The point folks are missing about the movie "The Day After".

[trumad]

Awareness....

Oh sure we've got a couple of err...brilliant folks here on DU who are yelling that the movie was bunk and bad science. No Shit...and it's quite amusing how loud they are yelling. Uhhh..oh brilliant ones, uhhh we know that this is highly unlikely that this will not happen in our lifetime or even in our kids lifetime.SO thanks for letting us know how brilliant you are!

Too say it will "never happen" is typical of the mindset of folks who could give a rats ass about the future of the world. Global Warming is real is it not? The concept of the Polar Ice Caps melting from a warmer earth is real, is it not? (For that matter it's already happening)

Ocean temperature changes could occur from melting Ice Caps, could it not? That salt in the ocean is a good thing is it not? and so on and so forth and so on....

When I walked out of the movie with my kids, they were full of questions about the movie. I explained the concept of Global Warming to them and simply stated that this world should start moving towards alternative fuels. My hope is that my kids generation isn't as greedy and arrogant as the generations before them.,... SO..maybe, just maybe, this movie will help kick off a mindset that will slow the future destruction of this earth.... Awareness...that's why this movie is so damn important and that is why the Repukes are having a Cow.. The concept of the Republican party is to keep Middle America as ignorant as possible while they are raping Mother Earth.

[LynneSin]

1. Great View Point

Of course the movie was over-the-top about the Global Warming affects but I thought there were many many scenes that really pushed the issue to why we need to do something TODAY about global warming.

They made the VP out to be a real "Dick Cheney" type who scoffed at the idea that Global Warming was something our country should be bothered with addressing the issues.

And I thought the ultimate "Paybacks are a Bitch" was when Mexico shut down it's border and Americans were illegally crossing the Rio Grande. I loved that bit of irony in the movie!!

[Bridget Burke]

2. Those complaints about "bad science" are quite familiar.

Or is the more accepted phrase "junk science"? Meaning that the very concept of Global Warming is "bunk".

The real "problem" with the movie is that it starts conversations. The scientists agree that Global Warming won't work the way it's shown in the movie--not so fast, not so dramatic. But then they go on & explain just how it does work.

But we aren't supposed to think about that.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Yep. It's real and it is causing real problems.

Expect more in the future.

[sendero]

4. I didn't hear a bunch of fundies...

... complaining about how "over the top" the Passion was.

[ProfessorGAC]

5. Trumad, Couldn't Your POV Have Taken Fewer Shots

If bad science bothers some folks in movies, i don't see the problem. You liked the movie, it stimulated discussion, and that's good.

If someone else disliked it, why the anger? I haven't seen it, and probably won't until it's on cable, so i can't express an opinion. It just seems that your anger is misplaced.
The Professor

[trumad]

8. No it couldn't

I don't think the concept of Global Warming is bad science. It's a movie and it's supposed to be dramatic. How else are they supposed to show us what Global Warming "could" do if they didn't speed the effects up in the movie. There are folks here on DU who are condensending as hell to those who enjoyed the movie and who GET the point of the movie. My POV is to simply say, No Shit, we know the movie takes liberties for dramatic effect, but what about the actual argument that indeed, it could happen?

[KoKo]

6. As someone who remembers the "Atom Bomb/Radiation Mutation" Scare

movies as a kid, I think that "The Day After" is important in raising awareness. A whole generation who saw those "B" movies of mutants and mushroom crowds morphed into the folks who protested agains Nuclear plants and worked to save the environment. I'm of that generation, and I'm here on DU with the rest of you who only saw those movies as reruns on TV in the late hours.

I think taking your kids to that movie is a good thing whether the science is questionable or whatever. There sure was questionable sience in the movies my generation saw, but we "got the point," and worked hard to stop whatever we could. We shouldn't be blamed that a bunch of Repugs /Cold Warriers were able to come to power again and turn everything around and undo all the regulations our generation worked to put in place. Food Labeling and Consumer and Envirnomental Protection was my generation. To see this all being dismantled is devastating to us. We weren't selfish. We were the post WWII who had parents who had gone without during the war and their parents had suffered through the depression. We tried to do good, because we knew how bad it could be.

Good for you Trumad. :-)'s

[Jackpine Radical]

23. Godzilla, in its original Japanese form, was a serious movie

about nuclear disaster, albeit told in metaphorical form. It had its effect too, in terms of raising public consciousness about fusion bombs.

But hey, guess what--setting off nukes probly won't create or awaken any slumbering gigantic tyrannosauruses (tyrannosauri?), so I guess the movie is bunk.

[Tansy_Gold]

7. Science fiction is the literature of ideas

Its foundation is the immortal "What if?" that makes our minds actually work -- those of us who actually have minds, that is. We step into another dimension, that of imagination, as Rod Serling used to say.

Not everyone likes science fiction; not everyone likes science. Not everyone likes to think.

[pansypoo53219]

9. unfotunately

humans are very stupid. we only see now and refuse to look to the future like old cultures used to. evolution my ass.
let's just hope in the future there are more of us than them.

[Az]

10. The problem comes from our own nature

Liberals approach things by way of determining what is true first and then determining the best course necissary to solve the problems. The right approaches with the belief that they already have the solution and they just have to get the facts to comform to their position.

So with a movie like TDAT you are going to see a lot of upset liberals because it is not based on truth (I saw the movie and started laughing on nearly the 3rd frame). The science in TDAT is abysmal. But while sitting there in the theater I was struck by the reactions of the people around me. It was as if people were awaking to the fact that nature can hit very very hard.

The common person does not have a complex grasp of science. They are not going to know that the temprature in the upper stratoshpere is not -150f. They are not going to be troubled by any of the scientific inconsistancies. They are going to come away with the fact that Global Warming does not mean its going to be warmer and dryer outside. They are going to come away with the idea that Global Warming may lead to sudden shifts. They are going to come away with the idea that we have to act now before it is far too late.

It would just be nice if they could have made a thrilling movie using accurate scientific information.

[Spentastic]

11. Maybe, maybe not

The argument is that “bad science” allows those people who wish to dismiss ALL discussion about global warming an easier ride. Your argument is predicated on the fact that people will watch the movie and then discuss the merits of the underlying theory.

You’ll have to forgive my snobbiness but the people that post on DU do not in general represent the norm. They can understand fairly lofty concepts and are adept at seeking out further information in order to hold an informed opinion. Most people do not act in this way. One word form a wing nut authority (rush etc) will mitigate any impact the film may have had.

It would appear at this point that global warming is almost indisputable. However there is an attendant debate regarding the human input into the system. This argument has not been conclusively settled.

It is important that people realise that TDAT is not factually correct. It is also important that global warming is discussed. I can’t see why you’re so upset that people may point out that the “science” in the film isn’t science at all. It’s at best conjecture (at this point) at worst a complete fiction.

[Az]

13. Those who recognise the bad science

will not site the movie as a valid argument. It is easily dismissed. But as a consciousness raising vehicle it certainly is doing the trick.

Its easy enough to bat the movie down if someone pulls it on you.

[Walt Starr]

12. If the movie had been good science, it may have done about a buck fifty

Seriously, had the movie been based upon pure science, nobody would have seen it.

Special effects sell.

[Tansy_Gold]

19. Special effects do more than sell --

They leave a lasting impression.

People DO react to things in films, always have and always will, and that's WHY producers make films that reach out to the gut, not the head.


SPOILER POTENTIAL FOLLOWS



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One poster in another thread was complaining about the sappy "romance" plot line of the father trudging through the killer blizzard to rescue his son. I suspect that poster was relatively young, someone who didn't yet know the tug of emotion parents will feel when watching a father risk his life for a child. Same with the mother character and the boy in the hospital. How many people noticed that one of the scientists in the Scottish station was Black, had a British accent and a White wife? Could that have happened a few years ago, without comment?

Another poster, or maybe it was the same dude, commented that the best character was the homeless guy with the dog. How many scenes were cut that allowed that character to explain HOW he became homeless? Might we have had a different reaction to him if we knew he was a drug addict or seriously mentally ill? Instead, the producer(s) made him and his dog into sympathetic characters. We liked him and we cared about him, probably more than about the guy in the LA high-rise who got blown away in the tornado.

We here on DU are not the typical movie goers, the typical voters, the typical parents, the typical anything. But I think it's wrong to underestimate the power of Art, in any form, to change the way people think, regardless whether the Science that undergirds the Art is good or bad science. There's more to thinking than just analysis of the science; there is also the emotional reaction, and as we all should know from our heated discussions with "the opposition," emotion can sometimes outweigh thinking. Therefore, if the two are somehow harnessed together, who knows what the result might be?

Tansy Gold, whose area of expertise is fiction

[bushgottago]

14. It absolutely can not happen like that

What can happen is more likely the opposite. The world slowly warms and gets a little hotter than it is now. There will be some costal flooding but the changes will be gradual over at least 200 years (with us being 100 years into it). It just means that Canada and Alaska will be better placed to live and some places will be too hot.

The idea that global warming would cause an instant ice age is really bad science. It's pure bullshit. It can not happen. It's not even good fiction. No way - no how. WRONG!

[Az]

15. Um its a little more drastic than that

Ecosystems are defined by climate. We are talking large scale shifts in enviromental zones. There is also an active theory that it will quicken the approach of an ice aga. But over a 10 year period not one harsh storm. The earth won't get beaten into a pulp as in the movie. But we won't like it much and there will be massive changes.

[trumad]

16. So that's it?

What..no droughts and fires? No effects to plants and animals? No Downpours, heavy snowfalls, and flooding? No increase in the spreading of disease?

This is happening now, not 100 years from now, but now. You do know that the earth has warmed more in the last 20th century than the last 600 years?

Here's some more:
In addition, changes in the natural environment support the evidence from temperature records:

* mountain glaciers the world over are receding;

* the Arctic ice pack has lost about 40% of its thickness over the past four decades;

* the global sea level is rising about three times faster over the past 100 years compared to the previous 3,000 years; and

* there are a growing number of studies that show plants and animals changing their range and behavior in response to shifts in climate.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global_warming/index.cfm

So in your mind Global Warming simply means it will be nicer to live in Canada? er..OK

[Lindacooks]

17. The time frame is more like 10-20 years

which, of course, can't be shown in a movie, but is frighteningly quick. The earth, like anything else, has its tipping point, and we are getting close to it.

[Arianrhod]

18. I have no time for absolutists.

http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/climatechange_wef.html

"Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario. It ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past, and is capable of doing so in the future.
"The global ocean circulation system, often called the Ocean Conveyor, transports heat throughout the planet. Fossil evidence clearly demonstrates that Earth's climate can shift gears within a decade, establishing new and different patterns that can persist for decades to centuries."

Woods Hole is one of the premier scientific institutes.

[trumad]

20. thank you

[Terran]

21. Please provide proof of your assertion

Nothing absolute is known about global warming. Can you come up with even one reputable source that disagrees with the global warming/ice age theory? We're waiting.

[PATRICK]

22. If you miss the point what's the point?

A typical Irwin Allen film did not do much about skyscraper safety, plane safety etc. unless I am mistaken though it did raise awareness. The focus is and was entirely on the stock soap opera clique moving predictably through a deadly game of musical chairs.

The dilemma for scientists is that the education could have been helped by some exaggeration but this went so far that apologists for real science actually start sounding like the nutcases who deny global warming dangers. It's a muddle and the speed of disaster to convenience the plot does not help people get the big picture.

And why so much time spent on NYC, those of us icicles in Upstate NY ask???

As for inevitable, long term and sudden threats there are a raftful people don't consider. There are things we can do now and work for the future. One is real hard. Such as if a nearby star went nova, we would be close enough for the heavy radiation to scour the planet. The inevitable comet or meteor hit. The gradual cooling of the earth means definitely more ice ages. Or how about over population or the top heavy senior population? Diseases without cures because our medicine has been creating resistant germs. SEVERAL cataclysmic climate and water changes such as gas pockets in the ocean, the collapse of continental shelf.

This is why intelligent life is supposed to PROGRESS. Otherwise it is a very temporary inconsequential anomaly in the big scheme of things.

[slackmaster]

24. I hated Peter the cancer kid, loved Sela Ward's "peace and love" earrings

Little diamonds in the shape of peace symbols with a heart-shaped outline.

[redqueen]

25. That's annoying me as well.

It's a frickin MOVIE, not a DOCUMENTARY! GEESH!

Sorry, but I've been ranting about this with EVERY review. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

How many brain cells does it take to understand the concept of what a MOVIE is, anyway?!

:nuke:

[joefree1]

26. At $155 million so far

... the success of the movie cannot be denied. So the hand wringers can just keep wringing their hands.