BBC Focus Magazine

[M Paul Lloyd]

I think it was meant as an analogy for mutual nuclear destruction.

[Shadowwolf]

Ah but MAD was hardly an issue or even a possibility in 1951.

[The Beige Avenger]

I wanted to like that movie... failed to.

The robot was cool though.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Ah but MAD was hardly an issue or even a possibility in 1951.

Well Hiroshima and Nagasaki had shown the potential of nuclear weapons (huge bombers roamed the skies of Europe armed with similar devices at the time) and ICBM's were being developed at a pace, so it was only a slight future projection of the existing technology.

[Shadowwolf]

Sorry I'm just not seeing the MAD connection, just didn't exist as far as I can tell at that very early time, and still doesn't excuse that contradictory admonishing to halt our violent ways or the aliens will be violent towards us, fouls the whole thing.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I accept that the original premise may have been based upon war in general rather than all out nuclear conflict but it certainly seemed like the most direct analogy when I was about eight years old and watched it in the early sixties with the Cuban missile crisis very much a major concern.?

But then again the film had been around well over ten years by that time and memory can be a funny thing.

[M Paul Lloyd]

May I recommend H G Wells 'The World Set Free' a novel about nuclear war from way back in 1913.

[worldmaker]

I wonder if anyone has ever thought of the opposite point of view - man is not violent enough to survive in the bid bag universe, so "they, them, The Men In Little Flying Saucers", are teaching us to be really really good at war, without destroying ourselves in the process?

I can't seem to think of any suitable films on that subject...

[Shadowwolf]

An interesting premise, would we be too nice?

'The World Set Free'

Can't say I know it, but the Wiki description is a war far different, just one conventional sized but continuous explosion. Far as I know Wells had a penchant for apocalyptic scenarios and he made something up that obliquely referenced nuclear war in that case.

[M Paul Lloyd]

It was technically a nuclear fusion device but given Well's rather prophetic vision I wonder just how old the concept of MAD really is?