Even though this movie had great potential which the writers missed by a mile, why did they use Las Vegas and Salt Lake City in the movie? Both cities have Air Force bases and would be obliterated during a nuclear war. Maybe Reno and Tulsa would have been a little more realistic cities they would have visited.
shareThat's a good point. I remember as a kid reading the book and the pictures in it were from the movie. I first thought it was a mistake because it showed the Air Force sergeant and major in the photos but those characters weren't in the book. I guess the movie writers didn't do too much research about those 2 cities because I've been to both cities and those bases (Hill AFB, UT and Nellis AFB, NV) are HUGE!!!!
shareFrom what I remember of the movie, the U.S. had some sort of missile defense that took out 40% of the incoming russian missiles. Maybe the missiles intended for Las Vegas and Salt Lake City were destroyed.
shareSo people must gamble even if the bombs drop
Big city and big base in close proximity to each other would make for a great target, but would also have fantastic air defences with hundreds of anti-ballistic missiles. Within a stone's throw of Edinburgh are two of the largest naval bases and one of the largest airbases in Western Europe, and all of Britain's nuclear weapons - not sure if I'd be happy or sad if I was living there when a war broke out.
Ya Kirk-loving Spocksucker!
Has anybody mapped their course? There is no Tipton AFB, but no matter were you pick in California, the trip is odd. The best I could figure there course was as follows:
Tipton AFB Calif.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Salt Lake City, Utah
Meteor Crater, Arizona
Detroit, Michigan
Albany, New York
Stan
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Tipon is made up, but the actual location is Imperial Valley, California. Location of numerous military bases aroudn the area.
shareSalt Lake doesn't have an Air Force base. That's Ogden, about 45 miles north. It's a SAC base, so it would be important, but as was mentioned, a lot of the missiles were intercepted.
Otherwise, Salt Lake is a major transportation hub, so it's a good place to work into a story such as this. We also may get protection here(It's where I live) from the mountains. The Wasatch Front to the east, and the Oquirrh Mountains to the west. It's what screws up our weather. We either get storms that miss us because they get stuck, or we get storms that get stuck in the valley and pound us for 3 more days than they expected. Because of that, maybe Salt Lake also wouldn't get as much fallout.
I just re-read the book a few weeks ago, and SLC was in there as well, but they didn't mention the 'why'. Considering the Mormon folks wrote the book on being 'preppers', that could be a factor for having more survivors as well...
Hill Air Force Base is not a SAC base, it is part of Air Force Materiel Command. It is home to many sub organizations, including an active duty fighter wing and reserve fighter wing.
shareWow, you're right. I swear I remember seeing a logo or sign out front back in the day, but I see nothing on the Wiki that indicates it ever was one. Weird. It's not like I've been around many Air Force bases, mind you, so I'm not sure where I'd have that memory from.
shareweeeeeell, Reno is not very far from several military munitions storage depot facilities and Tulsa is not only an enormous hub of the petroleum industry but not too far from OKC where the, if I'm not mistaken, B-2 bombers are all "kept" or at the least based for maintenance.
but yes, I also agree Vegas and SLC might not have been the best options for the stories' stops.