"THREADS" : tonight on tv for the first time in eighteen years.

1. why is it called 'threads'?
2. do you think it might affect the population's opinions regarding US/Iraq/North Korea/Iran etc?

"It's a normal Thursday in the city of Sheffield when East and West stumble into war and Britain is devastated by 200 megatons of nuclear explosive..."

The "threads" of the title refers to what ties society together - which fall apart with the nuclear attack and its aftermath.

All in all, quite a jolly romp.

I didn't see it directly the first time round, only indirectly as it, and other things in the air at the time, were an idee fixe if you like. It reminded me of every drama lesson ever when I was 13 – each week some group would improvise a scene about how awful it would be to survive a newcular bomb.

Why would anyone want to watch such a dismal and unpleasant drama? At least "The Next Day" was sanitised and looked like a soap opera.

Meanwhile, how are people enjoying those Survivors DVDs?

DVDs plural? Have they got round to issuing the second series?! TELL NOW

From the original broadcast I remember the scene with the jerry-rigged TV/video playing back Words And Pictures to the post-bomb kiddies.

The Cold War, remember East versus West??? The obsession about the horrors of Nuclear War by our CND badge wearing drama/English teachers was supposed to be a warning to our generation "When you grow up and get into the positions of power, get rid of the nukes"

How many of us read Brother in the Land in English.

It was propaganda, I mean I agree with it but it was propaganda non the less.

I'm just glad I wasnt born in Sheffield.

what would be the point in carrying on with human life in light of the lack of love or god ? what would be the point of starting over, to live in a mediaval world that would only be destroyed again anyway ?

jeepers *creepers* what a movie. everyone should see it. by law !

I'd like to see it again, just to see if it's still terrifying in this day and age. But sadly I am not a BBC4 person. Anyone tape it?

I wasn't allowed to watch it, but Mum said she was terrified and it was all anyone could talk about at work for the next week.

hey look at this - the radio times (uk tv guide)
from the day it was first broadcast :

http://www.btinternet.com/~pdbean/rtcover.jpeg

even that's enough to give me the shakes.

Threads was a scary school day.

This is still one of my favourite pictures on the modern interweb.

did anyone see that documentary on curry on BBC2 last night? last time i watch anything like that on terrestrial channels, it was the most annoying and insulting post 'I Love...' garbage i have ever seen... David fucking Quantick wrote the script, z-list guests off Hollyoaks going 'oooh, curry, i love a hot one' and other non-informative crap...

i need to get digital. i need arts channels and bbc4 to save me from this wank that talks to me like i'm a fucking retard.

i want one!!!!

The War Game = very scary.

http://southsidecallbox.com/images/vegasvacation/ntsmug.jpg

I made the blokey download it a few years ago, it's on my PC but I still haven't had the guts to watch it again.

it needs remaking.

seriously if the horror and the reality could be captured in the same way but with 21st C. fx etc...

Other similar good nuclear what-if movies from the same era: "Testament", "Special Bulletin", "Countdown to Looking Glass".

Don't remember if "The Day After" was good.

"Special Bulletin", "Countdown to Looking Glass".

Both favorites of mine. Probably would seem terribly hammy in retrospect, though. Special guest star in Countdown -- Newt Gingrich playing himself!

I'm watching Threads now and realize that I don't think I've seen this before. I love that so much of the film is the building up to nuclear war. I think I definitely prefer countdown movies (not where the disaster is averted, like War Games, but where they happen) to post-apocalyptic films.

This feels so real and so much in the past at once.

This is interesting: the director of Threads went on to do L.A. Story and The Bodyguard. The writer hasn't done much else.

Who would survive post-nuclear holocaust Sheffield?

Who would survive post-nuclear holocaust Sheffield?

haha -- we should also do similar threads for kansas city, mo (for the day after) and rochester, england (for the war game).

Kansas City and Rochester have pop stars?

a strike on rochester might have taken out the canterbury scene zomg

This is interesting: the director of Threads went on to do L.A. Story and The Bodyguard. The writer hasn't done much else.

Barry Hines is primarily a novelist, not a screenwriter. I imagine he's still doing quite nicely off the royalties for A Kestrel For A Knave (Kes).

huh, director also did 'a very britishes coup'.

Yeah, I think Testament is pretty much the US equivalent of Threads. I saw it when I was a kid and I really shouldn't have. I saw it again a year or so ago and I really shouldn't have again. Very effectively and slowly horrifying.

seriously what on earth compelled me to watch this again?

i felt like having my first cigarette in 4 years after seeing it this time.

seriously what on earth compelled me to watch this again?

Yeah, I asked myself that after watching it last night...but, on the other hand, all those warheads are still out there. I remember knowing so much back then about blast radiuses and fallout, and on one hand we were a bunch of freaked-out kids then, but on the other hand do the youth of today learn that stuff?

Its weird, we're on way more of a war footing than then but the actual Nukewlar Threat just doesn't seem as pervasive as it did in the mid-late 80s. That could be my teenaged memory of the days though.

I don't think I could bear to watch Threads again now, TBH. It freaked me the fuck out.

Haha it still amazes me that our DIVINITY/Religious Studies teacher thought Threads was suitable viewing material, from some kind of misguided spiritual point of view, for a roomful of clearly spooked 14 year-olds.

haha I came here to post this. Seriously, were all R.E. teachers told to do this?

I'm from Sheffield. Everyone in R.E. thought it was hilarious when the lady wet herself half way down The Moor market and cheered when they mentioned Broomhill and Nether Edge and Junction 34 of the M1. The high spirits did not remain.

Anyway, I am currently attending this: http://www.global-catastrophic-risks.com/programme.html and everyone is all like, "nuclear war is never going to be transcontinental or global, there are other disasters that are more likely to cause society to rapidly collapse". Maybe they're being naive, I'm certainly not doing them justice. But anyway, I was thinking, if they made a film about the horrifying and total collapse of civilization now, what would be the cause?

cormac mccarthy

cormac mccarthy would cause the collapse of society? how would he manage that? abandoning the quotation mark?

I've had this on disc for 3 years now, still not brave enough to rewatch it having been horribly scarred by it at age 15 by yr 10 English teacher.

I went to Uni in Sheffield for a few years in the late 80s/early 90s and the first time I walked down The Moor and looked back, I thought to myself, "Hang on, shouldn't there be a mushroom cloud hanging over this?"

cormac mccarthy would be the cause of them making a film about the horrifying and total collapse of oh never mind

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/

Louis Jagger should watch this.

xp, Edward, I understood what you were getting at hence my reference to his use of punctuation in that book oh never mind.

What's interesting about comparing Threads to The Road is that The Road doesn't cover the collapse or its cause, just (ha, "just") its immediate aftermath.

So what I'm saying is, if one made Threads (i.e. a film about the actual cause and experience of the collapse itself, not the aftermath), what would be different?

It would be about the environgment, duh.

Too slow for a film.

I believe there may have been one or two popular moving pictures of the last few years which do successfully tackle this obscure subject.

If you're referring to The Day After Tomorrow, the problem there is the science is horseshit, which it isn't in Threads. Deep Impact is fine but not really that horrible or desperate.

TDAT is a masterpiece compared to Deep Impact

Thing is it's not about whether the science is bullshit or the film is lousy, the question is "what mcguffin would modern day hollywood movies employ to create a whoops apocalypse vibe?" and the answer is almost definitely a) the environgment b) oh noez meteor collision or c) lol chicken flues.

d) The Clash of Civilizations

Hollywood thinks there's only one civilization doesn't it?

xxp, No, that's not my question! My question is what McGuffin would they choose for a very dark, impossible-to-sell BBC4 TV movie with a terrifying ending

The answer here is not the same as what you'd choose for the Hollywood movies with the optimistic endings you think I'm talking about, despite this being the Threads thread.

Think the same applies to bleak TV drama, the things I listed - pinefox's too, really - are the 00s version of 80s nuke neurosis.

Maybe. Pandemic might work, yes. Or some massive drinking water problem (with added local nuclear conflagration in sub-continent).

I'm not buying Clash of Civilizations.

Are you thinking of a particular scenario when you say "the environgment"? I can't think of any that would proceed rapidly enough for a film.

Clash of Civilizations covers noble Western liberals vs them awful Islams tho.

and noize board vs 1 pWN 3v3Ry+h1n G!!!1

xxpost

Dude films don't have to take place in real time so you could still edit a tight movie about catastrophic environmental change. Are you saying you don't think that looms large in current end of the world nightmares?

If that Google Video link still works, I'll give it a go (when the cricket/golf is over for the day)

one of the most interesting things about threads is how it shows the impact of the bomb on several generations - most films don't take this kind of approach, but it would be entirely suited to a film about environmental collapse.

continuing the apocalypse literature trend, blindness:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861689/

lol @ the times review

Perfectly respectable doctors like Mark Ruffalo walk into plate glass windows and concrete walls due a mysterious virus which renders every middle-class actor with workshop experience totally blind.

Dude films don't have to take place in real time so you could still edit a tight movie about catastrophic environmental change. Are you saying you don't think that looms large in current end of the world nightmares?

No, of course it's terrifying and plausible, but it's a process that's going to take generations to destroy civilization. Editing might work, and it works at the very end of Threads almost in flash forward. But if the core of the movie is made up of several jumps of more than a few years it's easy to lose all continuity and stop caring about the characters.

Thing is it's not about whether the science is bullshit or the film is lousy, the question is "what mcguffin would modern day hollywood movies employ to create a whoops apocalypse vibe?" and the answer is almost definitely a) the environgment b) oh noez meteor collision or c) lol chicken flues.

I think part of the reason Threads worked so well is that the creators were scared shitless about the possibility of nuclear war, and really communicated that. I don't know that modern-day Hollywood people are scared shitless about anything except losing money/influence.