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I watched the first episode and it's loving incredible, I'll just echo what has been said a dozen times or more now because it's so accurate: the sense of dread that this inspires, and the feeling that you're watching a horror film that just so happens to have been a very real event with little to no exaggeration is just staggering.
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May 9, 2019 03:52
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It had the anxiety of watching alien for the first time, I was really impressed how ominous they made an environmental disaster
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May 9, 2019 04:02
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The whole episode was terrifying but the engineer who was forced to walk out to look down at the reactor sitting in the chair silently while the officials screamed at him was really awful.
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May 9, 2019 04:04
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This show sure does have a lot of existential horror for something that's ostensibly about an industrial accident.
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May 9, 2019 04:20
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Since people are sharing Chernobyl related things, I recommend this by Cloth Map (by Drew Scanlon from Giant Bomb): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdgVcL3Xlkk
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May 9, 2019 04:22
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Henker posted:This show sure does have a lot of existential horror for something that's ostensibly about an industrial accident. The concept of radiation in general has always carried quite a bit of existential dread for me. Just this invisible force that can rip your cells apart and cook you like a hot dog is absolutely terrifying
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May 9, 2019 04:46
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Lots of talk upthread about the hell mouth shot but the billowing smoke as moustache was on the roof made me want to throw up. The building is just spitting out whole towns worth of black. That was the most effectively disgusting cgi I've ever seen.
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May 9, 2019 04:56
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CODChimera posted:Are there any other tv shows or movies like this and The Terror? just the overwhelming sense of dread going on is so intense and scary. The movie Ravenous comes to mind.
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May 9, 2019 05:10
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Vakal posted:The movie Ravenous comes to mind. Really? I thought it was more of a slapstick comedy
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May 9, 2019 05:13
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Donovan Trip posted:It would've added so, so much to the show if they'd pulled it off. It's fine as is, I guess. But if you're gonna use it the actual distress call from the actual event in the beginning of your show maybe a general level of authenticity should be achieved in the rest of it. I completely agree with this but otherwise the show is incredibly cheeki to my breeki.
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May 9, 2019 05:19
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Despera posted:Really? I thought it was more of a slapstick comedy It's both!
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May 9, 2019 05:22
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Spaseman posted:The whole episode was terrifying but the engineer who was forced to walk out to look down at the reactor sitting in the chair silently while the officials screamed at him was really awful. Yeah, that stuck out to me: knowing he was going to die in agony in a few days while a couple of local apparatchiks berated him, saying it can't be true...
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May 9, 2019 05:25
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The North Tower posted:I've always assumed it's for American audiences (haven't looked up how many Brits are on this show) so that they can have native speakers but have it be 'foreign'. That's definitely part of it. Honestly, though, are the accents really worth complaining about? Having the whole thing done in Russian with English subtitles would be a disaster. That would change the genre from Historical Thriller to Foreign Language Drama, and there are plenty of people who just straight up will not watch something that's entirely in another language. Would it really be better if they spoke Russian-accented English? Someone upthread already pointed out that accents like that tend to influence how the actor plays the character, and you'd get all sorts of exaggerated and wide-ranging accents as everyone tries to do their best Boris and Natasha voice. It seems like the most pragmatic thing to do is what they've done.
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May 9, 2019 05:28
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So long as they're not Sean Connery talking in a broad Scottish accent there's really no issue for me.
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May 9, 2019 05:36
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Death of Stalin is good because it’s not About the death of Stalin. This is good because it’s not About Chernobyl.
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May 9, 2019 05:42
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I dunno, if they can teach actors to sword fight and play ninja I don't understand why they couldn't have more dialectical flavors than LA or British in movies and TV. It's not exclusive to this show obviously, I assumed going into it we'd get at least Eastern European but eh. Sorry for the derail, great show otherwise tbh
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May 9, 2019 06:36
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Accents would be a big deal back then. The Chernobyl project involved moving tens of thousands of people into a place in the middle of nowhere with local labor from what is now Ukraine and Belarus and engineers from all over the Soviet Union being thrown together. A Russian/Ukraininan mix called Surzhyk ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surzhyk ) would be the common language used on the working floor and language is still a huge deal in the whole civil war mess. Someone like plant manager Viktor Bryukhanov (the curly hair guy heading the meeting) who was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan would probably have a strong accent as well that would set him apart from the Russians.
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May 9, 2019 07:00
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I want Jared Harris to switch to Belter Creole. That's pretty much the other possible accent change I would be in favor of.
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May 9, 2019 08:01
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counterfeitsaint posted:I want Jared Harris to switch to Belter Creole. That's pretty much the other possible accent change I would be in favor of. “ME CRUSH INTERNAL ORGANS TO DUST!”
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May 9, 2019 08:08
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CODChimera posted:Are there any other tv shows or movies like this and The Terror? just the overwhelming sense of dread going on is so intense and scary. You might like: Annihilation. Melancholia. Coherence. The Road. It Follows. The Blackcoat's Daughter. The Witch. Under the Skin. A Ghost Story. Timecrimes. Under The Shadow. The Quiet Earth.
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May 9, 2019 08:37
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Trevor Hale posted:Death of Stalin is good because it’s not About the death of Stalin. This is good because it’s not About Chernobyl. No I think it's about Chernobyl. It's even the name of the show!
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May 9, 2019 08:51
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alphabettitouretti posted:The Quiet Earth. I really dug the first half of that film. They did interesting stuff in the back half but I think I actually preferred watching him go mad as he wandered the earth alone. The middle section of Annihilation is also superb. That loving bear 
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May 9, 2019 08:55
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"If all of the English speaking actors spoke with goofy Russian accents this show would be way better" is going to be the hot take repeated on every page of this thread.
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May 9, 2019 08:56
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CeeJee posted:Accents would be a big deal back then. The Chernobyl project involved moving tens of thousands of people into a place in the middle of nowhere with local labor from what is now Ukraine and Belarus and engineers from all over the Soviet Union being thrown together. A Russian/Ukraininan mix called Surzhyk ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surzhyk ) would be the common language used on the working floor and language is still a huge deal in the whole civil war mess. Someone like plant manager Viktor Bryukhanov (the curly hair guy heading the meeting) who was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan would probably have a strong accent as well that would set him apart from the Russians. I think that's the traditional idea if you have everyone speak in their "natural" accents you get a rough approximation of the mix of different accents in the USSR.
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May 9, 2019 08:58
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According to their podcast, they intentially made sure that noone spoke with an American accent, since it would prove to be too distracting for an American audience. That same American audience would not cope with Russian/Ukranian dialogue with english subtitles, so if you want to make a show like this with this amount of money behind it, you simply has to make it in english. End of story.
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May 9, 2019 09:51
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BigglesSWE posted:According to their podcast, they intentially made sure that noone spoke with an American accent, since it would prove to be too distracting for an American audience. Yep. I’d love to live in a world where this was shot in the local language but look at the clear budget differences between this and say, Deutschland 83, and I can see why they had to do English or cut the budget heavily. I really didn’t mind the accents. I mean I echo the first comrade or Russian name was odd but I mean do we criticise any Roman period piece for not being in an Italian accent?
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May 9, 2019 11:36
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i would love it if the next episode opened with jared harris opening an airlock and declaring directly into the camera I NEED A COUNT OF ALL ZE CONTAINMENT RODS AH HA HA HA
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May 9, 2019 12:20
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counterfeitsaint posted:I want Jared Harris to switch to Belter Creole. That's pretty much the other possible accent change I would be in favor of. ya bossman
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May 9, 2019 13:35
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The
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May 9, 2019 13:50
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ITT: people who were also upset that the characters in HBO:s Rome didn't actually deliver their lines in Latin and Greek.
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May 9, 2019 20:22
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Watched the pilot, but wasn’t really drawn in like I was hoping to be. I’ll probably come back when I can binge the whole season at once and see if it’s better all at once.
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May 9, 2019 20:30
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Comrade Koba posted:ITT: people who were also upset that the characters in HBO:s Rome didn't actually deliver their lines in Latin and Greek. Pro username/post combo for this thread
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May 9, 2019 20:48
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Strong first episode, though I have to wonder how bewildered people who have no familiarity with nuclear power must have been.
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May 9, 2019 21:06
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Stalin has been dead for more than thirty years at this point although one of the main reasons for the purges was lovely Russian engineers/engineering.
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May 9, 2019 21:22
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Madurai posted:Strong first episode, though I have to wonder how bewildered people who have no familiarity with nuclear power must have been. I spent about 30 minutes reading through the wiki article on Chernobyl and I think that really increased by enjoyment of the show. With some basic knowledge of how things played out the night of the accident, it's much easier to get a handle on the information each scene is trying to convey.
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May 9, 2019 21:23
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Something the podcast pointed out that I found interesting (and it gets said in dialog too, but hearing it out of the context of the show helped), at the time, it was thought that nuclear power was more or less infallible. The heavy denial about the core blowing up wasn't just "no this couldn't happen on my watch", it was literally "this shouldn't be physically possible".
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May 9, 2019 21:41
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jivjov posted:Something the podcast pointed out that I found interesting (and it gets said in dialog too, but hearing it out of the context of the show helped), at the time, it was thought that nuclear power was more or less infallible. The heavy denial about the core blowing up wasn't just "no this couldn't happen on my watch", it was literally "this shouldn't be physically possible". There’s also a component of “we’re totally hosed.” They had two options: A) The core survived and desperately needed water, in which case their choices were correct B) The core didn’t survive and everyone is hosed anyways, in which case their choices are now irrelevant The post-facto knowledge that there was nothing to be done doesn’t mean that their actions were incorrect: they took the action which was most likely to prevent an explosion and meltdown, not understanding that both had already occurred... So, option B is literally to run from the room, screaming; but in the event of option A, that causes the explosion. Dude not getting out the good dosimeter I’d pretty inexcusable, though...
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May 9, 2019 21:56
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There's one part (it maybe have been in the preview, I forget) where they say (paraphrased) "this can't happen because we're the Soviet Union."
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May 9, 2019 21:58
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Yeah, uh, denying multiple reports that the core has exploded because you don't believe it's possible is pretty poo poo operating. If you are receiving multiple reports from independent sources that the core is gone then you need to operate under that assumption. There could have been multiple different reasons why the core could have exploded, including the possibility of sabotage or a military strike. Going through your casualty response orders for a casualty you assume has occurred despite numerous indications to the contrary is being an idiot.
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May 9, 2019 22:23
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Kawasaki Nun posted:Yeah, uh, denying multiple reports that the core has exploded because you don't believe it's possible is pretty poo poo operating. If you are receiving multiple reports from independent sources that the core is gone then you need to operate under that assumption. There could have been multiple different reasons why the core could have exploded, including the possibility of sabotage or a military strike. There is a principle known in incident investigation called fixation or cognitive lockup that is defined as such in David Woods' Behind Human Error, and even influenced by Chernobyl: quote:The result of several studies [...] strongly suggest that one source of error in dynamic domains is a failure to revise situation assessment as new evidence comes in. Evidence discrepant with the agent's or team's current assessment is missed or discounted or rationalized as not really being discrepant with the current assessment. The operational teams involved in several major accidents seem to have exhibited this pattern of behavior; examples include the Three Mile Island accident (Kennedy et al., 1979) and the Chernobyl accident. Here's additional descriptions of the process from the same source (I only have my highlighted copy around):  So all in all it's not coming out of the blue. It's a common thing, albeit quite glaring in the Chernobyl depiction. But you can see it rationalized as: the tech is just confused / in shock, send him to the infirmary. He sees graphite on the ground and kind of just blanks, etc. The radiation level is not outlandish (even if it's the max reading). The glowing air is the Cherenkov effect. It has to be a hydrogen tank, nobody knows how the core could blow up. The explosion itself was not a thing that was possible so all explanations are retrofit into existing things where the core does not need to have blown up for things to work. E: two more interesting pages:  
MononcQc fucked around with this message at 22:46 on May 9, 2019 |
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May 9, 2019 22:35
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