Are DVD companies terrified of NUCLEAR WAR...? (1 Viewer)

[Dick]

We all are, of course. But there is a rather large number of no-shows when it comes to DVD's that deal with this subject matter, considering what has been produced during the past 25 years, leading me to believe the studios are intimidated by such films. Possibly they would rather remain politically correct by not issuing them to a paranoid public.

Yes, we have ON THE BEACH 1959), Stanley Kramer's heddy-at-the-time but now-fairly-tame-and-slick-and-soapy epic. And we'll be getting MIRACLE MILE soon, which is a bizarre movie but anyone's standards and can hardly be called realistic. And, to be fair, two of the most convincing and horrifying nuclear blasts ever put on film are indeed available on DVD - DREAMSCAPE and TERMINATOR 2 (plus the
explosions in INDEPENDENCE DAY, if you want to count them).
But none of these films is really about nuclear war.
Where, then, are the following:

TESTAMENT: A movie made for tv but released to theaters... Haunting and powerful, but a Paramount no-show.

THE DAY AFTER: ABC Circle film made for TV, once announced for DVD release by Anchor Bay, now dropped from schedule.

THREADS: The British tv counterpart of DAY AFTER. Released to DVD in Region 2 only.

SPECIAL BULLETIN: Television movie about nuclear terrorism.
Fine (and scary) Ed Zwick film, still no DVD.

Interesting how TV has far more balls than movie studios when it comes to making movies about this topic...

Also, there is THE BEDFORD INCIDENT, which falls into the
"not really about nuclear war" category.

I think it's time to trot these films out, don't you? They were all made as "cautionary" films and are even more timely now than when originally produced.

 

[Kai Zas]

I've recently seen a nuclear blast in The Sum of All Fears.

You know, the thought of it creeped me out as a kid. I still have nightmares about it once in a while.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Well we do have a DVD of DOCTOR STRANGELOVE, and also one of THE DAY AFTER TRINITY. Isn't there one out for FAIL SAFE as well?

 

[Jeff Kleist]

THE DAY AFTER: ABC Circle film made for TV, once announced for DVD release by Anchor Bay, now dropped from schedule.

I believe Anchor Bay has lost all their ABC properties to MGM

 

[Robert Crawford]

Yes, Fail Safe is out on dvd.

 

[Chris]

It will be a long time before you see "The Day After" on DVD, because the rights to it are still in dispute; there has been an ongoing thread in USENet about whether or not this will ever come to anything at this point.

 

[GregK]

(IMO) One of the best nuclear war films ever is the award winning Trinity & Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie directed by Peter Kuran. This is available on DVD with restored cleaned up and/or extended footage and a DD 5.1 mix. ..Very nice.

 

[Bill Burns]

"Do you want to play a game?"
"Let's play Thermonuclear War."

A paraphrase from memory, but let's not forget WarGames, which has been out for quite some time. I believe it's non-anamorphic widescreen, though, so a remaster would be welcome (I don't own the first edition). Marshall Brickman's unique nuclear teen angst flick, The Manhattan Project, is also out there, and this one's anamorphic.

And to be fair to anime fans, Grave of the Fireflies, which I believe Roger Ebert names among the best films he's ever seen, is specifically about the struggle for survival and the search for hope during the fire bombings of Japan in WWII (I've only seen the film once, and do not specifically recall if any mention is made of the eventual nuclear attack that eneded the war in the Pacific, but ... we all know "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" are coming as we watch the film, one way or another), and thus a serious, humanitarian alternative to the Hollywood glitz that often surrounds war pictures. A new special edition of the film is available from Central Park Media.

 

[Sean Campbell]

I have two different versions of The Day After on DVD, a region 0 version from Brazil ( which is reasonable ) and a region 2 version from the UK. The region 2 version seems to be edited slightly differently and has a number of extra scenes that add to the overall grimness( is this the director's cut version that was released on LD I wonder? ). The picture quality is slightly better than the Brazillian edition.
It's also available in Germany and Japan.

 

[Jon Robertson]

Probably the finest (certainly the most accurate) exploration of nuclear war ever made has been released by the British Film Institute in the UK. Peter Watkins' Oscar-winning The War Game is now available in an outstanding special edition. It's one of a tiny handful of films (Straw Dogs, Salo, Maniac) that has lost precisely none of its power since it was originally released.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

And don't forget A BOY AND HIS DOG....

 

[Bill Griffith]

True Lies had a nuclear bomb detonate off the Florida keys, and As was mentioned earlier Sum of All Fears.

 

[Bill Griffith]

Also BrokenArrow and didn't Peacemaker have some sort of Nuclear explosion.

I think the movies your looking at are possibly not Mainstream so the companies don't see any profit in making them DVD's.

 

[Kristoffer]

I read a newspaper article the other and it was really interesting, it was about Tjernobyl in 1986.Are there any Documentaries about the Tjernobyl incident?

 

[Glenn Overholt]

And Deterrence is out too, but that never made it to the big screens anyway.

No, some of the movies that have not come out yet have big names in them, and you can't say that every movie that IS out has big names in them, so it just raises the question again, what's the problem?

The Bedford Incident had several stars in it.

Glenn

 

[Dan Lindley]

There are a whole bunch of films based on atomic testing footage (search around on Amazon). And no one has mentioned Atomic Cafe, yet.

Dan

 

[Bill Griffith]

My point about Mainstream movies had nothing to do with big names, just pointing out the fact that the movies mentioned are not popular movies except to a few. Has nothing to do with who was in the movie, but has everything to do with how many would recognize the movie and buy it. I just don't think many people would recognize those titles, so IMO They're not being converted to DVD.

 

[Eric Huffstutler]

I too am a fan of these types of movies and was hoping desperately that Anchor bay would have put "The Day After" out before the switch.

Some of the above mentioned movies are "psychological" thrillers rather than out-and-out nuclear disaster movies. "On the Beach" you never see an explosion and the people who are left to die are a bit too calm for me. Same with "Fail Safe" and "Dr. Strangelove". Most deal with "what if" rather than "what happens". I do have "Threads" which is Region 0 and a bit pricey. The Brazilian version of TDA is out of print but I do still have my original VHS copy. Guess if you have a region free player you could buy the European version of TDA but I don't.

I would like to see a more graphic and up to date movie along the lines of "Threads" or "The Day After". The subject matter is real, especially today as much so as during the Cold War Era.

 

[Philip Verdieck]

I have been waiting ages for HBO's By Dawn's Early Light

 

[Justin_S]

While I have the R0 DVD of THREADS, which is in my opinion the best and most haunting nuclear war film ever made, I am still absolutely dying to have TESTAMENT, SPECIAL BULLETIN, and THE DAY AFTER on DVD. TESTAMENT also has the most haunting tagline I've ever read. These films are just so damn frightening, disturbing, and truly saddening, and they are some of my all time favorites! I long for them on DVD!