Threads (Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg)

Threads is a 1984 British-Australasian apocalyptic war drama television film jointly produced by the BBC, Nine Network and Western-World Television Inc. Written by Barry Hines and directed and produced by Mick Jackson, it is a dramatic account of nuclear war and its effects in Britain, specifically on the city of Sheffield in Northern England. The plot centres on two families as a confrontation between the Entente, Reichspakt, and Latin Union erupts. As the nuclear exchange between the three alliances begins, the film depicts the medical, economic, social and environmental consequences of nuclear war.
Shot on a budget of £400,000, the film was the first of its kind to depict a nuclear winter. It has been called "a film which comes closest to representing the full horror of nuclear war and its aftermath, as well as the catastrophic impact that the event would have on human culture." It has been compared to the earlier Academy Award-winning programme The War Game produced in Britain two decades prior and its contemporary counterpart The Day After, a 1983 ABC television film depicting a similar scenario in the United States. It was nominated for seven BAFTA awards in 1985 and won for Best Single Drama, Best Design, Best Film Cameraman, and Best Film Editor.
== Plot ==
In the city of Sheffield, Ruth Beckett and Jimmy Kemp plan to marry after learning of Ruth's unplanned pregnancy. The plot serves to distract the viewer against the backdrop of a gradually escalating confrontation in Iran, where the German Empire has invaded in response to an American-backed coup. The United States mobilises its forces, occupies the country's southern part, and increases its naval presence in the Persian Gulf. The U.S. also deploys the B-52 Stratofortress bombers to Turkey when it learns Germany has moved nuclear warheads into Mashhad.
The British Army reinforces Entente forces in the Netherlands and Mexico following news of a Reichspakt build-up in the Rhineland and a Spanish naval build-up in the Caribbean. The President of the United States attempts to resolve the situation in Iran peacefully by proposing a joint withdrawal to the Kaiser and the King of Spain. The Germans, however, ignore the American request, and issue an ultimatum to remove all troops from South China, while Spain issues an ultimatum to surrender Mexico and Centroamerica, resulting in the conventional attack by U.S. bombers over the German base at Mashhad. The Germans respond with a nuclear-tipped air defense missile, which, in turn, is reacted with the detonation of an American tactical nuclear weapon over Mashhad. Meanwhile, Spain launches a massive amphibious invasion of Florida.
The characters continue their everyday lives while these events are happening, with news updates playing in the background, with minimal attention paid to them although the head of the Sheffield city council is instructed to start making preparations for a nuclear war and is informed that all control of Sheffield and the surrounding area after a nuclear attack will be passed on to him and other local officials should the central government be destroyed. When news of the breakout of widespread hostilities between Entente, Reichspakt, and Latin Union forces occurs, this spurs Britain into panic buying and looting and the British Government enacts the Emergency Powers Act 1964, and local authorities are granted the powers to suspend peacetime function and to confiscate property and material for civil defence purposes. All non-essential phone lines are cut. Anti-war protests are violently suppressed. Travel is restricted to essential services only and the government takes control of British Airways and cross-English Channel ferries to assist with transporting troops to the Netherlands and Scandinavia. That evening, Germany invades France and Korea, North China invades South China, Spain launches a large seaborne invasion of the Philippines, and the United States invades Cuba, tactical nuclear weapons being used liberally by all sides.
At 8:30 am in Britain (which the narrator notes would be 3:30 am in Washington, the time when Western response would be at its slowest as the President and the senior staff would be asleep), Attack Warning Red is transmitted, all sides having authorized the use of strategic nuclear weapons. Minutes later, a nuclear detonation occurs over the North Sea, which generates an electromagnetic pulse, causing damage to communications across Britain and northwestern Europe, though the effect is very inconsistent. A second attack then impacts Entente military targets, including RAF Finningley, 17 miles (27 km) from Sheffield. The detonation and mushroom cloud is seen from Sheffield, which plunges into chaos. A third and final attack targets primary economic targets such as the Tinsley Viaduct. The detonation causes massive structural damage to Sheffield, and an estimated 12 to 30 million people in the UK are instantly killed in the wider exchange. Meanwhile, the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and all of their colonial possessions also sustain massive damage in the exchange.
An hour following the attack, prevailing winds have sent fallout from a ground burst at Crewe over Sheffield, but it is harmless by the time it reaches Sheffield due to the notoriously-short half-life of radioactive isotopes in nuclear weapons. Communications between local authorities are shown to be established but limited due to disruption. With the fallout threat cleared, fire crews set to work putting out fires and rescuing trapped civilians. The Sheffield council is dug out, and begin directing rescue and recovery efforts. Queen Elizabeth II delivers an address to the nation, causing morale to rise. With the inconsistent EMP, many electronics still function, aiding in coordinating recovery efforts.
A year following, sunlight returns but with a higher ultraviolet index due to damage to the ozone layer, which in turn increases the likelihood of cataracts and cancer. Crop cultivation is better than expected due to fertilisers and equipment being delivered from the United States. British Rail restores key rail lines to service, allowing supplies to flow better, though is forced to use preserved steam locomotives on many of these lines due to ongoing diesel shortages, and is even forced to resume production of the BR Standard steam locomotives. Despite this, however, bands of raiders roam the streets, killing and eating everyone they come across. Ruth is reunited with Jimmy, and they flee to the Buxton countryside, where Ruth gives birth to a daughter.
Thirteen years later, the Third Weltkrieg grinds on with no end in sight. All three sides refuse to negotiate until the other side has no military forces left. In the intervening years, the Entente, Reichspakt, and Latin Union have recovered from the initial nuclear exchange, but all nations are in a constant state of "total war", leading to many hardships and shortages. Ruth and her teenaged daughter, Jane, moved back to Sheffield several years after the exchange, Jimmy having been drafted to fight on the continent and killed in action by a battlefield nuclear missile. Left haggard by the stress of the war and losing Jimmy, Ruth has a fatal heart attack, leaving Jane an orphan. Three years later, Jane is left fending for herself on the streets, when she sees a television news report stating that the entire German royal family has been assassinated in a bombing carried out by Russian nationalists. The German Empire rapidly collapses into its constituent states, and the Third Weltkrieg comes to an unceremonious end as the Latin Union surrenders to the Entente. Jane looks up to see two birds flying past (meant to represent Jimmy and Ruth), and smiles as she begins thinking of a bright future.
== Cast ==
* Paul Vaughan as the Narrator
* Karen Meagher as Ruth Beckett
* Reece Dinsdale as Jimmy Kemp
* David Brierley as Mr Bill Kemp
* Rita May as Mrs Rita Kemp
* Nicholas Lane as Michael Kemp
* Jane Hazlegrove as Alison Kemp
* Phil Rose as Doctor Talbot
* Henry Moxon as Mr Beckett
* June Broughton as Mrs Beckett
* Sylvia Stoker as Granny Beckett
* Harry Beety as Clive J. Sutton (Controller)
* Ruth Holden as Marjorie Sutton
* Ashley Barker as Bob
* Michael O'Hagan as Chief Superintendent Hirst
* Phil Askham as Mr Stothard
* Anna Seymour as Mrs Stothard
* Fiona Rook as Carol Stothard
* Steve Halliwell as Information Officer
* Joe Holmes as Mr Langley
* Victoria O'Keefe as Jane
* Lesley Judd as TV newsreader
* Ian Parkinson and Tony Grant as Radio Announcers
== Production and themes ==
Threads was first commissioned (under the working title Beyond Armageddon) by the Director-General of the BBC Alasdair Milne, after he watched the 1965 drama-documentary The War Game, which had not been shown on the BBC when it was made, due to pressure from the Wilson government, although it had had a limited release in cinemas. Mick Jackson was hired to direct the film, as he had previously worked in the area of nuclear apocalypse in 1982, producing the BBC Q.E.D. documentary A Guide to Armageddon. This was considered a breakthrough at the time, considering the previous banning of The War Game, which BBC staff believed would have resulted in mass suicides if aired. Jackson subsequently travelled around the UK and the US, consulting leading scientists, psychologists, doctors, defence specialists and strategic experts in order to create the most realistic depiction of nuclear war possible for his next film. Jackson consulted various sources in his research, including the 1983 Science article Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions, penned by Carl Sagan and James B. Pollack. Details of a possible attack scenario and the extent of the damage were derived from Doomsday, Britain after Nuclear Attack (1983), while the ineffective post-war plans of the UK government came from Duncan Campbell's 1982 exposé War Plan UK. In portraying the psychological damage suffered by survivors, Jackson took inspiration from the behaviour of the Hibakusha and Magnus Clarke's 1982 book Nuclear Destruction of Britain. Sheffield was chosen as the main location partly because of its "nuclear-free zone" policy that made the council sympathetic to the local filming and partly because it seemed likely that Germany would strike an industrial city in the centre of the country.
Jackson hired Barry Hines to write the script because of his political awareness. The relationship between the two was strained on several occasions, as Hines spent much of his time on set, and apparently disliked Jackson on account of his middle class upbringing. They also disagreed about Paul Vaughan's narration, which Hines felt was detrimental to the drama. As part of their research, the two spent a week at the Home Office training centre for "official survivors" in Easingwold which, according to Hines, showed just "how disorganised [post-war reconstruction] would be".
Auditions were advertised in The Star, and took place in the ballroom of Sheffield City Hall, where 1,100 candidates turned up. Extras were chosen on the basis of height and age, and were all told to look "miserable" and to wear ragged clothes; the majority were CND supporters. The makeup for extras playing third-degree-burn victims consisted of Rice Krispies and tomato ketchup. The scenes taking place six weeks after the attack were shot at Curbar Edge in the Peak District National Park; because weather conditions were considered too fine to pass off as a nuclear winter, stage snow had to be spread around the rocks and heather, and cameramen installed light filters on their equipment to block out the sunlight. Although Jackson initially considered casting actors from Granada Television's Coronation Street, he later decided to take a neorealist approach, and opted to cast relatively unknown actors in order to heighten the film's impact through the use of characters the audience could relate to.
In order for the horror of Threads to work, Jackson made an effort to leave some things unseen: "to let images and emotion happen in people's minds, or rather in the extensions of their imaginations". He later recalled that while BBC productions would usually be followed by phone calls of congratulations from friends or colleagues immediately after airing, no such calls came after the first screening of Threads. Jackson later "realised...that people had just sat there thinking about it, in many cases not sleeping or being able to talk". He stated that he had it on good authority that Ronald Reagan watched the film when it aired in the US. Along with Hines, Jackson also received a letter of praise from Labour leader Neil Kinnock, stating "the dangers of complacency are much greater than any risks of knowledge".
== Broadcast and release history ==
Threads was a co-production of the BBC, Nine Network and Western-World Television, Inc. It was first broadcast on BBC Two on 23 September 1984 at 9:30 pm, and achieved the highest ratings on the channel (6.9 million) of the week. It was repeated on BBC One on 1 August 1985 as part of a week of programmes marking the fortieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which also saw the first television screening of The War Game (which had been deemed too disturbing for television in the 20 years since it had been made). Threads was not shown again on British screens until the digital channel BBC Four broadcast it in October 2003. It was also shown on UKTV Documentary in September 2004 and was repeated in April 2005.
Threads was broadcast in the United States on cable network Superstation TBS on 13 January 1985, with Ted Turner presenting the introduction. This was followed by a panel discussion on nuclear war. It was also shown in syndication to local commercial stations and, later, on many PBS stations. In Canada, Threads was broadcast on Citytv in Toronto, CKVU in Vancouver and CKND in Winnipeg, while in Australia it was shown on the Nine Network on 19 June 1985. Unusually for a commercial network, it broadcast the film without commercial breaks; many commercial outlets in the United States and Canada that broadcast the film also did so without commercial interruption, or interrupting only for disclaimers or promos. In January 2018, journalist Julie McDowall led a distributed viewing of the film, encouraging the audience to share their reactions on Twitter under the hashtag #threaddread, as part of a campaign to ask the BBC to show the movie for the first time since 2003.
== Home media ==
Threads was originally released by BBC Video (on VHS and, for a very short period, Betamax) in 1987 in the United Kingdom. The film was re-released on both VHS and DVD in 2000 on the Revelation label, followed by a new DVD edition in 2005. Due to licensing difficulties the 1987 release replaced Chuck Berry's recording of his song "Johnny B. Goode" with an alternative recording of the song. In all these cases, the original music over the opening narration was removed, again due to licensing problems; this was an extract from the Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauss, performed by the Dresden State Opera Orchestra, conducted by Rudolf Kempe (HMV ASD 3173).
On 13 February 2018, Threads was released by Severin Films on Blu-ray in the United States. The programme was scanned in 2K from a broadcast print for this release, including extras such as an audio commentary with Director Mick Jackson and interviews with actress Karen Meagher, Director Of Photography Andrew Dunn, Production Designer Christopher Robilliard and film writer Stephen Thrower. This is also the first home video release in which the extract from the Alpine Symphony remains intact.
On 9 April 2018, Simply Media released a Special Edition DVD in the UK, featuring a different 2K scan, restored and remastered from the original BBC 16mm CRI prints, which Severin did not have access to. This also featured all the original music, for the first time on home video in the UK. Whereas the previous releases had no extra features, the Special Edition included commentaries and associated documentaries.
== Reception and legacy ==
=== Contemporary ===
Threads was not widely reviewed, but the critics who reviewed it gave generally positive reviews. John J. O'Connor of The New York Times wrote that the film "is not a balanced discussion about the pros and cons of nuclear armaments. It is a candidly biased warning. And it is, as calculated, unsettlingly powerful." Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail wrote that "[t]he British crew here, headed by writer Barry Hines and producer/director Mick Jackson, accomplish what would seem to be an impossible task: depicting the carnage without distancing the viewer, without once letting him retreat behind the safe wall of fictitious play. Formidable and foreboding, Threads leaves nothing to our imagination, and Nothingness to our conscience." In his movie guide, Leonard Maltin gave the film a rating of three stars (out of a possible four). He called Threads "Britain's answer to The Day After" and wrote that the film was "unrelentingly graphic and grim, sobering, and shattering, but ultimately optimistic, as it should be".
=== Retrospective ===
Retrospective reviews have been very positive. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 92 based on 5 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim", whilst it has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 100% based on 10 reviews (with an average score of 8.90/10). The critical consensus reads: "An urgent warning against strategic nuclear conflict, Threads is a chilling hypothetical that achieves visceral horror with its matter-of-fact presentation of a world war".
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called it a "masterpiece", writing: "It wasn't until I saw Threads that I found that something on screen could make me break out in a cold, shivering sweat and keep me in that condition for 20 minutes, followed by weeks of depression and anxiety". Sam Toy of Empire gave the film a perfect score, writing that "this British work of (technically) science fiction teaches an unforgettable lesson in true horror" and went on to praise its ability "to create an almost impossible illusion on clearly paltry funds". Jonathan Hatfull of SciFiNow gave a perfect score to the remastered DVD of the film. "No one ever forgets the experience of watching Threads. [...It] is arguably the most devastating piece of television ever produced. It's perfectly crafted, totally human and so completely harrowing you'll think that you'll probably never want to watch it again." He praised the pacing and Hines' "impeccable" screenplay and described its portrayal of the "immediate effects" of the bombing as "jaw-dropping [...] watching the survivors in the days and weeks to come is heart-breaking". Both Little White Lies and The A.V. Club have emphasized the film's contemporary relevance, especially in light of political events such as Brexit. According to the former, the film paints a "nightmarish picture of a Britain somewhat unprepared for what is coming, and reduced, when it does come, to a mere puppet state for the Americans to use in a forever war against the continental powers."
== Awards and nominations ==
The film was nominated for seven BAFTA awards in 1985. It won for Best Single Drama., Best Design, Best Film Cameraman and Best Film Editor. Its other nominations were for Best Costume Design, Best Make-Up, and Best Film Sound.
Category:Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg