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Friday, 27 April 2012

Hotline: 1985


Whenever Hollywood makes a tense Cold War drama about nuclear annihilation, it was sure to include a scene  with the President of the United States talking to his Soviet counterpart on the Hotline.  What most people don't realise is that there was never an actual telephone.  Instead, the Hotline was a teletype machine and even as late as 1985 was basically e-mail.



That's a pity, because I always imagined that the apocalypse would sound like this.
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2 comments:

  1. eonFriday, 27 April 2012 at 05:46:00 GMT-7

    As far as I know, the only one who ever got it right was (predictably) Tom Clancy, in "The Sum of All Fears".

    Just as predictably, they got it wrong in the film adaptation. Of course, they got everything else wrong, too, so at least they're consistent.

    cheers

    eon

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chris LopesSunday, 29 April 2012 at 15:17:00 GMT-7

    eon,
    They got it (everything) wrong in "The Sum of All Fears" because the idea of Middle Eastern fanatics performing an act of terrorism on US soil that kills thousands of innocent lives is just too science fictional any enlightened person to take seriously. Obviously we needed a movie that would expose the ever growing threat of neo-Nazis. Thank goodness the people in Hollywood have their priorities straight.

    ReplyDelete

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