Just to diverge, "Threads" was a genius British production dealing with the reasons for and results of a nuclear war over an estimated 15 year time-frame. It was so harrowing some critics reported being traumatized for weeks.
"The Day After" is a more sanitized version of nuclear war yet it stands on its own feet pretty well. My only gripe is that I'd have replaced some of the speechifying by people like Robards with a substantially more involved intro showing why the war broke out in the first place, more dialog from politicians, military people. Also, using actual people from Lawrence, Kansas in it sounds ok, but they are not actors and it shows.
The movie begins with intros to the people of Lawrence; farmers, doctors and the like. All salt-of-the-Earth middle Americans. Also, footage of air force personnel going through their day of processes to make sure they are ready for any eventuality. It comes off as quite realistic.
The lead-up to the eventual nuclear exchange lacks the intensity it should have. The news (likely) would be dominated by things like skirmishes with conventional weapons/troops by the (the other side) Russians and Americans/Europeans. Instead, what leads to the eventual confrontation are things more or less culled from Sir General Sir John Hackett's popular fictional novel of the time, "The Third World War." In it, Hackett thought that strife in Russia and the Communist Eastern Block would help to precipitate the war, riots in East Germany, and the like. There are briefly mentioned incidents like this in the film, which lead to confrontations between Russia and the West, leading to individual atomic bombings and eventually a full-on exchange. All told more or less though the observations and actions of the people in Lawrence. Unfortunately, this also limits the movie's national and international scope, which would have been very interesting to observe, in my opinion. In-truth, a really thorough telling of a nuclear war would have to be done as at least a mini-series on TV or even a full season program.
The special effects are middlin but acceptable for the time I guess. Well within the TV censorship at the time. You don't see people blown to bits or ripped to shreds by glass shards traveling 800mph (which would happen). Instead, people are "x-rayed" as skeletons and "Star Trek" style vaporized as if by phasers. The intent is there.
The reaction of the people I buy. They try to carry on after the bombing, doing what would be expected of those in an emergency like that. No feral mobs are roaming a wasteland. Civilization as such is preserved. I think that is a reasonable representation of areas like Kansas and not say inner-city Los Angeles which, if it survived at all would probably devolve like in post-apocalyptic scifi movies. Interestingly, no information about the status of U. S. or Russian forces are given post-bombing, despite there being a (at the time) robust presence of things like ham radio operators in the U. S.
The movie does show the effects of fall-out (which at the time would to be consequential because there were many hardened targets, like ICBM silos) that would need to be hit directly in order to stop them from launching, thus churning up soil which in-turn becomes fall-out. However, the effects on the humans aren't nearly as graphically-depicted as they are in movies like "Threads" and "Testament." A new movie dealing with a nuclear exchange would be different as fall-out would not be as much of a problem since most blasts would be air-bursts designed to hobble populations. Plus, there are only a fifth of the number of nuclear weapons that existed in 1984 today and there are (that we know of) no more huge H-bombs in the megaton or more range because they were deemed militarily obsolete in the 1990s.
At the end, the toll is beginning to show on people like Robards who has been worked off his feet as a doctor and is sick from radiation exposure.
So, "The Day After" is an entertaining movie, though dated, about the effects of a nuclear war and is quite watchable.
"The Day After" is a more sanitized version of nuclear war yet it stands on its own feet pretty well. My only gripe is that I'd have replaced some of the speechifying by people like Robards with a substantially more involved intro showing why the war broke out in the first place, more dialog from politicians, military people. Also, using actual people from Lawrence, Kansas in it sounds ok, but they are not actors and it shows.
The movie begins with intros to the people of Lawrence; farmers, doctors and the like. All salt-of-the-Earth middle Americans. Also, footage of air force personnel going through their day of processes to make sure they are ready for any eventuality. It comes off as quite realistic.
The lead-up to the eventual nuclear exchange lacks the intensity it should have. The news (likely) would be dominated by things like skirmishes with conventional weapons/troops by the (the other side) Russians and Americans/Europeans. Instead, what leads to the eventual confrontation are things more or less culled from Sir General Sir John Hackett's popular fictional novel of the time, "The Third World War." In it, Hackett thought that strife in Russia and the Communist Eastern Block would help to precipitate the war, riots in East Germany, and the like. There are briefly mentioned incidents like this in the film, which lead to confrontations between Russia and the West, leading to individual atomic bombings and eventually a full-on exchange. All told more or less though the observations and actions of the people in Lawrence. Unfortunately, this also limits the movie's national and international scope, which would have been very interesting to observe, in my opinion. In-truth, a really thorough telling of a nuclear war would have to be done as at least a mini-series on TV or even a full season program.
The special effects are middlin but acceptable for the time I guess. Well within the TV censorship at the time. You don't see people blown to bits or ripped to shreds by glass shards traveling 800mph (which would happen). Instead, people are "x-rayed" as skeletons and "Star Trek" style vaporized as if by phasers. The intent is there.
The reaction of the people I buy. They try to carry on after the bombing, doing what would be expected of those in an emergency like that. No feral mobs are roaming a wasteland. Civilization as such is preserved. I think that is a reasonable representation of areas like Kansas and not say inner-city Los Angeles which, if it survived at all would probably devolve like in post-apocalyptic scifi movies. Interestingly, no information about the status of U. S. or Russian forces are given post-bombing, despite there being a (at the time) robust presence of things like ham radio operators in the U. S.
The movie does show the effects of fall-out (which at the time would to be consequential because there were many hardened targets, like ICBM silos) that would need to be hit directly in order to stop them from launching, thus churning up soil which in-turn becomes fall-out. However, the effects on the humans aren't nearly as graphically-depicted as they are in movies like "Threads" and "Testament." A new movie dealing with a nuclear exchange would be different as fall-out would not be as much of a problem since most blasts would be air-bursts designed to hobble populations. Plus, there are only a fifth of the number of nuclear weapons that existed in 1984 today and there are (that we know of) no more huge H-bombs in the megaton or more range because they were deemed militarily obsolete in the 1990s.
At the end, the toll is beginning to show on people like Robards who has been worked off his feet as a doctor and is sick from radiation exposure.
So, "The Day After" is an entertaining movie, though dated, about the effects of a nuclear war and is quite watchable.