The Day After v. Threads and When the Wind Blows

[Queequeg]

I wasn't alive to experience either before YouTube, but I'm kind of surprised by how much better the British 1984 series Threads and 86 series When the Wind Blows are than their American counterpart, The Day After.  Almost everything about "After" is cheese.  Threads has some very interest scenes of protest going into the conflict, and the neo-Medieval afterward is genuinely freighting.  When the Wind Blows is just about one of the saddest things I've ever seen-a wonderful look at a lower-middle class elderly British couple who don't really understand any of the realities of nuclear conflict. 

Was The Day After really as effective back in the day as I'd read it was?  Apparently Reagan was moved by it.  How about Threads and When the Wind Blows? 

[CountDeMoney]

Was The Day After really as effective back in the day as I'd read it was?  Apparently Reagan was moved by it.

Back in the day, before your fucked up no-attention-span generation arrived, television networks had this thing called "a major television event", and The Day After was one of them.  Hyped to the max.  When there were only three networks making them, people had no choice but to pay attention, and it was on a topical issue.

How about Threads and When the Wind Blows?

Never heard of them.

[Admiral Yi]

Dude, you've forgotten how to speak English. 

[CountDeMoney]

Genuinely freighting.

[Josephus]

I only watched When The Wind Blows because of the most excellent Roger Waters soundtrack.

[Queequeg]

Dude, you've forgotten how to speak English. 

iPad Posting.

[Razgovory]

Never heard of them.

Threads was about a hideous mutant who  is impregnated by her human boyfriend, and then is caught up in the events of a nuclear war.   It is interesting compared to the The Day after though.  The people in the post nuclear America look like they are better off then their grimy counterparts in Pre-nuclear Britain.

[mongers]

You don't want to watch threads along or if you're down, it's the singular most depressing piece of TV I've seen. 

At the time it had a big impact, I think the point was, the government propaganda about surviving a nuclear war was BS, once the Soviets nuked the Urban Corridor, that's 30-40 million of the UKs 55 million population gone straight away, the remainder have to scrap an existence/lingering death in a irradiated waste land.

[CountDeMoney]

Threads was about a hideous mutant who  is impregnated by her human boyfriend, and then is caught up in the events of a nuclear war.

A mutant knocked up by a human, and then there's a nuclear war?  Sounds pretty stupid.  Or are you just fucking it up?

[Queequeg]

She's heavily pregnant when the birds start flying, and her daughter is both totally uneducated and a bit touched. The mutant daughter gets raped, and gives birth to a stillborn that is even more mutated.

[Razgovory]

Threads was about a hideous mutant who  is impregnated by her human boyfriend, and then is caught up in the events of a nuclear war.

A mutant knocked up by a human, and then there's a nuclear war?  Sounds pretty stupid.  Or are you just fucking it up?

Well mutation would explain her appearance.  I can't remember if that picture is  suppose to before or after the nuclear attack.  The 1980's were rough on Britons.

[Queequeg]

That's pretty clearly just a normal British woman.

[Razgovory]

That's pretty clearly just a normal British woman.

I mean, I have low standards, but c'mon!

[Queequeg]

Never heard of them.

Threads was about a hideous mutant who  is impregnated by her human boyfriend, and then is caught up in the events of a nuclear war.   It is interesting compared to the The Day after though.  The people in the post nuclear America look like they are better off then their grimy counterparts in Pre-nuclear Britain.

Threads ends with a new dark ages. Kansas seems totally depopulated by the end of The Day After.

[Razgovory]

Kansas is depopulated now.  Besides at the end of the movie there are plenty of people alive. For instance, John Lithgow in Lawrence.  Part of the movie also takes place in Sedalia, Missouri.

You ever read "Warday"?  Same topic.