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Threads: The BBC drama which affected a generation of viewers

• andrewstuart 3y ago
  I was shown “The Day After” when I was 11. It destroyed my innocence. Every time a plane went over I was scared it was the Russian ICBMs coming to nuke us. What a fucked up thing to do to a child.
  • cgriswald 3y ago
    There’s an episode of some sci-fi anthology show[0] where this woman is struggling with the chaos in her life, loses it in a supermarket and starts yelling, “Shut up!” She quickly learns she can pause time by doing so and start it again by saying, “Start talking.” She used it in predictable ways. The episode ends with an impending nuclear attack and she screams, “Shut up!” at the news cast and the sirens and her crying family. The world stops, she steps outside, and looks up at an ICBM frozen above the city. I saw this when I was somewhere around the age of 10. I didn’t see The Day After or any of the real serious nuclear stuff. But there’s a piece of my mind that still exists in that episode of that show. Stuff hits you weird when you’re a kid in ways I don’t think most adults remember. And I only say weird because hard isn’t the right word and I don’t think how it hits is always predictable. [0]I thought it was the second version of The Twilight Zone which aired about the right time, but I can’t find such an episode.
    • jacquesm 3y ago
      This is the one you are thinking of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or1UX7z8YBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or1UX7z8YBM "A little peace and quiet", 1985.
      • cgriswald 3y ago
        Yes, that’s it. Thanks! Interesting how 40 years will scramble things around in memory.
        • jacquesm 3y ago
          You're welcome. I am a huge fan of the series and wished that there were more episodes, they are a fascinating glimpse of the past.
  • thinkingemote 3y ago
    Children today are apparently having nightmares about climate change, and depicting apocalypse scenarios when asked to visualise the future. Stories are given to children all the time and it effects them. I still remember nightmares about nuclear apocalypses. Threads contributed. Children today will remember the nightmares we give them today and then go on to give their own children new nightmares in responses to their parents emergency. Can it be ever moral? Is it only sometimes necessary? How can trauma be prevented? Can information be given effectively?
• shever73 3y ago
  I remember Threads clearly, that along with "When The Wind Blows" are etched into my memory. I grew up near Sheffield, and it all just seemed so real to me. It was incredibly harrowing to watch.
• WeylandYutani 3y ago
  In the 1950s the government tried to prepare the public for nuclear war. When the hydrogen bomb and ICBMs were invented they gave up on it.
  • techdragon 3y ago
    Some countries literally have no plans for warning the public. Like Australia… We have emergency warning systems that can do all the modern stuff like cell/tower area broadcast/push, websites, data feeds, and radio/tv station protocols for major enough events… which are all nationally coordinated, but actually activating them is delegated to state level control, so a national emergency is passed down to the state emergency management organisations… but while Australia would absolutely know we’ve got nukes incoming (5 Eyes intel, and our own massive over the horizon radar systems) and probably have some idea where they are headed… that’s a military matter with no publicly documented process. We have a publicly documented process to handle a biological incident (weapon or accident doesn’t change how you deal with this much once it’s happened) and we’ve got a publicly document procedure for re-entering space debris (which we’ve actually used recently due to some random spaceX debris in a farmer’s paddock) … But we have no plan for if we’re going to get nuked… which is only partly understandable. We’re not exactly spread out enough that a dedicated nuclear attack couldn’t exterminate >90% of the entire population of Australia. Depending on the missile and it’s MIRV/Decoy ratio and the yield of the weapons, you could probably get above 90% with 3 or 4 ICBMs. There’s no infrastructure for sheltering, and we’re completely unprepared for the aftermath, having a plan that details how fucked the survivors might be is … not something I think a lot of government ministers want to sign their names to… bad optics… However the counter argument is we’re a major US ally providing material support to US overseas military power projection by way of naval ports (which we just made more important as part of our sub deal making those ports more useful for US nuclear submarines) our significant regional radar coverage (JORN is quite the beast of a radar) and us hosting secure downlinks for the US orbital assets covering this hemisphere and us hosting a major communications facility which would likely play a role in ensuring the final communication of orders to submerged nuclear ballistic missile submarines in the event that a nuclear war actually happens. I find it hard to imagine Australia won’t have at least a couple of nukes headed out way somewhere early on the list of targets even if it’s not so much about Australia as it is about destroying and degrading the ability of the US armed forces to operate in the indo-pacific region. So on the one hand… probably going to happen in the event the shit hits the fan so hard nuclear war starts… on the other hand there’s not a lot we can do to prepare or defend right now against the sudden outbreak of nuclear war. So why worry anyone with detailed plans for horrific doom. Sure if tensions rise we might get some US missile defence systems that could help make it less doomsday, but that kind of military planning is probably a classified bullet point on some future planning list based on one or more of the treaties Australia has with America already. Oh and there’s the classic “On the Beach” if anyone is looking for more of this kind of horrible disaster scenario stuff.
• NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  This is the first thing I think about when I see any mention of that infernal social media app. And the only thing I remember about the film is the scene where a woman is looking on in horror, and there's a closeup of her urinating in her polyester trousers. In contrast, the big TV film in the States was The Day After. I believe that I was in sixth grade at the time, and I sincerely appreciated the efforts of our Catholic school administration and faculty to get in front of the messaging and buzz, and prepare us kids psychologically and spiritually for the experience.
  • OliveMate 3y ago
    >And the only thing I remember about the film is the scene where a woman is looking on in horror, and there's a closeup of her urinating in her polyester trousers. The entire film is harrowing, but that scene of the nuke hitting Sheffield has to be the most gut-wrenching thing I've watched in my life. But mentioning her in particular, if you need a quick laugh to jut your head out of the depressive slump this film puts you in, her iMDb page is an oddly funny read - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1856457/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1856457/
  • becurious 3y ago
    I think the woman urinating (she was on The Moor I think) was when RAF Finningley was nuked first, but I don’t remember for sure. It is one of the abiding memories from it. I was only about nine when it was shown and only got to watch half of it. It was so bleak, and worse for living in Sheffield. I watched it all about ten years ago and it is still absolutely horrifying.
    • jacquesm 3y ago
      For a kid of nine that is a traumatizing movie. For many adults it is.
• richliss 3y ago
  I was shown this at school aged 9 in 1984. I remembered it being grim. I decided to rewatch it last year and it's the bleakest thing I've ever seen in my entire life (and I've seen Salo) and in no way suitable to be shown to nine year olds. It gradually increases the bleakness to be so bleak that by the end of it your first thought is "If there's a nuclear strike I'm standing up somewhere high to be vaporised" as the alternative that's suggested in Threads is a living hell. What I also realised is that just how many of my teachers must have been members of CND and activist teachers who were wanting to scare us into becoming like them.
  • Affric 3y ago
    I think you need to revisit the period more fully before judging your teachers quite so harshly. There was a massive campaign to terrify the public by the UK government be it in relation to Protect and Survive or the IRA.
    • arethuza 3y ago
      I don't think the UK government has ever wanted to terrify the population about the real effects of a nuclear war - quite the opposite. Protect and Survive was supposed to be a practical guide - the fact that it was actually quite terrifying was unintended.
      • darrenf 3y ago
        AIUI the Protect and Survive films were only ever meant to be broadcast if a nuclear attack was imminent. They were classified but leaked to the BBC. It's not like anyone was showing them alongside the Green Cross Code man, "old fridges can kill", or Charly telling you to keep away from strangers and chip pan fires (separately...). (I'm reasonably sure the pamphlet didn't get published for the general public either, but again its existence was reported by the media) EDITED TO ADD: aha, Wikipedia says that the pamphlet did get published, basically because of the reportage generating so much public interest.
        • 3y ago
• TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Easily one of the best dramatised documentaries ever made.
  • msla 3y ago
    Why is this racist troll still here?
• arethuza 3y ago
  What is remarkable about Threads is that the attack on the UK is actually fairly optimistic - a real attack could have been a lot worse.
  • mynameishere 3y ago
    This was a common take, and is the opposite one intended. Both "Threads" and "The Day After" had this problem. A contemporary take: https://lifeinhellarchives.tumblr.com/image/176779648696 https://lifeinhellarchives.tumblr.com/image/176779648696 You see? The "Adult Version" is that after a nuclear war everybody dies. But in fact, that had been the received wisdom for many years. These 1980s movies were actually trying to impress upon people that after such a war, there would be survivors who would keeping suffering for a long time. "Threads" however annoyed me in that everyone seem to regress to a pre-civilization mental state, even losing their grammar. In reality, much of the world (including most of the southern hemisphere) would be untouched and would be sufficient to get the supply chains sort-of working again (at least in a few decades).
    • pavlov 3y ago
      What would be the incentive for people in the southern hemisphere to help nuclear wasteland Europe to get back on its feet?
      • jacquesm 3y ago
        That they might have family there / to be able to accommodate any refugees.
      • prox 3y ago
        Basic humanity and humanitarian help.
      • mynameishere 3y ago
        Zero. In the first few years, they would likely trade grain and oil for hard money (gold, silver). Once that played out, much of the effected world would likely have economies similar to the late 19th century--materials extraction, textiles, agriculture. The result would be a generation or two of poverty, but not a total collapse. Also, the "nuclear wasteland" business is pure sci fi.
• throwaway4good 3y ago
  I remember seeing "when the wind blows" (UK cartoon about an old couple slowly dying from radiation sickness after a nuclear war) when I was kid and that really scared me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(1986_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(1986_film... I only saw Threads much later - I probably should be thankful for not seeing that as a kid.
  • badcppdev 3y ago
    I read the graphic novel version of "When the Wind Blows" as a child about 40 years ago. I don't remember being scared but to this day I still think about how I would improvise a fall-out proof shelter in my own house.
    • dylan604 3y ago
      are you going to live in that shelter for the rest of your life? lots of people tend to think of these shelters as a temporary space during the explosions, sort of like a tornado shelter. you seek shelter, and then come back out after the event has passed. only, that fallout isn't going any where any time soon. maybe it'll wash away after a couple of rain storms, but it's also going to soak into the ground. so, that shelter better be prepped for a really long stay.
      • jdietrich 3y ago
        >that fallout isn't going any where any time soon. It becomes exponentially less radioactive due to decay. The long-lived isotopes that persist might eventually give you cancer or cataracts, but the short-lived isotopes present in the immediate aftermath of a blast will kill you. The dose makes the poison and fallout shelters vastly reduce the absorbed dose of radioactivity.
• jhbadger 3y ago
  Speaking of 1980s nuclear war movies, I'd recommend the US movie Testament. (1983) Everyone who was around remembers the grand spectacle that was The Day After (depicting the aftermath of a nuclear attack on a city), but Testament was, like Threads, a small scale story about a family. The movie is set in a small town too far away from cities to actually be damaged in the initial attack, but as the weeks go on the town begins to run out of supplies (because there is no longer a supply chain), and fallout begins to arrive in the rain, leading to radiation poisoning.
  • denton-scratch 3y ago
    There was a mini-series called Jericho, which was about a coup in the USA. It began with a series of nuclear attacks on cities, and portrayed the resulting descent into inter-communal violence, gangsterism, shortages and hardship. It wasn't anything like as scouring as Threads was. If anything it was more like a soap; they made rather light of nuclear winter and fallout. I liked it, except the weak ending of the truncated second series.
    • jhbadger 3y ago
      Yes, Testament had a similar setting to Jericho but it was a lot grimmer, implying that at best the folks in the small towns would only live a few weeks/months longer than the people killed in the cities.
      • cgriswald 3y ago
        It amazes me the sheer quantity and variety of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic film and other material. Jericho is generously a prime time drama with a backdrop of nuclear attack. There’s a sort of seriousness/grimness continuum from Threads and other films on one end to the cartoonish Sam Hell Comes to Frog Town on the other end.
    • jacquesm 3y ago
      Also: "One second after". I've read a book about that same theme that was mostly written online as some kind of collaborative effort if memory serves. Edit: found it: https://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/LightsOut-Current.pdf https://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/LightsOut-Current.pdf
• Obscure 3y ago
  If anyone would like to make up their own minds about this, it's available on archive.org. I still remember watching it first time round and it was definitely a formative experience for me. I had no idea it was being shown to kids - it was broadcast after the 9pm watershed (when the little dears should have been in bed). https://archive.org/details/threads_202007 https://archive.org/details/threads_202007
  • calsy 3y ago
    They made us watch 'The Day After' in high school. There is value in imprinting on kids the true horror and the ever present threat nuclear weapons pose. It's not a fantasy, it is real and it is the world they will inherit. It only has to happen once, there are no second chances if we get it wrong.
    • throwanem 3y ago
      I was raised the same way, and the drawback is that anything nuclear gets tarred with the same brush. We're paying for that in carbon now, as will our grandchildren's grandchildren.
      • naasking 3y ago
        The recent anti-nuclear sentiment was driven more by ecoactivism, not fear of weapons. Germany is a good example of this.
      • mrguyorama 3y ago
        Our current carbon situation has nothing to do with the public's opinion of things, and everything to do with our elected representatives representing monied interests over our own. We understood the dangers scientifically decades ago, and even without that threat, the oil crises should have made clear how important it was to not rely on a desert shipping us black liquid. But we didn't do anything, because that would have hurt the profits of extremely wealthy companies. Remember, oil companies have been colluding and doing anti-social things for personal gain since at least the 1870s, and they had strong tendrils in government basically ever since. Their breakup was an aberration in american policy, and just like Ma Bell decades later, allowing basically free reign to just buy each other up and re-coallesce into another behemoth means trust busting doesn't fix anything, and in fact just gives a business sector the ability to restructure their businesses in a more profitable and extractive way.
• OliveMate 3y ago
  I heard about this constantly growing up, and it was only until I was 17 that I decided to look it up online thinking 'oh it's only a film i'm proper hard me' – and it pretty much ruined me. It's harrowing, to say the least. On top of showing what would happen, the exploration of life after a widespread nuclear conflict is just as bad, and it's not just the immediate aftermath that's touched upon. The film ends with a timeskip over a decade later, with the populace reduced to pre-industrial life struggling to survive as they farm off the irradiated land, and those who've grown up in that world speak a very damaged version of English (as if it was hard for everyone to understand Yorkshire accents in the first place!). There's attempts to keep people educated from what they can remember and scavenge, but it doesn't hold a candle to what was once. It's a very mortifying film that hits you hard, and even skimming over bits of it as I type this, the shot of the mushroom cloud behind Sheffield city centre has made my gut sink – and this is from someone who was born after the Cold War, God knows how distressing it was for those who watched it during the height of it.
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    > God knows how distressing it was for those who watched it during the height of it. For many weeks after I would look up at every plane passing over to see if it was dropping something.
    • BoxOfRain 3y ago
      I happened to see one of the brightest shooting stars of my life shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year and it was headed towards the nearest city. I'd be lying if there was a big part of me that thought 'I really hope I don't see a flash in a few seconds'.
      • jacquesm 3y ago
        I still catch myself looking up at planes a good 4 decades later so I'm totally sympathetic to that. All of this is terribly fragile and single individuals of questionable mental capacity having this much power is the sort of risk that humanity should have never taken.
• jacquesm 3y ago
  And later generations as well. It's a movie that you probably shouldn't watch unless you are very sure that you are properly equipped to deal with it, and even then you should prepare to be overwhelmed.
• RivieraKid 3y ago
  I watched it with the expectation that it was shocking, but it was mostly what I expected, didn't really affect me. It was filmed in a way that made it feel like a fever dream, but the actual content wasn't too bad. I felt much worse after Requiem for a Dream and immediately regretted watching it. But I was younger at that time.
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    Interesting. You're probably the exception there.
  • calsy 3y ago
    So the depiction of the ever present threat of nuclear war and the aftermath is not scary and rather predictable? A fever dream of 'good content'. Watching the collapse of civilisation is nothing compared to Jared Leto.
  • doctor_eval 3y ago
    OMG I watched Requiem, and then Dancer in the Dark - and didn’t go back to the movies for 6 months! Since then I basically nope out of anything more stressful than Amélie.
    • cbm-vic-20 3y ago
      Dancer in the Dark. Man, that movie was relentless and brutal.
  • datpiff 3y ago
    > It was filmed in a way that made it feel like a fever dream, I'm curious if you are from the US? It's filmed as if it was a UK TV soap opera, which to people in the UK would definitely not feel like a fever dream.
    • RivieraKid 3y ago
      I'm from Prague.
• Garvi 3y ago
  This movie and "Grave of the fireflies" are the two movies which shook me the most emotionally. Masterpieces in their own right. Both put the horrors of war into proper perspective. Interesting how as a teenager I would spend hours playing Mortal Combat, ripping peoples spines out, or Carmageddon and splattering peoples intestines all over the windshield. None of this prepared me for these two movies. I guess even at a younger age we're just good at separating fact from fiction.
  • ancientworldnow 3y ago
    I would recommend Come and See to complete the trilogy of the devastation of war.
    • mellosouls 3y ago
      An extraordinary film that I recently found and watched on YouTube after years of being aware of it and its nightmarish reputation, and not looking too hard to find it in case I had no excuse not to watch it.
    • euroderf 3y ago
      Seconded. No glamorization in that one.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • Cthulhu_ 3y ago
    Yeah but at the same time, PTSD from for example Mortal Kombat or Carmageddon can develop later in life / over a long period in time. One example, there's a pretty harrowing scene in Shaun of the Dead where one of the characters gets disemboweled. We have a 15 year old that watched that at a much younger age, didn't hit him, but when he saw it again it affected him a lot more. I think being able to correlate and understand what's happening is a big factor in how things affect you. Films like Grave of the Fireflies apparently (I haven't watched it) hit much harder if you have kids for example.
• jefc1111 3y ago
  For anyone interested in this subject / genre I recommend "The War Game" by Peter Watkins [1] Also by Peter Watkins, "The Journey" (aka "Resan") [2]. Quite long, that one. Threads is one of relatively few films I have ever been inclined to re-watch. In fact, I watched it soon after the first covid lockdown started, followed by bingeing on "I Shouldn't be Alive". Quite curious about the psychology behind those viewing choices!! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game [2] http://pwatkins.mnsi.net/journey.htm http://pwatkins.mnsi.net/journey.htm (NOTE: not SSL!) [3[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Shouldn%27t_Be_Alive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Shouldn%27t_Be_Alive
• optimalsolver 3y ago
  Anyone from UK/NZ/Oz remember the late 90s teen drama The Tribe?
  • samwillis 3y ago
    Yes! I remember thinking the first series was better than later ones.
  • AntoniusBlock 3y ago
    Power and Chaos! Yeah, I remember watching The Tribe every Saturday morning. Turns out loads of people here in the UK watched it as kids too but they don't remember the name, so you have to say "it's the show where all the adults died and kids run around a city with their faces painted trying to avoid a villain called Zoot and his gang whose motto is Power and Chaos" which usually works.
• jemmyw 3y ago
  It was posted on hn just a couple of months ago. I watched it then on YouTube. It was pretty harrowing, to a person who grew up in the UK it felt very easily real and not dramatised.
• digitalsin 3y ago
  I happened to watch this recently one night when I couldn't sleep; I figured it was just some old 70s low budget movie that'd put me to sleep. Holy hell, this turned out to be one of the scariest movies I have ever watched in my life, and I don't scare easily from movies. Needless to say I don't recommend watching as a sleep aid. Or maybe for any aid. Ever.
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    Well, at least after that you knew why you couldn't sleep... probably the worst movie you could have picked.
  • idomdavis 3y ago
    There are, in my opinion, two types of people. Those who have never seen Threads, and those who have seen Threads at least one time too many. You probably should have stayed in the former category :)
• rwmj 3y ago
  Similarly: If the bomb drops (1980) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=milbW4RDIco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=milbW4RDIco (with Jeremy Paxman!)
• RobotToaster 3y ago
  I thought it was just a documentary about Sheffield (fnord)
• apeescape 3y ago
  I found the original Fallout games 15 years ago or so, and got interested in post-apocalyptic worlds and wanted to watch a movie about one. Threads was the first movie I saw, and after watching it I didn't want to watch another one.
• Tommstein 3y ago
  I watched Threads five or so years ago, but it was meh, maybe it hit harder if you watched it decades ago. This, on the other hand . . . gave me pause, as a grownass man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cAZZR_Jki0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cAZZR_Jki0
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    Yes, that was pretty heavy as well. And it is much more likely now than when it was first distributed. What they really got right there is the degree of uncertainty that accompanies almost every statement. You never really know what is going on other than that things are escalating, quickly. And that leaves you wondering all the time what the real situation is, and then the next update makes you realize it was worse. This feeling never really leaves you.
    • Tommstein 3y ago
      Kinda like 9/11, when no one fully knew what the hell was going on in real time other than it was very, very bad, except substitute the less than a handful of planes being hijacked with civilization-ending nukes flying all over the place.
    • jemmyw 3y ago
      It actually seems less likely now. Russia didn't have the military strength to invade the other European countries but we didn't know until they bashed themselves against Ukraine. Back when the current war started analysts seemed to be predicting it would be over in days or weeks. The nuclear side is still scary but the idea that Russia would even try to engage NATO forces and then have a showdown seems ludicrous.
      • jacquesm 3y ago
        That actually increases the chances of nuclear war.
• alexander-wilms 3y ago
  [dead]
• DoItToMe81 3y ago
  Threads is the grimiest, most horrific movie I've seen. I did not think a movie could affect me in such a way until I saw it.
• neilwilson 3y ago
  There’s some doubt which Thatcher government initiative this programme was in support of: “protect and survive” or “long term economic plan for the North of England” Either way it certainly hastened the move to plastic milk cartons.
• dmix 3y ago
  People love using any opportunity to bring up this movie on the internet
• dotsam 3y ago
  Threads is one of the most memorable things I have watched. It is incredibly dark and unremittingly bleak. Books that informed my understanding of nuclear war and that I recommend are: Hiroshima by John Hersey, Command and Control by Eric Schlosser, The Doomsday Machine by (recently deceased) Daniel Ellsberg.
• phtrivier 3y ago
  Ironicaly, it's easier to picture the world ending, than to picture someone pitching the concept of a realistic "end of the world from the laymen perspective" movie. That being said, I think climate activists need to have their "The Day After" moment, but the problem is that they have to distort science just enough to have a movie where they show _westerners_ taking the blunt of the damage. Don't get me wrong, adaptating the first chapter of "The Ministry for the Future" would make for an harrowing look, too (*) - but watching 20 million people from India die in heat bulb, is, sadly, simply never going to have the same impact as seeing the house next door explode. (Also, for those who've read the book: I want to watch the Davos scene on a big screen.)
  • mellosouls 3y ago
    That being said, I think climate activists need to have their "The Day After" moment Mentioned in other comments The Road is a possible contemporary parallel, but the time has probably past for experiences as communally shared as watching Threads due to the very fragmented media landscape, especially compared to the very limited UK TV choice of the 80s.
    • phtrivier 3y ago
      I've only seen the movie, but If I remember correctly, the Road never really explains the catastrophe, nor does it link it to climate change, does it ? Also, a cataclysm that kills bugs but spares Charlize Theron ? Come ooooon..
  • adrianN 3y ago
    „Westerners“ will either be killing a lot of people or be inundated by refugees.
    • jacquesm 3y ago
      They will try to go into island mode. This is effectively already happening. Not that it will make one bit of a difference but they will definitely try.
• Roark66 3y ago
  Sorry, I haven't watched the film, but it's interesting to see how much of an impact it had on people in the uk. Looking at it from a geopolitical point of view at the time USSR was (economically) at the brink. They were failing in Afghanistan _hard_. Countries like Poland were harder and harder to control. The only option for USSR to survive was to convince the West they _will_ nuke everyone if they go down. In this context I'm very interested if we ever find out exact circumstances that led to the decision to air this film at 9.30pm on Sunday and not in a late night slot mid-week it would seem more appropriate for. Also, how did the BBC choose to make this particular production etc. Call me paranoid, but I don't think it's a far off stretch of imagination to assume it didn't "happen by itself". I wonder, had a majority of Americans watch films like that before they voted Ronald Regan in for a second term, would they vote for him?
  • ta1243 3y ago
    > had a majority of Americans watch films like that before they voted Ronald Regan in for a second term, would they vote for him? Well they watched "The Day After", 39 million households, during his first term. One of the people watching was an ex-actor who said it was "very effective and left me greatly depressed", who then used his position as commander in chief of the US armed forces to make the Joint Chiefs of Staff watch it, and then that president turned around and managed to get the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty agreed. One wonders what would have happened had Walter Mondale won in 1984. Would he have been as affected as Reagan? Would he have managed to persuade a traditionally hawkish conservative chiefs of staff? Would he have been able to persuade the Russian leadership?
• ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  Huh, just a week ago, I was searching the seas for a copy of Q.E.D. A Guide to Armageddon which was Mick Jackson's earlier directorial attempt to capture the sheer insanity and horror of nuclear war. It seems to me that modern television is very watered down compared to what was shown in the 1970s/80s. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085630/?ref_=nm_flmg_eps_tt_2 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085630/?ref_=nm_flmg_eps_tt_2 Edit: After some random clicking around on IMDB, I've just found out that Mick Jackson also directed the amazing Connections series (starring James Burke).
  • petepete 3y ago
    Connections, what a phenomenal series. Here's a 1 minute clip that is spectacular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WoDQBhJCVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WoDQBhJCVQ
    • ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
      That's an audacious bit of TV. Watching it now, it seems as though James Burke slowed down his delivery to match the timing - I bet he must have practised it a lot beforehand. My favourite aspect to the Connections series is the dry wit of James Burke. We could do with a modern version, but I'd be afraid that it would be dumbed down too much. Maybe get Hannah Fry to present it.
      • timthorn 3y ago
        Richard Hammond presented Engineering Connections recently. Not quite James Burke but I'll take what I can get.
        • ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
          I only know his work on Top Gear which was mostly amusing. I'll give Engineering Connections a watch.
    • shmeeed 3y ago
      I love Connections! Still I sometimes wonder if this particular shot isn't hyped a bit too much, with people actually wondering in the comments whether it's fake... why should it be? It's a fairly trivial feat for any good presenter (and of course Burke was very good) to get the timing of a single sentence right; /that's part of their job/. He does one or two practice runs and then knows the duration. In the event, the countdown was public, so he got the GO at T-15, stepped into the frame and delivered the line. Don't get me wrong, the effect /is/ spectacular, but in practice, it wouldn't have been too difficult to pull it off with a bit of preparation. Still I bet the production crew had a round of applause when they had the take. Of course they got only one chance for this particular shot, so I imagine they had filmed it at least once before just in case, and would then just have cut to the take-off. Wouldn't have been "The Greatest Shot in TV", but still good enough.
• TheCleric 3y ago
  Another fantastic book in this genre is "Alas, Babylon" by Pat Frank.
• ETH_start 3y ago
  I saw the first 40 minutes, which shows the lead up to the nuclear exchange, and the moments during and immediately after the nuclear detonations. It was devastating to watch, and to know the death and misery depicted is exactly what would be suffered if major geopolitical disputes escalate.
  • FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    Don't worry. As someone else posted about humans and their ability to survive. > "A species with human-level technology could survive even the Chicxulub asteroid that killed off non-avian dinosaurs, given the huge population and vast range that industrial civilization enables that species to attain, as well as the diverse array of energy sources, and robust habitats that become accessible to such a species."
• xamuel 3y ago
  Part of the subtle brilliance of Threads is how it deliberately withholds information from you. You do NOT learn the fate of many of the characters. Including---spoiler alert---the character you initially THINK is the main protagonist, until halfway through the film when he disappears with never another trace. You do NOT learn the fate of the rest of the world besides the UK. All of this is brilliant because the characters themselves would also never learn those things.
• spacemadness 3y ago
  This is the first thing I thought of when Meta released Threads. I winced when hearing the name. This film is burned into my memory after renting it from a cult video shop way back in the day.
• iamflimflam1 3y ago
  I still remember watching this - absolutely harrowing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(1986_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(1986_film...
• JSavageOne 3y ago
  What a terribly written article. Wasted so much time reading this trying to get to the point but the author just rambles on about how traumatic it was without explaining how specifically. You'd think the author was trying to fill up sone word quota, just get to the damn point.
• dekhn 3y ago
  What's interesting is that Threads and Day After had such impact (I saw The Day After as an 80s kid) but the things that affect me more are: forest fires hundreds of miles away, global epidemics, and water security. How banal.
• bluepod4 3y ago
  I usually see “Threads” (1984) paired with “When the Wind Blows” (1986), which is a British animated film with similar themes. It’s really good if people are looking for something to watch. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(1986_film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(1986_fi...
  • bb123 3y ago
    We were shown When the Wind Blows at school when I was about 13 and it absolutely traumatised me. To this day just thinking about it makes my stomach drop and I still occasionally daydream about how I'd create a makeshift fallout shelter in my childhood home.
• jcrawfordor 3y ago
  Threads is a great movie in many ways. One of them is its accurate, well-researched depiction of the state of nuclear war planning in the UK at the time. The Sheffield city emergency operations center is depicted much as they were in most UK cities, with some discussion of the more protected Regional Seat of Government. There is a quite accurate depiction of the HANDEL telephone early warning network, and the greasepen board which would be used to enter detonation reports reported from UKWMO. It seems primitive from the modern perspective, and it is, but the design of some of these systems was cutting edge within the cost constraints of the time---HANDEL, for example, using the distribution network of leased lines that had been established to distribute the "speaking clock" audio to telephone exchanges. The hierarchical reporting systems designed for nuclear attacks, with information moving up a hierarchy and reports moving back down, were originally developed (principally in the UK) for air defense but advanced significantly during the Cold War and created the basic architecture for many of the first networked computer systems, which were essentially automation of the established systems. The aftermath depicted in the film is largely drawn from (and accurate to) reports prepared by both UK and US civil defense organizations, but tends to take the more pessimistic route---not at all an unreasonable choice, as these agencies had a tendency to be rather rosy in their forward-looking work. This seems to have been more a political attitude than a result of the actual analysis of the time, as reports alluded to the worst outcomes being likely and some programs were secretly initiated under the assumption that survival of population centers was infeasible (e.g. the famously secretive US mass relocation program). But planners also felt that, from a practical perspective, it was important for the public to be optimistic. "Expect the best, prepare for the worst" is a positive take on the era, although for political reasons the "expect" often got a lot more resources than the "prepare."
• _aaed 3y ago
  > it managed to horrify people at a time when nuclear war seemed a very real possibility. The Doomsday Clock [1] has literally never been closer to midnight. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock
  • blamazon 3y ago
    For the curious, here is the most recent press release by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists explaining in detail why they have set the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds from midnight: https://thebulletin.org/2023/01/press-release-doomsday-clock-set-at-90-seconds-to-midnight/ https://thebulletin.org/2023/01/press-release-doomsday-clock...
    • ta1243 3y ago
      I don't get the 90 seconds, 5 minutes, etc time. The furthest it went was "17 minutes to midnight" in 1991. What state would the world need to be in to get to "1 hour to midnight"? During the Cuban Missile Crisis it was set at 7 minutes to midnight. What happened in 2007 and the last 16 years to make the world closer to doom than it was during those 13 days? It's such a meaningless scale I've never paid attention.
      • blamazon 3y ago
        I mean, it's condensing the unknowable event horizon of entire world of geopolitics into one number, so some loss of nuance is to be expected. It's a narrative device, not a scientific instrument. Re:1991, the fact that nuclear weapons were safely handled during dissolution of the Soviet Union was a huge deal. To get more than 7 minutes of benefit though, those weapons would have to have gone away rather than just be relabeled as Russian. The current state of Ukraine is proof of why it was correct to view this event as cold comfort - simply buying time. 7 minutes worth. In 2007 climate change was added as a factor to the clock's position. At that time North Korea was actively testing nuclear missiles and Iran's program was gearing up. Between then and now, nothing substantial has been done on climate change, and nothing substantial has been done to stop North Korea or Iran's nuclear ambitions. The US and Russia have stepped away from open skies treaty and others. Many other geopolitical issues have boiled over. It's subjective of course but IMO to be an hour from doomsday - we'd need to reverse (not just stop) human accelerated climate change, have much more aggressive nuclear treaties, no large violent geopolitical conflicts, no pending Taiwan invasion, etc. Even Star Trek's future society is an hour from doomsday, or there'd be nothing for the TV shows. To read into the justifications for why the clock has been where it is, the Wikipedia article is quite detailed (particularly the 'timeline' section) and has citations to the Bulletin's various communications on the topic, which are nothing if not verbose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock
• steve76 3y ago
  [dead]
• bradgessler 3y ago
  Nuclear weapons are humanities biggest extensional threat, moreso than climate change, but it rarely seems to be discussed in public forums. Films like Threads and Day After Tomorrow should be a requirement in civics classes for states that possess nuclear weapons. I’m not sure what case can be made for mutually assured destruction bringing peace to the world. Is it causal to how there are relatively fewer people who die in wars during our modern times? Is it correlated with the global improvement in standard or living? or is it merely a statistical blip that will be “evened out” when a nuclear war takes place? I do think it’s a pipe dream to eliminate nukes; however I do wish there was some way to increase the amount of time required between intending to use them and actually using them. The 1979 incident at NORAD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls#9_November_1979 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls#9_...) is a great example of why the latency shouldn’t be minutes between intent and implementation. Increasing this latency to days, then weeks, in a verifiable manner could give time for cooler heads to prevail. The depressing thing is that so long as these weapons exist, it’s not a matter of “if” they will be used, it’s a matter or “when”.
  • naasking 3y ago
    > Nuclear weapons are humanities biggest extensional threat I'm not sure about that. A biolab takes only a few tens of thousands of dollars to setup to start dangerous experiments.
    • bradgessler 3y ago
      Global destruction latency of a malicious biolab isn't measured in minutes.
      • naasking 3y ago
        A quick end is arguably better than a protracted and painful end while vomitting blood.
• kragen 3y ago
  i watched it once highly recommended i will never watch it again as obscure pointed out, it's on the archive, while that still exists: https://archive.org/details/threads_202007 https://archive.org/details/threads_202007 maybe watch it at a time when you have good emotional support and time to recover for a few days afterwards? today there are bigger threats but the risk of a second nuclear war hasn't gone away yet
• zh3 3y ago
  Back then, there was all sorts of ideas and drills in the event of a nuclear war. There was "Protect and Survive" [0] from the UK Government and plenty of parodies along the lines of "In the event of nuclear war, take cover under the nearest table, cover your head with your hands and kiss your ass goodbye". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_and_Survive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_and_Survive
• Blackstrat 3y ago
  I remember Threads when it came out. I thought it made The Day After look like a cartoon. Far more dark, IMO.
• sircastor 3y ago
  I know this is a bit adjacent, but I always come across this sort of movie when I encounter another small genre of films, which is the documentary-style sci-fi. Following in the vein of Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds’ “News report” these are sci-fi presented as non-fiction. The one I witnessed in real-time was Without Warning but have since discovered Alternative 3 and Special Bulletin It’s a fascinating genre as television used to be much more trusted, like radio before it, and the internet has I think gone through the same transformation. And it’s fascinating that each of these productions thought “No way people will think it’s real…” Anyway, kind of fun to watch (kind of) [0] Without Warning https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6J4pfT2qLb4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6J4pfT2qLb4 [1] Alternative 3 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7YHrCAQ1Dlg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7YHrCAQ1Dlg [2] Special Bulletin https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cDZQsVNZ3SE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cDZQsVNZ3SE
• jtode 3y ago
  If disturbingly realistic nuclear war movies are your jam, check out an older UK production from the 50s called The War Game. Threads actually lifts a number of images from it and it was equally terrifying in its time. The same director did another interesting one called Culloden, in which a 60s BBC documentary crew visits the historic battle as it happens. Hybrid fiction/history experiment.
• firecall 3y ago
  This has been discussed before on HN! Many of us have PTSD from this movie and the Cold War! I watched it aged 12 with my cousins whilst staying at a relatives house. The adults were out. X-Gen 80s kids have legitimately recognised PTSD from the Cold War. The fear pressed into us by the media was horrific. It was everywhere. Discussion of the horrors of nuclear war were unavoidable and terrifying. Impossible for children’s brains to understand. Every time I heard a jet go overhead I thought it was a nuclear bomb.
• pauljurczak 3y ago
  I should be a required viewing for all enthusiasts of escalation of conflict with Russia. When the shit hits a proverbial fan, it will be too late to start thinking...
  • _kbh_ 3y ago
    > I should be a required viewing for all enthusiasts of escalation of conflict with Russia Yes because Russia would rather end the world and itself then lose, that's a position the people all the way up the command chain to launch the nukes will totally have too.
    • pauljurczak 3y ago
      Not sure if your post is sarcastic, but: 1. Russia is highly unlikely to lose. 2. Ukraine was planning and implementing escalatory moves to keep the West engaged. 3. The end of the world is not in strategic plans of either side, but it may happen as a sequence of tit-for-tat moves with a little help of an accident or two.
      • _kbh_ 3y ago
        > 1. Russia is highly unlikely to lose. It doesn't look like they are going to occupy all of Ukraine any time soon, which we know was their primary goal based on the accidentally posted victory article on TAS. > 2. Ukraine was planning and implementing escalatory moves to keep the West engaged. Theres literally no proof of this, but even if there was, id ask what escalatory measures exist when you're in a state of total war, having an existential risk to the literal existence of your state?. > 3. The end of the world is not in strategic plans of either side, but it may happen as a sequence of tit-for-tat moves with a little help of an accident or two. The end of the world also requires every single person who is actively involved in launching nukes to actually do it. Would you press that button knowing you'd kill everyone you know and end life as you know it?.
        • vladich 3y ago
          1. They likely won't occupy all of Ukraine, but I doubt it was their initial goal. They may still occupy all of the eastern part. In any case, it's pretty unlikely they will just pack and go home. 3. Not every person, there is some redundancy in the chain exactly to make sure it will work even in case of a few people who wouldn't press the button.
• sporkland 3y ago
  Reading "Children of the Dust" in Jr. High School haunts me to this day.