Chernobyl Miniseries (2019)

[Anonymous For This]

Currently going through a second viewing of it. The show is perfect. Dyatlov was an amazing character, both for the meme material and the weight the actor brought to the character. The final episode with him bullying Akimov into going through with the safety test was brilliant. I loved absolutely every minute of the whole series.

The only extremely small quibble I have was when they portrayed the animal clean-up. The actors weren't given good direction on how to act out the recoil from the Mosins. Looked like they were shooting .22s and that took me out it for a minute and diluted some of the feeling and emotion the scene was trying to portray. I really wish they had been given better guidance on set or been allowed to use Mosins firing blanks. Again, small quibble.

Spoiler: Dyatlov Meme

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

They should do a sequel about the 2016 Chernobyl disaster that spawned all those anomalies. You think the dogs in this show had it bad? I had a buddy that went over there and he says the dogs are the size of ponies, with no hair or eyes.

Of course.

The buddy of my uncle's buddy recently walked through german woods which where hit by the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl. He says the boars have 3 heads, have tentacles everywhere and are the size of a school bus.

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

Currently going through a second viewing of it. The show is perfect. Dyatlov was an amazing character, both for the meme material and the weight the actor brought to the character. The final episode with him bullying Akimov into going through with the safety test was brilliant. I loved absolutely every minute of the whole series.

The only extremely small quibble I have was when they portrayed the animal clean-up. The actors weren't given good direction on how to act out the recoil from the Mosins. Looked like they were shooting .22s and that took me out it for a minute and diluted some of the feeling and emotion the scene was trying to portray. I really wish they had been given better guidance on set or been allowed to use Mosins firing blanks. Again, small quibble.

Spoiler: Dyatlov Meme

Ver archivo adjunto 805716

I also have issues with the animal cleanup scenes, but for different reasons.

The Russian Army didn't draft fresh faced boys, shove rifles into their hands, and force them to shoot puppers and kitties. Most of the reservists were older. There's an interview on RT.com featuring the real life General Tarakanov (the general who supervised the cleanup of the reactor roofs.) He watched the show and had a few things to say about Episode 4:

Shooting cows & dogs
Tarakanov: There’s this episode [in the HBO series], it’s is an ugly one. They show this boy, a conscript arriving at the military compound. What comes next is just ridiculous. They give him a uniform and moments later they are teaching him how to shoot animals. I mean, that’s just silly. Nothing even close to that ever happened. This is one serious mistake.

RTD: Are you saying they never executed animals, like they show in the episode?

Tarakanov: No, they did, but never in the residential area. In the residential parts, there were no cows, no dogs – not a single one. The shooting did take place, but it was in the forests, where wild animals still roamed, including deer, as well as cattle that wandered off after the evacuation. But to show this young boy, recently drafted, being given all this equipment straight away [is just absurd].

The way it actually happened was pretty simple. The government issued a decree announcing general mobilization. They were supposed to call in 20,000 reservists, as they were called, from, say, Moscow and elsewhere... Those were all men of conscription age, between 30 and 40, mostly. And, of course, they knew nothing about their pending deployment. Later, when they arrived at the base, they were assigned to different units, a platoon, company or battalion. Only then would they set off for Chernobyl. So, all the procedures followed the law. Yet, the time they had to serve there was way too long.

So yeah, the show kind of wasn't playing fair with that one. I can see why they'd have an episode featuring a teenager being drafted to work on the cleanup - he encapsulates an entire generation of young Russians who lost their innocence and sense of security. The Afghani War veterans with him probably represent the diversity present in the Soviet Empire - that men were called from all corners of it to work on the cleanup. I can understand why the filmmakers did things this way. It still seems a little manipulative. As if the culling of animals wouldn't have been any sadder if a bunch of seasoned, 30-40 year old veterans with hunting experience had done it.

 

[Muttnik]

I listened to the podcast while at work. Fascinating stuff. Hbo honestly needs to do more historical dramas like this and Band of Brothers instead of petty woke shit.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

I also have issues with the animal cleanup scenes, but for different reasons.

The Russian Army didn't draft fresh faced boys, shove rifles into their hands, and force them to shoot puppers and kitties. Most of the reservists were older. There's an interview on RT.com featuring the real life General Tarakanov (the general who supervised the cleanup of the reactor roofs.) He watched the show and had a few things to say about Episode 4:

Shooting cows & dogs
Tarakanov: There’s this episode [in the HBO series], it’s is an ugly one. They show this boy, a conscript arriving at the military compound. What comes next is just ridiculous. They give him a uniform and moments later they are teaching him how to shoot animals. I mean, that’s just silly. Nothing even close to that ever happened. This is one serious mistake.

RTD: Are you saying they never executed animals, like they show in the episode?

Tarakanov: No, they did, but never in the residential area. In the residential parts, there were no cows, no dogs – not a single one. The shooting did take place, but it was in the forests, where wild animals still roamed, including deer, as well as cattle that wandered off after the evacuation. But to show this young boy, recently drafted, being given all this equipment straight away [is just absurd].

The way it actually happened was pretty simple. The government issued a decree announcing general mobilization. They were supposed to call in 20,000 reservists, as they were called, from, say, Moscow and elsewhere... Those were all men of conscription age, between 30 and 40, mostly. And, of course, they knew nothing about their pending deployment. Later, when they arrived at the base, they were assigned to different units, a platoon, company or battalion. Only then would they set off for Chernobyl. So, all the procedures followed the law. Yet, the time they had to serve there was way too long.

So yeah, the show kind of wasn't playing fair with that one. I can see why they'd have an episode featuring a teenager being drafted to work on the cleanup - he encapsulates an entire generation of young Russians who lost their innocence and sense of security. The Afghani War veterans with him probably represent the diversity present in the Soviet Empire - that men were called from all corners of it to work on the cleanup. I can understand why the filmmakers did things this way. It still seems a little manipulative. As if the culling of animals wouldn't have been any sadder if a bunch of seasoned, 30-40 year old veterans with hunting experience had done it.

I think it's kind of fucked up that we give more of a shit about killing dogs than all the human lives involved really.

 

[TheBeanz]

I really enjoyed the series, very well shot and acted with great atmosphere. I found a couple of the radiation sickness symptoms a little hard to believe, as with the instant burn and the helicopter completely breaking up in the radioactive smoke, but to be honest I'm not that informed on radiation.

Thunderneck made a video shitting on it: https://youtu.be/SsdLDFtbdrA

 

[mindlessobserver]

I think it's kind of fucked up that we give more of a shit about killing dogs than all the human lives involved really.

Not really. The pets are true innocents. Totally dependent on us to keep them safe. Killing them in that way was yet one more betrayal. The pet scene was also a stand in for the small children and babies who were betrayed in a similar fashion. The puppies getting killed was an alleghory for the dead babies. But if they were to go that far and show infants dying of ARS it would have probably been so traumatic it would have taken the audience out of the story. In the podcast Mazin comments that they had to balance the need to not sugar coat things without making it seem like they want to torture the viewers or are secretly enjoying making people suffer.

 

[Anonymous For This]

I think it's kind of fucked up that we give more of a shit about killing dogs than all the human lives involved really.

I took one of those dating questionnaires once that asked, "A house is burning down. Do you save the puppy or the baby in the house?"

You would be shocked at the amount of crazy bitches who chose the puppy over a baby.

 

[Secret Asshole]

I really enjoyed the series, very well shot and acted with great atmosphere. I found a couple of the radiation sickness symptoms a little hard to believe, as with the instant burn and the helicopter completely breaking up in the radioactive smoke, but to be honest I'm not that informed on radiation.

Thunderneck made a video shitting on it: https://youtu.be/SsdLDFtbdrA

My eyes are rolling in the back of my head. Its a drama you stupid faggot. DRAMA. DR.A.M.A. Is this hard to fucking understand? I don't get these people. Its done for cinematic effect. Of course its not fucking real. Jesus christ. These skeptics are huge fucking fags.

 

[Anonymous For This]

My eyes are rolling in the back of my head. Its a drama you stupid faggot. DRAMA. DR.A.M.A. Is this hard to fucking understand? I don't get these people. Its done for cinematic effect. Of course its not fucking real. Jesus christ. These skeptics are huge fucking fags.

I generally don't mind videos that explain the science behind a drama like Chernobyl, but Thundercunt is a fucking waste of oxygen. A long, long time ago his science-oriented videos used to be pretty fun -- I was even subscribed to him.

Now he's just a pretentious cunt who got a little e-fame and wants everyone to know how much smarter he is than HBO.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

I fucking loved the show. I know it wasn't 100% accurate, but I don't care.
I loved seeing the slow but steady shift from "nothing's wrong, we'll be fine" to "we will all die if we don't do something soon."
I'm also glad that the Nudity Warning did not mean a sex scene, but was about a naked, fat, anger miner charging the camera asking why there aren't any goddamn fans in the tunnel.
It was a well made, well paced, well written show that I recommend watching.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I really enjoyed the series, very well shot and acted with great atmosphere. I found a couple of the radiation sickness symptoms a little hard to believe, as with the instant burn and the helicopter completely breaking up in the radioactive smoke, but to be honest I'm not that informed on radiation.

The Helicopter broke apart cause the blades hit a crane cable.
Y'know... Like what actually happened in Chernobyl. Only the real crash happened 6 months after the accident, but as a bit of artistic liberty, it's okay to change this up a little to show how absurdly difficult the whole operation was.

And that's my stance on the whole show. It does more things right than what it gets wrong and the few things it gets wrong usually are meant to serve a point. Like having the guy that shoots the dogs being a young conscript. It's meant to symbolize how a bunch of naive people were send to do the dirty work in Chernobyl, even though it was completely beyond their grasp to even fully understand just what the hell was going on. Or turning a bunch of people into the amalgamation character Khomyuk.

Overall, it's not a 100% correct recreation, after all, they need to tell a story, but as a viewer, you get the general idea of what was going on and how bad it was for most people.

 

[Trig.Point]

Currently going through a second viewing of it. The show is perfect. Dyatlov was an amazing character, both for the meme material and the weight the actor brought to the character. The final episode with him bullying Akimov into going through with the safety test was brilliant. I loved absolutely every minute of the whole series.

The only extremely small quibble I have was when they portrayed the animal clean-up. The actors weren't given good direction on how to act out the recoil from the Mosins. Looked like they were shooting .22s and that took me out it for a minute and diluted some of the feeling and emotion the scene was trying to portray. I really wish they had been given better guidance on set or been allowed to use Mosins firing blanks. Again, small quibble.

Spoiler: Dyatlov Meme

Ver archivo adjunto 805716

The guy that plays Dyatlov normally does comedy roles on British TV. He was outstanding, watching him you understand why everyone in that control room gave in to him.

There was one puzzling scene early on where he sees the Graphite on the roof, I didn't quite know what the show was trying to say, for all his faults he wasn't a stupid man, he must have known it wasn't something that could be hid for long, so why behave the way he did?

 

[Anonymous For This]

The guy that plays Dyatlov normally does comedy roles on British TV. He was outstanding, watching him you understand why everyone in that control room gave in to him.

There was one puzzling scene early on where he sees the Graphite on the roof, I didn't quite know what the show was trying to say, for all his faults he wasn't a stupid man, he must have known it wasn't something that could be hid for long, so why behave the way he did?

I interpreted that as him disbelieving what he saw. Either passing it off as something other than graphite or a trick of the mind. I believe that Dyatlov thought he was being honest with himself -- he earnestly believed an RBMK reactor could not explode. Therefore seeing graphite on the ground was impossible. Therefore that isn't graphite he just saw.

He was absolutely wrong in his response to the explosion, but I still admired the character for his cool demeanor during the crisis. Everything about the way he was written seemed genuine to me.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Wasn't this kind of what happened in real life, too?
That Dyatlov saw graphite on the ground yet still refused to aknowledge that the reactor had blown up.
To a certain degree, you can chalk that up to shock, I guess.

 

[Pol Pots Pooter]

Also some people seem to have taken the impression from the show that radiation is contagious? The reason the firefighters were a risk is because they inhaled so much radioactive ash that was still in their bodies. Not because they themselves were emitting radiation from hanging out at the site. The curtains for the other guys are for their protection, not the people caring for them. Radiation poisoning compromises your immune system. So can't really be too careful about germs.

That's actually accurate. The issue was the particulate matter responders breathed in and swallowed on-site. Radionuclides don't stop decaying and emitting radiation as soon as they enter your body, and just because they're in your body doesn't stop them being harmful to people around you. Beta, gamma, X-ray, and neutron radiation gets out of your body just as easily as it gets in. Hence the needed for zinc-lined coffins, inside welded lead burial vaults, and the burial vaults sealed in a slab of poured concrete.

Admittedly they dialed it back a bit in the committee scene afterwards as you say, but they still led with the sensationalist side of things

Also accurate, if not a little decontextualized. That little bit of doomsaying came from Vasili Nesterenko, who predicted a 3-5 megaton-equivalent explosion if the corium got through to the bubbler pool. Except, Nesterenko was something of a kook whose "ideas" for how to respond to the disaster caused a lot more harm than good.

In any case, however wildly hyperbolic his assessment of the explosion's equivalent yield may have been, he was pretty spot-on when it came to assessing the potential consequences. A steam explosion under the destroyed reactor likely would have aerosolized and ejected the slagged core, and rendered much of Europe uninhabitable.

 

[kadoink]

Wasn't this kind of what happened in real life, too?
That Dyatlov saw graphite on the ground yet still refused to aknowledge that the reactor had blown up.
To a certain degree, you can chalk that up to shock, I guess.

It's Russia. Everything the state does is perfect. They even shit golden bricks that are used to buy the workers decades of bread dont ya know? Its prolly a combination of ego and fear.

Seriously though, the writing on this show is spectacular. I love how well thought out the characters are and wonder how accurate they are to the real people. There are wonderful moments in the show I really loved, like the scene with the miners and the minister of coal.

I know the mush mouths have been critical of the characterization of some of the people in the mini series.

 

[millais]

I also have issues with the animal cleanup scenes, but for different reasons.

The Russian Army didn't draft fresh faced boys, shove rifles into their hands, and force them to shoot puppers and kitties. Most of the reservists were older. There's an interview on RT.com featuring the real life General Tarakanov (the general who supervised the cleanup of the reactor roofs.) He watched the show and had a few things to say about Episode 4:

Shooting cows & dogs
Tarakanov: There’s this episode [in the HBO series], it’s is an ugly one. They show this boy, a conscript arriving at the military compound. What comes next is just ridiculous. They give him a uniform and moments later they are teaching him how to shoot animals. I mean, that’s just silly. Nothing even close to that ever happened. This is one serious mistake.

RTD: Are you saying they never executed animals, like they show in the episode?

Tarakanov: No, they did, but never in the residential area. In the residential parts, there were no cows, no dogs – not a single one. The shooting did take place, but it was in the forests, where wild animals still roamed, including deer, as well as cattle that wandered off after the evacuation. But to show this young boy, recently drafted, being given all this equipment straight away [is just absurd].

The way it actually happened was pretty simple. The government issued a decree announcing general mobilization. They were supposed to call in 20,000 reservists, as they were called, from, say, Moscow and elsewhere... Those were all men of conscription age, between 30 and 40, mostly. And, of course, they knew nothing about their pending deployment. Later, when they arrived at the base, they were assigned to different units, a platoon, company or battalion. Only then would they set off for Chernobyl. So, all the procedures followed the law. Yet, the time they had to serve there was way too long.

So yeah, the show kind of wasn't playing fair with that one. I can see why they'd have an episode featuring a teenager being drafted to work on the cleanup - he encapsulates an entire generation of young Russians who lost their innocence and sense of security. The Afghani War veterans with him probably represent the diversity present in the Soviet Empire - that men were called from all corners of it to work on the cleanup. I can understand why the filmmakers did things this way. It still seems a little manipulative. As if the culling of animals wouldn't have been any sadder if a bunch of seasoned, 30-40 year old veterans with hunting experience had done it.

I'm surprised to read that he is very pleased with his portrayal in the miniseries. They cut out the iconic morale boosting speech he gave to the rooftop liquidators that you see in the documentary footage.

 

[mindlessobserver]

I am going to sperg like an autistic again. I want to say something smart or punchy. But I cannot.

This show is perfect. The only people who cannot like it are those who hold a visceral religious revulsion to the message in it. It is a piece of art unparalleled. The cinema equivalency to the Mona Lisa. It's been a several days now since I have watched it and I cannot get it out of mind. I simply cannot. And anyone who watches this from start to finish will not.

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

I am going to sperg like an autistic again. I want to say something smart or punchy. But I cannot.

This show is perfect. The only people who cannot like it are those who hold a visceral religious revulsion to the message in it. It is a piece of art unparalleled. The cinema equivalency to the Mona Lisa. It's been a several days now since I have watched it and I cannot get it out of mind. I simply cannot. And anyone who watches this from start to finish will not.

It is fantastic. It's like HBO took all of the greatness that they would have put into Game of Thrones Season (H)ate and siphoned it off into this series. If there's one good thing to come from all of this, it's that this show sends a definite signal to the movie industry that effort and quality will be rewarded.

If there's one bad thing.... it's all of the exceptional political takes that have come from people who've watched this movie. There are tons of "hot take" videos on youtube of people claiming the narrative reinforces their own political bias, or that it shits on something that they like. Some people have claimed its message is anti-nuclear power, some have claimed it is pro-nuclear power. Some have claim it bashes Communism, others claim it praises Communism, Some claim it's bashing Russia/nationalism, others claim it's praising Russia/nationalism. Some think it's full of GirlPOWER, others think it's full of Toxic Masculinity. The writer of the show (Craig Mazin) claims it's an analogy of the dangers of ignoring Global Warming, and that Dyatlov represents Bad Orange Man Trump, and you know what? His take sounds just as exceptional as everyone else's!

(BTW, If Mazin thinks the solution to Global Warming is to hand tons of money to a bunch of Marxist Scientists, then I'd like to point out to him, that when a bunch of Marxist Scientists were given a bunch of money to design Soviet Nuclear Reactor Systems, they came up with the design of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant- a design they later admitted had serious flaws. Being a scientist doesn't make one immune to political pressures or ideological bias. We can be reasonably sure that a bunch of nuclear scientists can work out a solution to cleaning up radiation right after a measurable disaster happens , but when it comes to something as nebulously defined and politicized as Global Warming, it's going to be a lot tougher to find solutions that don't badly impact the economy or waste government money.)