World War III Pop Culture: A Review of Threads Part III

 

In Threads, nuclear weapons strike targets in Great Britain on the morning of 26 May, 1988 around 8:30 AM GMT. At this point war appears imminent and Britons are preparing themselves and their families as best they can. An off-camera narrator explains how it is now 3:30AM in Washington and the Western response to an attack will likely be slow. This suggests the Soviets initiated a pre-emptive nuclear attack against the NATO countries. Moments later, the scene changes to the Sheffield emergency operations council’s bunker beneath the city hall. As a briefing is underway, Attack Warning Red is transmitted across the UK. This signals that an enemy air and missile attack is now underway. Air raid sirens go off, and the main characters of the film are seen reacting. A single Soviet nuclear warhead is detonated high above the North Sea causing an electromagnetic pulse that severely damages communications in Northwestern Europe and the United Kingdom. The final scene before the first impact of Soviet weapons is of RAF Phantoms scrambling from RAF Finningley. Next the screen goes white for a fraction of a second signaling the apparent airburst of a nuclear warhead above the airbase, and then comes a mushroom cloud. Viewers then learn that NATO military sites are being struck. So, the first salvo is a purely counterforce effort, and presumably the same can be said for the US, UK, and French retaliation. 80 megatons initially fall on the UK and the warhead that detonates over the airbase is reported to be 150 kilotons.

Bedlam breaks out as the mushroom cloud rises above Sheffield from the direction of RAF Finningley. Some civilians stare in shock, as others redouble efforts to create an inner-shelter inside of their homes. Jimmy, one of the main characters, leaves his job site intent on reaching Ruth. Unfortunately, the EMP damage has rendered his car inoperable and he takes off on foot. This is the last we see of him. Ruth is helping her parents move her grandmother to the basement when she has a breakdown of sorts and rushes outside, apparently looking to find her soon-to-be husband. Ruth’s father chases after her and manages to get her back indoors before the next round of impacts begin.

The next piece of information shown on the screen tells viewers that the nuclear exchanges have escalated. This is the one point of the film where realism seems to go by the wayside. Judging by the amount of activity going on, not much real time appears to have passed. Certainly not enough for an escalation from counterforce to countervalue targets. The film indicates that Sheffield’s economic targets were next on the list, though its unlikely the Soviets would’ve struck the city simply to guarantee the destruction of the nearby factories, and other industrial targets. Not unless the escalation was rampant by that time, yet by all indications at least an hour would be needed to reach this level.

Moments later, Sheffield is struck by a Soviet ICBM and this is the point where life as we know it comes to a permanent end.

There’s little point in discussing the post-attack landscape and the world that takes shape in the weeks, months, and years following. Suffice to say, the scenes shown are poignant, and depressing. It’s near impossible to walk away from a viewing of Threads without the film having made an impact on you. This holds true even today in 2019. I can only imagine what it was like for people who watched it back in the mid-80s when East-West tensions were high and nuclear war seemed to be imminent.

Threads is undoubtedly the most effective, and realistic nuclear war film ever made. Sadly, it has been overshadowed by its US counterpart The Day After. At least on this side of the Atlantic. Later in the year I will review that film as well, but for the time being I’m quite content to return the focus of this blog back to a conventional Third World War.