Dr Zoidberg wrote:
And no, Mimi, you should not under any circumstances watch Threads. It will haunt you for a very long time.
I'm glad I watched it, I think, I just felt like I should try to give myself an idea of what the world is staring down the barrels of (Threads is fictionalised but they researched it extensively and took on board a load of top-tier scientific advice in terms of what to depict as being realistic, albeit some of it is best guesses since it goes 13 years into the timeline beyond a full scale nuclear war).
When Threads originally aired in 1984 I was ten years old, I never saw it at the time, and my dad certainly wouldn't have let me watch it (I don't know whether or not he was aware of it and actively shielded us from it).
Watching it at the age of 47 it thoroughly rattled me, even though in many regards it didn't give me any new information (i.e. there are no winners, the aftermath is horrible, society completely breaks down and you're better off dying in the initial blasts than living to see what comes after) - it's just so starkly and unflinchingly portrayed, and the final shot of the film is devastating. I also wasn't expecting it to spend so long in the 'before' phase, showing so much of everyday life for average people doing average things, so that when the destruction comes, the sense of brutal and total loss is palpable.
There's also the way that many of the principle characters just 'disappear', there is no closure, we never find out what happened to them, a deliberate choice of course and it adds to the sense of what has been annihilated.
But no, definitely don't watch it Mimi based on what you've said.