3: Doctor Strangelove (1964)

Martin Anderson

Published on Jan 24, 2009

3: Doctor Strangelove (1964) - We'll meet again.
One of the reasons that Kubrick ultimately decided not to conclude 2001: A Space Odyssey with the 'star-child' detonating Earth's nuclear stockpiles was that it would be too close to the famous conclusion of his cold war satire. It was star Peter Sellers' ex-Goon partner Spike Milligan who suggested using Vera Lynn's war-time heartwarmer We'll Meet Again over the scenes of planetary destruction cobbled together from stock nuclear-test footage.

Impact: A stark reminder of how different WWIII would be from WWII, the montage immediately entered movie history. Slim Pickens' rodeo ride to destruction on a nuclear warhead was adapted from an episode of the 1950s serial Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, and was later mirrored for the final sequence in Dark Star (#6) where an astronaut rides some debris into a planet's atmosphere like a surf-board.

Click here to return to Top 20 end-of-movie explosions

Top 50 movie special effects
Top 24 worst special effects of all time
Top 25 fictional ads in sci-fi movies
Top 50 sexy sci-fi costumes