This one aspect knocked me out of it.
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Threads
Therealkoop — 9 years ago(December 02, 2016 07:46 PM)
I was watching until the bomb dropped, and then I was fully engaged. The text crawl "PRIMARY TARGETS: STEEL, CHEMICALS" was particularly effective in its simplicity for some reason.
But in the 13 years that our main character had to interact with her daughter, she couldn't teach her how to speak?
Is it supposed to be implied that her daughter has some kind of disability? I gave it the benefit of the doubt until two other children appeared and had their own broken and useless dialect. They even steal food and while running away are yelled at in perfect English.
It seemed out of place that people would fall to such primal instincts when others were still around from pre war. I mean they survived by what appeared to be farming for 13 years, that takes an amount of planning and communication. -
LordofWinterfell1987 — 9 years ago(December 02, 2016 11:37 PM)
I don't think Ruth or any of the other surviving serfs would've talked much, and the kids weren't getting much of an education. Or probably much attention. I thought it made sense
that they spoke in broken english. Plus they weren't growing up in a very nurturing environment. -
greg-233 — 9 years ago(December 03, 2016 12:41 AM)
If everyone's too busy trying to grow enough crops just to stay alive, education would be a luxury. A post-nuclear school probably wouldn't be much of a learning environment. When there are few books available and probably nothing to write with, language and literacy among the children - who would be afflicted with learning difficulties - is likely to be primitive or non-existent.
If the human race doesn't die out altogether, it's possible that any society that might exist will be similar to what was depicted in the Russell Hoban novel
Riddley Walker
. Who knows, maybe Barry Hines had read that book? -
znapper — 9 years ago(December 06, 2016 07:13 AM)
I am not sure what they were trying to point out regarding the next generation, but I know that children who grow up in a radiation-environment show significant shortcomings in brain-development.
This will most likely influence learning-abilities, perhaps language and "slow" people would most likely be more common (but not to such a large extent that a whole new "tard-language" is created in 13 years).
It can also be "youth-speak", slang, bundled together into a separate language, since parents were either dead or dying, or too busy growing food.
In the long-run, it may alter the language permanently.
Illiteracy, lack of learning and hampered brain-development can, combined, cause some of those effects, albeit in the longer run.
Say, 25-50 years, if humanity keeps going for that long, which Threads basically says it will not. ^^
Too bad the various elements in the films were never fully discussed and debated thoroughly with the people involved, since we're basically just guessing their intentions at this point. -
epa101 — 9 years ago(December 10, 2016 07:50 AM)
Barry Hines had a great knack for language. The primitive dialect used by the children sounds a bit like broad Yorkshire dialect speeded up. For example, you can hear forms of "thou" and "thee" used. They also say something like "giz" for "give us". As the word "us" is said with a z sound at the end in Yorkshire (like uz), "give us" can be speeded up to "giz".
Threads doesn't have as much dialect as Hines's other films. I think that he used this scene as an opportunity to get some in there. -
tgs333 — 9 years ago(December 16, 2016 08:24 AM)
Speaking of "language" here is a good book to read just on this subject:
https://www.amazon.com/Riddley-Walker-Expanded-Russell-Hoban/dp/0253212340
"Russell Hoban's 'Riddley Walker' is that rare novel that can be loved by doomster geeks and literary readers alike. It's narrated in a language burnt to its rudiments by nuclear holocaust and revived into new forms by survivors in England who live as hunters, and who believe in a past that's half history, half myth." Michael Helm, Nuvo "Off the Shelf", Summer 2008
"I'm a vehemently anti-nuclear, paranoid mess, harbouring a strange obsession with radioactive sheep." -
bayardhiler — 9 years ago(December 17, 2016 08:45 PM)
My personal belief is that a combination of brain damage due to radiation and lack of proper education were to blame. The scene were the people were watching the words and pictures show pretty much summed up what education children would be receiving in a post nuclear world, that combined with whatever brain damage they received while in the womb and what do you get people with no more intellect than cave people, which fits right in with what the movie was trying to show with the after effects of nuclear war; the de-evolution of man.
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znapper — 9 years ago(December 19, 2016 12:22 AM)