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Hi All,
Had this project on my mind for about a year, since I first saw The China Syndrome on DVD, and thought I’d post and get people’s thoughts.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078966/
From IMDB: While doing a series of reports on alternative energy sources, an opportunistic reporter Kimberly Wells witnesses an accident at a nuclear power plant. Wells is determined to publicise the incident but soon finds herself entangled in a sinister conspiracy to keep the full impact of the incident a secret.
I’ve always felt that the ending is quite a letdown, it really drops off for me. The ending as it is basically lets the bad guys off the hook as the plant doesn’t blow up and everyone is safe except Jack. As with real life, by the time the years of hearings and court cases tail off, and various scapegoats put forward, none of the people higher up who were truly responsible for the plant’s safety, will have faced any sort of justice.
The film would pack far more of a punch if it ended just as Jack Godell dies when SWAT storm the control room and the plant SCRAMs for the second time. Cutting from the control room quaking and going dark, to the silent end credits. This would imply (but not show) that the reactor core went into meltdown, exactly what Jack predicted would happen, and resulting in the title of the film ‘The China Syndrome’.
Starting at 01:50:21, I’d do a little re-editing to shorten the entire ending sequence down, bring jacks death forward as the second SCRAM starts and compress the remainder of the action to make it punchier, removing the miniature shots of the reactor falling apart at 01:53:02 and everything after that, up to the credits at 01:59:32.
Anyone any thoughts?
