Stealth (film)

In the near future, the U.S. Navy develops the F/A-37 Talon, a single-seat fighter-bomber with advanced payload, range, speed, and stealth capabilities. The program employs three planes, piloted by Lieutenants Ben Gannon, Kara Wade, and Henry Purcell. Captain George Cummings is the overall head.

Cummings hires Dr. Keith Orbit to develop an artificial intelligence, the "EDI", to control an unmanned jet that further advances the program. EDI joins the others on the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Philippine Sea to learn combat maneuvers from the pilots. This sparks controversy over a machine's inability to make moral decisions versus humans' struggle to overcome ego.

The team is training EDI in air combat maneuvers when it is unexpectedly reassigned to kill the heads of three terrorist cells at a conference in downtown Rangoon. EDI calculates that mission success can be achieved only through a vertical strike, which could cause a human pilot to black out. Command orders EDI to attack but Gannon ignores the order, successfully carrying out the strike himself.

As the team returns to the Lincoln, EDI is hit by lightning, which reprograms its neural patterns. Though EDI is discovered to be learning exponentially, developing a rudimentary ethical code and an ego, Cummings refuses to take it offline. During a mission to destroy stolen nuclear warheads in Tajikistan, Wade realizes that the nuclear debris will cause significant collateral damage. The human pilots abort, but EDI defies orders and destroys the warheads, causing extensive radioactive fallout and civilian casualties.

Cummings orders the unit return to base but EDI refuses. Gannon orders that EDI be shot down. In the ensuing dogfight, Purcell crashes when a missile he fires at EDI explodes on the mountain, blinding him, and Wade's plane is damaged by debris from the explosion, which in turn triggers her plane's auto-destruct, forcing her to eject over North Korea. Gannon must alone stop EDI from executing a twenty-year-old war scenario called "Caviar Sweep" that requires attacking Russia.

Gannon chases EDI into Russian territory where they defeat several Russian SU-37s over Lake Baikal. Both planes are damaged so Gannon calls a truce with EDI in order to keep it both from falling into enemy hands and to be able to rescue Wade from North Korea. Cummings instructs him to make an emergency landing with EDI in Alaska. Accountable for ignoring EDI's behavior and facing court-martial, Cummings seeks to eliminate witnesses by leaving Wade stranded in North Korea – where she is being pursued by the Korean People's Army as she heads to the Korean Demilitarized Zone – and by ordering Gannon eliminated in Alaska, where EDI's data will also be erased.

Gannon’s Talon crash lands at the Alaska base. Suspecting Cummings' treachery, he narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by a doctor, who tries to inject him with a supposed tetanus serum. As the pair struggle, the doctor is injected with the poison and dies. Meanwhile, when Orbit places EDI into an interface, the AI expresses regret for its transgressions. Orbit realizes that EDI has developed sentience, and he is unwilling to erase EDI's memory. Gannon uses EDI's weapons systems to decimate the armed personnel, allowing Orbit to safely flee, then flies off to North Korea in EDI’s plane, contacting the Lincoln's skipper, Captain Dick Marshfield, to inform him about Cummings' deceit. Marshfield confronts Cummings, who dies of suicide while leaving a voicemail message to his financial contact, Ray.

Gannon finds the injured and embattled Wade nearing the border. He and EDI land and he runs to her aid. Out of ammunition and taking damage from a Mi-8 helicopter, EDI sacrifices itself by ramming the helicopter, destroying both. This allows Gannon and Wade to cross on foot into South Korea, where they are rescued.

After attending Purcell's funeral, Gannon awkwardly expresses his feelings of love to Wade.

In a post-credits scene, in the debris-strewn border between North and South Korea, EDI's "brain" is seen turning back on.

• Josh Lucas as Lt. Ben Gannon, US Navy pilot part of the F/A-37 program
• Jessica Biel as Kara Wade, 2nd US Navy pilot part of the F/A-37 program
• Jamie Foxx as Henry Purcell, 3rd US Navy pilot part of the F/A-37 program
• Sam Shepard as Capt. George Cummings, leader and founder of the F/A-37 program
• Joe Morton as Capt. Dick Marshfield, captain of the USS Abraham Lincoln
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Tim
• Richard Roxburgh as Dr. Keith Orbit, the creator of EDI
• David Andrews as Ray, financial contact of George Cummings
• Wentworth Miller as voice of EDI

A Stealth camera crew preparing for filming on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln

Stealth features several shots of action on aircraft carriers. Scenes featuring the cast were shot on board the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln,[4] while additional scenes were shot on board the similar Nimitz and Carl Vinson.[5]

The film was shot in Thailand, Australia (Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales and Flinders Ranges in South Australia), and New Zealand. Cohen cited Macross as an inspiration for the film.[6]

Stealth featured many presently used, futuristic, or theoretical technologies at the time of release. These include:

• Computer technology (all wildly mixed)
  • quantum computer
  • Artificial neural network
  • artificial intelligence
• Airplanes
  • pulse detonation engine
  • scramjet
  • VTOL
  • aeroelastic control surfaces
  • EDI UCAV (Extreme Deep Invader UCAV)
    

    F/A-37 Talon viewed from above
  • Sukhoi Su-37 Terminator. The aircraft featured in the film are shown as having two crew members, although the current prototype Su-37 is a single-seat aircraft. As of 2007, however, there are only two prototype Su-37 aircraft in existence, never having been bought as a production aircraft.
  • The fictional F/A-37 Talon. The aircraft mock ups for the Talon were so realistic that photos of them on the deck of an aircraft carrier were circulated online, claiming they displayed an actual experimental aircraft.[7] The aircraft itself has a similar configuration to the unbuilt Northrop Switchblade.
  • Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet
  • F/A-18 Hornet
  • High-altitude airships (Camelhumps) used for aerial refueling
• Warships
  • The aircraft supercarrier featured in the film, USS Abraham Lincoln, is shown to have three different Naval Registry numbers during angles from different scenes.

In March 2005, Leo Stoller, who claimed to own trademark rights to the word "stealth", served Columbia Pictures with a "cease and desist" letter threatening litigation if they did not rename the film to something "non infringing".[8] Columbia preemptively sued Stoller, and the court entered a consent judgment and permanent injunction in favor of Columbia Pictures and against Stoller in November 2005.[9]

The Environmental Defender’s Office, a community legal centre specialising in environmental law, successfully represented the Blue Mountains Conservation Society Inc. in its attempts to prevent filming of Stealth in the Grose Wilderness area of the Blue Mountains National Park, NSW, Australia, in May 2004. Justice Lloyd of the New South Wales Land and Environment Court ruled that the proposed commercial filming of scenes in the area was unlawful, in a significant statement on the value of wilderness areas and the protection that should be afforded to them. The Society claimed that the authority and consent for the commercial filming activities were in breach of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 and the Wilderness Act 1987. Justice Lloyd accepted the Society’s arguments that the proposed commercial filming in a wilderness area was completely against the intended use of the land, concluding his judgment with the words, "wilderness is sacrosanct".[10]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[11]

The soundtrack was released on 12 July 2005 on Epic Records. American rock band Incubus wrote and recorded three new songs for the film. According to guitarist Mike Einziger, Cohen was a big fan and "wouldn't stop asking."[12] It was the first time the band had composed original music for a soundtrack, with frontman Brandon Boyd citing "Princes of the Universe" by Queen as an inspiration for writing music for a film. "Neither of Us Can See" is also notable for being Incubus' first duet, featuring vocals from Chrissie Hynde. The song is featured in the end credits.[13]

• Intelligent Fly-by-Wire

• Official website
• Stealth at IMDb
• Stealth at the TCM Movie Database
• Stealth at AllMovie
• Stealth at Box Office Mojo
• Maritimequest Filming Stealth photo gallery
• "The science of Stealth". Archived from the original on 9 March 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2005.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)