Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site ahutb.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!drutx!ahuta!ahutb!leeper 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 Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 62 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