I recently saw this film for the first time since seeing it many years ago. In addition to its being entertaining, enjoyed seeing Kirk Douglas, who although in his mid-60's, still looked vigorous and hale.<br /><br />The USS Nimitz is a nuclear aircraft carrier, sailing in the Pacific, on a routine assignment contemporary to the making of this film, in 1980. At the beginning, a civilian, played by Martin Sheen, has been assigned aboard as an observer for training exercises. His boss, a Mr. Tideman, observes his departure from a limo. Anyone who has ever heard the word "foreshadow," knows that this scene will have some effect by the film's end, that Mr. Tideman's not being shown on-screen at this point is significant, and that the fact Sheen has not ever seen his boss face-to-face also portends something significant later, and is likely essential to the development of the plot. Sheen's position as an observer is of some minor disturbance to the ship's air wing commander, James Farentino, worrying about disruption to operations, but we know that there will be some sort of dramatic aspect in subsequent "operations" involving them with one another.<br /><br />The ship is destined to "time travel," sailing through a vortex, a shrouded fog, which transports it from the present (1980) back to early December, 1941. They encounter Japanes aircraft, fighter craft in advance of the Pearl Harbor attack force, and all are initially nonplussed by their mint condition, whereas they should be 40-year-old relics. Captain Kirk (Douglas, not Spock's boss) dispatches three jet aircraft, one to Pearl, the others to fend-off the Japanese planes. The Japanese attack and sink the nearby yacht of an important U. S. Senator (Charles Durning), his assistant (Katherine Ross), her pet dog, and another companion. The Senator, Ross and the dog dive to safety, the other passenger is killed. This indicated hostility, and intent of same towards the naval vessel, necessitates the carrier's craft to blast the two enemies - one is destroyed by missile, the other shot down with bullets, allowing the pilot of the latter to survive (along with the two humans and one canine from the sunken yacht). <br /><br />The prisoner/Japanese pilot is rescued by a helicopter, and the Senator/Durning, his comely assistant and the cute doggy are rescued by another, and all taken on-board.<br /><br />There is a lot going on in this film. The plane sent to Pearl Harbor returns with photos. Farentino recognizes one is the same he has in-file for a book he is preparing - showing the port as it was, in-tact, just prior to the December 7th sneak attack. The Senator, an important, informed senior politico expert on all matters military, is obviously nonplussed by the jet aircraft and all other aspects of the carrier and everything else, beyond the contemporary hardware with which he is familiar.<br /><br />The crux of all these "time travel" stories, whether an inexpensive 22 minutes within a half-hour TV presentation, or an expensive, A-list big-screen offering like this one, presents the same dilemma -- whether to use the ability now at-hand to stifle some occurrence and save lives, etc., but alter the future in so doing? Might changing things - such as precluding the terrible events at Pearl Harbor on 12/7/41, make things worse than they became for future generations, or even in the relatively near term? Sheen even recalls previously reading about the Senator's loss, missing at sea, in 1941. If he survives now, he might well become the one who would succeed FDR in 1945, having supplanted Harry Truman on the party slate in 1944. What paths might he have taken differently from HST, towards using the A-bomb, ending the Pacific war, in Korea, etc., etc? <br /><br />All the while Kirk has to be the one to decide on the basic question regarding the impending Japanese squadrons, and the viewer knows that at some point the ship probably will return to present (at filming) time. But when? In the middle of what? To what avail?<br /><br />Suffice to say, in my opinion, this story has handled an often-used theme in a clever, engaging way, with fine performances. Also, the picture is just plain entertaining - something I think we sometimes overlook in our analyses.<br /><br />The end is clever, and the transportation of some folks back to the 40's, and their subsequent fates is done as "logically" as possible within science fiction. Without revealing the end, one 1980 character stays back in the 40's but reappears again (older) in the 80's. Another original 40's person also appears in the present at the end. And the doggy, who even if young and destined to a long life, would have originally made it at best to, say, 1954 or so, remains in the 1980's, is still young at the flick's end, and participates in the happy aspects of the story's conclusion