Talk:Threads (1984 film)

Our old IP friend back again

Given that they edit and add to other people's talk page comments, I think it is safe to revert on sight. Paul Benjamin Austin (talk) 20:34, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Have you a citation for the operating frequency range of a radio set in a work of fiction ? 86.176.57.151 (talk) 16:14, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

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Blu-Ray interviews

Any details on the film's production from the interviews we could add to the article? Mariomassone (talk) 00:16, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

@Jamesluckard: Are there more details we could use from the Blu Ray commentary? (Casting, production, plot changes, deleted scenes, special effects, working with Hines, etc.) Mariomassone (talk) 08:37, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mariomassone: Your article here is quite thorough, I didn't notice any big revelations from Jackson that aren't covered in what you've written. You should definitely get the new DVD, it's the best the film has ever looked. I'm sure if you listen to the commentary, you'll notice things that I didn't, which you can include in a revision of the article here. I updated the details of the Severin Blu-Ray and the Simply Media DVD. Jamesluckard (talk) 19:15, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mariomassone: I remembered two things Jackson mentions. Sheffield was chosen because it's in the exact center of England, which is the same reason Lawrence, Kansas was chosen for "The Day After." It was also chosen because there was a large series of old houses that the town council intended to demolish, and the production was able to use them and then destroy them for filming. Jamesluckard (talk) 19:18, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 10 January 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jerm (talk) 04:11, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

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Threads → Threads (film) – WP:ASTONISH no clear primary topic given that Threads (Sheryl Crow album) got 4,942 views (though that might be recentism) compared with the film's 12,959 views which probably doesn't meet "much more likely than any other" which would probably be more like 10x. Thread (computing) also gets 10,369, Screw thread gets 9,755, Thread (network protocol) gets 2,650 and Thread (yarn) gets 1,752 [[1]]. By long term significance if anything many of the terms titled in the singular would be primary if anything. See similar cases like Cars, Cats, Bones, Bookends, Pixies and Parachutes which no only does the specific meanings not take precedence, the general meanings do. I propose that like Dockers and Cuts we redirect "Threads" to Thread per WP:DABCOMBINE since there are quite a few meanings that would be on both DAB pages if split. While its true that per WP:PLURALPT users can be expected to use the singular more often they are still full matches and anyway it gives the examples of Cars and Bookends redirecting to the singular named article. Also as noted in the Bookends, Suites, Dockers and Peanuts discussions (and probably others) we can't distinguish between "threads" and "Threads" since the 1st letter is always capitalized in titles even though we can with the likes of Common sense and Common Sense. And even if we could we can't tell if its at the start of a sentence since we can see that in the Thread (computing) article the plural term appears over 100x and in some cases it appears as "Threads" (when its at the start of a sentence). WP articles are generally out of context (unlike WT entries) and thus an initial capital could easily be expected anyway. Also note that the category is at Category:Threads (computing) which also shows that its common for things to be plural even though we don't in the article space, see WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT. A Google Images search for threads returns most results for Thread (yarn) which is very well known and the plural form appears 14x in the article. Threads (TV series) is another option. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:28, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - It's a TV play or drama, not a "film," which in British-English is generally reserved for feature films. There is already a link to Thread (disambiguation) at the top of the page, so it's not like anyone is going to get "lost." Nick Cooper (talk) 12:42, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

  It could be moved to something like Threads (TV play) or Threads (drama) but others in Category:1984 television films use film anyway. I have no objection to a different qualifier. Only a link to the DAB would be appropriate if this was clearly primary but it isn't. Instead people searching for "Threads" (or "threads") should be taken straight to the DAB where they can find the other uses and click on the link for this article if that's what they still want, see WP:NOPRIMARYTOPIC. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:28, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 14:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support per the examples that show that topic name being plural does not make it disambiguated enough. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 17:16, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support per nom. --Netoholic @ 21:44, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support per nomination, Ortizesp, Erik and Netoholic. As for the parenthetical qualifier "film", television films, especially those designed to run in a two-hour time slot are indeed qualified as "(film)" especially, as in this case, when the production is originated on film, rather than kinescoped from a live broadcast or videotaped. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 15:19, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support move to one of Threads (film), Threads (TV play), Threads (drama) or anything else; needs disambiguation. Dicklyon (talk) 16:40, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support - the album is enough to split it. BTW, WP:PLURAL all but forces categories to be plural, so that argument doesn't really apply. The rest do, though. Red Slash 23:40, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

  That was my point, PLURAL specifies that categories use the plural form but the singular titles are still ambiguous which is why Category:Bridge is a DAB. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:08, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Book

Does anyone have access to the book Barry Hines: Kes, Threads and beyond? The google books preview has some interesting insights into Hine's earlier, more openly political drafts of the plot, including major character changes (Sutton originally being a cartoonishly evil military dictator etc.). It could be used to expand the production section. Mariomassone (talk) 14:26, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

The baby at the end

People keep adding text saying that the baby Ruth delivers at the end is stillborn.

There is nothing in the movie that says the baby is stillborn. It could be grossly deformed, stillborn, Siamese, who knows? The fact that the baby is silent does not mean it is dead.

Since we don't know the baby's status, it is inappropriate to say what it was.

Something should be added to the article code to prevent people from imposing their theories to the article and positioning them as fact. 98.97.37.44 (talk) 04:52, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

True, it is left to the viewer's imagination what she sees. I've made that clear and added a footnote from a retrospective article that addresses that very point. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 16:13, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

"added to the article code"? Do you actually know how coding works? Julietdeltalima (talk) 00:16, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

It's obviously stillborn. It doesn't need to be spelt on screen, although the fact it's completely wrapped in a sheet, not moving, and not making any sound makes it pretty clear. Dan100 (Talk) 11:06, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. It's not ambiguous. You don't wrap a baby entirely in a sheet, covering its face, if it's alive. Richard75 (talk) 22:08, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Little White Lies and the AV Club

The 2017 reviews from these publications are utterly histrionic and overwrought, and quoting them makes the entire section look foolish. Leaving the EU is not remotely the same as nuclear holocaust and you don't have to be an advocate of it to see that.

I do hope Wikipedia editors one day get round to deleting this sort of drivel. It's endemic throughout the website - silly hot takes whose inclusion owes more to the political beliefs of individual editors than devotion to Wikipedia's mission. 80.189.187.221 (talk) 20:08, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Including comments from critics on the contemporary relevance of the drama does not in any way go against Wikipedia's principles, nor does it show bias for or against Brexit. There exists a review that compares the events of the film to Brexit's economic impact.

You may think that comparison is ridiculous, and I would agree with you, but that such a review exists and is noted does not violate WP:NPOV. The whole point of that section is to show critical consensus, and if that's what critics are saying, Wikipedia can't exactly sidestep the biases of those critics by contriving opposing views. This "drivel" should not be deleted simply because you disagree with it. Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 10:57, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Ed Bishop

About twelve to thirteen minutes in: we see one of the girls — Alison Kemp, I *think* — doing her homework whilst listening to the radio.

The voice of the US President?

Is actor, Ed Bishop.

But?

Is there any way of verifying that? And adding him to the credits?

Cuddy2977 (talk) 21:05, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Spurious description of "rape" again...

Yet again, this has crept back into the plot summary again, despite the reality having been properly cited in the past. The published script states verbatim (page 234):

136. Interior. Old farm building.

JANE and SPIKE dive down into the straw and open their bags of loot. JANE snatches at a loaf of bread.

SPIKE: Giss'n. Come on. Giss'n.

He grabs at it and they begin to play around. Their wrestling turns sexual, and we hear JANE exclaiming as they have crude intercourse.

That's it. No "rape," no "overpowering," and clearly no intention by the writer that it should be anything other than mutual. Nick Cooper (talk) 14:33, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Just an observation, but I have Threads and other Sheffield plays, and in all honesty it looks more like a transcript of the film rather than the original screenplay. Mariomassone (talk) 16:45, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

It's certainly not formatted as a transcript. It includes directions for the actors, descriptions of the scene, and other things that cannot actually be definitively gleaned from the film, such as that the town at the end is still Buxton.

If it is merely a transcript instead of the original script, whoever transcribed has a fantastic eye for making their transcript look like a screenplay. That's not to say it's not possible for it to be a transcript, it just seems vanishingly unlikely. GreatBritant (talk) 21:07, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

You're right about the directions, but the reason I bring it up is because, unlike other screenplays I've read, the dialogues, without exception, are word for word exactly like in the film (normally the actors are given some leeway in uttering their lines), and there are no lines in the book that didn't make it into the final product (just look up the screenplays of Highlander 2 or Star Trek: Insurrection, available as pdfs online, to see how much dialogue was ultimately scrapped).
Heck, what really sticks out is the absence in the book of some lines, in particular those of the radio/TV announcers. You have to really fiddle with the audio settings in order to hear them, but there are whole sections in the film where additional exposition is given in the background while the main characters are talking (including the fact that the Iran coup was an attempt to restore the Pahlavi monarchy, that the nuclear attack on Mashad caused the mass evacuation of cities in Pakistan due to fallout, etc.). It really gives (me) the impression of having been written by someone assigned to transcribe the dialogue, but whose audio settings were no better than those of the average viewer.Mariomassone (talk) 06:46, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Really? Such extraneous detail is far more indicative of a working or pre-production script than a post-production transcript. If you Google them, you can easily find the post-production script that were made by the BBC to aid foreign buyers of Doctor Who to dub them. The Threads script looks nothing like them. The absence of missing scenes or dialogue in the script reflects nothing more than the director and actors sticking to what was presumably the final draft of many. Hines may well have had a choice of exactly which version to publish, and ultimately chose the shooting one, hence it very closely matches what is on screen. Nick Cooper (talk) 09:20, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

My copy is currently boxed up pending a house move, but I'm rather stunned by this suggestion. It's a compilation of three plays by the author, and there is not reason to think that the Threads one is a post-production transcript, not least because it includes details of intent and interpretation that do not appear in BBC post-production scripts, e.g. the explanation of the degraded English of the children in later scenes. Nor, for that matter, is it in the same format generally used by the BBC for post-producion scripts. Nick Cooper (talk) 13:22, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nick Cooper You are intentionally being obtuse, I can't for the life if me figure out why what is obviously a rape being depicted makes you so uncomfortable. 2600:1008:B128:7D96:0:5A:41C0:DA01 (talk) 04:17, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

As has been explained time and time again: the closest thing we have to the word of god on this is that script, which states clearly that it is not intended as a rape scene. I think it's an uncomfortable scene, and I'm not surprised people interpret it as rape. The reason it is listed as "crude intercourse" is because that is what appears in the script, and so ultimately we should operate off that basis and not an interpretation.

From the Manual of Style's section about writing about fiction:

"A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. ... Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so."

In this case, what is being done is taking a primary source (the script) and making a straightforward descriptive statement of fact (that the scene is not intended as rape but instead as "crude intercourse"). There is no analysing, evaluating, interpreting, or synthesising being done by ourselves. Just the use of a primary source for a statement of fact.

I'll note that every single time people make the edit to that section, they do so without actually changing anything about the citation, which strongly suggests they are not actually bothering to check the citation at all (the screenplay is available on the internet archive, so there is no excuse). Thus, what we have is people changing a cited section of the text to their interpretation, and leaving up the citation that actively refutes their interpretation. You can see why it's rather annoying. GreatBritant (talk) 07:24, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

What makes me "uncomfortable" is people making their own interpretations that have no factual basis. The script does not describe the scene as "rape," and what appears on screen fits the description in the script, i.e. "crude intercourse" between two young people thrown together in the devastation. If you can find a statement made by the author that they actually intended it to be rape, or that the director decided to depict it as such - but then produced something that is, at best, ambiguous - then go ahead and cite it. You choosing to interpret the scene as such, and doubling-down even when you have been aware that it isn't, doesn't count. Nick Cooper (talk) 09:13, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Plot summaries do not follow sceenplays but rather the film itself. We need to be guided by the film. In this case, since it isn't clear what happened, we should go with reliable secondary sources on the film itself, reviews etc., not primary sources as is currently footnoted. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 14:02, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I removed this notation as I don't believe it is appropriate for a plot summary. Screenplays and transcripts are not dispositive. An editor may have a very good reason to make changes, which are never frozen in place. Right now the cited source is the best we have but it is a primary source, the screenplay. Directors and actors of course have their own ways of interpreting and implementing screenplays. Better would be secondary sources of critics and others who have seen the film, as "crude intercourse" could indeed mean rape as carried out on the screen. It looks that way to me, but my opinion doesn't count. It's not our job to resolve ambiguity. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:14, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I can't be the only person here that thinks this is a really, really weird thing for OP to get hung up about, leaving policy aside for a moment. When it comes to policy, I'm a strong advocate for NPOV, but there are at least three sources I've found with a cursory Google search (see: [2], [3] and [4]) that call what happens "rape" or "implied rape". It's clear that at least some critics and audiences interpret it as a rape. As other respondents have said, synopses are of the film as filmed, not of the intentions of the screenwriter, except where the film is entirely lost (as with many silent films and early Doctor Who episodes). In that light, I feel like the dubiousness of the consensuality should at least be noted. --Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 10:17, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Article length

Hello,

I have just made the most recent edit to the page. I am conscious of article length as an issue. Previously, WP:FILMPLOT has been cited to argue that the article's length must be kept below 700. However, I will point out that said link states "the summary should not exceed the range ... or unless the plot is too complicated to summarize in this range." MOS:PLOTSUMMARIZE also states "Necessary detail, however, must be maintained", and that "particularly complex plots may need a more lengthy summary than the general guidance".

The current revision, minus references and other stuff that is unseen by the reader, is 876 words. That is really not very much above the 700 hard limit, and it is my belief that this extra length is absolutely important to maintain the page. The prior version, despite being 20 words shorter (and therefore, in theory, "better"), had a partially inaccurate timeline of events and wrong information about them. Thus, I feel as though this is roughly the best possible marker for the length of the page, and that attempting to boil it down significantly further is only going to compromise it. I am sure minor tweaking could get it down, but I do not believe 800 is an achievable length cap for the page, let alone 700. I welcome further, accurate, edits that can manage to reduce the plot length without compromising the accuracy or usefulness of the description

Furthermore, on the "rape" issue: as has been pointed out by @Nick Cooper, the script directly states that it is crude intercourse, not rape. While I am well aware that this is a common misconception about the film, and I can very much understand where the idea comes from, the fact remains that the script intends it as crude intercourse. Thus, the article should continue to phrase it as such, unless someone is able to identify an alternate source stating it is intended as rape. People are perfectly free to interpret the scene as rape, but this plot summary is not a place for interpretation about the events of the film, it is a place for describing the plot as occurs. GreatBritant (talk) 12:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Jimmy's friend

I'm pretty sure Jimmy's friend survives and meets Ruth later. 2A02:A46A:2C29:1:14D6:C7DF:D1FE:83C5 (talk) 21:58, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Jimmy's dad

Jimmy's dad is seen dead at the end of the graveyard scene, in the still black and white image. Richard75 (talk) 22:45, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate that he dies, but I don't think the plot summary for this film can be entirely comprehensive - there are lots of characters we simply never see again or only see briefly, who do not contribute to the 'plot'. Note that the bunker scenes are summarised very briefly and without reference to individual characters; the plot summary is not supposed to explain everything that happens, but should give an overview that gives the general idea. As I say, it is very hard to do this with the right level of detail in a film with a large cast who become separated. Perhaps the most iconic character from the film, the traffic warden, is not mentioned, for example, because he does not contribute to the plot. That's my view, at least! Becsh (talk) 23:58, 16 October 2024 (UTC)