The alcyonecorporation memorial thread about autoshite in 'Threads'

[somewhatfoolish]

Inspired by the bantz on the 'Show us your interior' thread I meandered over to yootoob and watched Sheffield suffer millions of pounds of improvements courtesy of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces Redevelopment Council; before Shef got immolated there was kwalitee 80s chod a-go-go.

 

The opening scene is promising, a Mk2 'tina on a blasted moorland.

 

Reece Dinsdale's bit of stuff gets a lungful of fresh blast furnace efflux.

 

Moody and atmospheric; it's like a Ford advert only without sunshine.

 

Reece's wireless receiver has Long Wave and Medium Wave, posh git. No pushbutton presets though, not that posh.

 

They repair to the Corner House for some warm, flat beer; outside a FIAT 126 speeds past, hotly pursued by a Mk4/5 'tina estate.

 

Meanwhile civil defence swings into action and delivers army surplus blankets to a school in a Transit panel van with a rather lairy colour scheme.

 

Back at home Dinsdale's parents' neighbours are fleeing Shef for Lincolnshire in a russet brown Morris Ital estate.

 

British Army chod.

 

Epic 80s street scene shite.

 

Ambulance shite.

 

More street scene chod.

 

Mk3 Ezz with added panic-stricken evacuation.

 

EssDeeWon deploys to keep the streets of Shef free of miscreants and 5th columnists.

 

Scimitar and Mk3 Ezz(I think?) are abandoned due to thermonuclear-induced overheating.

 

That's it really, death through acute radiation poisoning and being shot for looting features no autoshite of any kind.

[Bren]

The flash and heat would have dried the SD1's carpets out.

[Asimo]

Fuck, but I miss the past.

I liked the AM world, with Commer vans, 405 lines, coal mines and no airbags.

 

One day in 1984 I went to a job in Sheffield, in a shiny-new red Manta GTE. When I got there no one was interested in me or what I had gone there to fix as they had all been made redundant that morning.

[alcyonecorporation]

Sack it, I'm getting the last train and taking my blue Sprinter van to Mareby*

(actually Wardle, near Rochdale). 

[Lacquer Peel]

If you enter the daft post-apocalyptic world of a famous American drama you can drive dusty but brand new Hyundais.

[alcyonecorporation]

Prefer Beetles, me. 

[Lacquer Peel]

It's no Type 2 in Lost.

 

[Felly Magic]

I remember watching Threads as a nipper, it scared the shit out of me, especially as I knew Sheffield fairly well due to relatives living there

[trigger]

I need to watch this at some point.

[DodgeRover]

It's not a happy watch, specially if you know Sheffield

[Bren]

I remember it as well - thinking that thermonuclear weapons landing on Sheffield would cause millions of pounds worth of improvements.

[alcyonecorporation]

I need to watch this at some point.

 

It's one of the most depressing films I've ever watched. 

There's no happy ending. 

It's just the north after an apocalypse. 

Everyone just dies of radiation sickness

Or gets raped 

Or robbed 

Nothing gets rebuilt (especially not the Tinsley Viaduct) 

And that's more or less it. 

[alcyonecorporation]

"This is a cat's skeleton."

 

[chaseracer]

Got the DVD somewhere - must watch it again.

[alcyonecorporation]

We were shown it at school. 

In Sale. 

When I was 8. 

[Ghosty]

Please don't remind me this exists.

 

(Or The Day After).

[somewhatfoolish]

It should be pointed out that quite a bit of the OMGGODZILLARADIATIONDEATH!!11one stuff is alarmist fiction; nuclear war is bad shit but it wouldn't rob us of science and technology even in the event of a quite comprehensive destruction of the country's infrastructure and being chronically irradiated has proven somewhat less dangerous than advertised. In the specific scenario outlined revival of what would essentially have been the UK economy circa 1880 given the population reduction, difficulties with agriculture and destruction of manufacturing base etc, it seemed to take a very pessimistic view of how quickly some of the basics of modern life circa 1984 could be recovered. Given the UK is endowed with the raw materials to do so; coal, oil, iron ore and most other source materials are available domestically, recovering a mid-20th century economy(pro-rata, population growth would have to be much slower) should be achievable within a decade.

 

To address one of the more egregious points in the film; even if oil(imported or from the north sea) is unavailable it is possible to synthesise liquid fuels from coal with quite basic apparatus, so the idea the population would largely be occupied tending crops by hand is risible(aside from the fact the UK simply could not sustain the ~35m survivors by means of unmechanised un-augmented agriculture, so millions would starve). The same coal-liquids processes could supply basic petrochemicals, the building blocks of pharmaceuticals, fertilisers, and the many other dull things that help make modern life work.

 

TL;DR nuclear war would be horrifically bad but not as apocalyptic as Threads makes out. Scares the willies out of me regardless though.

[Bren]

It's one of the most depressing films I've ever watched. 

There's no happy ending. 

It's just the north after an apocalypse. 

Everyone just dies of radiation sickness

Or gets raped 

Or robbed 

Nothing gets rebuilt (especially not the Tinsley Viaduct) 

And that's more or less it.

 

Yep - like living in Warrington.

[Mr A Lawrence]

A lad at my school was in it.

 

The bit with the post apocalypse survival scene with the fight over the rabbit.

 

He was a proper pretentious knob over it.

[Richard]

.

[DSdriver]

MrsDS wants to know (because self interest naturally): In a post apocalyptic Sheffield would the production of knives and scissors cease or would they be available glow in the dark?

[somewhatfoolish]

Given that the only knife, fork and spoon manufacture left in Shef is well posh stuff made by hand-carved artisans from OMG!TECHNOLOGY! alloys I strongly suspect that spoon manufactury and miscellaneous cutling would continue even in the event of a full nuclear exchange.

[martc]

Threads is very harrowing etc but I do agree that they overdid the 'complete collapse of civilisation' a little bit - particularly the inability of the next generation to speak in anything but 'cave man' English.

[somewhatfoolish]

Threads is very harrowing etc but I do agree that they overdid the 'complete collapse of civilisation' a little bit - particularly the inability of the next generation to speak in anything but 'cave man' English.

Anecdotally this has happened anyway, without the necessity of a 3rd world war.