Thanks to Alan2005 I've recently watched the BBC2 TV movie "Threads" first broadcast on Sept 23rd 1984.

It is essentially identical to the US TV movie "The Day After" first broadcast on ABC on Nov. 20th 1983, which I watched on that date.

So whose ideas were in it? Do they have perhaps a common literary provinence?

Just curious.

Hang on, didn't someone post something about that the other day?...

...here it is, AX posted the link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Square_Leg

"Operation Square Leg was one of the exercises used to estimate the destructiveness of a Soviet nuclear attack in the 1984 BBC production Threads."

The credits (etc) are probably listed for both movies in imdb.

Yes, the matter came up in the thread you quote. Alan2005 gave me a link to "Threads" which I've since watched.

Apart from being set in a British context (Sheffield) instead of the Midwest, it's virtually identical to The Day After.

The credits have nothing in common with each other... no overlap at all.

Strange.

No idea - but I remember watching them as a teenager and being scared witless that I would die before I got to do my o levels and worse - a virgin!!!

'Threads' was basically a modernised version of 'The War Game', so you could argue that that came first. I don't think either 'ripped off' the other, just that many people were convinced that Reagan was about to attack the Commies at any moment so the idea of nuclear war was in the air.

That said, 'The Day After' was probably more influential as I believe Reagan said it was what convinced him to work with the Commies to drastically cut back on the stockpiles of nukes.

You're all old

We were actually shown the movie when i was in the Navy as part of NBCD training.

No, the War Game is certainly relevant, but Threads and The Day After are two peas in a pod. I can't imagine how people being scared shitless of Raygun would lead to the invention of trans-Atlantic cloning.

I wouldn't use the phrase 'rip off'; but you could say that threads was inspired by the day after (not sure how much the productions of these two programs overlapped though). I do remember that, as MarkG says, nuclear war and it's potential effects were common memes at the time; there were certainly many docs and programs about it.

I watched both 'the day after' and 'threads' around the same time; probably on their first airings in the UK. 'Threads' really did scare the crap out of me when I was a young teenager so much that I actually vowed to join CND after watching it, but the young alan2005 didn't have that kind of follow through so I never did. I can say that I still remember many scenes from it even though I have not seen it since it's first showing - something I can't say about 'the day after'.

Which of the two is better I wouldn't like to say without watching them both again. I know which one had the most impact on me when I was young though.

Following on from the other thread () I watched bits of 'Threads' on youtube the other night. Aside from marvelling at the 1980's images, I found it as disquieting now as I did when I watched it as a teenager in 1983. I can't recall watching 'The Day after' but I suspect (and I think wikipeda seems to bear this out) that it was less 'gritty' than the UK version.

EDITED to add:

The 'Protect and Survive' films can be found on Youtube. Partly laughable - for the futility of the advice, the corny graphics and Patrick Allen's narration, they are also rather chilling!

British government information films in the 70's and 80's always managed that weird combination of laughable and chilling. This certainly wasn't an exception.

Edit to add: I remember the air raid sirens being around when I was growing up though I think they are dismantled now (not sure when that happened, but it was quite recently). I'm pretty sure they've never had them here

It's also on youtube in about 10 parts; this is the first bit..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGEq9...eature=related

Not only is it just as gritty, it's identical in terms of plot development and structure.

I don't see what you'd do differently though; in both cases you're going to have a buildup to war, a bunch of people you'll follow through the story, a load of nuclear explosions, a lot of people being killed, and a few others trying to survive in the aftermath. At least I think that was the same in 'Day After' as while I have 'Threads' on DVD I haven't seen 'Day After' since it was first broadcast.

Once you decide to make a story about nuclear war and its effects, you're pretty much certain to have that kind of plot and structure. Doing otherwise would be like making a James Bond movie where he just sits behind a desk in the MI5 building filling out forms for ninety minutes.

I have them on DVD; my favorite is the one where they're talking about putting your dead relatives in bin-bags and labeling them before you leave them outside for the bin-men.

I'd already concluded that you have little or no imagination. There are a myriad of different ways to deal with the subject. Spike Miligan's approach was perhaps my favourite. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064074/plotsummary

I think the similarities between the other two are so clear that one must be an adaptation of the other, but neither appear to admit it.

No big deal. I just found it mildly interesting.

As you were.