MovieChat Forums > Stalker (1980) Discussion > Did this movie foreshadow the Chernobyl ...

Did this movie foreshadow the Chernobyl disaster?

posted 12 years ago by ralph_jenkins28
8 replies | jump to latest

The Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine (USSR at the time) resulted in 19 miles around the affected area being quarantined off, everyone in the area was evacuated. They call it the Exclusion Zone, or The Zone for short too. The area is highly radioactive, and hazardous to travel without a guide that knows the area (you can even pay for tours to the exclusion zone, and it's cheap from what I hear). But this movie came out 6-7 years before the incident. The book it's based on came out 7 years before the movie was made. Coincidence?

There were even a series of videogames called S.T.A.L.K.E.R. made, that take place in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, and it even borrows a lot of elements from the book/movie Stalker.

[–] alan_campbell82 12 years ago

Hi according to the movie trivia the zone of the film was inspired by a nuclear accident that took place near chelyabinsk in 1957, several hundred kilometers were polluted by fallout and abandoned.

I seeked out this movie after playing the game stalker and so much has been taken from it especially the bolt throwing I assume he was throwing them in the film looking for anomalies even though you never got to see any.

[–] franzkabuki 12 years ago

"Coincidence?"

Coincidence my ass; obviously, the Strugatsky brothers were already planning the disaster as far back as that.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] geoffmasterplan 12 years ago

It was loosely based on "Roadside Picnic" the book.

[–] raf-33 11 years ago

I think the OP is mistaking foreshadowing with prediction.

Opinions are just onions with pi in them.

[–] Strausszek 10 years ago

Nuclear reactors are typical high-security "no-go zones", so it would have seemed a given to suggest some connection to radioactivity. The story of the film as such, though, has no connection to nuclear plants.

You are a lunatic, Sir, and you're going to end up on the Russian front. I have a car waiting.

[–] hellblade 10 years ago

They did try to blow it up with a nuclear device :)

[–] SamoanJoes 10 years ago

I was reading about the disaster the other day. Terrible and disturbing stuff that I hadn't already known.

[–] Satan2016 9 years ago

No, the zone is not all highly radioactive, only a few km2 near the reactors. Older people who never left the outer zone are doing fine. Animals that are rare outside the zone thrive within it. The tours take decontaminated pathways.

The zone is not a 30km radius, it's mostly to the NW of the reactor. It shrinks every year because fallout magically disintegrates.