Blue Thunder


Blue Thunder is a 1983 American action thriller film directed by John Badham and starring Roy Scheider, Malcolm McDowell, Daniel Stern, Candy Clark and Warren Oates.
The Blue Thunder helicopter itself did exist as two copies of modified French Aérospatiale Gazelles.
A spin-off television series, also called Blue Thunder, ran for 11 episodes in 1984.

Plot

Frank Murphy is a Los Angeles Police Department air support division pilot and troubled Vietnam War Veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder. His newly assigned observer is rookie officer Richard Lymangood. The two patrol the city by helicopter and give assistance to police forces on the ground when needed.
Finishing their evening patrol, the pair are placed under a two-week suspension for allegations of voyeurism during a nearby mugging that resulted in the death of city councilwoman Diana McNeely. Murphy is shortly reinstated for duty and instructed to attend a private sunrise demonstration in the Mojave Desert at "Pinkville" and is selected to pilot an advanced helicopter, informally called "The Special" but given the nickname "Blue Thunder", during an evaluation exercise. It is a military-style combat aircraft intended for police use in surveillance and against possible large-scale civic disobedience or terrorism during the upcoming 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
With robust bulletproof armor, powerful armament, and other accoutrements, such as thermal infrared scanners, unidirectional microphones and cameras, built-in mobile telephone, computer and modem, a six-barreled 20 millimeter electric cannon, a "whisper mode" that lets the vehicle fly silently and a U-matic video cassette recorder; Blue Thunder appears to be a formidable tool in the war on crime. Murphy notes wryly that with enough of these helicopters "you could run the whole damn country."
When McNeely's death is seemingly turning out to be more than just a random murder, Murphy begins his own covert investigation. He discovers that a subversive action group is intending to use Blue Thunder in a military role to quell urban disorder under the project codename T.H.O.R., and are secretly eliminating political opponents to advance their agenda, a tidbit McNeely was looking into at the time.
Murphy suspects the involvement of his old Vietnam nemesis, former United States Army Colonel F.E. Cochrane, the primary test pilot for Blue Thunder and someone who felt Murphy was "unsuitable" for the program. During a test flight operation over the city, Murphy and Lymangood use Blue Thunder to follow and record a meeting between Cochrane and the other government officials which would implicate them in the conspiracy, but Cochrane unexpectedly looks outside, sees Blue Thunder hovering in front of their window and realizes what has happened.
After landing, Lymangood secures the videotape and conceals it, but is ambushed upon returning to his home, interrogated, and then killed while trying to escape. Murphy hijacks Blue Thunder and arranges to have his girlfriend Kate retrieve the tape and deliver it to a local TV station, using the helicopter to thwart her pursuers. After a chase through the city which wrecks many police and civilian vehicles, Kate arrives at the TV station, but is intercepted by one of the conspirators claiming to be a news producer; the reporter Kate was instructed to give the tape to arrives and gets it, while the conspirator pulls a gun but he is knocked unconscious by a security guard before he can obtain the tape, preventing the message from being electronically erased.
Fearing exposure by Murphy, Cochrane and the other conspirators employ every asset they can manage to bring Blue Thunder down, including the initial support of the municipal government; beginning with two LAPD Bell 206s. After Murphy incapacitates the first one, forcing it to land via autorotation, he engages in a cat-and-mouse chase with the second by slaloming down the Los Angeles River viaduct until his pursuer crashes. Following this, two Air National Guard F-16 fighters are deployed to shoot Murphy down, but he manages to shoot one of them down and evade the other. In the process, one of the fighters' heat-seeking missile destroys a barbecue stand in Little Tokyo and a second missile hits the sun-heated windows of an ARCO Plaza high-rise building, in both cases having been fooled into missing the helicopter by the heat generated by the false targets. Appalled at the heavy destruction in the city so far, and wanting to avoid further collateral damage, the mayor suspends the hunt-and-destroy operation.
Cochrane, frustrated and bent on finally putting down his former subordinate, neglects his orders to stand down and bombards Blue Thunder in a heavily armed Hughes 500 helicopter. After a tense battle, Murphy shoots Cochrane down, executing a 360° loop through use of Blue Thunder turbine boost function. With the aircraft having sustained heavy damage and running low on fuel, Murphy then destroys Blue Thunder by landing it on tracks in front of an approaching freight train; the helicopter erupts in a huge fireball, but Murphy quietly walks away unharmed.
In the meantime, the tape is made public, and the conspirators are exposed and arrested.

Cast

Co-writers Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby began developing the plot while living together in a Hollywood apartment in the late 1970s, where low-flying police helicopters woke them on a regular basis. Their original script was a more political one, attacking the concept of a police state controlling the population through high-tech surveillance and heavy armament. They sought and received extensive script help from Captain Bob Woods, then-chief of the LAPD's Air Support Division. The first draft of the screenplay for Blue Thunder was written in 1979 and featured Frank Murphy as more of a crazy main character with deeper psychological issues, who went on a rampage and destroyed much of Los Angeles before finally falling to F-16s.
The script was rewritten by American screenwriter Dean Riesner with directions on the style of dialogue from director John Badham.
Filmed on location in Los Angeles took place from October 1980 to January 1981. Blue Thunder was one of Warren Oates' last films before his death on April 3, 1982, which occurred during post-production, and the film is dedicated to him. He made one movie and one TV episode before and after filming during 1981–1982 that were released after Blue Thunder.
Although the film was shot in Los Angeles and real-life neighborhoods are mentioned, the LAPD did not allow any references to be made to them. Hence, the police force is known as the more-generic "Metropolitan Police" and Frank Murphy is part of the fictional "ASTRO Division", rather than the real-life "Air Support Division". However, Air Support assignments are often known as ASTRO, or "Air Support to Regular Operations".
The LAPD Hooper Heliport, which was still under construction at the time, filled in as the home base for the fictional version of the police air unit. The drive-in theater scene where Frank's girlfriend Kate recovers the tape was filmed at the Pickwick Theatre in Burbank, California; the theater has since then been demolished and replaced by a Pavilions supermarket.
Malcolm McDowell, who portrayed antagonist F. E. Cochrane, ironically has an intense fear of flying in real life and not even his then-wife Mary Steenburgen could persuade him to overcome his phobia. In an interview for Starlog in 1983, Badham recalled: "He was terrified. He used to get out and throw up after a flight." McDowell's grimaces and discomfort can be seen during the climactic battle between Murphy and Cochrane in the film. Steenburgen commented to filmmakers afterward, "I don't know how you got him up there, I can't even get him in a 747!"
Roy Scheider was at that point mainly known for having played Chief Martin Brody in the first two Jaws movies. At the time, a third movie was in production, and he had no desire to do it, saying, "Mephistopheles... couldn't talk me into doing .... They knew better than to even ask", so he agreed to participate in the filming of Blue Thunder, to ensure his unavailability for Jaws III.

Blue Thunder helicopter

Blue Thunder is the helicopter in the film and television series. The fictional aircraft itself was a modified Aérospatiale Gazelle helicopter.
To film Blue Thunder, the producers employed two examples of the French-made Aérospatiale SA-341G Gazelle light utility helicopter, serial numbers 1066 and 1075, both built in 1973. After the film and TV series was made, both helicopters were sold to Michael E. Grube, an aviation salvage collector in Clovis, New Mexico. Sometime after, around 1985, one of the helicopters had a small role in the pilot episode of MacGyver, which featured the helicopter in a different paint job, the microphones were removed, the video surveillance package removed leaving empty mounting pylons in place, and the number on the side being changed from "02" to "51".
Grube then leased s/n 1066 to a film company that was shooting Amerika, an ABC television mini-series about Soviet occupation of the United States; the helicopters were painted black with red tail stripe and numbering, missile launchers were installed on the pylons, and the surveillance microphones were removed on both. After Grube got 1066 back, it was dismantled and sold for parts.
The second, s/n 1075, was scrapped during 1988. There was a third static display model built for close-up shots with the actors; it was stored outside and after deterioration was scrapped by 2009. The bolt-on cockpit of the original helicopter used to be visible on the backlot tour of the Disney-MGM Studios theme park in Florida. It has not been present in the 'bone yard' since at least 2005.