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The end of WarGames

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Bubbler, Jun 2, 2012.

  1. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Does anyone remember Amerika?
     
  2. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    I remember that after-show, or I remember that aftermath of it, and I remember Sagan's comments were newsworthy.

    What we didn't know was that our fears were very real and very justified. As mentioned earlier here, the Soviets came within a whisker of accidentally launching nukes in 1983. When I saw a documentary on that nearly 25 years later, it sent a chill up my spine. We really were THAT close.

    The Day After was a REALLY BIG DEAL when it aired. One of the last great moments of network television before cable really took hold.
     
  3. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    "This is Lawrence, Kansas. Is there anybody out there? Anybody at all?"

    As a high schooler it creeped me out too.
     
  4. TowelWaver

    TowelWaver Well-Known Member

    As it happens, Barry Corbin's character of General Beringer was based on a real person, General Hartinger who was commander of NORAD at the time. My dad was in the Air Force and worked for him prior to that, when he was commander of Bergstrom AFB in Austin. From all the stories I've heard, the real general was every bit as much of a character as portrayed in the movie, and then some.
     
  5. Dyno

    Dyno Well-Known Member

    On the first school day after "The Day After" aired, my friend Susan and I overheard another classmate, Holly, tell her friend that she was now extra scared of a nuclear war and that she didn't want to die a virgin (I think we were in 9th grade.). So now, nuclear war and the loss of one's virginity are connected in my head.
     
  6. Mystery Meat II

    Mystery Meat II Well-Known Member

    Did anyone tell her about the ICBM in their pants and what she has to do to prevent it from exploding all over the place?
     
  7. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    I remember the night it aired - Nov. 20, 1983, might have been one of the last huge nights in Broadcast history in that The Day After was airing on ABC (100 million viewers alone), NBC had a Kennedy mini-series starring Martin Sheen and I think CBS was premiering a feature movie for the first time on TV.
    What freaked me out the most - considering all of the talk about the airing of the movie ahead of time - was our cable went out about 10 minutes in. I figured we were goners for sure.
     
  8. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    I don't get the Jonesing for Ally Sheedy. She has a crooked tooth.
     
  9. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    I was 7 when "The Day After" aired. My parents wouldn't let me watch it. They made me go to bed at 7 p.m., and it was still light outside.
    Finally watched it about 30 years later when it was randomly aired on SyFy some Saturday night. It seemed pretty realistic in the depiction of the aftermath -- showing that not everyone would die in the immediate strike, like you're ingrained to think -- but I wasn't overly creeped out by it. Not sure what I would have thought as a 7-year-old who had already seen the original "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" movies.
     
  10. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Does anyone remember an HBO movie from the early 1990s called "By Dawn's Early Light"?
    It was in the vein of "The Day After," in that it depicted the aftermath of the start of a nuclear war, but focused on a B-52 crew heading to Russia to drop bombs in a secondary strike and some drama on Air Force One after the Secretary of the Interior (as the last cabinet member alive and available) becomes president.
    It wasn't a bad flick. Probably saw it 100 times when it was in heavy rotation after it first aired, and then not since about 1992.
     
  11. pressmurphy

    pressmurphy Member

    I saw it maybe a week after seeing "Fail-Safe" for the first time. Not a bad twinbill.
     
  12. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Ooh, good pull. The original "Fail-Safe" is one my all-time favorites. Incredible tension, all leading up to an inevitable ending.
     
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