Threads - 1984 television docudrama depicting the effects of a nuclear war on the UK

[Starke Von Oben]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2023790698427111488

Reminds me of the American film "Brink of Collapse", but far grittier and authentic. Managed to catch this while in a hotel room with broadband the other night.

Quite grim. I love the quality of 1980s British docudramas, there's a certain style to them that's unmatched by today's standards.

[alexz721]

Sweet, I've been meaning to watch this. Thanks for the link.

[Starke Von Oben]

No problem.

Trust me, this film is utterly bleak but worthwhile.

[Nems]

I've seen bits and pieces of this on a number of channels in the past. I really need to sit down one day and watch the entire thing. ]:

[Sharessa]

Oh hey, I've seen people bring this up on Fark a bunch. I've kind of wanted to see it. There was at least one other similar movie, one made in America. There might be a couple others, too.

[alexz721]

That one was called The Day After, which I also want to see.

[DoomUK]

Excellent piece of film.

Thanks for posting this.

[Maes]

Very cool. I had watched it about a year ago during a personal "serial watching" of nuclear-themed films.

[deathbringer]

Very very haunting. I wanted to watch it for ages after my mum (very erroniously, it turned out) mentioned it as being "about a film crew in Manchester during a nuclear war". Perhaps she mis-remembered it's matter-of-fact filming as being Blair Witch-style?

However it was unobtainable for a long time unless you wanted to pay around £100 for a limited-release DVD that had become gold dust on Amazon used sellers, or track down an even rarer VHS release from the 80's. However it came out on DVD again in 2004 or so, with little fanfare but at least for an affordable price, so i got it.

[Belial]

Maes said:

Very cool. I had watched it about a year ago during a personal "serial watching" of nuclear-themed films.

I did some "serial watching" like that a couple of months ago, Threads was by far the most interesting piece.

The Day After is meh in comparison, as is Testament which while disturbing in its own way is quite a boring movie.

The original On The Beach is my favorite though, and not just beacuse I'm a fan of Gregory Peck.

[Maes]

Pretty much agreed. I watched all of these movies, and on a later "nuclear streak" I also watched "Fail Safe", "10
By Dawn’s Early Light" and "When the Wind Blows", which I found pretty decent too.

This page has pretty much a comprehensive top 15, including an interesting looking anime, Hadashi no Gen:

Top 15 best nuclear war movies

I had also watched "Letters from a dead man" (Soviet era, very gloomy/Doom 3/STALKER-like atmosphere)

[Belial]

Nice list, the only other one of them I've seen besides the ones mentioned was of course Dr. Strangelove.

It also reminded me that I need to finally watch Grave of the Fireflies which has been sitting on my HD for way too long.

[Technician]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1126269724766604475#

Atomic Cafe - By far my favorite. It takes old news reels and makes a story that puts the whole Cold War into perspective.

[Sporku]

Well I'm officially depressed beyond belief now.

[Technician]

It was a great film but at times it was really ham-fisting the message. All the possible outcomes are correct but seriously... A country reverts back to an almost medieval time. Was the other countries bombed out as well? I did like how it ended however, showing a sterile new generation.

After saying that, this movie still hits hard. A high budget film of this script would be quite earth shattering.

[Starke Von Oben]

Technician said:

It was a great film but at times it was really ham-fisting the message. All the possible outcomes are correct but seriously... A country reverts back to an almost medieval time. Was the other countries bombed out as well? I did like how it ended however, showing a sterile new generation.

After saying that, this movie still hits hard. A high budget film of this script would be quite earth shattering.

The idea behind the film lies in the title "Threads": how society is held together by the threads of communication and the apparatus of the modern industrial nation state. You need only look at any third world country to see how this is true. Bare in mind it was produced by the BBC, and they have a very biased lean towards a socialist view on the construct of society and what holds it together.

I do not believe however that a bigger budget equates to a better film. You need only look around at all the remakes of old classics done with bigger budgets to see how untrue that theory is. Art is always more creative when faced with limitations.

[DoomUK]

Technician said:

A high budget film of this script would be quite earth shattering.

Um, no. Please.

A big-budget remake stinks of "Hollywood Disaster Movie".

[myk]

Technician said:
It was a great film but at times it was really ham-fisting the message. All the possible outcomes are correct but seriously... A country reverts back to an almost medieval time. Was the other countries bombed out as well? I did like how it ended however, showing a sterile new generation.

It's a way to explore all the different aspects that are hit by the situation and to express all the pain and suffering through a medium that normally curbs that out, considering that the range of damage would be quite variable. Even a light nuclear war would have some of these effects, and a heavier one maybe all of them.

Starke Von Oben said:
Art is always more creative when faced with limitations.

There's some truth in that plus you're got the imposition of a higher budget. The higher budget brings extraneous economic demands onto the design unless somehow the director and associates have a very solid control over it. The usual result is a watered down thing with some impressive effects that do more for entertainment than art. The expensive effects take over the aesthetic focus of the movie, over the plot relations that depict the situation in human terms.

[Technician]

DoomUK said:

Um, no. Please.

A big-budget remake stinks of "Hollywood Disaster Movie".

Armageddon and Deep Impact come to mind but usually UK and Euro movies in general won't result in failure.

[Super Jamie]

Oh wow, I love 80s Cold-War-era post-apocalyptic scary movies. Threads is a great movie, The Day After is an American version of the same thing.

The Day After was a made-for-TV movie and got a viewership of 100 million people, which was a record at the time. Counselling centers were setup countrywide for people to call after the movie if they were feeling upset. There were no commercials shown after the nuclear attack.

This movie probably changed history. Ronald Reagan later said it altered his whole outlook on nuclear weapons. As he signed the INF treaty in 1987 to eliminate America's nuclear weapons, Reagan sent a telegram to the director of the movie stating his movie definitely played a part in the treaty.

Another good one is By Dawn's Early Light, which is more about peoples' reactions to the obviousness of an impending war and the different power-plays people will do to stop it or cause it. James Earl Jones almost got an Emmy for it.

There are many others I would like to watch, I've been going thru this list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_holocaust_fiction

[Ralphis]

Technician said:

Armageddon and Deep Impact come to mind but usually UK and Euro movies in general won't result in failure.

Ya because I don't think I've ever seen a "big budget" movie outside of the US that doesn't look like flying objects aren't hanging by wires