Chernobyl [HBO]

[Cuellar]

Are there any radioactive polar bears, then?

There are ten.

[SteveDave]

Why don't you watch it yourself and give your own opinion? Nobody gives a fuck what you think of anyone else's.

Are you a laugh?

[Bazooka]

Just watched it very good, didn't realise Chernobyl was in Slough, joking of course, would have been sillier to have the actors putting on Ukrainian accents.

The directors credits aren't the strongest either.

[NoSleep]

Is Jared Harris doing his Yardie accent?

[St_Eddie]

Just watched it very good, didn't realise Chernobyl was in Slough, joking of course, would have been sillier to have the actors putting on Ukrainian accents.

Ideally, I would have liked the production to use Ukrainian actors, speaking in their native tongue with English subtitles.  Probably not commercial enough though, I suppose.

[Bazooka]

Ideally, I would have liked the production to use Ukrainian actors, speaking in their native tongue with English subtitles.  Probably not commercial enough though, I suppose.

Indeed, when I say sillier, I should have been clearer, it being HBO and Sky no way they would have done that, cast seem great regardless.

[robotam]

Haven't watched it yet, as I didn't think it was going to be any good. The creator's imdb has some pure shite.

Excited and surprised. Although it kind of makes sense, who better to tell the story of a real life disaster than someone who helped create one (Hangover 2)?

[Mobius]

That is a weird career

That goiaina story someone posted earlier is really mental too, is there a show or film based off that?

So like if you cracked open an X-ray machine or an MRI, is there enough radioactive material in there to seriously fuck someone up?

[Chollis]

Why shouldn't you buy Ukrainian underwear?







                  because Chernobyl fallout

[phes]

That is a weird career

That goiaina story someone posted earlier is really mental too, is there a show or film based off that?

So like if you cracked open an X-ray machine or an MRI, is there enough radioactive material in there to seriously fuck someone up?

No, x-rays are not nuclear medicine. There isn't a radioactive source. They're produced by accelerating electrons and colliding them with a target and MRI uses magnets

[Alberon]

Back about fifteen years when the Open University did their summer practicals in our labs they had to measure naturally radioactive rocks sealed in perspex. They were very weak sources, you'd have had to have one strapped to you for weeks to get an appreciable dosage.

To show them how weak they were we'd compare them on a Geiger counter with an old luminous speed dial from a car. That would really make the Geiger counter squeal and I never liked to handle it much myself.

Back in the olden days when it was made the numbers were painted on by hand and the people doing it would often lick their brush to get it to a point. I shudder to think how many lives were cut short by that.

[Pseudopath]

I still think it's amazing that the three guys who waded through knee-deep radioactive water to open the drainage valves (thus saving millions of lives across Europe) didn't even end up getting radiation sickness and two of them are still with us today (and working in the nuclear industry). The only one who's not around anymore carked it from a heart attack in 2005.

[phes]

If you're impatient, unfamiliar with the details and want to spoiler this exciting dramatisation of people dying then The Battle of Chernobyl is on YouTube and worth a watch. For nuclear events see also City 40 on Netflix

[mothman]

For those missing Harris' bonkers Belter Creole accent on The Expanse, it's worth mentioning that while he seems to no longer be on that show - I'm just finishing s3 and his characters is mentioned often but never seen. However, he's been replaced by David Strathairn as a new character, a legendary Belter pirate, also doing the Belter accent, utterly chewing the scenery and obviously having a whale of a time. He's terrific - well, he would be, he's David bloody Strathairn - and it's a lot of fun to watch.

[Bazooka]

If you're impatient, unfamiliar with the details and want to spoiler this exciting dramatisation of people dying then The Battle of Chernobyl is on YouTube and worth a watch. For nuclear events see also City 40 on Netflix

Cheers, finally got a weekend off, will indulge in poor fuckers getting radiated.

[NoSleep]

For those missing Harris' bonkers Belter Creole accent on The Expanse, it's worth mentioning that while he seems to no longer be on that show - I'm just finishing s3 and his characters is mentioned often but never seen. However, he's been replaced by David Strathairn as a new character, a legendary Belter pirate, also doing the Belter accent, utterly chewing the scenery and obviously having a whale of a time. He's terrific - well, he would be, he's David bloody Strathairn - and it's a lot of fun to watch.

Not missing Harris in the Expanse in the least (terrible acting exacerbated by his attempt at the accent); and David Strathairn is delivering the whole nine yard(ie)s.

[mothman]

Harris was a bizarre bit of (mis)casting for that role to begin with - maybe he was trying to expand his range? And it's not like he can't act at all. But his delivery of the accent evinced a horrified fascination.

[Puce Moment]

Really like this. Utterly grim and scary as fuck. The shot of the reactor all melted down and doing weird shit was terrifying.

I'm not on board with the accents at all. I think it is a bit of a misfire. I know why, but it doesn't work, and they should have either hired Ukrainian actors and used subs or get them to speak English. I find it quite disorientating and it's hurting my immersion. I thought I would get used to it by the end of the first episode but if anything, it just escalated.

[Bazooka]

Episode 2 was gripping.

[Zetetic]

I'm not on board with the accents at all. I think it is a bit of a misfire. I know why, but it doesn't work, and they should have either hired Ukrainian actors and used subs or get them to speak English.

Ideally, I would have liked the production to use Ukrainian actors, speaking in their native tongue with English subtitles.  Probably not commercial enough though, I suppose.

Just watched it very good, didn't realise Chernobyl was in Slough, joking of course, would have been sillier to have the actors putting on Ukrainian accents.

How many of the people depicted would have been Ukrainian or had Ukrainian accents? What would the language used in the plant (etc.) have been - Ukrainian or Russian?

(I genuinely don't know the answer to the second question. In the first case, quite a lot of the people involved were born and/or were educated elsewhere in the Union.)

It would have seemed a slightly patronising kind of verisimilitude to just make them all sound appropriately Slavic, regardless of the actual details.

[St_Eddie]

It would have seemed a slightly patronising kind of verisimilitude to just make them all sound appropriately Slavic, regardless of the actual details.

I think that you're splitting hairs a little bit there, as the point being made was that it would have been preferable to have had Ukrainian or Russian actors, speaking in their native tongue, with English subtitles.  As opposed to English speaking actors, delivering the dialogue in English.  Basically, ideally the miniseries would have been as true to life as possible; whether that be a Ukrainian or a Russian actor in the part, as appropriate.

It would have seemed a slightly patronising kind of verisimilitude to just make them all sound appropriately Slavic, regardless of the actual details.

More or less patronising than making them all speak in English?

[Zetetic]

More, I think.

Better to accept that you're not trying to recreate that detail, than to do so half-heartedly. (And, I think, minimise a significant and interesting part of the context in the process - you'd be de-Sovietising it, in slightly weird fashion, while still emphasising foreignness.)

[St_Eddie]

More, I think.

Better to accept that you're not trying to recreate that detail, than to do so half-heartedly. (And, I think, minimise a significant and interesting part of the context in the process - you'd be de-Sovietising it, in slightly weird fashion, while still emphasising foreignness.)

I'm sorry to say that I don't understand what you mean by this.  Why would it necessarily be done "half-heartedly" and why would using Russian/Ukrainian actors for the roles, as appropriate to their real-life counterparts be "de-Sovietising" it?

[Replies From View]

Is Jared Harris doing his Yardie accent?

No I think he's using the one he did for Cartoon Club.

[Zetetic]

I'm sorry to say that I don't understand what you mean by this.  Why would it necessarily be done "half-heartedly" and why would using Russian/Ukrainian actors for the roles, as appropriate to their real-life counterparts be "de-Sovietising" it?

Well, for a start some of the people weren't 'Russian/Ukrainian' - and this reflects the time and place that it took place (viz., the Soviet Union of the 1980s).

You could try to tackle the issue of representing the diversity of backgrounds and the ethnolinguistics of it all in more depth - although the challenge of doing this probably would not, obviously I think, be rewarded with much understanding on the part of the audience. Practically, I think it would be very difficult to take this issue seriously.

I don't think Slav-washing is a tolerable compromise though. What would that be trying to achieve? A sense of verisimilitude for people for whom it just sounded like foreign anyway? (Would Poles speaking Polish be good enough for this? Would Slav-ish double-talk be?) A distancing of events, emphasising their foreignness (but de-emphasising their actual place-and-time)?

[St_Eddie]

Well, for a start some of the people weren't 'Russian/Ukrainian' - and this reflects the time and place that it took place (viz., the Soviet Union of the 1980s).

You could try to tackle the issue of representing the diversity of backgrounds and the ethnolinguistics of it all in more depth - although the challenge of doing this probably would not, obviously I think, be rewarded with much understanding on the part of the audience. Practically, I think it would be very difficult to take this issue seriously.

I don't think Slav-washing is a tolerable compromise though. What would that be trying to achieve? A sense of verisimilitude for people for whom it just sounded like foreign anyway? (Would Poles speaking Polish be good enough for this? Would Slav-ish double-talk be?) A distancing of events, emphasising their foreignness (but de-emphasising their actual place-and-time)?

Ah, okay.  I understand where you're coming from now.  Thank you for the clarification.  You raise some solid points there, though ultimately, I'm not sure that I share your opinion.  When it comes to film and TV, I'm usually horribly distracted by characters in a non-English speaking country, speaking in English for the benefit of the target audience.  It's definitely a 'your mileage may vary' type of situation though.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Ideally, I would have liked the production to use Ukrainian actors, speaking in their native tongue with English subtitles.  Probably not commercial enough though, I suppose.

Have you ever seen Comrade Detective on Prime? That's a mock Soviet action thing, using Romanian actors, that has been deliberately dubbed into English and I'm not sure how I feel about it, I suppose it's better than using Western actors to take the piss, but with the purchasing power of organisations like prime over it, it does feel they're basically paying Romanian actors to dance for our entertainment.

[Phil_A]

Of all people I was not expecting to see Victor Maguire turning up in this as a Russian bureaucrat. Surely Lyndhurst can't be far away.

[Mobius]

Having never heard of or seen this actor before, she has in the past 10 days or so turned up in Line of Duty, Game of Thrones and Chernobyl

[A Hat Like That]

Having never heard of or seen this actor before, she has in the past 10 days or so turned up in Line of Duty, Game of Thrones and Chernobyl

not having the best of weeks tho'