SL-1

First saw this movie because the Navy showed it to us as part of our training to be nuclear power plant operators. Interestingly, when they showed it to us, it was marked as classified. Even more strange is that the version we saw left out a couple of the scenes that were kind of controversial. Ask anyone about nuclear disasters in the US and they will immediately think of 3 Mile Island, not realizing that SL-1 was an actual explosion that killed people immediately. Even so, nuclear energy is still our current best source of power generation that gets a bad rap by activists. This movie shows an era when we were still learning the ropes.

I thought this movie was very interesting, but boring at the same time. The plot revolved around the three men who died in the US's first nuclear disaster. Since all the men directly involved are dead, there was a lot of speculation. There were some dramatizations in this movie about what happened in the last 24 hours of one of the men's life. I am not sure why Orr and Roberts included this, as it really didnt help the story in any way. There was also a lot of classroom style documentary scenes in this movie, that were really boring, but that managed to teach the viewer about the effects of radiation, etc. There were some very interesting parts to this film. The description of the disaster was well done, as was the description of the clean up efforts. It really makes one think about why Governments think nuclear anything is a good idea! I would only recommend this film to a person who really enjoys documentaries.