HBO's 5-part Miniseries "Chernobyl"

[Kane52630]

 

[Kane52630]

Surprised nobody made a thread for this...

 

[Kane52630]

 

[psylockolussus]

I've seen plenty of documentaries and videos about the actual incident but I couldn't finish the 1st episode yesterday, only finished half of it. Maybe I'll give it another try in another day.

Have they featured the elephant's foot yet?

 

[flickchick85]

This show is riveting, imo.

 

[Kane52630]

It's wild to me Craig Mazin created this show considering what he made before this.

 

[flickchick85]

I was unfamiliar with him so I just looked him up and lmao.

 

[Erik Lensherr]

Love this show.

 

[lime]

Amazing series.

 

[Pennywise]

Gripping stuff so far! Hard to watch at times for obvious reasons, though.

 

[squeekness]

I've seen plenty of documentaries and videos about the actual incident but I couldn't finish the 1st episode yesterday, only finished half of it. Maybe I'll give it another try in another day.

Have they featured the elephant's foot yet?

Not yet but there's still one last episode to go. This series has been just amazing and so detailed. So much of what they showed actually happened.

 

[Donner]

Just finished episode 4. Gah this is gut wrenching. My mom told me that she had to throw out all of my brother's clothes that were hanging on a line outside after Chernobyl. They lived in Germany.

 

[_Superman_]

This series is amazing and sad at the same time. If not for their pride they could've saved more people and some things could've been avoided.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

Currently watching.
I remember back in the day, officials told us that the radioactive cloud "stopped at the borders" (France) and that we were "safe" from radioactive fallout...

 

[Elayis]

This has got to be one of the best shows of the last few years. The way the explosion and immediate aftermath was handled in the first episode was simultaneously horrific beyond belief yet awe-inspiring and almost beautiful. I'm a sucker for stories that take an almost cosmic approach to something so beyond human understanding and control.

It's also neat that the show operates on so many different levels. Horror, traditional drama, bureaucratic malfeasance, and is educational but never feels like homework. Can't wait for the finale.

 

[_Superman_]

Living here in the states and being a little to young for when this happened I still can't imagine the fear people over there felt.

 

[Elayis]

Living here in the states and being a little to young for when this happened I still can't imagine the fear people over there felt.

It doesn't seem like there was actually that much fear in the USSR, though. It seems that almost no one was properly informed about what nuclear radiation actually was or how harmful it could be. The townspeople watching the reactor burn didn't know what they were looking at, they just thought it was a simple fire.

HBO has been releasing an excellent podcast in tandem with each new episode that goes over how factual they were and the true stories that inspired the show. It's fascinating, I highly recommend listening to it if you're at all interested in the real history behind the show. It's disturbing how so much of what was depicted actually happened.

 

[OutOfBoose]

The only impressive thing about the show - production quality. Very authentic look of USSR of 80s. Uniforms, vehicles, clothes, interiors, exteriors... Very good. Cinematography is beautiful. It's pretty clear people who made this dug into sources, but used them as usual. Typical portrayal of Soviet Union by US. Authentic visuals give an impression of realism and truth, but so much stuff is skewed or invented to deliver the usual spin. In other words, it's basically a sequel to movies like Hunt for the Red October. Upgraded klyukvification.

 

[Elayis]

The only impressive thing about the show - production quality. Very authentic look of USSR of 80s. Uniforms, vehicles, clothes, interiors, exteriors... Very good. Cinematography is beautiful. It's pretty clear people who made this dug into sources, but used them as usual. Typical portrayal of Soviet Union by US. Authentic visuals give an impression of realism and truth, but so much stuff is skewed or invented to deliver the usual spin. In other words, it's basically a sequel to movies like Hunt for the Red October. Upgraded klyukvification.

What "spin" are you talking about? There's no bias in saying it was the USSR's inherent corruption that caused Chernobyl. Corners were cut in the nuclear plant's construction, but they wanted cheap energy so they didn't care. Combine that with the Soviet method of promoting people regardless of qualification or temperament along with a lack of proper regulation & oversight and a Chernobyl event was practically inevitable.

 

[OutOfBoose]

What "spin" are you talking about? There's no bias in saying it was the USSR's inherent corruption that caused Chernobyl. Corners were cut in the nuclear plant's construction, but they wanted cheap energy so they didn't care. Combine that with the Soviet method of promoting people regardless of qualification or temperament along with a lack of proper regulation & oversight and a Chernobyl event was practically inevitable.

Human factor was the cause. Not "inherent corruption". But the show isn't really about that. It tries to paint indifference of the Soviet system towards civilians life, which isn't true. People acting at gunpoint. Again not true. Atmosphere of fear. And again not true. Characters are painted in a very biased light. Caricatures. Carefully masked cold war trash.

And what's really impressive is that people who made this are clearly familiar with the real events. They could portray it as realistic as possible with respect towards people who worked there and prevented even bigger disaster, but didn't. Because it wasn't the goal. When you put so much work into depicting even the smallest things in a very accurate fashion, you can get away with bigger lies. Effective propaganda.

 

[Elayis]

Human factor was the cause. Not "inherent corruption". But the show isn't really about that. It tries to paint indifference of the Soviet system towards civilians life, which isn't true. People acting at gunpoint. Again not true. Atmosphere of fear. And again not true. Characters are painted in a very biased light. Caricatures. Carefully masked cold war trash.

And what's really impressive is that people who made this are clearly familiar with the real events. They could portray it as realistic as possible with respect towards people who worked there and prevented even bigger disaster, but didn't. Because it wasn't the goal. When you put so much work into depicting even the smallest things in a very accurate fashion, you can get away with bigger lies. Effective propaganda.

The RBMK reactors had a known fault in them. Yes, the explosion was ultimately caused because of the incompetence of the plant workers, but reactor should never have been in operation to begin with.

I think the show does a very good job of delineating the difference between the system and the people. The everyday people sacrificed so much to clean up the mess the bureaucrats made, who were only concerned with passing the blame off to someone else and preserving their personal power. Thousands of people dramatically shortened their lives to insure the disaster didn't become worse. The three men who drained the water from the tanks, the coal miners, the nearly 4,000 who pushed the debris from the roof.

Only the Soviet Union could've fixed the problem, but only the Soviet Union would've caused it in the first place.

 

[OutOfBoose]

The RBMK reactors had a known fault in them. Yes, the explosion was ultimately caused because of the incompetence of the plant workers, but reactor should never have been in operation to begin with.

Like it frequently happens in case of disasters, behaviors are figured out only after they happen. Nobody builds nuclear plants for them to explode and kill people.

I think the show does a very good job of delineating the difference between the system and the people. The everyday people sacrificed so much to clean up the mess the bureaucrats made, who were only concerned with passing the blame off to someone else and preserving their personal power. Thousands of people dramatically shortened their lives to insure the disaster didn't become worse. The three men who drained the water from the tanks, the coal miners, the nearly 4,000 who pushed the debris from the roof.

What the show does really well is using a real tragedy to portray the Soviet system as inherently bad/corrupt/cruel/merciless/antihuman/whatever by mixing truth and lie. So believers can continue believing in that false hypothesis. And possibly to turn new believers too.

Only the Soviet Union could've fixed the problem, but only the Soviet Union would've caused it in the first place.

This is absurd. We can come to that assumption regarding almost any large disaster around the world. It's like saying only Germans can be Nazi.

 

[_Superman_]

Like it frequently happens in case of disasters, behaviors are figured out only after they happen. Nobody builds nuclear plants for them to explode and kill people.
What the show does really well is using a real tragedy to portray the Soviet system as inherently bad/corrupt/cruel/merciless/antihuman/whatever by mixing truth and lie. So believers can continue believing in that false hypothesis. And possibly to turn new believers too.
This is absurd. We can come to that assumption regarding almost any large disaster around the world. It's like saying only Germans can be Nazi.

I don't know if you're from that area or not but you have to admit the whole aftermath of the explosion was poorly handled on both ends. According to reports.

 

[OutOfBoose]

I don't know if you're from that area or not but you have to admit the whole aftermath of the explosion was poorly handled on both ends. According to reports.

I'm "from the area". It's easy to sit in 2019 in a warm chair and criticize actions post-fact. Poorly or not poorly, people selflessly did what they could in a chaotic and unclear situation. And certainly not like it's portrayed in the show, especially on organization level.

Of course, it ended up being a hard lesson for everyone. Yet it still didn't stop Fukushima-1 from happening.

 

[_Superman_]

I'm "from the area". It's easy to sit in 2019 in a warm chair and criticize actions post-fact. Poorly or not poorly, people selflessly did what they could in a chaotic and unclear situation. And certainly not like it's portrayed in the show, especially on organization level.

Of course, it ended up being a hard lesson for everyone. Yet it still didn't stop Fukushima-1 from happening.

I agree countless people gave up their lives to clean up this mess. However I think the situationwas poorly handled by the people in charge. That's if you go off the reports by Legasov.