Bombshell

Rongelap needs help. The people there are still suffering. The effects of the fallout are getting worse, not better. And the f***ing French haven't learnt the lesson, either.

– Fernando Pereira (Ande Cunningham) tells his wife why the cause is important to him

...there was a small explosion the first time, and then about a minute later, there was a great big explosion which shook the whole building of the sailor's home — six stories high.

– Real life news footage in Bombshell giving an eyewitness's account of the bombing

Someone’s onto us. You saw the news. This is murder now and we’re accessories. I can’t believe Paris didn’t warn us.

– One of the French agents realises they are in danger of being caught

Bombshell: The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior begins at a pace that matches its title — before the opening credits roll, we're on board the Rainbow Warrior with Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira and his crew mates, French secret agents have attached a fatal bomb to the ship's hull and we're all but certain that Pereira is dead.

– Stuff reviewer Steve Kilgallon in a review of the film, Stuff website, October 2016

The final decision was arrived at after consideration of many factors, including the possibility of salvaging the ship — that is putting it back together again, to enable it to continue its interrupted Pacific peace voyage. But the warrior will not be returning to the Marshall Islands. The council decided that repairing the ship has just not been a practical option for Greenpeace. It is our intention that the Rainbow Warrior be sunk off the coast of New Zealand at a suitable location.

– News footage of Greenpeace NZ director Elaine Shaw announcing the fate of the Rainbow Warrior

So what does that make me: a war correspondent or a sports photographer?

– Fernando Pereira (Ande Cunningham) on his role as a photographer aboard the Rainbow Warrior

We have recovered a body from the vessel. We’ve also established that the hull plates were driven inwards, which would indicate the use of explosive devices attached to the outside of the ship. So, accordingly, we will be treating this as a murder.

– Detective Superintendent Allan Galbraith (Mark Mitchinson) at a press conference on the aftermath of the 1985 bombing

The van is a rental: Newman's. Right, so three tasks: find the van, find the couple who rented it, Alain and Sophie Turenge, so-called Swiss nationals . . . we've alerted all the Newman's branches, but if it is related to this bombing I doubt they'd be dumb enough to return it.

– Detective Harry Hilditch (Colin Moy) briefs his team, before a lucky break on the rental van used by French spies Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur

To suggest that we deserved it because we didn't appreciate the danger that the world may or may not have been in from the anti-nuclear stance is ridiculous. I think it reflects the thinking in the French secret service and at least some political masters that they could actually perpetrate a bombing in a friendly country.

– Ex Detective Superintendent Allan Galbraith, who led the investigation into the bombing, in The Sunday Star-Times, 9 July 2017

In no way was France involved. The French Government does not deal with its opponents in such ways.

– Official statement after the bombing, by the French Embassy

The people that killed your father went back to France and then got promoted, honoured by France. Now that offends my sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. And a lot of people blame me for that. I’ve got my own defence to that. I don’t, in that sense, blame myself at all, but it’s still a lurking sadness. I can’t dismiss it. I wish that it hadn’t happened that way.

– Former Prime Minister David Lange, talks to Fernando Pereira's daughter Marelle, in 1995 documentary Child of the Rainbow Warrior