For fans of Threads, (or for anyone who just doesn't want to sleep tonight), I found a wonderful piece of Nuclear Fiction last week: A fake BBC news report tracking an escalating conflict between NATO and Russian forces.
It's the only piece of fiction that has made me feel deathly ill in quite the same way Threads did.
[EDIT] also, those familiar with The Day After should watch out for a little easter-egg toward the end.
[DOUBLE-EDIT] I'm just re-watching the end now and even with full knowledge that it is fiction, the Attack Warning Red sound is still absolutely horrifying.
Another scary nuclear holocaust movie: Miracle Mile (1988) [1].
Framed as a love story, it's set during a single night in LA as a man accidentally picks up a ringing pay phone and hears what seems to be a soldier who has misdialed his father and calling to warn of an impending missile launch.
It's an incredibly tense film as the man anguishes about whether the phone call was fake or not, and decides to make an attempt to get out of town, but not before getting his girlfriend. It doesn't have the documentary realism of Threads, but the atmosphere of dread is a fantastic, and the structure -- a long "After Hours"-type night of craziness while nuclear holocaust is looming -- is pretty unique.
Fanstastic movie, and very very 80's. Not nearly as terrifying as Threads, which is by far the most terrifying nuclear holocaust themed movie I've ever seen, but still very much worth watching, especially for fans of "what if?" scenarios, and those who enjoy wondering what people would actually do if they thought nuclear war was really going to happen.
I'd add in 1965's "The War Game" by Peter Watkins. it was commissioned by the BBC as an educational film to prepare the populace for a post nuclear attack world, but was pulled at the last minute as "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting."
Also check out Seven Days in May.[1] It's kind of like a serious version of Dr. Strangelove, being more about the events leading up to nuclear war rather than the war itself. Very well done.
Also Testament (1983), an American movie about a small town far away from major cities to avoid the nuclear war itself, but unlike this typical situation in fiction, they don't live happily after but eventually have to deal with radiation sickness due to fallout and the problem of supplies running out.
That was really unnerving. To me, it reinforced the idea that in a major nuclear conflict, I'm not going to have any idea what's going on. The survivors (assuming there are some) might eventually figure it out but in the short/medium term most are probably going to be left wondering what just happened, who are they at war with, did any side "win"?
If we're trading recommendations of harrowing things to watch, may I nominate Isao Takahata's "Grave of the Fireflies", the story of two children trying to survive in Japan towards the end of the Second World War in the face of a callous, indifferent world.
The only animated feature that is guaranteed to make this grown man weep like there's no tomorrow.
There is also an absolutely harrowing anime Barefoot Gen. I remember when it came out on TV (90s Russia) all the kids who saw it were greatly affected.
I nominate Isao Takahata's "Grave of the Fireflies"
It's a great movie, but if you are going to watch, I highly recommend that you don't watch it alone and that you have something "fun" planned afterwords - maybe a fun dumb movie like The Hangover, play with your dog in the park, etc. Do not watch it by yourself and then go to bed. It is really haunting.
That's not what the end of civilization means at all. It's not like the country had no structure any more. There were still families, bomb shelters and alerts, certainly nothing close to the end of civilization that occurs like in Threads.
Did you watch the movie ? The children deliberately chose to live on their own while they could have returned to their aunt - who, despite treating them unfairly, was still feeding them.
This remark is so brutally inhumane, so utterly disregarding of human behaviour and lacking in any sympathy or feeling for the most vulnerable that I wish Hacker News had a "block user" button.
Productions such as the faux-BBC video and "The Day After" remind me that the word 'obscenity' is utterly wasted on pictures of naked people, when it applies perfectly to high-altitude nuclear mushrooms created by global banking interests.
While I'm all against war I'm not sure how the banks are supposed to set it off. If anything the banks would be screwed. Wars mostly seem to be caused by alpha male leaders sacrificing the people for their greatness and glory. Which is why wars between democracies tend to be pretty half hearted or not happen as the people tend not to be keen on that.
Wow! Just wow! I knew this was fiction the whole time I was watching it and it's still horrifying, right from the outset. They did such a great job, I can't give them enough credit for their realism.
This is really well done. I think there are some issues with the chronology of how some of it would play out but that's nitpicking. If you enjoy this kind of thing, I very much suggest reading Red Storm Rising. It's somewhat old at this point but presents a very detailed account of this kind of situation.
Thanks, this is very well done. I think in a way it's even scarier than Threads, given it doesn't allow you the detachment of seeing other people. You would _be there_ watching this report and losing it.
I think they've done a few different versions. The differences seem to be mostly in the TV trimmings at the start and end, and a few versions have US or Canadian civil-defence warnings at the end.
Skimming through, the content seems to be largely the same, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were making small changes too.
[EDIT] Actually, you're right, some of the older versions have different (to my ear, worse) voice work. I'm glad the iterated on the idea and polished it up.
That radio broadcast did create a response from a small subset. But that response was from an insignificant, poorly informed, population and was quickly tempered with a minimal amount of effort.
I highly doubt it created a 'mass panic' with serious consequence, as if the average person believed Aliens were attacking earth due to a radio broadcast...
The fact it was false was immediately spreading among the newspapers:
> They immediately left the theatre, and standing on the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street, they read the lighted bulletin that circled the New York Times building: ORSON WELLES CAUSES PANIC.
This type of thinking that we need to protect people has been causing comedians to needlessly apologizing for ultimately harmless art on a weekly basis.
There's a big difference between a piece of humour/fiction crossing the intended audience into people who miss the obvious humour/fiction and take it seriously... and actual malice.
I meant it was exaggerated compared to how many people actually panicked. Playing a fake advent of WWIII in a coffeeshop as if it is real to unsuspecting people might cause a different response though.
> If enough people tweeted about it, Trump might even be stupid enough to "react"
This reminds me of many years as a designer where many people new to design hear the platitude "don't make people think" and assume this is because people don't immediately think so you have to assume they are entirely dumb. But in reality people simply put a very low local amount of energy into day-to-day media/internet consumption. You have to assume they are disinterested, not entirely without common sense.
Interfaces don't have to be idiot-proof, they have to be easy to use (a big difference in practice). Compare the effort required to Tweet something vs a response to a serious incident.
Assuming anyone would buy this for longer than a few minutes is ridiculous, they are merely asking anyone around them or a simple google search away from the answer. To say the President would buy it puts you in a lower intelligence category than the falsely assumed average person is in...
A fake Russia attacking US ships (and escalation by European countries in NATO) BBC news story vs Trump campaign being spied on at the direction of people in the Obama administration is hardly comparable.
At most the serious problem is Trump has his own Android phone allowing him to make emotional tweets on demand without editorialization ala news papers or forcing him to take a timeout to fully consider the consequences. The difference between that and taking serious military action is significant, but sadly this distinction has to be made given the hyperbole spreading about the Trump administration...
Also check out Pandora movie. It is korean but their are good English Subs. It is available on Netflix. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6302160/ Basically fictional Fukushima in South Korea
I remember a few years ago RTÉ news did a fake news report about Sellafield (nearby English) nuclear reactor going boom. I was there like "okay guys let's keep calm" but the girls all went ape-shit. Running around the house bawling. That was stressful.
Anybody really worried ... should probably know, that russia actually decreased their military budget lately. And that US Military budget alone is allmost 10x higher than russias ...
That's going to make nearly no difference in case of an all-out nuclear war. Russia still has thousands of nukes, as does the US. More than enough to completely destroy both countries many times over and pretty much end civilization as the world knows it.
Well, it makes a difference in the scenario. Because in the scenario of the fiction news, russia planned a attack.
It is quite unlikely, that russia would do anything like that, beeing that underpowered.
Russia wouldn't need to plan an attack and disable NATO early warning systems. If all their nukes were detonated, humanity would be doomed regardless of where they were detonated. The fallout would eventually encompass the entire earth.
Russia decreased their budget ... leaving them fewer options to choose from if things get dicey ... making nukes a choice they would be +x% more likely to make.
Even for tiny values of "x" I still can't call this a decided improvement on the nuclear risk.
Thats true, but they would not attack then in the first place, like they did in the video.
And given that allmost no one from the mainstream media wrote about the budget cut and that they rather make fictive attack dokus, makes me allmost count this piece as propaganda.
The expressions that you used ("deathly ill", no sleep tonight) make me think that you may be lacking some perspective and/or are identifying too closely with your body.
Sometimes, it pays to take a step back and contemplate on the fact that you will eventually die. If you vividly visualize that projected moment of your death and make it real in your mind, you will realize that possible problems you may be having in your everyday, mundane life now appear insignificant. You may also be filled with anxiety and dread. Alternatively, you may dissociate.
It is that dissociation that will allow you to identify with something other than your body (nothingness) and thus be free of such (unexamined) reactions.
When I was a younger man I lived as if my life was separated from death by a single sheet of paper. At any time I was ready to die, it made me free and fearless. Then I held my first child, and I understood what folly I had fallen to.
It also pays to realize that when people say something makes them feel "deathly ill", they're probably using it as an expression to signify how shaken they are by something.
"Nuclear Attack Emergency Broadcast - Live Breaking News from London (fiction)" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZ3LGfSMhA
It's the only piece of fiction that has made me feel deathly ill in quite the same way Threads did.
[EDIT] also, those familiar with The Day After should watch out for a little easter-egg toward the end.
[DOUBLE-EDIT] I'm just re-watching the end now and even with full knowledge that it is fiction, the Attack Warning Red sound is still absolutely horrifying.