The Day After hits DVD in 2003 (1 Viewer)

[Eric Huffstutler]

Threads is out in the UK

 

[michael Scott]

Have you seen this movie Steve.....wish we could get here. Funny...The war starts in the Middle East!!

 

[Vickie_M]

I taped the original first network broadcast and still have it. My one regret is that I believed the TV guide as to the start and end times. After the movie was over, there was a great interview with Carl Sagan which ran a little long, so although I have most of it, there is a little missing at the end.

I taped it and still have it too! I lived in Kansas City at the time it was filmed and broadcast, so as you can imagine, it was a pretty big deal there. I dug out my tape and fast forwarded it, though I stopped at a few points to see how it looked, and it still looked very very good. I taped it at the old "LP" (4 hour) speed. Why'd they get rid of that option anyway? Nice to see that it still plays on our fairly new, S-VHS machine. Gotta love backwards compatibility.
I remember watching the roundtable after the movie, but when I checked, I saw I hadn't taped it. I'm really bummed out about that.
Aside...
On the bright side, I saw that I taped an old 20/20 segment about the Russians doing a documentary about Kansas City, which was shown on Russian TV. This was probably not too long after The Day After aired, though the movie wasn't mentioned. 20/20 showed portions of the Russian documentary and the Ruskies made it look as if KC were the worst city this side of New York. It was propaganda to show the Russian people that even a "normal" Midwestern city is full of nothing but crime and corruption and homeless people (though one of the pictures they showed of a homeless person, supposedly in KC, clearly had the White House in the background!) and unemployed and people frightened of nuclear war.
Now, Kansas City, like every city, DOES have all those things, but the Russian documentary was so slanted toward the bad, and showed absolutely none of the good (and there is much good in Kansas City), that it was hilarious and sad at the same time. The 20/20 team got a group of people together and showed them the doc, with translation, then interviewed them. Many of them had helped the Russians film in various places, and some had appeared in the documentary (rather, "documentary"), and they were almost all upset. Some were very angry. A couple of commie-lovin' radicals thought it was a good documentary. Anyway, the whole 20/20 segment was a fascinating look back at a remnant of the Cold War mentality, on both sides. After the 20/20 was a local news story about the documentary. After that, I was surprised to see a TV special about the Star Wars trilogy "Making of a Saga"! I hadn't even written it down. I'm glad I pulled out this tape. Thanks guys!
I'd love to have a copy of Special Bulletin too. I thought I had taped it, but I looked for it a couple of years ago and couldn't find it, so maybe I didn't. It would only be good for nostalgia purposes, because it just wouldn't have the same impact today. Especially on DVD. It was so great then because it really looked like it was happening on live TV. (Except for all the disclaimers...they didn't want an Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" situation on their hands).
I agree about Testament. Very good movie.

 

[John Berggren]

Interesting personal memory about this film (which I've never seen)

When I was fairly young, my older cousins had rented it on video cassette, to watch one night while we were on the cape.

However, when they put it in they got nothing but snow.

So I asked what movie "The Day After"

I asked what it was about "After a Nuclear Holocaust"

I told them I was sure that what they were seeing would be exactly what that was like.

Only some of them got it.

Anyway, perhaps now that it's coming to DVD I can see what the Day After really is like.