hopper on 22/6/2019 at 09:27
Quote Posted by Renzatic
You get a +1 for the gratuitous philosophical German word.
...I'm not making fun of you. I mean it. It's a good word.
Bah. Me, I prefer Denkfehler or Verschlimmbesserung.
Tony_Tarantula on 22/6/2019 at 17:01
Quote Posted by Starker
Finally, one brilliant thing about it was how they built up the hero narrative and then at the very end
exposed that it was lies all along -- (the character of) Legasov wasn't a hero, he was just another scientist toeing the party line, like so many others. And that was crucial to drive home the point that it was never about any one person. Anyone who was high enough in the system had to be compromised to some extent and anyone with integrity never rose high enough in the system. What mattered was that the system was rotten to the core. And these are the things that always happen when personal interests and ideology are put above everything else.I suggest reading the Gulag Archipelago.
That type of dynamic isn't just a "Chernobyl" thing. It was a defining characteristic of the Soviet societal model. The USSR was an entire society that was politicized: every single aspect of life was about "the party" and "the revolution" (or "the revolutionary party").
In many ways this created an extremely Darwinian culture. Socialist ideologues were constantly issuing insane directives that went against reality or science. These took forms like impossible production quotas or (my personal favorite) when Lysenko ordered farmers to plant seeds twice as close together in order to increase crop production. More often than not these insane directives resulted in complete disaster and failure: crops failed, train tracks and bridges collapsed under loads, machinery would wear out from lack of maintenance, etc.
In a normal society people those responsible for the insane orders would have to start new careers in other areas.
However, that's impossible when those issuing the orders are party officials. Because it's highly political the #1 directive instead becomes preventing the public from ever having the thought that the glorious industrial revolution might have had a failure.
So what did they do instead? They'd start arresting engineers they didn't like, farm leaders, etc and torturing them until they would sign confessions for "wrecking" which was the deliberate sabotage of Soviet industry.
Pure necessity meant punitive dynamic was slowly fading by the 80's but the underlying nature of this entirely politicized society was a constant from Lenin (who first introduced this system of terror-induced political Darwiniasm) until the end of the Soviet Union.
Starker on 22/6/2019 at 22:19
Dude, just stop. When it comes to the Soviet Union, you have no idea. There isn't a single fellow countryman that I know who hasn't had people in their family executed or sent to Siberia. My own family fought against the Soviet regime and suffered the consequences. This isn't a topic for you to waffle about and pretend you know what you're talking about because you read some things, let alone try to lecture people whose lived experience this is.
Twist on 23/6/2019 at 00:39
This might sound like a naive question, but I'll ask anyways.
So I really want to watch this, especially after reading Starker's posts... but I rarely watch things without my wife, so she has to be on board.
(If I'm not watching something with her, I'm playing games, reading, etc... I just don't watch stuff by myself very often.)
I've read this is a really difficult show to watch. Is it just the tension and frustration, or is there any kind of troubling violence/torture/gore that my wife might find off-putting? She can handle serious, intense stuff just fine -- in fact, she prefers more serious films and shows -- but she doesn't easily tolerate long, detailed shots of people torturing/hurting other people or animals. A bit of circumstantial violence or gore is okay, as long as the camera doesn't dwell on it for too long.
My sense is that Chernobyl will be within range of what she'd tolerate, but I thought I'd ask first since I keep seeing it described as really, really difficult to watch.
demagogue on 23/6/2019 at 01:04
I'll tell you what I think is the worst of it and you can decide. (Technically spoilers of some scenes.)
The first episode is going to be the plant on fire and the staff & firefighters combating it, kind of in the manner of an action movie, and the radiation will show its initial effects. I didn't find this too gratuitous. I mean they get what look like terrible sunburns, signs of internal bleeding, and vomiting at this stage. By "not too gratuitous" I mean it doesn't wallow in it and plays it straight.
The second episode will have a big dose of body horror by the end with what radiation has done to the figherfigers' bodies, one in particular. Believe it or not they're usually "romantic" scenes, since his wife does everything she can to stay by his side through it all.
Episode four is the one following a small team of 3 liquidators (clean up crew) that's been ordered to execute animals and pets. Their first rule is to do it quickly and humanely, and they're not happy to do it. The kid that's just joining this team has a particularly hard time doing it, and we feel his pain. At some points the camera will dwell on him facing a pet, contemplating what he has to do, then the actual moment of execution is heard. While still jolting, it's mercifully off-camera most times.
Aside from scenes like these, the rest of it is largely personalities confronting each other, and some are portrayed as real assholes or delusional in a context where lives are at stake.
Twist on 23/6/2019 at 01:35
Thank you for the details! I think she'll be able to handle it.
The animals and pets being executed may be the hardest for her, but if it's filmed so the viewer empathizes with a character having difficulty with it, and the execution moments are mostly off-camera... it won't be her favorite part, but I think she'll accept it in its context.
Thanks dema!
Starker on 23/6/2019 at 04:04
Quote Posted by demagogue
By "not too gratuitous" I mean it doesn't wallow in it and plays it straight.
Yep, it shows some horrific things, but it doesn't linger on it. And having read Voices from Chernobyl, there are even some worse things they could have put in the show, but didn't.
In addition to what Dema brought out, there's also some full frontal nudity, but again, the camera doesn't linger.
Trance on 23/6/2019 at 16:30
They're still wearing the fucking hats!
Starker on 23/6/2019 at 16:51
Safety first.
Gray on 1/7/2019 at 01:46
Quote Posted by Dia
I found one of the scariest things about the Chernobyl disaster was how far that radiation extended, how it managed to settle in hot spots across Europe.
Yes. I'm from the arctic region of Sweden, over 2000 km from Chernobyl, but clouds of radioactivity drifted our way, and for decades you could not eat the local berries, mushrooms or reindeer meat, the radiation levels were unsafe. And we didn't get the worst of it, those clouds only passed us briefly.
My very lame standard joke about my insomnia was that Chernobyl made me glow in the dark.