Without Warning
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Without Warning is a TV movie that premiered on CBS on Halloween night, October 31, 1994. The movie centered around one news reporter (Sander Vanocur playing himself) and a scientific analyst (Jane Kaczmarek as Dr. Caroline Jaffe) covering a breaking news story of three meteor fragments crashing into the Earth's northern hemisphere. The movie is presented as if it were an actual breaking news event, complete with remote reports from reporters. The film never breaks character, never going behind the scenes.
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Story
Broadcast 11 years after a similar program, Special Bulletin, Without Warning starts in an identical fashion, with the beginning of "regular programming", in this case the opening of a murder mystery film with the title Without Warning, starring Loni Anderson (appearing in a cameo). Within moments, however, the program is interrupted with a news bulletin of an explosion in Wyoming. The "movie" resumes but a few moments later is interrupted for good as coverage begins of a Halloween night meteor impact on the United States.
Over the course of the film it is learned that additional impacts had been reported in France and a remote area of China. A scientist notes that the objects hit on the exact same point of longitude in a mathematically precise way and suggests the impacts may have been deliberate.
Soon, lone survivors are found at the Wyoming and France impact sites: a young girl and a young Frenchman. The girl had been reported missing from a city miles away from the impact. Both people are severely burned and are speaking in unintelligible syllables.
The three impact sites begin broadcasting a signal that cripples aircraft flying within latitudes immediately surrounding the impacts. Then, another, larger object is detected moving towards the North Pole. The United States, despite protests from world leaders and scientists, orders several aircraft to intercept the object before it impacts with the earth and destroy it using nuclear weapons. This is successful, although all the aircraft are destroyed, appearently by a signal coming from the new object.
A scientist who has been studying the impacts is flown by a superfighter to a US military installation where reporters are being briefed on the latest incident. He reveals that his determination is that the impacts were in fact an attempt at first contact by an alien species and that, by destroying the follow-up aircraft, Earth has declared war on the aliens.
The scientist's fears are confirmed when astronomers detect three more objects approaching Earth. Unlike last time, when they were aimed (intentionally, it is suggested) at lightly inhabited areas, these new objects have been directly aimed at Washington, D.C., Moscow, and Beijing -- not coincidentally the capital cities of the three biggest holders of nuclear weapons.
Over the next few tense minutes, nuclear weapons are launched to intercept these three objects successfully (although Washington is nearly hit).
With a sigh of relief, the news anchors report success. Simultaneously, the young French man and the girl die. But scientists are able to finally decipher their babblings. It turns out they are each speaking a fragment of a message. When combined (although not complete as the assumed third survivor is never located), the message appears to be reciting of the message from the United Nations Secretary General that had been included on a special recording sent with the Voyager space probes.
Moments later, astronomers detect hundreds more objects, all heading towards Earth. As Sander Vanocur and his colleagues await the inevitable destruction of the planet, hearing reports of cities being destroyed worldwide, the wizened anchorman quotes from William Shakespeare: "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not within our stars, but within ourselves" as a rumble is heard and the picture cuts to static.
Unanswered questions
The film is notable in that it does not answer all the questions raised during the story, suggesting that, were this to happen in real life, there would be no answers available, either.
Most notable is the question of the aliens. Their nature and their reason for contacting Earth is never revealed, and they are never seen.
Other mysteries occur. At one point the population of an entire town vanishes without a trace. It has been suggested that this occurred not as a result of the attacks, but in fact may have been a reference to one of the more extreme interpretations of the rapture, an event prophesized by some Christian denominations. According to some beliefs, when the rapture occurs, individuals who have been chosen to serve God will literally disappear.
A third survivor of the original impacts is assumed throughout, but given the remote region in which the Chinese impact occurred, this individual is never located during the time frame of the film. (That, or Chinese officials simply do not make this information available to the West.)
Aftermath and impact
The film employed "accelerated time" (i.e. events said to have taken place an hour apart actually take place a few minutes apart), among other storytelling devices to make it clear to viewers paying attention that it was not real. This, combined with the casting of Kaczmarek, a recognizable actress, as well as several other well-known performers in secondary roles (such as Star Trek: The Next Generation regular John de Lancie as a reporter), was expected to alleviate any concerns that the story being shown was actually happening. However the casting of noted (albeit retired) news anchor Vanocur and noted journalist Bree Walker in major roles still left some viewers wondering.
In addition, when it originally premiered, the movie had warnings during the commercial breaks stating that the film was completely fictional, and that the events were not actually happening. The producers used actual CBS News graphics to help accentuate the feeling that it was real, however, leading to at least one uproar over the events. In Fort Smith, Arkansas, the CBS affiliate reported that they had received dozens of calls regarding the incident and whether it was actually happening. Other affiliates in the area representing the other networks of ABC, Fox, and NBC were also flooded with complaints, asking them why they were not covering this event at the same time that CBS was covering it.
Following the movie, CNN issued an order that its reporters and anchors will not be allowed to play themselves or any other role in a movie. Some accused CBS of being irresponsible in showing the movie during the primetime hours, when some children were still out trick-or-treating, but very few occasions have happened since Orson Welles' 1938 The War of the Worlds radio broadcast that so many people have been taken in so masterfully by a production such as Without Warning.
The film was released on DVD July 8, 2003, nearly nine years after its initial, and only, showing on CBS.
Similar films
- Special Bulletin (1983)
- Countdown to Looking Glass (1984)
Special Bulletin featured a simulated newscast reporting on a nuclear terrorism incident in Charleston, South Carolina, while Countdown to Looking Glass, a Canadian production, combined simulated news footage with behind-the-scenes dramatics to tell the story of how a network covers the outbreak of a nuclear war.