'Blue Masquerade' review

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this Article by @SpanishSpy here

 

[Hendryk]

In the story, are the US president and Soviet premier entirely fictional characters, or are they real but historically obscure figures?

 

[SpanishSpy]

In the story, are the US president and Soviet premier entirely fictional characters, or are they real but historically obscure figures?

So far as I can tell, totally fictional.

 

[Thande]

That's quite an original concept; it's tempting to assume the collapse of Yugoslavia is a corollary to the end of the Cold War and fall of the Eastern Bloc, but it could have happened in isolation with a continuing Cold War.

 

[Hendryk]

That's quite an original concept; it's tempting to assume the collapse of Yugoslavia is a corollary to the end of the Cold War and fall of the Eastern Bloc, but it could have happened in isolation with a continuing Cold War.

It's plausible enough that a weakened yet surviving USSR would have been unable to prevent the chain of events that led to the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. The country wasn't under its thumb in the first place, and even the countries that used to be went their own way in 1988-89, whereas the Soviet Union limped on to the end of 1991.

 

[Coiler]

Yugoslavia is a better flashpoint for a Fuldapocalypse than RSR's "derp we need oil so we'll invade a place with no oil so we can invade a place with oil afterwards".

 

[SpanishSpy]

Yugoslavia is a better flashpoint for a Fuldapocalypse than RSR's "derp we need oil so we'll invade a place with no oil so we can invade a place with oil afterwards".

I had a conversation with a friend not on here that another possibility that'd make much more sense is the Soviets getting involved with the Iran-Iraq War.

 

[Hendryk]

I had a conversation with a friend not on here that another possibility that'd make much more sense is the Soviets getting involved with the Iran-Iraq War.

Wasn't that how WW3 started in Threads? (Very possibly the most harrowing show ever about the consequences of nuclear war)

 

[SpanishSpy]

Wasn't that how WW3 started in Threads? (Very possibly the most harrowing show ever about the consequences of nuclear war)

It is! It's been a while since I last watched it, but it is still one of the scariest films I've ever watched.

 

[M_Kresal]

Wasn't that how WW3 started in Threads? (Very possibly the most harrowing show ever about the consequences of nuclear war)

It is! It's been a while since I last watched it, but it is still one of the scariest films I've ever watched.

There's a variation on that as well in Countdown to Looking Glass made the same year where a banking crisis started by South American countries defaulting on their loans leads to unrest in the Middle East, causing a Soviet backed coup in Oman. When the new regime starts imposing a toll that it'll only lift if the US withdraws troops from Saudi Arabia, it leads to a confrontation with tactical nukes between naval forces.

I've seen Threads exactly ONCE back in 2008 and good grief are parts of it still seared on my memory even now. Not quite realizing how frank it would be in its depictions or being quite aware of its reputation (other than it was the "British answer to The Day After" as someone on a forum put it to me), I watched in the middle of the night on VHS out of my local library. It made for a literal sleepless night.

 

[SpanishSpy]

There's a variation on that as well in Countdown to Looking Glass made the same year where a banking crisis started by South American countries defaulting on their loans leads to unrest in the Middle East, causing a Soviet backed coup in Oman. When the new regime starts imposing a toll that it'll only lift if the US withdraws troops from Saudi Arabia, it leads to a confrontation with tactical nukes between naval forces.

I've seen Threads exactly ONCE back in 2008 and good grief are parts of it still seared on my memory even now. Not quite realizing how frank it would be in its depictions or being quite aware of its reputation (other than it was the "British answer to The Day After" as someone on a forum put it to me), I watched in the middle of the night on VHS out of my local library. It made for a literal sleepless night.

I think it's very telling that The Day After ends with a baby being born and a glimmer of hope, while Threads ends with a stillborn child.

The British have great humor and similarly a great sense of tragedy.

 

[M_Kresal]

I think it's very telling that The Day After ends with a baby being born and a glimmer of hope, while Threads ends with a stillborn child.

The British have great humor and similarly a great sense of tragedy.

Nicholas Meyer, who directed it, documented in his memoir A View From The Bridge the fights he went through to get the depictions and tone of the The Day After even the way it ended up being. If Meyer, and writer Edward Hume, had their way about it, The Day After would have been closer to what Threads turned out to be. Hence the disclaimer at the end of the movie going, in essence, "If you thought this was bad, it would actually be MUCH WORSE."

That said, I do think there's something telling in the way the two films ended. Day After ends with the glimmer of hope, as you say, with a child being born but also the moment of decency and compassion with Jason Robards in the ruins of his home being offered fruit by a family squatting there. There's that American optimism that even though the world has ended, that human decency is intact.

Threads, on the other hand, goes "Yeah, there's either no coming back or it's going to be a VERY long time." Threads likewise benefited from the fact that UK network censors weren't as worried as ABC's about shocking the audience with its depiction of what a nuclear war is likely to be like.

 

[Hendryk]

Threads, on the other hand, goes "Yeah, there's either no coming back or it's going to be a VERY long time." Threads likewise benefited from the fact that UK network censors weren't as worried as ABC's about shocking the audience with its depiction of what a nuclear war is likely to be like.

I'd be interested in reading a review of it from a present-day perspective, since it's nearly 40 years old. I personally saw it about a decade ago and despite the dated aspects, it still felt like a punch in the gut. And, frankly, I lack the courage to watch it again.

 

[Charles EP M.]

I've seen Threads exactly ONCE back in 2008 and good grief are parts of it still seared on my memory even now

"Threads is scarier than the scariest thing you can think of, unless the scariest thing you can think of is Threads" went the DVD review in Judge Dredd Megazine.

("Attack warning's FOR BLOODY REAL!" "...is it?")

 

[Coiler]

My own Fuldapocalypse review of this book is up, if you're interested.

 

[Talwar]

Only time I skipped classes in school came after the grade eleven social studies teacher told us we'd be watching Threads over the next two days. Once was enough, thanks.

 

[Makemakean]

I haven't read the book, but I appreciate the point you make about writing AH about a war that, as you put it, put the term genocidal rape in the dictionaries. I don't wish to unduly criticize the author of the work in question, rather I think that it is something that I think that the point you make is something that any hopeful counterfactual historical author needs to keep in mind, and something that has troubled me myself a lot.

How does one write about periods in history that covered war of genocide on the basis of religion or ethnicity, or about slavery, or any of the countless other atrocities that human beings have committed against other human beings, while still acknowledging those things in a respectful and tasteful manner?

I very much would hate it if these things in some sense became taboo. If anything, I honestly think that we need more fiction out there about these periods in history, to help bring it all to mind, to encourage discussion and everything. If alternate history became something that people only wrote about periods that were "safe" that would be to waste the opportunity that the genre gives us.

I want to see more alternate history out there that features John C. Calhoun. That features John Brown and Toussaint Louverture and the history of Liberia and so many other things.

But it certainly is tricky, and we need more of a discussion about it.

 

[SpanishSpy]

I haven't read the book, but I appreciate the point you make about writing AH about a war that, as you put it, put the term genocidal rape in the dictionaries. I don't wish to unduly criticize the author of the work in question, rather I think that it is something that I think that the point you make is something that any hopeful counterfactual historical author needs to keep in mind, and something that has troubled me myself a lot.

How does one write about periods in history that covered war of genocide on the basis of religion or ethnicity, or about slavery, or any of the countless other atrocities that human beings have committed against other human beings, while still acknowledging those things in a respectful and tasteful manner?

I very much would hate it if these things in some sense became taboo. If anything, I honestly think that we need more fiction out there about these periods in history, to help bring it all to mind, to encourage discussion and everything. If alternate history became something that people only wrote about periods that were "safe" that would be to waste the opportunity that the genre gives us.

I want to see more alternate history out there that features John C. Calhoun. That features John Brown and Toussaint Louverture and the history of Liberia and so many other things.

But it certainly is tricky, and we need more of a discussion about it.

I don't even object to writing AH about such wars, per se - it's the large scale 'wargamer' lens that I object to. It's trinketization of the worst kind; I am the sort of person who finds the social changes brought about by war more interesting than the nitty-gritty of the war plans.

It doesn't need to be paramount, but it ought to be addressed; most AH about WWII in Europe at least mentions the Holocaust.