tranquil Fury: Dr. McKeeson ranting about RBS coverage doesn't get under John Woodley's skin at first, until he mentions that Woodley might have changed his name. The look in Woodley's face speaks volumes.
• Understatement: "Apparent... ...apparently, we have... lost contact with, uh... Steve Levitt in Charleston..."
• The Unreveal: Absent from the closing narration is any indication as to whether Meg and her cameraman survived.
  • It's also never revealed why exactly Dr. Lyman left the Pentagon and changed his stance on nuclear weapons so suddenly. One of his former colleauges at the Pentagon suggests that he just got fed up and snapped.
• We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: Goodbye, Charleston.
• We Interrupt This Program: How the film starts: In the middle of a RBS promo, the Special Bulletin breaks.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The terrorists consider themselves to be this, and they actually manage to come off as such a few times. They're all saddened when of one of the Coast Guardsmen they shot when they arrived at the dock succumbs to his wounds (with Barton giving him what could be considered a eulogy), Silverman nearly gives herself up after her husband calls her and tells her that her kids have been watching the TV coverage, and Lyman makes it clear that he really doesn't want to detonate the bomb, but he genuinely feels there's no other way to get the US on the path to nuclear disarmament. The only two exceptions are Seaver, who isn't quite right in the head, and McKeeson who was exposed to Plutonium while building the bomb and has become a Death Seeker.
• Wham Line:
  • David McKeeson makes two passing comments that are highlighted by a psychoanalyst, Dr. Abraham Sczrsma: "What did I bust my guts for?! Throwing up 17 days in a row!" and a offhand mention of needing to check his white blood count. These two remarks are concluded to be proof that A) McKeeson had contaminated himself with plutonium and B) the group actually do have their hands on a genuine nuke. Or a "dirty bomb" at least.
    David McKeeson is a very dangerous man... because he knows he's dying already... and the bomb doesn't hold any danger for him anymore.
  • You can barely hear it, but in the midst of the terrorists' celebrating that they (apparently) got what they wanted: "What happened to the picture?!"^note They're referring to the TV. The local affiliate goes off the air to prevent the terrorists from seeing the assault team about to board their ship. The terrorists are assured that there was a purely coincidental power failure at the transmitter site, but they're not buying the cover story.
    • Similarly, as the terrorists are trying to figure out what is happening, we cut back to a shot of the tugboat, and some men sneaking on board.
      Susan Myles: Oh my god... oh my god, those are troops.
  • As to be expected, the climax is filled with these as the disarming goes terribly wrong:
    • "WHOA, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's this voltage?!"
    • "There's about 100 pounds of explosives in there, uh... geared to set off the chain reaction. They have just put a match under the whole pile!"
    • "C'mon! C'mon! C'mon! Oh, we got to get outta here; c'mon!"
    • And, ultimately: "OH NO, LARRY, WE'RE LOSING IT, NOW! LARRY, COME BA-"
• Wham Shot: "We saw it, didn't you see it? Look... Look... Look... just look at it, it's on fire... everything's on fire..."
• What Happened to the Mouse?: There are a couple of these:
  • When last seen, reporter Meg Barclay is looking into the camera, nervously asking about radiation. Her fate is never revealed.
  • Frieda Barton is the only terrorist taken into custody, but nothing is mentioned of her after that. The viewer can maybe assume they moved quickly enough with transporting her that she didn't die in the detonation, but even that isn't confirmed. There is no reference in the closing narration to her fate.
  • The government's careless handling of the incident, leading to the loss of a city and a large area of the US, would have undoubtedly led to immediate high level resignations, possibly as high as the presidential level. None of this is referenced in the closing narration, which suggests "news as usual" beyond the fate of the city.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Lyman was a former Marine and the top strategic weapons planner for the Pentagon, before he quit and became an anti-nuclear radical of his own accord. Given what the government ultimately does to "rectify" the situation, it could be viewed that him stepping down from what they wanted him to do led them to brand him and his crew as public enemy #1, and ultimately send a team of commandos to gun him down.

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