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HBO's Chernobyl |OT| Do you taste something metallic?
- Thread starter Wrexis
- Start date
The tendency of English language programming to attempt to sound more akin to the language they are representing by use of English with "accents" is the worst, most idiotic, silly thing and it makes no sense at all. Either get original language actors or do it in the language of the show. So the way Chernobyl does it is fine with me.
Yes. Read what I wrote. They basically implied the crash into the crane had something to do with the radiation around the core (all the talk of perimeters and the radio breaking up), when in reality it didn't. That implied link to radiation is what led to the above confusion.
So you want them to show months of successful helicopter drops? Or to not show it at all?
I just feel like this show is getting far too much scrutiny for the wrong reasons. It is not claiming to be anything but what it is.
On gaming-side it would be the equivalent of going into a DriveClub thread to post about how unrealistic the driving model is. Okay.
We just need to agree on the fact that this is a series created for entertainment, loosely based on a real world catastrope. Not some sort of documentary or fact review video series.
That said, I'd kill for a companion series that went all in on the subject and highlighted the shortcuts and halftruths in this, as a sort of educational partner series filled with interviews of survivors and facts and blueprints and science and whatnot. Always referencing the current episode and maybe even some behind-the-scenes stuff like the costumes etc, while providing the comparatively dry reality behind it all. Basically, a wiki/duckduckgo spree condensed into bite-sized videos. The podcast is cute and all, but it's just two dudes talking and there's loads and loads of stuff falling by the wayside due to the format.
That said, I'd kill for a companion series that went all in on the subject and highlighted the shortcuts and halftruths in this, as a sort of educational partner series filled with interviews of survivors and facts and blueprints and science and whatnot. Always referencing the current episode and maybe even some behind-the-scenes stuff like the costumes etc, while providing the comparatively dry reality behind it all. Basically, a wiki/duckduckgo spree condensed into bite-sized videos. The podcast is cute and all, but it's just two dudes talking and there's loads and loads of stuff falling by the wayside due to the format.
That's more or less what the podcast is.
But I get what you're saying, productions like this often do have pure documentaries to go along with them or sometimes immediately after.
If you're going to dramatize to this extent, don't center the pitch and marketing so much around authenticity.
How about not showing a helicopter crashing in the first drop, because flying helicopters low over a burning nuclear reactor should be a high-tension enough scenario for anybody. Hell, it'd make sense to save the excitement of the crash for the boring recovery phase, when it actually happened.
Dramatization is fine, but they way the creators talk about the authenticity but alter aspects of the core event (and phenomena) is misleading, and has mislead people in this very thread. It literally purports to be an accurate representation, according to the write-producer:
And not only does the creator of the show make these claims, but people are buying it as a representation of fact. In the broader context, this is bad because nuclear power is thoroughly misunderstood but potentially important as a low-carbon emission energy source.
How about not showing a helicopter crashing in the first drop, because flying helicopters low over a burning nuclear reactor should be a high-tension enough scenario for anybody. Hell, it'd make sense to save the excitement of the crash for the boring recovery phase, when it actually happened.
Dramatization is fine, but they way the creators talk about the authenticity but alter aspects of the core event (and phenomena) is misleading, and has mislead people in this very thread. It literally purports to be an accurate representation, according to the write-producer:
And not only does the creator of the show make these claims, but people are buying it as a representation of fact. In the broader context, this is bad because nuclear power is thoroughly misunderstood but potentially important as a low-carbon emission energy source.
Damned good show.
Realism always takes a back seat to entertainment while telling a composite story. Don't see the big deal. When I'm done watching this I'll go watch all the docs referred in this thread that I've saved on YT.
Will be nice to see the facts. Until then this show is doing a great job of good acting and story telling and scaring the shit out of me with enough reality to make it have meaning.
Realism always takes a back seat to entertainment while telling a composite story. Don't see the big deal. When I'm done watching this I'll go watch all the docs referred in this thread that I've saved on YT.
Will be nice to see the facts. Until then this show is doing a great job of good acting and story telling and scaring the shit out of me with enough reality to make it have meaning.
A coworker has been talking about watching it so I had some time and did and I'm hooked. Went to watch the next episode then saw I had to wait till the 20th, I assumed the series was released all at once and wasn't a weekly thing.
Need to go back and get the names of certain characters but there were 3 guys who were the worst. I hope we see them again soon.
Need to go back and get the names of certain characters but there were 3 guys who were the worst. I hope we see them again soon.
Yep. I really don't get why English language movies and shows do fake accents so often when taking place in foreign countries. It's just not a thing in other languages I know of.
I much prefer the way this show handles it. Let the actors act in their original accent – the audience isn't stupid, we know it's taking place in Ukraine, we don't need the actors to remind us of that by putting on fake accents.
Also, fake French accents make me cringe real bad... I assume it'd be similar for Ukrainians and therefore it's just more respectful not to do it.
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Yep the director said as much in podcast. He said they wanted the actors that they chose and tried several actors using accents and said they can go wrong real quick and be almost farcical and wanted to avoid the trope. So natural language and focusing on the story and characters was the direction from early on.
Just caught the first two episodes, it's fantastic. The last half hour of the second episode (from the committee meeting onwards) was especially tense.
Being a 10 year old in the 1986, it brings me back to the existential dread of that time, I remember this, the Challenger explosion, bombing Libya and Khadaffi saying the streets of the US will 'run red with blood', the threat of nuclear war, acid rain and the AIDS virus pulling apart my young mind, and I remember it vividly. It's personally fascinating.
Being a 10 year old in the 1986, it brings me back to the existential dread of that time, I remember this, the Challenger explosion, bombing Libya and Khadaffi saying the streets of the US will 'run red with blood', the threat of nuclear war, acid rain and the AIDS virus pulling apart my young mind, and I remember it vividly. It's personally fascinating.
Five part mini-series, only two episodes are out at the moment.
The show does give an air of trying to be very authentic, seeing that it takes major liberties is quite disappointing. I don't want check everything just to see if that's close to the truth or not.
Of couse, in the end it's a TV Series and they have other priorities, but thinking that some of that drama was created by situations that are very far from reality does take some of the show's weight away. And, as I mentioned, puts a ? in every scene.
Of couse, in the end it's a TV Series and they have other priorities, but thinking that some of that drama was created by situations that are very far from reality does take some of the show's weight away. And, as I mentioned, puts a ? in every scene.
The show is fucking amazing, hooked from the first episode. The podcast and the "making of" are really good, too.
Being a very authentic representation in terms of aesthetics and chain of events doesn't necessarily mean 100% historical accuracy. At least for me.
But to recap the "major" liberties taken so far is
But to recap the "major" liberties taken so far is
- Immediate effects of radiation, and exaggerated claims of remaining lifespan for a few characters.
- Helicopter crash scene
- Amalgamation of various Soviet scientists into one character.
- Exaggerated dangers of the second steam explosion. Though there was an actual claim by a scientist it has been discredited since.
I'm fine with the exaggeration of the second explosion. We're taking everything out of his mouth as fact, but we've seen him already wrong about something in episode 2. It seems like a narrative choice simply for more drama, but....if someone at the time in real life expressed the possibility, even if wrong, then I'm fine with a character expressing it as well in a TV show.
It's a tie between this and Barry as far as what I'm more hyped for tomorrow.
Chernobyl is excellent so far. Must watch.
Chernobyl is excellent so far. Must watch.
Considering the inaction of the Politburo I think they exaggerated for a reason, just saying
It did have something to do with the radiation didn't it? From what I've read many pilots threw up after doing multiple runs daily. I thought the common theory was that the pilot hit the cable due to being disoriented. The only thing off is that it showed it as the first flight.
How unrealistic is it when dealing with radiation? Particularly the short term effects you mentioned.
The physical effects are exaggerated. Bloody lesions magically appearing within minutes, or the firefighter touching that debris and his hand looking like a rotten steak minutes later is really exaggerated. While radiation burn is real, In the most severe cases you dont really see burns quite like how they depict. The type of skin necrosis they show did happen to firefighters, but I've only seen a picture of comparable severity to what they show, and the picture was from 40 days after the incident. Typically stage 1 symptoms would probably be visible within hours like vomiting, but hair loss, convulsions and the outwardly visible effects come on stage 3.
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Watching this with bated breath. It's just unfathomable to me that all this actually occurred in the year I was born. The powers at work here are incomprehensible and make my skin crawl.
Can't wait for episode 3. Will definitely get it on BD as soon as it's made available.
Can't wait for episode 3. Will definitely get it on BD as soon as it's made available.
That's disappointing. Radiation was cooler when I thought the effects were so immediate and apparent.
Also remember, I don't know if we have records of anyone actually picking up graphite in their hand, so while the effects might be exaggerated, I'm not sure if we know what would happen if someone actually picked up a piece of graphite as radioactive as that piece. And if you want interesting for radiation, there are folks whose eyes supposedly changed color due to the intense radiation and who had blisters on their hearts. It does some crazy shit.
I find it scarier because it's not immediately apparent. Unlike being burned or other violent deaths, getting poisoned by fatal radiation seem more eerie because they're just as dead but they don't show it yet. If the effect is visible, both on the source and the victims, there will probably be less people dying because of radiation.
Watched the first two epis last night. I enjoy it, don't know how accurate it is, but I feel like im somewhat learning about what occurred.
Gratitude. So I take radiation is messy.
I like both scenarios. Radiation is scary because how it can be both invisible and utterly deadly. But to think it could act so fast when the exposure is big enough gave an even greater power to it in my eyes.
wait till you see episode 2. talk about tension. they portray the silent killer that is radiation perfectly.
Yeah, part of what makes radiation so scary is that you can be very super dead from it and have no idea.
I dug a little bit but I haven't read anything very explicit. In an interview, one of the pilots says he refused to fly just because of the cranes, no mention of radiation.
The reason why I really don't think it's radiation is because it frankly doesn't make sense it would suddenly cause a crash after months of helicopter drops, at a time when the radiation levels had been significantly reduced. Like, the helicopters from the first two weeks were so irradiated they are still sitting in the exclusion zone as radiation hazards. If the radiation was a contributing factor to that crash months later, it was then enormously lucky for it to have not caused one early on. I believe the threshold for throwing up afterwards is also a lot lower than disorientation (especially immediate disorientation).
I dug a little bit but I haven't read anything very explicit. In an interview, one of the pilots says he refused to fly just because of the cranes, no mention of radiation.
The reason why I really don't think it's radiation is because it frankly doesn't make sense it would suddenly cause a crash after months of helicopter drops, at a time when the radiation levels had been significantly reduced. Like, the helicopters from the first two weeks were so irradiated they are still sitting in the exclusion zone as radiation hazards. If the radiation was a contributing factor to that crash months later, it was then enormously lucky for it to have not caused one early on. I believe the threshold for throwing up afterwards is also a lot lower than disorientation (especially immediate disorientation).
After the clusterfuck that GOT turned into I refuse to allow some of you to take my love for this show with your " Well, actuaaaally" comments , don't put that evil on me
