Posted on 01/29/2024 11:02:04 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
Stanley Kubrick’s sharp and persuasive comedy about nuclear war remains a hilarious act of provocation
Sixty years ago, Columbia Pictures released the first of two black-and-white movies with the exact same premise: what if American planes with hydrogen bombs were inadvertently ordered to drop their payload on targets in the Soviet Union, potentially triggering an all-out nuclear war that wipe out humanity? The Cuban missile crisis had pushed the superpowers to the brink of conflict less than two years earlier, and film-makers were unusually eager to face their cold war nightmares head on.
~snip~
On balance, Kubrick’s message is more persuasive. Dr Strangelove remains the greatest of movie satires for a host of reasons, not least that it hews so closely to the real-life absurdities of the cold war, with two saber-rattling superpowers escalating an arms race that could only end in mutual annihilation. There’s absolutely no question, for example, that the top military and political brass have gamed out the catastrophic loss of life in a nuclear conflict, just as they do in the war room here. Perhaps they would even nod sagely at the distinction between 20 million people dead v 150 million people dead. All Kubrick and his co-writers, Terry Southern and Peter George, have to add is a wry punchline: “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
“screen name”
Well done.
In the case of HAL in 2001, the computer goes crazy, treating its human companions as dispensable for the sake of its secret mission directive. The Alien series of movies had a similar premise, with each one of them showing the effects of lies leading to death and catastrophe in space.
As for the boring bits in 2001, the stark and dangerous environment of interplanetary space is shown to be like flying in consisting of long boring periods interrupted by moments of tension and terror. For the astronaut outside of the spacecraft in 2001, his breathing is increasingly labored as he returns to his spacecraft, is denied normal entry by HAL, and then must risk his life by blowing a hatch and re-entering without a helmet on his space suit.
Space flight experts and physicists raved about 2001 when it came out for getting the physics and technology correct. That helped create a model. Watch an episode of the Smithsonian TV series Air Disasters for comparison. A routine, boring airline flight suddenly goes wrong, with investigators then piecing together how a combination of technical failure and human error led to a crash.
In sum, the movie 2001 is accurate in ways that transcended prior science fiction. The closest similar major movie is The Martian, which got the physics and technology right, but with a larger cast and other issues for the sake of dramatic tension.
He was the architect of the firebombing raids on Japan in WWII, something I am wholly in support of, and when he made the decision to lower the altitude on the bombing raids from 25-30,000 feet down to about 8,000 feet, he very nearly caused a mutiny.
They were losing many planes, and not hitting any targets, which meant going back over and over again, losing more planes, and still not hitting any targets (much of it was due to the jet stream in the Stratosphere, something we didn't know about until we tried to fly to Japan, and they found they were doing 200 mph faster going one way, and battling headwinds the other way.
Anyway, it worked. I don't relish the fact that we did that to Japan, but that was war. And you hear all these people saying Japan was close to surrender, putting out feelers (which they were) but there was little possibility they were going to surrender, as much as some like to think so.
And the story where Abraham sacrifices Issac... That sets this film apart.
The only thing exciting about Space, is fiction written about it.
Get back to me when we actually put human beings on somewhere that has life. If not, why put out the effort and money?
My take on it also.
That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Beyond that, a subjective notion of a paranoid delusion is not whistleblowing.
Nobody would want to kill him just because he might have inadvertently blown the hatch on his Liberty Bell 7 capsule allowing it to sink into the ocean.
Analysis years later has indicated a static discharge arc, witnessed by the Marine in the recovery helicopter as he touched the capsule's whip antenna, caused the hatch bolts to detonated prematurely.
Hahahahaha...I have always found it amusing that certain movies, no matter how corny, improbable, or just silly seem to become totems of some kind for people in and around the military!
To be sure, I don’t view “Dr. Strangelove” as that kind of movie, because it is serious, focused satire that is brilliantly done.
Try the 1986 film “When the wind Blows”.
The Protect and Survive films, featured in “Threads” were the creepiest of all, just that music at the end gave me the willies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yrv505R-0U
That’s not what Grissom blew the whistle on.
Atom Central has some very good resources:
https://www.atomcentral.com/
2001 makes much sense if you read the book first.
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