I haven’t seen Threads, but have heard it is better. If any of you ever get to Japan and can visit Hiroshima, it’s worth going there. I didn’t feel guilt, but I did feel sorrow and shock. War Games was supposedly based on a true event. I also agree at the time, I was so engrossed in the movie that I didn’t much notice the acting. Watching it again, you notice stuff like that... different times. I have been thinking about showing it to my kids so they can see the generation I grew up in and the fears we had.
I was in the military at the time when I saw it. I didn’t get to see it when it was shown. I saw it when I got back to the States after a tour in Germany. I was watching it while pulling CQ duty, from a videotape the other CQ guy had. I remember by the time of the scene with the B-52’s taking off, my heart rate was through the roof. I had to stop the tape and spend a couple minutes calming down and reminding myself that “It was only a movie”.
I also remember that, after the attack, when the President made his address to (what was left of) the nation, the director purposely used a voice actor that sounded like Reagan. In the later ‘cut’ versions, the voice actor has been changed.
That film scared the Hell out of me. It still does.
I felt relief.
You see the Japanese had weaponized the bubonic plague and were planing to release it on the West Coast of the US. From there it would have spread to Australia, Europe and Asia in a few days.
You want to feel sorrow and shock think of the Plague hitting a Europe and Asia that had been turned to rubble at the start of winter.
There are much worse things then atomic weapons.