William Shatner narrates a running tally of almost every nuclear weapons test run by the United States in the atomic age, from the 1945 breakthrough "Trinity" to 1963's "Nike Hercules" air defense missile. Almost as fascinating as the constant barrage of blooming orange mushroom clouds on the screen is the realization of just how recklessly fascinated our leaders actually were with this technology. It's a boys' world (or, at least, it was at the time) and so it's not entirely surprising that the men at the top of the food chain would want the biggest toy in the yard to parade around with. Still, it's tough to imagine anyone - even a selfish little brat - being so carefree with such volatile powers.
The process almost parodies itself; when the US woefully underestimated the strength of "Castle," a blast twice as powerful as expected that accidentally irradiated sailors and villagers alike, they barely stopped to brush themselves off before launching additional blasts below the surface of the ocean, deep under the ground and in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. The latter of which, inadvertently, introduced us to the far-reaching powers of an EMP.
The historical footage dug up for this documentary is riveting and amazing, great fodder for fireball-lovers, but I couldn't stop wondering how we got through it all in one piece. These guys only thought they knew what they were doing, or had at best a vague idea, and in a lot of ways that's worse than just lighting the fuse and standing around with a clipboard and a pair of safety goggles.
Dark, disturbing yet at the same time faszinating footage.
Shout by bondlessBlockedParent2018-12-15T01:49:25Z
While the footage in this film is interesting, it's little more than a list of the hundreds of atomic bombs tested by the United States and a few interviews with physicists who worked on the bombs. This documentary lacks any of the criticality necessary for a film that takes on such a deeply controversial topic. Indeed, in many ways the film portrays an American exceptionalist view of the age, especially through it's uncritical interviews of individuals who show no qualms about the history of atomic weapons (a view not shared by many others). Moreover, the film is not factually correct when it discusses the history of Soviet atomic history. Finally, the score for the film (done, nobly by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra) is a bit too dramatic for the film. While I can't recommend this film, I do recommend Radio Bikini (1988), The Day After Trinity (1982), The Atomic Cafe (1982), The Bomb (2016) and/or White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2007) as alternatives.