If you watched the series Chernobyl I highly recommend the Titans of Nuclear podcast’s five dedicated episodes expanding on the misinformation it contains.
Nevertheless, excellent miniserie.
When did dramatized tv become misinformation? It wasn’t a documentary…
Misinformation, not disinformation.
Also, many if not most people take “based on a true story” on TV at face value. Therefore it’s important to point out the inaccuracies.
I mean misinformation isn’t the correct term either if a work of fiction never intended to disciminate any real information in the first place.
“I mean misinformation isn’t the correct term either if a work of fiction never intended to disciminate any real information in the first place.”
Which was intended in the case of the Chernobyl miniseries:
“Mazin’s interest in creating the series originated when he decided to write something that addressed "how we’re struggling with the global war on the truth right now".[23] Another inspiration is that he knew Chernobyl exploded, but he did not know why. He explained, “I didn’t know why, and I thought there was this inexplicable gap in my knowledge … So, I began reading about it, just out of this very dry, intellectual curiosity, and what I discovered was that, while the story of the explosion is fascinating, and we make it really clear exactly why and how it happened, what really grabbed me and held me were the incredible stories of the human beings who lived through it, and who suffered and sacrificed to save the people that they loved, to save their countrymen and to save a continent, and continued to do so, against odds that were startling and kept getting worse. I was so moved by it. It was like I had discovered a war that people just hadn’t really depicted, and I became obsessed”.[24] Mazin said that “The lesson of Chernobyl isn’t that modern nuclear power is dangerous. The lesson is that lying, arrogance, and suppression of criticism are dangerous”.” —https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries)#Development_and_writing
Absolute master class in filmmaking.
Couldn’t hide my disappointment at the end when they were like [strong female character] was created from the stories of over fifty different scientists…
That’s how many historical movies and contemporary shows work though. Like, we all know CSI techs aren’t clearing rooms like SWAT in real life. But the story is far easier to follow if we keep it to a few characters the audience knows.
For sure. And ultimately they gave credit where it was due, which is nice but it was a bit jarring. I think that means the filmmakers did their job well and crafted a character I could identify with.
Does the female aspect really matter because if not you could just leave it out… I’m sure many would still agree with you.
Um… I don’t think it matters to me what the characters gender was, but it seemed like the least I could do since I wasn’t going to go back and look up the characters name.
I think you’re reading something into my comment I don’t intend? Strictly referring to a character Ulana Khomyuk from the HBO miniseries here.
They thought you were mad there was a woman scientist and not that they reduced 50 people to 1.
Ooooo… okay, somehow I was getting like a “did you really have to gender the example?“ vibe… so hopefully that explains my confusion/response.
Did we bring ‘pointing out comedy homicide’ over from reddit? Because a giant reaction face to point out a joke is peak that.
It’s a great show but it’s also all bullshit pretty much, it only follows the broad strokes of the real story.
If we’re talking about the HBO show, then calling it a documentary is just straight up wrong in the first place.
It’s a “based on real events” TV drama that never claimed to be a rigorous retelling of the catastrophe.
There are a ton of immediate differences to reality that anyone even vaguely familiar with soviet history would notice.
I really wish they made that clear though, the show tries very hard to make you believe that’s the real story.
I counted 3.6 on one hand
3.6. Not great, not terrible.
It was never supposed to be more than the broad strokes though. Even those were largely unknown in the West.
Oh. People from English-speaking countries don’t sink you with downvotes immediately for criticizing that show anymore. Nice.
Even the broad strokes are, eh, how do you say it, eh … worse than Tom Clancy and that’s an achievement I’m not sure everyone is capable of measuring.
It’s funny though how such series about “USSR” talk in fact about something American. Reminiscent of the “17 moments of spring” series which were about a Soviet spy in Berlin in the last months of WWII, but mostly explored Soviet ideology and morality issues.
It wasn’t as bad as I thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries)#Historical_accuracy
Lemmy won’t let me link this properly. Is there an escape character for brackets? This is the link I’m trying to post: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries)#Historical_accuracy
TIL I can just post the link and, maybe it’s my Lemmy client (Sync for Lemmy) but it’s automatically hyperlinked (for me, at least)
Ever since my father told the teen me that “based on a true story” doesn’t mean it’s a documentary I stopped watching those things altogether, since then I only engage with historical fiction if it’s so out there it’s obvious it’s not real.
That’s a pretty narrow way to cut yourself off from a LOT of great storytelling.
There’s enough original fiction and documentaries that I can live fine with not watching some director’s fanfiction on screen.
Chernobyl still is one of the best shows I’ve ever watched. Not a documentary but it doesn’t try to be. It tries to be good historical drama and it is. Very gripping.
Yeah, that wording is so misleading. “Inspired by real events” is the more accurate wording, but I feel like I haven’t seen anything with that in ages.
“Inspired by” is way more loose than “dramatization of historical events”. The former can be pretty much anything even loosely based on some idea, but the latter has a more strict set of rules, although still rather subjective.
Chernobyl was definitely a dramatization, not just “inspired by”. It really did tell the events much as they happened, only taking liberties in things that truly required it for the show to work as drama. Like one thing they did was replace what was a large panel of scientists with one character who made the points the panel did. Does that take away from the veracity of the events? I think not much at least.
Some works will outright lie about it. For example, the TV show and movie Fargo specifically tell you it’s a true story, and even that names have been changed but ‘the rest has been told exactly as it happened’.
To me that’s weird. It doesn’t really add to the end result in my opinion, but would breed distrust when people discovered it was wholly fictional.
Still, even with things that are meant to be accurate portrayal of an event, it’s always good to check the facts. Hollywood just can’t help but fiddle with reality to tell a more interesting story, even when it doesn’t need it.
The wood chipper scene in Fargo was inspired by a thing in Connecticut.
That’s about as accurate as it really is.
are we talking about the HBO show? The one that’s not a documentary?
yeah, i too like that documentary.
Ummm
whats this?
Galaxy Quest! It’s a comedy film that equally spoofs and homages Star Trek. Timeless classic by now. Worth seeing if you never have. :D
thanks, i might just do that 😎
No might. Only do. It is frequently ranked as the best Star Trek movie even though bits not Star Trek. Patrick Stewart didn’t like the very idea of it and then Jonathan Franks made him watch it. Patrick Stewart had to admit that he was wrong. He loved it.
Stupid voice to text.
Guarantee you’ll walk away with a new vocabulary of delightful one-liners and inside-jokes you might have once encountered, that will suddenly make sense. :D
I’ve been wanting to watch it again for a while now haha.
The real Children Of The Atom.
Is this a Chernobyl joke?
Literally went over like everyone in this thread
I saw it. But huh. If you use knuckles/phalanges you can get to 12 without any multiplication. (With multiplication- each knuckle is worth the last finger- you can get to 81.)
deleted by creator
You can’t just leave it there and not elaborate what the inaccuracies were.
- The reactor’s kill switch worked fine, but another reactor reacted to it
- None of the Soviet’s spoke fluent BBC english at the time
- All the scientists were squashed into a single organism called “supafrique” who was the main antagonist
- The level of radiation blasted into the atmosphere was greatly exaggerated by captain planet
- Superman sealed up the hole in less than 10 minutes
- Chernobyl is actually pronounced “Churro-nob-yell”
- Everyone who was underwater and worked to kill the reactor actually gained telepathy later on
- It was actually hard to write this list. This was a great tragedy.
his hand had 8 fingers
Here’s a podcast from the show writers on the compromises and consolidations they needed to do for the mini series.
Check out this YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@thatchernobylguy2915
That’s a historical drama, not a documentary, tho. Like complaining about vikings or gladiator or whatever.
You are indeed correct, some artistic freedom is definitely expected from that kind of series. But relying on Russian propaganda sources and making Legasov a hero doesn’t qualify as artistic freedom but misinformation. Also the representation of the soviet reality was at least inaccurate - my dad who was raised in the former soviet block summarised it as “representing how Americans think it was not how it truly was”.
Chernobyl is a good and very interesting series and it’s good that it raises at least some awareness about the catastrophe. But imo it could be more technically and historically accurate without losing its attractiveness.
Is this meme appropriate to use when
?Her mate Paul?
