Greetings idiots! And so it came to pass that beloved King Hans, in his wisdom and discernment, blessed us with a horror relic from the atomic age- 1954’s THEM!
As part of his privileges as reigning king of our patreon, good ol’ Hans gets to pick a film. As stated by the man himself, this was selected to accompany the theatrical release of Oppenheimer, as it relates to the aftermath of all the nuclear testing in New Mexico. Besides that though, it all pairs pretty gooooooood with our prior episode, Starship Troopers, as both involve giant bugs and heavily armed humans shooting at them.
As Warner Bros. highest grossing film of 1954, THEM! was one of this first films of it’s kind, and one of the film industry’s first attempts to process (and exploit) the anxiety and terror of the atomic age through a fictional lense. Meanwhile, over in Japan in the very same year, that country would begin it’s cultural processing of the nuclear atrocities it suffered with a little film called Gojira (Godzilla).
“Don’t you think I know that? This isn’t one of you text-book exercises, Mr. Jennings. This is an experiment in biological warfare, or hadn’t you noticed? That organism is potentially the greatest breakthrough in weapons research since man split the atom. What we do here will affect the balance of world power!” It’s the Who Goes There Podcast episode 387!
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