History Film / TheChinaSyndrome

At every turn separately and then as a team, Jack, Kim and Richard try to find out what happened and try to warn others that something's wrong. Eventually Jack realizes that the tremor was caused by faulty welding on the main pump, which will cause the pump to fail if it is pushed to full capacity; This faulty welding was never discovered because, rather than test every single weld like they were supposed to do, the company decided to save money by testing one weld and submitting its test results for every other weld. If this were brought to light, it would force the immediate shutdown of the plant and, most likely, legal charges for its builders and owners.

By the time Richard's friend is hurt trying to sneak proof of the lack of testing to a regulatory committee, Jack's paranoid and frustrated enough to seize a security guard's gun and take control of the reactor. Kim tries to interview Jack live on television (breaking into KXLA's regularly-scheduled programming of ''Series/TheMagnificentMarbleMachine''; no, seriously) to help him report what went wrong, but the power company SCRAM the reactor in order to take control away from Jack - during a SCRAM it runs fully automatic for a short time. The power company kills the TV signal and sends in a SWAT team to shoot Jack. While he lies dying, the faulty main coolant pump goes to maximum power ... during which the reactor goes through a terrifying few minutes of OMG it's gonna blow! The pump is finally shut down just as it completely breaks free of its moorings. At the end with the power company trying to paint Jack as a madman, Kim approaches Jack's friend Ted and gets him to say that Jack was sane and that there needs to be a full investigation.

Note that nothing actually happens in or to China; the title comes from a joke that if a nuclear reactor did have a meltdown it would burn all the way through to China on the other side of the Earth. Actually, a meltdown's extreme heat would get absorbed by the surrounding earth, and would get as far as the underground water supply where it would make things a hundred times worse. Also, if it ''did'' burn through the Earth to the other side, it'd [[YouFailGeographyForever end up in the Indian Ocean]].

* InstantCooldown: Averted. The crisis at Ventana ''begins'' when the rector is safely shut down. A faulty gauge leads the operators to believe the containment vessel is flooded so they open multiple relief valves to dump the coolant, resulting in an immediate OhCrap when they realize too late that the water level is critically low and they're about to incur a TitleDrop when the still-hot core is exposed.

* InstantCooldown: Averted. The crisis at Ventana 'begins' after the rector is safely shut down. A faulty gauge leads the operators to believe the containment vessel is flooded so they open multiple relief valves to dump the coolant, resulting in an immediate OhCrap when they realize too late that the water level is critically low and they're about to incur a TitleDrop when the still-hot core is exposed.

* ShownTheirWork: Anyone who knows the basics about boiling-water reactors will see that the turbine-trip scene that kicks off the plot happens exactly it would in a real reactor. With the HPCI (High Pressure Coolant Injection) system down and the feedwater isolation valves closed, Jack did exactly the correct thing: Dump pressure from the reactor to bring in the LPCI (Low Pressure Coolant Injection) system online - the last line of defense against core exposure. Dumping pressure from the reactor, however, ''exposes the core further'', so it was a race between core exposure and LIPC coming online. Furthermore, it transferred all that pressure to the main coolant pump, putting it under tremendous strain - ''[[OhCrap and it began cavitating...]]''

* ShownTheirWork: Anyone who knows the basics about boiling-water reactors will see that the turbine-trip scene that kicks off the plot happens exactly it would in a real reactor. With the HPCI (High Pressure Coolant Injection) system down and the feedwater isolation valves closed, Jack did exactly the correct thing: Dump pressure from the reactor to bring in the LPCI (Low Pressure Coolant Injection) system online - the last line of defense against core exposure. Dumping pressure from the reactor, however, transferred that pressure to the main coolant pump, putting it under tremendous strain - ''[[OhCrap and it began cavitating...]]''

* ShownTheirWork: Anyone who knows the basics about boiling-water reactors will see that the turbine-trip scene that kicks off the plot happens exactly it would in a real reactor. With the HPCI (High Pressure Coolant Injection) system down and the feedwater isolation valves closed, Jack did exactly the correct thing: Dump pressure from the reactor to bring in the LPCI (Low Pressure Coolant Injection) system online - the last line of defense against core exposure. Dumping pressure from the reactor, however, transferred that pressure to the main coolant pump and put it under tremendous strain - [[OhCrap and it began cavitating...]]

* ShownTheirWork: Anyone who knows the basics about boiling-water reactors will see that the turbine-trip scene that kicks off the plot happens exactly it would in a real reactor. With the HPCI (High Pressure Coolant Injection) system down and the feedwater isolation values closed, Jack did exactly the correct thing: Dump pressure from the reactor to bring in the LPCI (Low Pressure Coolant Injection) system - the last line of defense against core exposure - online. Dumping pressure from the reactor, however, transferred that pressure to the main coolant pump - [[OhCrap and it began cavitating...]]

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: When Kimberly wanted to cover a major story, she got more emotionally involved than she bargained for.

* YouHaveToBelieveMe: How Jack sounds during his interview with Kimberly at the end, ranting about how the reactor shouldn't be turned back on. He's trying to warn people, but he comes across as crazy.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:[[TheHeroDies Jack dies]], and the company tries to pin the blame on Jack by calling him insane. Kim finds Jack's friend Ted and forces him on live television to admit Jack "was the sanest man I know", and that there ought to be an investigation into the disaster.]] Unless [[spoiler:it's an InferredHolocaust instead]].

* GoingCritical: What Jack is terrified is going to happen [[spoiler:when the company plans on charging the reactor to full power.]]

** And [[spoiler:everyone gets that expression during the ending as the reactor's main coolant pump starts tearing itself apart. With each support strut that falls, it gets closer to simply breaking loose and coming to pieces. Then the ''TV feed from the pump is cut...'']]

* OhCrap: Pretty much everyone's expression when they realize that the water level indicator they've been using through the incident has been stuck on "high", giving very false indications. Jack Godell taps the glass and the needle drops down to a level only a few inches above the reactor core falling dry.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:[[TheHeroDies Jack dies]], and the company tries to pin the blame on Jack by calling him insane. Kim finds Jack's friend Ted and forces him on live television to admit Jack [[MomentOfAwesome "was the sanest man I know"]], and that there ought to be an investigation into the disaster.]] Unless [[spoiler:it's an InferredHolocaust instead]].

** And [[spoiler:everyone gets that expression during the ending as the reactor's main coolant pump starts tearing itself apart during the film's ending. With each support strut that falls, it gets closer to simply breaking loose and coming to pieces. Then the ''TV feed from the pump is cut...'']]

* ShoutOut: Fonda wanted red hair as a shout out to one of her childhood heroes, comics character Brenda Starr. This caused some problems for James Crabe, the film's cinematographer, because red was a tricky color to work with at the time, and he had to deal with not only filming red hair, but also filming television broadcasts with red hair.

** And [[spoiler:everyone gets that expression during the ending as the reactor's coolant system tears itself apart during the film's ending.]]

* Take That!: The guys in the plant point out that all the anti-nuke activists likely have a lot of electrical appliances in their homes. More specifically Jack makes a very impassioned speech about the reason the core did not melt down was because the very meticulous safety systems and all the redundancies worked to a T.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Jack's accident--indeed, the whole plot of the movie--is very reminiscent of activist [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood Karen Silkwood]].

* ShoutOut: Fonda wanted red hair as a shout out to one of her childhood heroes, Brenda Starr. This caused some problems for James Crabe, the film's cinematographer, because red was a tricky color to work with at the time, and he had to deal with not only filming red hair, but also filming television broadcasts with red hair.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Jack Godell.]]

By the time Richard's friend is hurt trying to sneak the film of the accident to a regulatory committee, Jack's paranoid and frustrated enough to seize a security guard's gun and take control of the reactor. Kim tries to interview Jack live on television (breaking into KXLA's regularly-scheduled programming of ''Series/TheMagnificentMarbleMachine''; no, seriously) to help him report what went wrong, but the power company SCRAM the reactor in order to take control away from Jack - during a SCRAM it runs fully automatic for a short time. The power company kills the TV signal and sends in a SWAT team to shoot Jack. While he lies dying, the faulty main coolant pump goes to maximum power ... during which the reactor goes through a terrifying few minutes of OMG it's gonna blow! The pump is finally shut down just as it completely breaks free of its moorings. At the end with the power company trying to paint Jack as a madman, Kim approaches Jack's friend Ted and gets him to say that Jack was sane and that there needs to be a full investigation.

At every turn separately and then as a team, Jack, Kim and Richard try to find out what happened and try to warn others that something's wrong. By the time Richard's friend is hurt trying to sneak the film of the accident to a regulatory committee, Jack's paranoid and frustrated enough to seize a security guard's gun and take control of the reactor. Kim tries to interview Jack live on television (breaking into KXLA's regularly-scheduled programming of ''Series/TheMagnificentMarbleMachine''; no, seriously) to help him report what went wrong, but the power company SCRAM the reactor in order to take control away from Jack - during a SCRAM it runs fully automatic for a short time. The power company kills the TV signal and sends in a SWAT team to shoot Jack. While he lies dying, the faulty main coolant pump goes to maximum power ... during which the reactor goes through a terrifying few minutes of OMG it's gonna blow! The pump is finally shut down just as it completely breaks free of its moorings. At the end with the power company trying to paint Jack as a madman, Kim approaches Jack's friend Ted and gets him to say that Jack was sane and that there needs to be a full investigation.