Chernobyl (2019)

[nudge]

Looks good.

[Eco]

I agree it looks good, but I'm worried it's going to be absolutely intense for 99% of the movie and then afterwards you're left feeling exhausted

[nudge]

3 minutes ago, Eco said:

I agree it looks good, but I'm worried it's going to be absolutely intense for 99% of the movie and then afterwards you're left feeling exhausted

Yeah my bad, forgot to mention that it's actually a miniseries  

[Eco]

4 minutes ago, nudge said:

Yeah my bad, forgot to mention that it's actually a miniseries  

Damn - I knew that, they've been showing the trailers before GoT. 

Looks good though, but still incredibly intense and not a lot of uplifting moments as the whole thing was a nightmare. 

[nudge]

18 minutes ago, Eco said:

Damn - I knew that, they've been showing the trailers before GoT. 

Looks good though, but still incredibly intense and not a lot of uplifting moments as the whole thing was a nightmare. 

Yeah... It's actually possible to visit the exclusion zone on a guided tour these days. A few friends went a few years ago; the photos look surreal.

[Batard]

That was harrowing as fuck. I’m totally drawn in wanting to watch the rest, but as a parent felt so incredibly unsettled when they showed a baby effectively breathing in nuclear fallout. God damn it.

[nudge]

3 minutes ago, Batard said:

That was harrowing as fuck. I’m totally drawn in wanting to watch the rest, but as a parent felt so incredibly unsettled when they showed a baby effectively breathing in nuclear fallout. God damn it.

It's hard to watch indeed. Captured the whole horror and despair really well, in my opinion.

[Batard]

1 minute ago, nudge said:

It's hard to watch indeed. Captured the whole horror and despair really well, in my opinion.

My partner said to me “I’m torn on this series. I want to watch it but it’s so sad knowing this actually happened”

[nudge]

5 minutes ago, Batard said:

My partner said to me “I’m torn on this series. I want to watch it but it’s so sad knowing this actually happened”

My step father at the time actually got called up to clean up and deal with the consequences of the accident and only avoided it at the very last minute by bribing someone... Those who went either died or got sick later; the average life expectation of that group is just barely over 50 years... The whole thing was horrifying for both the first victims and the survivors.

[nudge]

11 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

Wait, is this out now?

Yes!

[Viva la FCB+]

Those smart SOB's kept hooking the trailer at the end of GOT this season. Been meaning to watch this, will check it out.

[Inverted]

I've enjoyed what I've seen of it so far, but I was led to believe it would be more historically accurate than it is. 

It paints the disaster in a way that suggests it causing way way more immediate deaths than it actually did. 

They don't explicitly say "here's how many have died", but you see people fall injured in such ways as to make it seem they're certainly done for, you see a large amount of people lying on stretchers and body bags etc., and you see one person die who has similar injuries to dozens of others so it seems logical they're all done for too. 

So from purely what they show, they don't explicitly contradict the actual figure of 30-something who died, but from watching it, I would think that at least several hundred people, if not thousands, died in weeks following the disaster. There are also scenes where they say they predict a certain amount of work might kill some thousands of workers, and then obviously they don't say afterwards "oh that didn't turn out as bad as our predictions". 

Im aware that it's hard to make a drama out of "this will raise cancer rates across large chunks of Europe", or "this might shave 10 years off a lot of our life expectancies" but the tone is overall a bit over-dramatised for people who know a bit about the disaster already. The disaster is bad enough in the actual impact it had, I'd have preferred more of an effort to portray the real gravity of it, than turn it into some kind of massacre in the month afterwards.

[RandoEFC+]

Watched the first three episodes yesterday, reckon it's good.

[Inverted]

On 25/05/2019 at 11:55, kapisevicius said:

The show is good but I don't get why there's so much hype about it, maybe because I already knew about the disaster and its effects but there was no scene in first three episodes that shocked me .

And English language in Soviet reality... the biggest disadvantage of the show in my opinion.

I don't really see what can be done about it. People have always played foreign characters, the most important thing is to not let it get in the way of the story. Shakespeare didn't write Julius Caesar in Latin, and loads of great historical films like Waterloo, The Pianist, and Paths of Glory have been done in English. Even recently, the Death of Stalin did excellently in my opinion at portraying the psychological aspect of Stalinism, in British and American dialects.

If the production isn't native to the place the events occur, it's better just to speak English, speak normally, and then keep everything consistent. 

[Batard]

On 25/05/2019 at 12:55, kapisevicius said:

The show is good but I don't get why there's so much hype about it, maybe because I already knew about the disaster and its effects but there was no scene in first three episodes that shocked me .

And English language in Soviet reality... the biggest disadvantage of the show in my opinion.

If you listen to the official podcast, they explain why they use English language 

[Cicero]

It's very good. 

On 22/05/2019 at 03:23, Inverted said:

 It paints the disaster in a way that suggests it causing way way more immediate deaths than it actually did. 

They don't explicitly say "here's how many have died", but you see people fall injured in such ways as to make it seem they're certainly done for, you see a large amount of people lying on stretchers and body bags etc., and you see one person die who has similar injuries to dozens of others so it seems logical they're all done for too. 

So from purely what they show, they don't explicitly contradict the actual figure of 30-something who died, but from watching it, I would think that at least several hundred people, if not thousands, died in weeks following the disaster. There are also scenes where they say they predict a certain amount of work might kill some thousands of workers, and then obviously they don't say afterwards "oh that didn't turn out as bad as our predictions". 

Im aware that it's hard to make a drama out of "this will raise cancer rates across large chunks of Europe", or "this might shave 10 years off a lot of our life expectancies" but the tone is overall a bit over-dramatised for people who know a bit about the disaster already. The disaster is bad enough in the actual impact it had, I'd have preferred more of an effort to portray the real gravity of it, than turn it into some kind of massacre in the month afterwards.

Where is the inaccuracy you are seeing? 

3 People died from the blast, which we saw. 

Around 50 people were exposed to the radiation and died weeks after. There were others who were exposed and had radiation sickness, but made a recovery (still long term side effects however)

I feel the show did a great job portraying all of that? Of course there are the divers and the coal miners, but if we are to believe the statistical data, nearly 4,000 people died or have cancer that were a direct result of Chernobyl. 

 

[Inverted]

33 minutes ago, Cicero said:

It's very good. 

Where is the inaccuracy you are seeing? 

3 People died from the blast, which we saw. 

Around 50 people were exposed to the radiation and died weeks after. There were others who were exposed and had radiation sickness, but made a recovery (still long term side effects however)

I feel the show did a great job portraying all of that? Of course there are the divers and the coal miners, but if we are to believe the statistical data, nearly 4,000 people died or have cancer that were a direct result of Chernobyl. 

 

As I said it's shot in such a way as to not be concretely inaccurate, but to take the divers for example, the show paints it as a clear suicide mission. 

As far as I know, the men survived and had fairly normal lives. Of course the show doesn't show them dying, but it doesn't contradict the build up which paints it as certain death. If I didn't know any better I would think they were dead men within the next days. 

As someone who already knew about the divers, it just took me out of it slightly. 

[Cicero]

5 minutes ago, Inverted said:

As I said it's shot in such a way as to not be concretely inaccurate, but to take the divers for example, the show paints it as a clear suicide mission. 

As far as I know, the men survived and had fairly normal lives. Of course the show doesn't show them dying, but it doesn't contradict the build up which paints it as certain death. If I didn't know any better I would think they were dead men within the next days. 

As someone who already knew about the divers, it just took me out of it slightly. 

I thought they died?

https://www.upworthy.com/you-probably-dont-know-their-names-but-30-years-ago-they-saved-europe

Quote

By the time the men surfaced from under the reactor, all three were showing signs of severe radiation poisoning. Tragically, none of them survived for more than a few weeks.

 

[Inverted]

6 minutes ago, Cicero said:

I thought they died?

https://www.upworthy.com/you-probably-dont-know-their-names-but-30-years-ago-they-saved-europe

 

Apparently that was some kind of mix-up, but two of the men are still alive and another died I think of fairly natural causes (though likely the exposure shaved a few years off his life).

https://www.thetrumpet.com/14007-three-men-who-saved-millions

It's true that beforehand it probably did seem like a suicide mission, and them surviving doesn't diminish their heroism at all, but it turned out not be a suicide mission. Obviously, the build-up is far more dramatic than the realisation that the men turned out ok. The show doesn't outright make an inaccuracy, but it is quite happy to let the viewer draw the wrong conclusion.

[True Blue]

Seen the four episodes, excellent show. Also it reveals the magnitude of things that could have happened which is incredible. 

[Honey Honey]

This is the best thing I've seen this year. Brilliantly put together.

[RandoEFC+]

That fourth episode was very chilling with the animal control guys.

[True Blue]

I really like the cold creepy music that gives the extra edge on how serious the situation was

[Inverted]

I think it really effectively makes you feel the terror of dealing with radiation. It's not like any threat humans will naturally have to respond to, so we have no instinctive way of responding or safeguarding ourselves, and very few people really properly understand how it works. 

Its a kind of fear that's hard to put into words, but you can feel it. 

[True Blue]

On 28/05/2019 at 16:40, Inverted said:

As I said it's shot in such a way as to not be concretely inaccurate, but to take the divers for example, the show paints it as a clear suicide mission. 

As far as I know, the men survived and had fairly normal lives. Of course the show doesn't show them dying, but it doesn't contradict the build up which paints it as certain death. If I didn't know any better I would think they were dead men within the next days. 

As someone who already knew about the divers, it just took me out of it slightly. 

The three divers all died within two weeks mate