I know we're supposed to feel sorry for Jim and Hilda because they're old and feeble minded, and I do, what happened to them is horrible, and there's NOTHING they could've done in any way to better prepare for it...but my God they were just so stupid it was infuriating.
"If you can't see it and can't feel it, it can't be doing you any harm." Did you ever hear of germs, you stupid bitch?
I know that this post is a few months old, but I feel the same way. She had no understanding of the effects of a nuclear war, and many people don't. But what was infuriating was that she had no desire to learn what to do and and actually resisted learning. I get so mad when someone states "I want to be in a target so it will be over with quick." WTF??? I don't want to get blown up, I want to live. I would do everything in my power to survive. I even have a plan for survival if there is a nuclear exchange. I have plans where to go and hold up. I have plans for getting food and water. Plans for communications. I am not a prepper, but I have in my mind how I would survive.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke
Nobody WANTS to get blown up, but the alternative DOES lend credibility to the saying about the living envying the dead, the dead can't suffer radiation poison, the dead don't have to live like animals, that's why Rod Serling did 'The Shelter' in the Twilight Zone, to bring that question to light to build a shelter or not, and he and his wife decided NOT to, despite having children, they decided the cons outweighed the pro of 'surviving'.
shareThat's kind of the point, Novastar. The whole premise of the film was that they were infuriating and completely stupid. It was kind of the zeitgeist at the time ?
shareBut nobody else seems to see that, everybody else is saying 'oh they're so sweet and innocent, just a bit naive', no, there's a big ass difference in naive and stupid as hell. 'They remind me so much of my grandparents' I feel sorry for you then, having to put up with 2 complete idiots.
shareThen I guess it's not a film for you. Living in Britain, I recognise (and am amused by) these archetypes. You could just imagine people being like that, which was half the point.
shareJim seemed to become more and more delusional while Hilda was the one who knew what was happening.
Jim would not stop talking till the very end.
And people say he was going delirious from the radiation poisoning, no, even BEFORE the bomb hit, half the words he said for everything was wrong.
shareIt's been some time since i've seen this movie but as far as i remember the plot was anti-war, the horror and consequences of a nuclear bombing on civilian targets but also about government indifference and inability to inform the public...
They weren't stupid or delirious , just a regular old couple whose only stories about war were from the times when war was fought on a battlefield and not by means of mass extermination using nuclear bombs. They simply didn't know what to expect, the little information they heard was distorted and the government leaflets were useful only for the survivors to clean the dead bodies after the effects of the radiations dimminished. Not knowing what the effects of the radiations were they trusted those informations coming from the people that were supposed to protect them but following them they had no chance to survive the aftermath of a nuclear strike.
I bet even now with all the information available in the case of a nuclear war most of the people would suffer the same faith - war is a terrible thing, and nuclear and chemical war are by far the worst since they kill without discrimination and their effects leave marks for generations.
They weren't stupid or delirious , just a regular old couple whose only stories about war were from the times when war was fought on a battlefield and not by means of mass extermination using nuclear bombs.
It's 2014 and the leaders of many nations appear desperate to square up to Putin who has roughly 8000 nuclear warheads. Nothing has changed.
"Knowledge is cheap at any price"