the movie "Threads"

phrenzy

phrenzy

as long as all they ask me about is the air war...
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I was watching a generally cheesy movie with my girlfriend called "how I live now" earlier today. It's a love story set in modern Britain following a nuclear attack. I noticed someone involved in the production must be a bit of a nuclear film buff, with some allusions to some famous tropes including a rather clever scene stolen straight from the "these are the stakes" Johnson election campaign ad. Not a terrible film but not a great one either. There's a little blatant rip off of "red dawn" and it's Australian cousin "tomorrow when the war began" as well.

Anyhow it got me to thinking about the nuclear themed film that stayed with the most (through a couple sleepless nights, frankly), Threads, also set in a post nuclear Britain.
As passionate as I am about studying the amazing pinnicles of human technological endeavour that make up the world's strategic nuclear forces, I only have to think about Threads to sober me up a little and remember they aren't there to impress or interest me, they serve a much more terrifying purpose.

Anyhow, I was wondering if anyone else had seen it and what they thought of the movie? For those that havnt seem it, it makes "the day after" look like Mary Poppins.

It's available on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/5AUYCnzmDJY
 
It's a great film, but so grim that you should watch it with a friend. The narrator's cool delivery makes it all the more discomfiting.

There's a great British documentary (and it's a straight documentary, not a docudrama like "Threads"), made at about the same time, from QED. The title is "Nuclear War - A Guide to Armageddon," and it discusses the hypothetical effects of a one-megaton nuclear weapon over London. If you haven't seen it, hunt it down. It's just as matter-of-fact, but filled with demonstrations of just what the effects of a blast would be.
 
Much like, 'The War Game' Another UK offering.
 
I hadn't seen either of those, thanks!

The guide to Armageddon is particularly scary when you realise it referenced a 1mt blast and the ss-18 was designed with either an 18 or 25mt warhead...overkill much?
 
I saw it back in the 80's, and it left me really scared.
I agree that in comparison "The day after" looked alike "Lampoon's Vacation".


It was terrific also because the later part, projected into the future, demostrated how poor (even linguistically) would be the humanity after a nuclear exchange...
 
That was something that I think is missing from most films of that genre. I don't think people quite understand how hyper specialisation has changed the economy and how desperately reliant we are in a global logistics chain that would grind to a swift haltI the event if war.

I asked a question about it on quora and someone said their 4th form class was made to watch it, isn't that like 15 year Olds? That seems a little cruel. Maybe if you didn't know how plausible it was it wouldn't be so traumatizing.
 
"Threads" is one of most realistic approach to Nuclear holocaust

here is the another, "The War Game" also show the futility of civil defense during Nuclear War...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrGg8PfkbZw
 
Whenever "Threads" appears as a topic, most folks trot out "The Day After" (a truly lousy film) to compare it with. Unknown to many, there was another, much-superior (to "The Day After"), American movie called "Testament", which was released in 1983. Starring Jane Alexander and set in a San Francisco suburb, it follows the travails of a suburban California community of the times trying to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the US. Though San Francisco is apparently destroyed (they see the flash), and most of the country has gone radio silent, there is no bomb damage to the town. However, radioactive fallout and it's effects soon arrive and intensify, sickening and then killing at first the town's children and then others. The resulting slow deterioration and collapse of order is a horrifying depiction of ordinary folks trying to deal with, and ultimately surrendering to, the aftermath of an overwhelming catastrophe. This well-acted film depressed me for weeks; and still does, if I focus on it...

Regards, Harry
 
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When it was completed, 'The War Game' was considered so horrible by the BBC, that the planned broadcast in October 1966 was cancelled. It wasn't shown on TV until 1985 . . .
As a new student in autumn 1979, I and my class mates were shown it as part of a 'Complimentary Studies' course we all had to do. I think the idea was to turn us all into good little 'Bomb Banners'; they didn't like it when during the post-showing discussion session I started asking questions about Soviet ballistic missile accuracy . . .
one of the key events in the film is a Soviet warhead that misses it's intended target, and detonates over a suburban area . . .

cheers,
Robin.
 
The main theme of post nuclear war films and novels was that the survivors would envy the dead. With that in mind my parents and I were grateful that the presence of Upper Heyford, Brize Norton, Abingdon and Benson airbases in a circle round Oxford coupled with the likely inaccuracy of Soviet SS4 and 5 missiles added to overkill launches would ensure we were not around afterwards.
To the puzzlement of many contemporaries this made us grateful to the V Bomber crews and later the Polaris submariners.
Today, however, locked down again for the third time in twelve months it seems a golden time of ease and plenty. Added to which if London or Birmingham were to vanish in a nuclear mushroom thanks to some dictator or bunch of nutters I would be in that miserable band of survivors.
 
I'm surprised nobody mentionned "On the beach" when talking about bleak-utterly-depressing-nuclear-WWIII-movie.

Something crazy with "The day after" (and "Threads" which followed soon thereafter) is, they were broadcasted in the days of KAL-007, Able archer, Stanislas Petrov.

The very dangerous fall of 1983. Part of the bleak era stretching from Afghanistan invasion late 1979 to Gorbachev advent in spring 1985. When senile soviets leaders ruled, with the deeply paranoid, former KGB chief, terminally-ill Andropov on top of that.

"The day after" was broadcasted on November 20, 1983. Only a week after Able Archer nearly make... a reality ! A very sickening irony, when you think about it.
Imagine, if the soviets had hesitated a little then decided to start WWIII on November 21.
Last thing broadcasted on US TV before the nuclear apocalypse ? a movie prescient about the said nuclear apocalypse.

Able Archer 83 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org

The Day After - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org


Reagan had watched it early October 1983 and noted in his diary "it let me quite depressed".
Well Ronnie Raygun, imagine if you had seen "Threads" instead.
 
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"On the Beach" was originally a novel by Nevil Shute, then a 50s film with Gregory Peck as a USN sub commander. It was remade as a TV two parter which replaced the global war of the originals with a Sino US exchange.
 
I remember at school we were made to read 'When the Wind Blows' as young teens (maybe 13..?) and a year or so later, oh yes 'Threads' was rolled out. I presume it was an attempt to indoctrinate us all to become good little CND types. Oh the irony - most of us took away the lesson that the only way to prevent it was to make sure that no one dares attack... si vis pacem para bellum and all that ;)
 

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