The Final Countdown (1980)

If you could change history, would you, even if it meant erasing the world you know? Don Taylor's science fiction thriller "The Final Countdown," filmed aboard the real USS Nimitz with the Navy's cooperation, finds the mighty nuclear-powered aircraft carrier setting out on routine maneuvers in the Pacific in 1980, carrying an unusual passenger: a civilian Defense Department systems analyst (Martin Sheen), sent aboard as an observer by a mysterious, unseen industrialist who helped design the ship. When a strange electrical storm engulfs the Nimitz, all contact with the outside world is lost, except for old-time radio broadcasts. Reconnaissance photos soon reveal the battleships of Pearl Harbor intact, and the crew realizes they've been hurled back in time to Dec. 6, 1941, just hours before the Japanese attack. Kirk Douglas plays the ship's steady captain, and James Farentino is the air wing commander, a history buff who realizes what's happening. After rescuing a U.S. senator (Charles Durning) and his assistant (Katharine Ross) from a yacht attacked by Japanese fighter planes, the crew faces a staggering choice: allow the Japanese fleet to carry out its devastating attack, or unleash the ship's modern jets and missiles in a strike that would forever change the course of history. Complicating matters, history records that the senator vanished that very day, and he's growing dangerously suspicious. Highlights include a dogfight between modern F-14 Tomcats and World War II Zeros, and it all leads to a surprising twist ending.