signalmankenneth
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This movie is free on youtube, just finish watching it, it's pretty good for a TV movie?!!
CNN —
In November 1983, the US, Soviet Union and the rest of the world were teetering closer than ever on the edge of nuclear war. A NATO military exercise had spooked the Soviets, who thought the exercise was merely a cover for a real nuclear strike on the USSR, prompting them to ready their own nuclear forces.
Who knew, then, that an ABC movie-of-the-week would play a significant role in potentially preventing nuclear war?
“The Day After,” a two-hour epic following a few weeks in the lives of small-town Midwesterners before and after a nuclear strike, was one of the most controversial and most-watched TV movies when it aired on November 20, 1983.
In its first hour, the people of Lawrence, Kansas, go about their lives as the threat of nuclear war looms. But when the nuke finally comes to Kansas, the devastation is immediate: Acres of crops are singed and poisoned, homes are leveled, a fifth-grade class is vaporized at school.
Characters we come to know in the film’s first half are obliterated in an instant or barely clinging to life as they succumb to radiation poisoning. Even those who survive the attack by the film’s end will soon die, viewers know.
It’s an uneasy watch now, but “The Day After” was even more affecting when nuclear war was on the table and top of mind. It’s still one of the most-watched TV events in US history –– more than 100 million viewers tuned into its original broadcast, more half of the country’s adult population at the time. What’s more, it’s credited with changing then-President Ronald Reagan’s mind against nuclear war.
Getting “The Day After” to air, though, was fraught. Even Reagan, who praised the film in his private writings, didn’t agree with its bleak and upsetting depiction of nuclear aftermath.
But the team who created it knew it could be important, so, after rejecting requests for edits, dodging complaints from conservative groups and acquiescing to the occasional network demand, “The Day After” finally made it to TV and changed the history of the medium –– and potentially the world.
“There were all these behind the scenes (challenges) going on, which we working on the film never really knew at the time,” said Jack Wright, an emeritus professor of theater at the University of Kansas and head of local casting on “The Day After,” in an interview with CNN. “It’s amazing that the film came out as strong as it did.”
Censors thought the film was too graphic
“The Day After” ends with a written warning to the audience: “The catastrophic events you have just witnessed are, in all likelihood, less severe than the destruction that would actually occur in the event of a full nuclear strike against the United States.”
As a made-for-TV movie airing in a primetime Sunday night slot, “The Day After” couldn’t depict true nuclear horror, though there were still shocking scenes of mass death and the aftermath of a crumbling society.
That was the goal, director Nicholas Meyer said.
“I wanted to make it like a public service announcement,” Meyer said in the 2022 documentary “Television Event,” about the tumultuous production of the film.
The script was sparse and plain. Early scenes include a meeting at an art museum between a doctor and his daughter with plans to leave Kansas and a romantic tryst between a young couple days from getting married. We meet husbands, wives, their children and friends so that when they’re ripped away from each other in the second half, their loss will feel almost as sudden as it would if a real nuclear event had separated them.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/09/entertainment/the-day-after-abc-movie-cec/index.html
CNN —
In November 1983, the US, Soviet Union and the rest of the world were teetering closer than ever on the edge of nuclear war. A NATO military exercise had spooked the Soviets, who thought the exercise was merely a cover for a real nuclear strike on the USSR, prompting them to ready their own nuclear forces.
Who knew, then, that an ABC movie-of-the-week would play a significant role in potentially preventing nuclear war?
“The Day After,” a two-hour epic following a few weeks in the lives of small-town Midwesterners before and after a nuclear strike, was one of the most controversial and most-watched TV movies when it aired on November 20, 1983.
In its first hour, the people of Lawrence, Kansas, go about their lives as the threat of nuclear war looms. But when the nuke finally comes to Kansas, the devastation is immediate: Acres of crops are singed and poisoned, homes are leveled, a fifth-grade class is vaporized at school.
Characters we come to know in the film’s first half are obliterated in an instant or barely clinging to life as they succumb to radiation poisoning. Even those who survive the attack by the film’s end will soon die, viewers know.
It’s an uneasy watch now, but “The Day After” was even more affecting when nuclear war was on the table and top of mind. It’s still one of the most-watched TV events in US history –– more than 100 million viewers tuned into its original broadcast, more half of the country’s adult population at the time. What’s more, it’s credited with changing then-President Ronald Reagan’s mind against nuclear war.
Getting “The Day After” to air, though, was fraught. Even Reagan, who praised the film in his private writings, didn’t agree with its bleak and upsetting depiction of nuclear aftermath.
But the team who created it knew it could be important, so, after rejecting requests for edits, dodging complaints from conservative groups and acquiescing to the occasional network demand, “The Day After” finally made it to TV and changed the history of the medium –– and potentially the world.
“There were all these behind the scenes (challenges) going on, which we working on the film never really knew at the time,” said Jack Wright, an emeritus professor of theater at the University of Kansas and head of local casting on “The Day After,” in an interview with CNN. “It’s amazing that the film came out as strong as it did.”
Censors thought the film was too graphic
“The Day After” ends with a written warning to the audience: “The catastrophic events you have just witnessed are, in all likelihood, less severe than the destruction that would actually occur in the event of a full nuclear strike against the United States.”
As a made-for-TV movie airing in a primetime Sunday night slot, “The Day After” couldn’t depict true nuclear horror, though there were still shocking scenes of mass death and the aftermath of a crumbling society.
That was the goal, director Nicholas Meyer said.
“I wanted to make it like a public service announcement,” Meyer said in the 2022 documentary “Television Event,” about the tumultuous production of the film.
The script was sparse and plain. Early scenes include a meeting at an art museum between a doctor and his daughter with plans to leave Kansas and a romantic tryst between a young couple days from getting married. We meet husbands, wives, their children and friends so that when they’re ripped away from each other in the second half, their loss will feel almost as sudden as it would if a real nuclear event had separated them.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/09/entertainment/the-day-after-abc-movie-cec/index.html
