Reviews

A first-rate documentary, "Trinity and Beyond" chronicles the U.S. nuclear weapons program from the July 1945 atom bomb test in New Mexico to JFK's signing of the nuclear test ban treaty in 1963.

Most of the tests conducted by the United States--including the 15 megaton "Castle Bravo," the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever detonated by the U.S.--took place in the Pacific Ocean on or near Enewetak, an atoll in the Marshall Islands. For the March 1, 1954 Castle Bravo blast, a professional film studio (Lookout Mountain Studios based at Lookout Mountain Air Force Station in L.A.) records in slow motion the palm trees smoking as they are cooked in the flash, then pulverized in the blast wave. Underwater tests like "Operation Hardtack" raise the ocean floor, followed by an eruption a la Mount St. Helens, a truly breathtaking sight.

Accompanied by original music performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and William Shatner's terse narration, the mesmerizing footage is put into historical context as the U.S. and U.S.S.R. race for nuclear supremacy at the height of the Cold War. As the film closes, China throws a monkey wrench into the whole affair with their first atom bomb test in 1964, hinting darkly of an uncontrollable future where the nuclear genie can't be put back into the bottle.

Director Ridley Scott's well-honed talents of pacing and editing create a tense atmosphere that superbly conveys dread and fear of an unknown, unseen evil entity. In 1979, the technology didn't exist to generate a computer image of a Being from another world, and thank God, because this film would have sucked just like all these post-Alien creature features do. Everyone who loves this movie knows what I'm talking about. Ridley Scott had to be extremely careful not to show a full shot of the Alien, except in very brief scenes, and not to reveal exactly how it moves, because then we would see that it is just some tall, skinny guy in a rubber suit. Nowadays, some computer guy would whip up a really scary-looking, but nevertheless FAKE-looking (yes, computer guys, we can tell) Alien, and the director would not have to even think about trying to breathe life into H.R. Giger's hallucinations to make a successful picture.

The dark, cold beauty of this film will never be equaled.