OutRun2

I just watched The Day After for the first time in like 20 years. I forgot just how powerful and disturbing this film actually is. Can't believe how well and convincing they depicted what would happen from a nuclear attack.

I would like to know what your thoughts are on this film, and more importantly, what the chances are of something catastrophic happening like this for real, from the likes of N. Korea or even, God forbid, China?

The scene depicting the instant incineration of people during the blasts still has me emotionally shaken

TGM

yeah... I'm 32, when I saw this movie when I was younger, it totally freaked me out... especially the scene where the mother sews up the death shroud for her little kid... I think its the 1st movie I ever saw where a kid dies...

jjchgo

haha...i'm 31 and this movie scared the hell out of me when i was young. i havent seen it years but i think i will go back and check it out again.

cheers,

jj

taffer

I had never even heard of this movie before. At first I thought the topic creator was talking about "The Day After Tomorrow" but that movie had nothing to do with nuclear weaponry. I will definitely check this movie out now that I know about it.

Ever see the original Assault on Precinct 13 by John Carpenter?

DVDpackrat

I never saw this all the way through, but I remember the movie Testament. I think they may be similar.

alfredog1976

I remember "Testament" too (w/Bill Devane) and "The Day After"...both scared the crap out of me as a kid...

rw2516

I'm pretty sure Russia is the only country with the capability of launching an attack like in the movie. It's the missle/delivery technology to be scared of. Don't think China has ICBMs or a fleet of subs with nuclear missles, but I could be wrong.
It's the suitcase bomb that scares me.
There's a TV Movie called Special Bulletin that's pretty intense. It's a faux newsbroadcast ala War of the Worlds. Some nutjobs set of a nuke on a ship in Charleston Harbor.

Giles

while I thought 'The Day After...' was powerful, I thought the British TV film 'Threads' was equally good, if a bit more graphic.

Shannon Nutt

...and it's directed by STAR TREK II & VI's Nicholas Meyer.

I may be wrong, but I believe this was the most-watched TV movie of all-time when it first aired.

Orbi-Wan Techno

I remember being stationed onboard the USS Saratoga when this first aired. My wife recorded it for me and sent it out to the ship. Excellent program.

marty888

You beat me to it - yes, highly recommended.

Another British gem is THE WAR GAME, directed by Peter Watkins - very scary stuff.

Almost forgotton is the Emmy-winning 1983 broadcast of SPECIAL BULLETIN, which was presented as a newscast a la the 1938 War Of The Worlds radio show. While it didn't cause the same widespread panic, it did generate a lot of phone calls to TV switchboards who thought Charleston, S.C. was really being nuked.

bhk

Watching the movie and writing an analysis was part of my HS govt. class assignment.

GoldenJCJ

I saw this movie in school when I was about 11 or 12. It scared the crap out of me. The nuclear fallout is something that worries me to this day. If something like this ever were to happen I just hope that I'm gone instantaneously.

I'll have to give this movie another go now that I'm older and more mature. It'll probably scare me even more now that I know that such things are actually possible.

calhoun07

I always preferred Threads. I always thought it was more realistic.

Spiderbite

Now go watch Testament as a follow-up. The Day After bothered me has a kid but Testament absolutely scared the shit out of me. It just seemed too real. I haven't seen it in several years so I don't know how it has held up but I remember it being one of the saddest movies I have ever seen. Totally bleak.

I will have to check out Threads. Never heard of it. Netflix?

matome

LOL, same here

al_bundy

this came out back when i was in the 4th grade and people were talking about it the next day. it was a nice period film because reagan was talking up the evil empire and there was an arms race as the US was starting with SDI and the trident missiles were first being deployed.

now when I think back on the movie, i think it was more for a shock effect and when you look at it logically it doesn't make sense. I saw a few different cuts with various scenes changed around, edited out and put back in and there are a bunch of plot holes.

it's never explained why the Russians start the war. It's also never explained why the US launches a mass attack knowing what is going to happen. US and Russia went to great lengths to avoid war in the past and it's also never explained why it suddenly happened.

Another plot hole is that there are 150 minutemen silos but only Kansas City is attacked. the silos are the main targets including other military installations. then on the highway the people are incinerated but the cars are still left pretty much untouched.

the whole thing was done on a cookie cutter recipe that a lot of theories were based on back then. russians attack, tactical weapons are used and it suddenly goes into a total strategic attack.

Mopower

I think the point of the movie is to show the horror's of nuclear war. The reason for the war wasn't really important.

Shannon Nutt

...and it's about 100 times better than JERICHO, too.

eXcentris

This is undoubtedly the best film ever made on this issue:

al_bundy

i personally liked this one movie from around 1990 where there is an accidental nuclear attack on the US and the main characters are b52 pilots who refuse to bomb their target

Josh-da-man

That's one facet of the Cold War mythology that really fascinates me.

The threat of nuclear war took on such a mythic, near-religious quality that it became this boogeyman that was waiting to strike without warning.

Like, all of a sudden, the Americans and Soviets were just going to start lobbing nuclear warheads at each other some sunny afternoon and catch everyone unawares.

It might go back to old anti-Goldwater ad from 1964, where the little girl is picking flowers and nuclear detonations start going off. Or might go back to the surprise use of nuclear weapons against Japan in WWII. Either way, a surprise nuclear attack is clearly burned into the American psyche.

It's not just "The Day After." Many novels of the time that dealt with nuclear war also spent little time explaining the whys and hows. In "Red Dawn" the Soviets started invading without warning.

GoldenJCJ

urmm...I don't really care for Michael Douglas.

RayChuang

I still have the tape of the original broadcast of that movie on NBC. It's a frightening film to watch because Executive Producer Don Ohlmeyer must have watched some CNN to get the "you are there" feel of the movie.

HistoryProf

uhm, Cuban Missile Crisis? The paranoia over a Nuclear war began in the 50s as the specter of the Red Menace and the Cold War began. the late 50s and early 60s were probably the height of it, but it was always there. Witness the fad of everyone building fallout shelters in their basements and backyards in the 50s.