The Day After v. Threads and When the Wind Blows

Started by Queequeg, November 18, 2012, 09:32:23 PM

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Josephus

Yeah, the charm of WTWB was the way the elderly couple kept reflecting on WW2 and The Blitz the whole time. "This will probably all blow over, duckie." As the movie went on, it got darker and darker.
Civis Romanus Sum<br /><br />"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world." Jack Layton 1950-2011

Strix

What was the BBC show about some Asians who mess up creating a germ than purposely spread it around the world so everyone is affected by it?

It used to come on randomly on the PBS station when I was a kid.
"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left." - Margaret Thatcher

Queequeg

Quote from: Syt on November 19, 2012, 09:41:05 AM
At the very least, When The Wind Blows is one of the most depressing animated movies I know, together with Grave Of The Fireflies (two children starve to death in WW2 Japan).
Yeah, that's what I would compare it to as well. 
Quote from: PDH on April 25, 2009, 05:58:55 PM
"Dysthymia?  Did they get some student from the University of Chicago with a hard-on for ancient Bactrian cities to name this?  I feel cheated."

derspiess

Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 19, 2012, 06:47:03 AM
It was either "a major television event" or "a very special episode of", and you liked it.

Yup.  And it dominated every conversation for a few weeks.  I remember I was in 5th grade when The Day After aired and our teacher was almost drawn to tears when she had one of those "special talks" with us about it.  Not that it was necessary-- we all got the point.  I told her my takeaway was that we really needed a strong missile defense system and I don't think she liked that too much.

Remember Special Bulletin?  That was the fake newscast that had domestic terrorists detonating a nuke in Charleston, SC of all places.  I was actually in South Carolina at my aunt & uncle's place when it aired and it freaked my mom & her dimwit sisters out even though they knew it was fake.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

mongers

Quote from: Strix on November 19, 2012, 11:41:47 AM
What was the BBC show about some Asians who mess up creating a germ than purposely spread it around the world so everyone is affected by it?

It used to come on randomly on the PBS station when I was a kid.

Survivors.  :bowler:
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

crazy canuck

Quote from: Queequeg on November 18, 2012, 09:32:23 PM
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?

You have to understand the context of the time.  People were terrified of nuclear war and nuclear weapons.  Experts were counting down the minutes to midnight when nuclear war would break out by accident.

CountDeMoney

Quote from: derspiess on November 19, 2012, 12:22:54 PM
Remember Special Bulletin?  That was the fake newscast that had domestic terrorists detonating a nuke in Charleston, SC of all places.  I was actually in South Carolina at my aunt & uncle's place when it aired and it freaked my mom & her dimwit sisters out even though they knew it was fake.

Oh, yeah man. Now that one scared the shit out of me.  That one because of the homemade terrorism angle, but Countdown to Looking Glass was even more frightening:  same motif--fake news--with the superpower showdown in the Persian Gulf after the Iranians closed the Straits of Hormuz.  In 1984, that shit was waaay too close to possibility.  With the reporter on the USS Nimitz steaming to the Gulf to reopen it, and the Soviets responding?  Yikes.

Those two films were a hell of a lot more effective--because they were a hell of a lot more plausible--than The Day After, which I thought was incredibly stupid.  So Kansas City gets melted, big deal.  The Chiefs have sucked since the 60s.

CountDeMoney

Quote from: crazy canuck on November 19, 2012, 01:58:32 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on November 18, 2012, 09:32:23 PM
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?

You have to understand the context of the time.  People were terrified of nuclear war and nuclear weapons.  Experts were counting down the minutes to midnight when nuclear war would break out by accident.

Yeah...the early 80s, particularly '81 through '84, were pretty scary as far as the Cold War went.  Between Reagan's hawkishness and the uncertainty about what the hell was going on in the Kremlin after Brezhnev's death--Andropov actually scared the piss out of Kremlinologists, and Chernyenko wasn't any easier to decipher--the early 80s were probably the scariest time over the concept of nuclear war since the early 60s.

Ed Anger

I liked the dayton daily news insert soon after the movie was shown which described, in loving detail what would happen when 2 400kt nukes would hit wright patt afb. Scary shit, but us sixth graders got a giggle when the dayton mayor's eyeballs melted.

I remember some of the teachers having a cow over us kids reading it, especially since WPAFB was right next to town. WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.
Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

Darth Wagtaros

PDH!

CountDeMoney

Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on November 19, 2012, 02:31:00 PM
By Dawn's Early Light was good.

My fave-rave WW3 flick.  I'd ride to the Apocalypse with Powers Boothe in a B-52 anytime.  STRAIGHT DOWN KARL MARX BOULEVARD  BYE BYE BABY BABUSHKAS

Ed Anger

Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

Syt

Personally, I was always partial to On the Beach (original).
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
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Ed Anger

Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

Jacob

Quote from: Syt on November 19, 2012, 09:41:05 AM
At the very least, When The Wind Blows is one of the most depressing animated movies I know, together with Grave Of The Fireflies (two children starve to death in WW2 Japan).

Yeah, Grave of the Fireflies is pretty depressing. I had no idea what it was about when I watched it, which made it worse.