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Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

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Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#11
post #3

Highly recommend the HBO's new miniseries Chernobyl. One episode left. It's already at the top of IMDB TV show rankings. [1] https://www.imdb.com/chart/toptv/

+1 - we saw last night's episode... the dogs and the baby... this must be seen but it's also something you can't un-see.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#12
post #3

Highly recommend the HBO's new miniseries Chernobyl. One episode left. It's already at the top of IMDB TV show rankings. [1] https://www.imdb.com/chart/toptv/

A bit over-dramatized, but very, very good.

Although I do not really like the decision to reduce the entire engineering team to a single character. I get that it simplifies the writing and casting, but it just perpetrates the lone scientist myth. It could have been really compelling to take the time to show the group effort.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#14

I found it very distracting that none of the ostensibly Russian or Ukrainian characters have an even remotely slavic accent.

So Soviet characters that speak English with a slavic accent would be less distracting? Surely if you are bothered by this they should be speaking Russian with English subtitles.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#15
post #3

Highly recommend the HBO's new miniseries Chernobyl. One episode left. It's already at the top of IMDB TV show rankings. [1] https://www.imdb.com/chart/toptv/

I don't get the feeling it's very accurate, but it is very entertaining.

EDIT: the accuracy I am referring to is about the actual sequence of events of the plot, which I understand to be simplified as people replying have pointed out :)

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#16
post #5

The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred helicopter pilots were killed" and yet it was only 600 helicopter pilots who _flew_ liquidator missions[1], two of which were killed in an piloting accident and none were registered killed from immediate radiation exposure[2], though at least one eventually d…

Estimates seem to vary wildly — which makes sense given the variety of agents and agendas. It's not really fair to hammer him on facts without acknowledging that the ground truth is far from certain.

Heck, even your fourth citation writes:

> Figures for the number of liquidators involved vary greatly from several hundred thousand to nearly a million people. It is likely that at least 300,000 – 350,000 people were directly involved. A report by the Nuclear Energy Agency quotes a figure “up to 800,000”. The International Conference “One Decade After Chernobyl” refers to “about 200,000 ‘liquidators’ who worked in Chernobyl during the period 1986-1987 and estimating the total number of people registered as involved in activities relating to alleviating the consequences of the accident at between 600,000 to 800,000.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#18
post #3

Highly recommend the HBO's new miniseries Chernobyl. One episode left. It's already at the top of IMDB TV show rankings. [1] https://www.imdb.com/chart/toptv/

I don't get the feeling it's very accurate, but it is very entertaining. EDIT: the accuracy I am referring to is about the actual sequence of events of the plot, which I understand to be simplified as people replying have pointed out :)

This Twitter thread speaks to this, (supposedly) from a Russian guy. He said that as far as Soviet life goes it's extremely accurate.

https://twitter.com/SlavaMalamud/status/1132029943297265664

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#19
post #5

The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred helicopter pilots were killed" and yet it was only 600 helicopter pilots who _flew_ liquidator missions[1], two of which were killed in an piloting accident and none were registered killed from immediate radiation exposure[2], though at least one eventually d…

I think there's a lot of uncertainty in talking about Chernobyl, since most of the information published by the Soviet authorities was intentionally incorrect or misleading, designed to downplay the significance of the accident.

One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear power is still relatively "safe" even in case of disaster.

I don't know what the exact numbers are, and I'm not sure if any of us will ever know for sure, but one of the documentaries I like is Discovery's "Battle of Chernobyl," since it includes a lot of interviews with people who were actually there and participated in the events. They interview Nikolay Antoshkin, the colonel general in charge of the helicopter operations there, which is where the 600 pilot deaths number comes from. I'm more inclined to believe that account than what the state published.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#20
post #3

Highly recommend the HBO's new miniseries Chernobyl. One episode left. It's already at the top of IMDB TV show rankings. [1] https://www.imdb.com/chart/toptv/

I don't get the feeling it's very accurate, but it is very entertaining. EDIT: the accuracy I am referring to is about the actual sequence of events of the plot, which I understand to be simplified as people replying have pointed out :)

It varies. The physics part is oversimplified and, at times, overdramatized (the threat of a megaton-range explosion being a particularly egregious example). The range of characters is highly limited by the format of the series (hence the fictional Belarusian physicist meant to be a composite of many characters, but really just serving as a narrative shortcut to compress the whole thing into the length constraints they have). At the same time, the visual setting is very accurate (part of the filming is done at Ignalina, the site of another RBMK reactor plant with a similar workers' town, etc.) and the general atmosphere is vastly more true to life than any other dramatization of the accident I've ever seen.
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