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From: leeper@ahutb.UUCP (leeper)
Newsgroups: net.movies,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: TESTAMENT
Message-ID: <524@ahutb.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Mar-85 13:45:04 EST
Article-I.D.: ahutb.524
Posted: Tue Mar  5 13:45:04 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Mar-85 04:55:40 EST
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Xref: watmath net.movies:5843 net.sf-lovers:6584

This is a response to a piece of mail.  I am posting it to the net
partially because my software is complaining about the return address,
but also because the content may be of general interest.

 >Just got your review of 9 Feb.  Re:
 >
 >	"TESTAMENT wasa very well-made film, beautifully
 >	directed with great insights into the
 >	characters.  But while those characters
 >	were believable, the situation was not.  The
 >	producers failed to do their homework."
 >
 >How was the situation not believable?

My knowledge of what a post-nuclear war environment is based
predominantly on the following:

-- BBC documentary "The War Game" dir. by Peter Watkins
-- Discussions with friends
-- Reading parts of THE FATE OF THE EARTH (I don't remember the author,
but it's because of the current interest in nuclear holocausts it is in
most book stores.)

The fact is that TESTAMENT examined only the radiation effect of the
war and for a community within commute distance of San Francisco they
way under-rated even that.  At the time TESTAMENT was made the concept
of nuclear winter had already been established, yet the film did not
show the dropping of temperatures.  On the contrary, some survivors were
headed up to Canada where the cold alone would have been deadly. 

The breakdown of the social order was shown with one kid stealing a
bicycle.  With the the big (and many not-so-big) cities gone, there
would be no distribution of food.  Nothing grown would be safe.  The
breakdown of social order would start with food hoarding.  (Non- and
slightly-contaminated food, after all, and guns, would be the most
valuable commodities for survival.)  Half-starving gangs would be
scouring the countryside to find anything to eat.  They would roll over
the town in TESTAMENT, like it were nothing at all.  (I suppose you
could accuse me of rattling off Survivalist dogma here.  I dislike the
Survivalist movement myself, but their view of the post-holocaust world
is probably closer to the truth than most people realize.)

Then there would be disease.  Within a large radius around targets
there would be millions dying with nobody to bury them.  Disease would
run rampant with no real facilities to stop it.  The town in TESTAMENT
is hardly isolated enough that the disease would not come there.  The
people on the fringes of the destruction and even the air currents
would carry it.

Then there are the injured and maimed.  The dubious assumption of the
film was that this town was far enough from any of the blasts to avoid
direct physical injuries.  It wouldn't have avoided the walking
wounded, it just wasn't that isolated.

In any case there is a long list of reasons why things just would not
have been as shown in TESTAMENT.  A post-nuclear-war is very probably
worse than we can imagine, and the town in TESTAMENT was not.

Responses to net.movies please.

				Mark Leeper
				...ihnp4!ahutb!leeper