The Final Countdown is a 1980 American science fiction war film about a modern, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that travels through time to the day before the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. It was produced by Peter Douglas and Lloyd Kaufman (founder of Troma Entertainment) and was the last film directed by Don Taylor; Kaufman also had a minor acting role. The film contains an ensemble cast starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James Farentino, Katharine Ross, Ron O'Neal, and Charles Durning.

Plot

In 1980, the aircraft carrier departs Naval Station Pearl Harbor for naval exercises in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The ship takes on a civilian observer, Warren Lasky — a systems analyst for Tideman Industries working as an efficiency expert for the U.S. Department of Defense — on the orders of his reclusive employer, Mr. Tideman, whose secretive major defense contractor company designed and built the nuclear-powered warship.