Just got this Blu-Ray.
When this aired on ABC TV network during the primetime evening broadcast hours
in November 1983, over 100 million people in 39 million households watched it, a record that was not broken again until 2009.
The U.S. population in 1983 was about 233 million. That's almost 1/2 of the U.S. population that seen this movie during it's primetime evening broadcast.
Directed by Nicholas Meyer, who just came off the success of directing the movie hit Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, this movie tore into the consciousness of the American public and folks worldwide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After#Reception
We knew at the time in the early 1980's that a nuclear war was imminent between the U.S. and Russia. It wasn't a matter of whether Russia was going to nuke us, it was a matter of when.
But no one has ever told us what the result of a nuclear war would be like until The Day After was shown on TV in primetime in everyone's living room.
It shocked us!
In 1980, the U.S. was still recovering from a long economic depression, high interest rates, high unemployment, a weakened U.S. Military and a diminished U.S. Global Power after the Vietnam War, Americans longed for*better times, brighter future for their children, a stronger economy, more jobs.
Americans wanted to live and prosper again.
Here comes Ronald Reagan, not only did he brought jobs and wealth, he also made the U.S. strong again militarily by spending an unheard and unprecedent $1 trillion on defense.
But the spectrum of a nuclear war still loomed over us and when The Day After was broadcast, people had a new attitude: to live every day like it was the last day.
That's why the 80's became the decade of excess: wealth, junk bonds, credit card debts, Madison Avenue found a new customer they could advertise to and make millions off from in the stores and malls: the teenage girls and teenagers.
We said: you know if we are going to be nuked tomorrow, we might as well live it off today and spend and spend and spend - after all, we are going to die so fuck it, it's just money and debt.
We, the 20's something generation of the 80's invented wanting more, over spending, high credit card debts, and living materialistically and financially beyond our means.
We lived our lives the same way the music videos being shown on MTV were: quick images edited together and played back fast and furious.
I remember watching this movie on TV with my family and it was what every one talked about for weeks and months after.
Nicholas Meyer actually filmed almost 4 hours of material (not including added commercials breaks) and wanted it to make it a 2 part TV mini-series.
But ABC Network TV couldn't find anyone to advertise and sponsor it for primetime broadcast unless they agreed to trim out a lot of violence, shocking and disturbing scenes, and cut it down to about 2 hours for a single night broadcast.
Hence why it gotten poor reviews by critics about the editing and continuity and being disjointed as a whole but even with all that material missing, it still had the power to shock audiences.
Now this won't seem so shocking anymore.
In the past 35 years since this was broadcast, we have seen many nuclear wars and apocalypse end of the world movies and TV series but The Day After will always be one of their grandfather leaving a cinematic legacy and impact for years to come.
