Chernobyl
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ribeye
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2019 6:06 am    Post subject:

Wilt wrote:
ribeye wrote:
Republicans love to say Reagan ended the cold war. Though his contribution must be recognized, there are many, many reasons for the demise of the Soviet Union, with Reagan being down the list in significance.

As the closing credits indicated, Gorbachev himself said that Chernobly was a factor, a "turning point" in the fall of the Soviet Union. Hard to argue with that.


FWIW, I studied the Soviet Union for years and even teach a course on it.

There is no one answer and there is no grand theory that is accepted by most historians of the Soviet Union. As you said, Reagan is usually brought up by conservative/foreign policy people in the United States, but historians tend to focus on other things, which doesn't mean that Reagan had no role to play, but the breakup had mostly to do with internal factors. One can argue that the Soviet Union was both formed and died in October 1917. It was an impossible project from the start and that impossibility was gradually exposed in the following decades. The regime bought some time by modernizing the society (industry, urbanization, education, etc.) during Stalinism, by defeating the Nazis, and by becoming a superpower during the Cold War. But all of those things came at huge costs which the regime just couldn't hide in the long term. Ever since the 1930s, the regime told the Soviet public that the West was impoverished, that the Soviet economy was the best in the world (during the Great Depression, the propaganda was particularly effective as the Soviet economy was growing), and that true prosperity for all was just around the corner. But by the 1970s, growing numbers of Soviet citizens just no longer bought the propaganda, especially intellectuals, middle class people, and others who acquired information about what was truly going on in the West (in the show, Legasov makes that point during the trial). And it's around that time when the regime essentially said, "the future is here." And the people hated what they saw. And it corresponds to an era of "stagnation," symbolized by Brezhnev, who ruled for 18 years (!) and yet didn't accomplish anything. While Chernobyl was certainly a turning point in the latter years of the Soviet Union, one can say the entire decade of the 1970s was a turning point that laid the groundwork for changes in the 1980s. Reagan had little to nothing to do with those internal factors, which were about the contradictions/corruption/waste in the Soviet economy, the rise of nationalism among non-Russian ethnic groups, the undemocratic political system, etc. At some point, Gorbachev realized that the country was dissolving and he wanted to oversee an orderly dissolution. And that was his greatest accomplishment. While it was initially a way to democratize the Soviet society, Gorbachev's policies inadvertently destroyed it.

I think it's very important for people to understand it wasn't a single person or a single event. It was a series of events going all the way to 1917 that destroyed the country.

As for the show: it's a masterpiece. There's nothing else I can add to what people have already said earlier.

I lived in eastern Europe at that time and Chernobyl was probably my earliest memory. I remember my mom wanted us to move to Germany and join our relatives there to escape the radiation. We eventually did move to Germany a few years later, but the reason was the breakup of another multinational state, Yugoslavia.


Awesome contribution. Thanks!
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methdxman
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2019 8:16 pm    Post subject:

Huge problem I have with this show is that it's in English. What. The. (bleep).

What is it with Hollywood?

Shows are so much better in the original language. As good as the show is, it's a cringe fest to see Russian scientists with English/British accents. Come on.
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governator
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 4:50 am    Post subject:

methdxman wrote:
Huge problem I have with this show is that it's in English. What. The. (bleep).

What is it with Hollywood?

Shows are so much better in the original language. As good as the show is, it's a cringe fest to see Russian scientists with English/British accents. Come on.


Nah man, if it's done in English from the beginning it's great (another ex is: Warriors series on cinemax)... this is different than dubbing
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numero-ocho
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 8:09 am    Post subject:

methdxman wrote:
Huge problem I have with this show is that it's in English. What. The. (bleep).

What is it with Hollywood?

Shows are so much better in the original language. As good as the show is, it's a cringe fest to see Russian scientists with English/British accents. Come on.


According to the show's creator, they originally tested doing it with Russian accents but decided against it. They thought the accents affected the actors' performances when they tried to deliver their lines.

I'm so used to British accent being the default when actors are unable to use the native language or accent I'm used to it.
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adkindo
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 9:57 am    Post subject:

numero-ocho wrote:
methdxman wrote:
Huge problem I have with this show is that it's in English. What. The. (bleep).

What is it with Hollywood?

Shows are so much better in the original language. As good as the show is, it's a cringe fest to see Russian scientists with English/British accents. Come on.


According to the show's creator, they originally tested doing it with Russian accents but decided against it. They thought the accents affected the actors' performances when they tried to deliver their lines.

I'm so used to British accent being the default when actors are unable to use the native language or accent I'm used to it.


it makes sense, and I think it worked out well. I admit it caught me off guard at first also...then I forgot about it.
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Wilt
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 2:15 pm    Post subject:

I think the poster meant that the actors should speak Russian/Ukrainian, not English with a Slavic accent.

Ideally, the actors would speak the native language of the people involved in the disaster. But the show is a British/American production, meant for audiences who speak English and who don't want to read subtitles.
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Huey Lewis & The News
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 5:18 am    Post subject:

That was my one bugaboo with this otherwise excellent series. After films have been made using extinct languages like Mayan and Aramaic, having a show about Russians featuring characters who all sound like they could host Top Gear seems a bit cheap.
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methdxman
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2019 2:07 am    Post subject:

Wilt wrote:
I think the poster meant that the actors should speak Russian/Ukrainian, not English with a Slavic accent.

Ideally, the actors would speak the native language of the people involved in the disaster. But the show is a British/American production, meant for audiences who speak English and who don't want to read subtitles.


Look at how successful Narcos was even in Spanish?
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methdxman
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2019 2:07 am    Post subject:

numero-ocho wrote:
methdxman wrote:
Huge problem I have with this show is that it's in English. What. The. (bleep).

What is it with Hollywood?

Shows are so much better in the original language. As good as the show is, it's a cringe fest to see Russian scientists with English/British accents. Come on.


According to the show's creator, they originally tested doing it with Russian accents but decided against it. They thought the accents affected the actors' performances when they tried to deliver their lines.

I'm so used to British accent being the default when actors are unable to use the native language or accent I'm used to it.


I know about this, my point was, why didn't they hire Russian/Ukrainian actors? Narcos was fine with native speakers and was extremely successful.
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methdxman
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2019 2:09 am    Post subject:

Huey Lewis & The News wrote:
That was my one bugaboo with this otherwise excellent series. After films have been made using extinct languages like Mayan and Aramaic, having a show about Russians featuring characters who all sound like they could host Top Gear seems a bit cheap.


Yep. And the emotional nuances of the actors mirror British actors and not Soviets of that era. Throwing in a word like "comrade" doesn't make them act emotionally soviet.

Russians/Ukrainians tend to be more laconic... these guys are too chatty.
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LakerLanny
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 5:48 pm    Post subject:

I liked it, well done but my gf and I also thought it was funny they had the British Mad Men guy. He did a great job though, but I hear you on the accents.
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