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From: leeper@ahutb.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.movies,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: TESTAMENT
Message-ID: <531@ahutb.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 16:44:11 EST
Article-I.D.: ahutb.531
Posted: Thu Mar  7 16:44:11 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Mar-85 05:21:16 EST
References: <524@ahutb.UUCP>, <320@lcuxc.UUCP>
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REFERENCES:  <524@ahutb.UUCP>, <320@lcuxc.UUCP>

 >At some "realistic" level, "Testament" may indeed have 
 >underestimated the prolonged horrors of a nuclear war
 >aftermath in ways "Threads" did not.  But the death of the
 >mother's (Jane Alexander's) little boy (remember the scene
 >at the sink?)  
 
Do I!
 
 >and her almost maniacal search for his
 >teddy-bear told me more than I ever wanted to know about a
 >particular part of that horror.

Somehow there is more sadness in the death of one person than in the
death of millions.  When you hear that 30,000 people are killed in a
firestorm you do not feel 30,000 times as sad as when you hear one
person is killed, particularly if that person is someone you have
gotten to know.  It may be less painful for the world to go with a bang
than a whimper.  The scenes you mention are the most memorable of the
film, though others stand high.  I guess that is why I have such mixed
feelings about TESTAMENT.  It was a great film but technically very
(perhaps dangerously) inaccurate.  It left me sadder than THREADS did.
There are forms of warfare for which what is happening in the film is
more in character with the facts.  TESTAMENT is somewhat closer to a
possible scenario for bacterialogical warfare then nuclear warfare.
Yes, there are still problems there, but less of the film might have to
be changed to make it accurate to that situation.

 >
 >The deaths that follow seem to have a lessening impact
 >until, by the end of the film, the viewer is damned near
 >numb.  
 
THREADS and THE WAR GAME stun and numb the viewer much faster to
individual deaths, but overall they are more frightening.  Less
depressing but more frightening.
 

				Mark Leeper
				...ihnp4!ahutb!leeper