Message-ID: <244@looking.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Mar-85 00:00:00 EST
Article-I.D.: looking.244
Posted: Wed Mar  6 00:00:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Mar-85 05:49:58 EST
References: <524@ahutb.UUCP>
Organization: Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont
Lines: 36
Xref: watmath net.movies:5844 net.sf-lovers:6589

For those who though the "Day After" and "Testament" were bad, you should
see the English-produced "THREADS".

The reviewers say that THREADS makes the Day After look like a romp through
the daisies, and while it's not quite that bad, they are close.

This film deals a fair deal with the buildup to the war, at the expense of
the soap-opera style buildup they had in The Day After.  Nonetheless, you can
still gain some sympathy for these people as all but one of them die miserably.


They have it all.  One EMP-burst over the north sea.  The next hour a ground
burst at a military target 30 miles away.  And the next day a destroy-industry
air burst right over Sheffield, England, the site of the film.  After, you get
firestorms, the wounded, fallout, radiation sickness, and even a bit of
nuclear winter, which they note England feels less of because it is surrounded
by the sea.  The gangs of looters, the martial law and finally the law
of the jungle.  Finally you see a battered land, with a population reduced to
the level of the Middle Ages.  Stillbirth and mutation are discussed.

One interesting note.  Their war starts in Iran with a short two-weapon tactical
exchange.  One month beforehand, a press blackout covers Iran, which is
a reasonable depiction of the situation.  And thus the public doesn't actually
learn of the use of nukes until several days afterwards, when scientists not
shut up by the government announce evidence like increased radioactivity in
certain wind patterns.   The idea that nukes might be used in battle and I
might not know about it scares me...


In contrast, Testament was not a film about nuclear war.  It was a film about
a town's death from radiation poisoning.  It could just has easily have been
plague or any other toxin.  They wanted to focus on the human dram surrounding
the deaths, and they did that well, but they did not provide a reasonable
depiction of a nuclear war.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473