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Threads (Nuclear War Film)

Me and Mr. CherryB started watching it last night (rather heavy for a stormy Sunday nights viewing) so we stopped it half way and will continue with it tonight. It really took me back to my school days in the early/mid 1980's, with all the "what to do if the bomb drops" info. Brrrrr....
 
I can remember them asking for volunteers in the late 70's early 80's
to stage the aftermath of a atomic strike volunteers were made up
to look like the injured and draped about the place wile rescue workers
had to assess the ones worth saving quite a eye opener when you
realise how little life worth and how little difference there is between
saving someone or letting them die.
 
Also of note: The BFI are putting out When the Wind Blows on Blu-ray in January with loads of nuclear war paranoia extras, including the whole of Protect and Survive. Perfect for Armageddon junkies.
 
JamesWhitehead said:
...today's kids are unlikely to receive this kind of traumatic treat in school.
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Correct: Today they have to be scared into voting “correctly” by the threat of “Global Warming”.

I wonder what the bogeyman will be in another 30 years.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

~ H.L. Mencken

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
Correct: Today they have to be scared into voting “correctly” by the threat of “Global Warming”.

I wonder what the bogeyman will be in another 30 years.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

~ H.L. Mencken

maximus otter
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Indeed I can well remember back in the mid 70s being a little schoolboy and being shown a series of documentaries about global cooling and how this would all affect everyone in the decades to come.

As peak oil was scheduled to arrive by the late 80s / early 90s I could see a future in which it was bloody cold and normal people could not afford to keep themselves warm as the world had largely run out of oil and what was left was really expensive.

I was also a bit worried about how I would escape from polar bears as I walked home from school when it got really cold.

What happened to peak oil and global cooling?
 
maximus otter said:
Correct: Today they have to be scared into voting “correctly” by the threat of “Global Warming”.

I wonder what the bogeyman will be in another 30 years.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

~ H.L. Mencken

maximus otter
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It's the use of "uncertainty reduction" as a coercion tool.

maximus otter said:
IIRC we now have enough proven oil reserves for ~200 years.

Global Cooling is next... (shhhhh!)

maximus otter
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"Again"
 
maximus otter said:
IIRC we now have enough proven oil reserves for ~200 years.

Global Cooling is next... (shhhhh!)

maximus otter
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Probably longer as it appears abandoned oil wells have a habit of refilling themselves but as with schroedinger's cat you don't know by how much they have refilled until you actually look and find them either full or empty
 
maximus otter said:
Correct: Today they have to be scared into voting “correctly” by the threat of “Global Warming”.

I wonder what the bogeyman will be in another 30 years.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

~ H.L. Mencken

maximus otter
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:rolleyes:

So there is a conspiracy by all countries around the world to scare the population into voting for governments that are tackling "global warming"?

So that's worked well for the various green parties around the word then. Donald Trump is well known for green politics after all as are the Tory party.

This for example with Trump: http://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/07/donald-trump-suspending-methane-oil-gas-pollution-limit-rule/

Could it possibly be it's actually the other way around?
 
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Naughty_Felid said:
So that's worked well for the various green parties around the word then. Donald Trump is well known for green politics after all as are the Tory party.
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You don't have to be the President/Prime Minister/party in power to steer or "nudge" policy.

The Green movement is doing very well, thanks:

1. "The total implementation cost for countries that have submitted specific financial figures to meet their [Nationally Determined Contributions (i.e ways to attain the goals stipulated in the Paris Climate Agreement)] is about $5.3 trillion."

- Note that's just for the ones who've costed and submitted a plan. 2/3rds of the 189 signatories have yet to do so...

2. Greenpeace earns $400,000,000 per annum. It employs 4,200 people.

3. Even little (?) Friends of the Earth earns ~ £3,000,000 per annum, and pays its head between £80- and £90,000 per year.

They are a small tail with the capability to wag a large dog.

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
You don't have to be the President/Prime Minister/party in power to steer or "nudge" policy.

The Green movement is doing very well, thanks:

1. "The total implementation cost for countries that have submitted specific financial figures to meet their [Nationally Determined Contributions (i.e ways to attain the goals stipulated in the Paris Climate Agreement)] is about $5.3 trillion."

- Note that's just for the ones who've costed and submitted a plan. 2/3rds of the 189 signatories have yet to do so...

2. Greenpeace earns $400,000,000 per annum. It employs 4,200 people.

3. Even little (?) Friends of the Earth earns ~ £3,000,000 per annum, and pays its head between £80- and £90,000 per year.

They are a small tail with the capability to wag a large dog.

maximus otter
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re: funding and this doesn't include kickbacks from governments

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/public-financing-oil-gas-coal-2017-7?r=US&IR=T

Oil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_companies_by_revenue

fracking: https://www.propublica.org/article/who-are-americas-top-10-gas-drillers

coal: https://www.statista.com/statistics/296501/revenue-coal-mining-in-the-us/

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...rgy-coal-mining-climate-change-denial-funding


Yep Greenpeace is really up there when it comes to funding and it's financial ability to sway the masses compared to oil, coal etc.
 
Even if you believe that the arguments about global warming are moot – the comparison to cold war nuclear angst isn’t really useful. Nuclear warheads did exist, their massive potential for destruction was real and their ownership by ideologically opposed regimes hell bent on each other’s destruction was a fact. There may have been an element of uncertainty reduction in the process – in fact there pretty clearly was – but it would be fallacious to claim that this meant the real threat did not exist at all, and any implication that it was never going to happen, because it didn’t happen, is hindsight bias, pure and simple.

Back on thread (no pun intended). I went to school in Buxton, where parts of Threads were filmed. During filming I remember me and my mates walking past queues of soldiers and raggedy refugees outside the Opera House - very disconcerting. It had been a bit of a joke up until that afternoon – but something about that image was just too close to home.

There had been a rumour around my school - somewhat backed up in later years, after speaking to people who would have been in the know - that the town had a specific plan in the event of nuclear attack. Although relatively isolated it is within 30 miles or so of Sheffield and Manchester, and the ample spring water supplies would have made it a focus for the mass migration of refugees. There was also something about the geography – in a bowl, very high up on the moors (well, very high for the UK) – supposedly this offered some protection, or delay, from the after effects of a nuclear explosion.

For a small town, the pressure of being a focus for potentially hundreds of thousands of refugees would have been unimaginable – so there was, allegedly, a military plan in place. (Buxton also has some deep level storage – munitions facilities from WW2: some of these were later converted to other uses – but it was always rumoured that there was more up there than was being leased out. This was often cited as a factor too.)

I remember it coming up in a class one day – someone mentioned something along the lines of how scary it would be for us.

“You?,” said our teacher (a hard as nails ex-para). “What makes you think that you’ll get to stay?”
 
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Threads - Special Edition released on Monday.

Special Features
Disc 1
UK 2k Remaster from BBC CRI prints
DVD Audio Commentary with Karen Meagher (UK Exclusive)
DVD Audio Commentary with Mick Jackson
Disc 2
PDF of Radio Times articles and letters (UK Exclusive)
Documentary: Shooting the Annihilation
Documentary: Auditioning for the Apocalypse
Documentary: Destruction Designer
Documentary: Stephen Thrower on Threads

That's Monday night's viewing sorted - for added nuclear apocalypse authenticity I might even have a couple of barbecued rats for my tea, washed down with some manky ditch water.
 
Acheron101 said:
That's Monday night's viewing sorted - for added nuclear apocalypse authenticity I might even have a couple of barbecued rats for my tea, washed down with some manky ditch water.
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Don't forget to double bill it with an episode of Words & Pictures on VHS.
 
I had to smile (not an action often associated with this programme) when I saw someone printing these:

FO2RNBAXMAQhaaK.jpeg.jpg
 
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