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Comment by jhbadger | Hacker News Reader

Speaking of 1980s nuclear war movies, I'd recommend the US movie Testament. (1983) Everyone who was around remembers the grand spectacle that was The Day After (depicting the aftermath of a nuclear attack on a city), but Testament was, like Threads, a small scale story about a family. The movie is set in a small town too far away from cities to actually be damaged in the initial attack, but as the weeks go on the town begins to run out of supplies (because there is no longer a supply chain), and fallout begins to arrive in the rain, leading to radiation poisoning.

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There was a mini-series called Jericho, which was about a coup in the USA. It began with a series of nuclear attacks on cities, and portrayed the resulting descent into inter-communal violence, gangsterism, shortages and hardship.

It wasn't anything like as scouring as Threads was. If anything it was more like a soap; they made rather light of nuclear winter and fallout.

I liked it, except the weak ending of the truncated second series.

Yes, Testament had a similar setting to Jericho but it was a lot grimmer, implying that at best the folks in the small towns would only live a few weeks/months longer than the people killed in the cities.

It amazes me the sheer quantity and variety of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic film and other material. Jericho is generously a prime time drama with a backdrop of nuclear attack.

There’s a sort of seriousness/grimness continuum from Threads and other films on one end to the cartoonish Sam Hell Comes to Frog Town on the other end.

Also: "One second after".

I've read a book about that same theme that was mostly written online as some kind of collaborative effort if memory serves.

Edit: found it:

https://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/LightsOut-Current.pdf

Watched Jericho recently with my partner after telling her about it, as I'd never completed it back when it came out. Genuinely hilariously over-dramaticised, the typical American show where the directors constantly shove music and reactions in viewers' faces because they don't trust them to be smart enough to follow the narrative, but we still enjoyed it for what it was. 7/7 with rice. :)

There was a 1970s British show "Survivors" that had similar social concepts but after a pandemic instead of war. I think of this as the tail end of the era where science fiction still tried to be conceptual, instead of just using it as an aesthetic.

Imagine something like "The Walking Dead" series, but without the unscientific zombie horror and constant cheap gore.

Whoops apocalypse was another (an ITV mini series), and given the current political climate, a lot more realistic.

That's brought back some memories to me.

The series is from 1982 and then there's also a film of the same name in 1986. There's some heavyweight comedy actors in both.

It's a hilarious bit not at all realistic. 'You're telling me that the entire population of Great Britain has elected a complete moron to the highest office in the country... again???'

And lots of other funny lines.

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