Content deleted Content added
No edit summary |
→Differences between the novel and film: copy edit to italicize "Sawfish" |
||
Line 99:
* In the beginning of the novel, it is stated that World War III started when Albania launched a nuclear attack against Italy. Afterwards, Egypt used Soviet-built aircraft to make nuclear bombings on the United States and the United Kingdom, which, in turn, provoked the US and NATO to launch retaliation attacks against the Soviet Union, thus triggering the slow and painful death of the human race as the radiation from the attacks began to spread south.
* In the beginning of the movie, no nuclear attacks are shown, but the action opens on the USS ''Sawfish'' as it makes its way towards Melbourne. Later, after the ''Sawfish'' leaves Ralph Swain in San Francisco and heads towards San Diego, the crew discusses writing a book about World War III, but as details of the war are sketchy, they are at a loss as to who started the war (though one crewman states that America didn't start the war and another crewman wishes that somebody could've prevented the war before it broke out) and make jokes about Martians, who might know the answer, but take over Earth once the radiation levels drop. When they ask Osborn for his opinion on who started the war, Osborn first answers [[Albert Einstein]], blaming him for finding the equation that resulted in the discovery of atomic power and the creation of nuclear weapons, but comes up with a better hypothesis on how the war could've started accidentally. In Osborn's hypothesis, somewhere in one of the Eastern European nations, a man on radar duty saw incoming objects on the radar screen and mistook them for missiles launched by their enemies (though it's likely the incoming objects may have been a flock of birds) and, without hesitation (for doing so, he feared, would've resulted in his nation getting hit) pressed the button that launched the first nuclear missiles of the war. Upon finishing his hypothesis, Osborn then comments on how mankind by that time had become stupid enough to cause his own extinction through weapons they couldn't use responsibly without considering the consequences first.
* In the novel, it has been two years since the last nuclear attacks, and small pockets of human survivors are mentioned in several areas of the Southern Hemisphere. Australia is in radio contact with places such as Montevideo, on the east coast of South America, and Cape Town, on the southern tip of Africa, although they fall silent during the course of the novel, as do more northerly Australian cities such as [[Brisbane]] and [[Sydney]]. Commander Towers is in communication with the only other remaining active-duty United States Navy vessel, another nuclear submarine, USS ''Swordfish'', on duty in the Atlantic, which, at the end, is based in Montevideo. Melbourne, where much of the novel is set, is the southernmost major city in the world. It will be the last such to die, but people in Tasmania will be the last Australians to succumb. New Zealand, Tierra del Fuego and other, more southerly points than Australia, are said to have a few additional weeks left to them, although human extinction is inevitable at the end of this.<ref>Shute 1957, p. 117.</ref>
* In the film an unidentified radio newscaster says that, as far as is known, Australia is home to the last human life on the planet. This to possibly build hope that the San Francisco expedition will result in the discovery of other survivors, adding a sense of urgency and importance to Melbourne's survivors.
| |||