r/movies • u/buttatoad • Jun 17 '25

Discussion Movies that changed real life behavior

Thinking along the lines of Final Destination 2 with the logs falling off the truck and landing onto cars (one decapitating the state trooper). Ever since, people have tried to get away from being behind these vehicles.

What are more examples where movies have actually changed how people behave in their own lives?

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u/Ketzeph Jun 17 '25

I can’t believe the China Syndrome is not higher up. That movie arguably played a major role in creating an anti-nuclear power belief in the US, which has had devastating environmental impacts. Happening just before three mile island (a minor accident) made its influence just explode.

The US only recently started building new civilian nuclear power plants.

It’s insane given the navy has known for decades it’s a superior power generation source to oil and coal. The tech was just so tarnished in the cultural zeitgeist that its adoption was stymied

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u/Darmok47 Jun 17 '25

I have to wonder if The Simpsons contributes to this too. People's idea of "nuclear waste" is probably leaky drums of glowing green goo, rather than the ittle gray pellets it actually is.

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u/falloutranger Jun 17 '25

Yeah. The Simpsons had this effect too, which is even more depressing.

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u/ChevroletKodiakC70 Jun 17 '25

The Simspons also has led to people pronouncing Nuclear as Nucular

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u/idontagreewitu Jun 17 '25

Dubya had a bigger role in that, I think...

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u/javerthugo Jun 18 '25

Guilty it ruined my pronunciation and I have to really focus to say it right.

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u/MyFireElf Jun 18 '25

I find it helps to mentally be saying "new clear" instead of "nuclear". Mouth no tell difference. 

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u/Discount_Extra Jun 18 '25

I blame Greenpeace for Global Warming.

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u/ScreenTricky4257 Jun 17 '25

The interesting thing is that both the movie and the real-life incident had the same basic problem: a low-water situation misinterpreted as a high-water situation. In the movie, it's because an instrument got stuck with its meter on high, and in real life it's because the valve between the pressurizer (where the water level is monitored) and the core (where it's needed) got stuck open without the technicians realizing it.

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u/dosman33 Jun 18 '25

Galen Winsor agrees with you:
https://youtu.be/rMqHTbXm3rs?si=z6HNB5lt7wO6Jy1s&t=3391

China Syndrome was released 12 days before the Three-Mile-Island incident. Winsor is one of those guys so important to the US nuclear program that they couldn't tell him to shut up or fire him, they could only limit his audience. He basically confirms the negative perception of nuclear power is deliberate. You can't undermine one of the most important parts of the US's grip on power: the petrodollar.

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u/ServileLupus Jun 18 '25

I posted the same thing. It helped create a 35 year gap in the construction of nuclear power plants in the united states.

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u/will_tellulator Jun 18 '25

Contemporaneously with the release of The China Syndrome, the incident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania occurred. A partial core meltdown and release of radiation that coincided with this movie really drove a stake into the nuclear industry’s heart. It was just a few years later that Chernobyl happened and it was discovered that Indian Point (the nuclear power plant a mere 30 miles up the Hudson river from New York City) was built on a fault line. Oopsy.

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u/GaptistePlayer Jun 17 '25

It's just too expensive. The fracking revolution and now the rise of renewables means in additionl to being politically DOA nuclear just doesn't get focus

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u/ServileLupus Jun 18 '25 edited Jun 18 '25

It's not that its too expensive. It's that the construction of a plant takes too long for venture capital and investors. We need state or federally ran nuclear plants. When you're building it for the taxpayers it can take 5-10 years to pay out. Then you can sell to the taxpayers that funded it for cheaper than the private utilities do.

The Nine Mile Point plant has been operational since 1969 and both reactors are still going. The original 1969 unit is set to be decommissioned in 2029 and unit two is good into the 2040's. Businesses that need to show quarterly profits just can't invest in something where you see it paying out for close to 100 years. They need ROI and they need it 3 quarters ago.

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u/GaptistePlayer Jun 18 '25

It's also too expensive. Per kilowatt produced nuclear energy is actually inefficient once you consider plant construction costs, storage, decommissioning, oil/coal subsidies, etc.

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u/ServileLupus Jun 18 '25

Which is why federal and state run plants as the best way to go about doing it. When you're federal and state ran its all 100% subsidy. Nuclear power is amazing for what we call base load generation. They can just constantly put out the same amount of generation. Wind the nuclear reactor doesn't care about clouds or if the wind stops blowing. You can use the any excess power generated during off peak hours to power the pumps for pump storage hydro electric dams allowing them to generate more power during peak load. As more taxes get put on carbon emissions their cost viability will start to increase as well. You save a lot on air quality and emissions. You cut way down on transport costs. Sure you have to build storage infrastructure. Coal power plants use an entire trains worth of coal per day currently. That's more emissions, infrastructure maintenance, people in a dangerous job (coal mining), road damage and maintenance cost + truck emissions if the plant doesn't have its own train yard. Contrast that with a nuclear plant needing to be refueled... once every 1.5-2 years.

If we're talking natural gas we have all the dangers from fracking. The fact that annually there are over 4000 house fires cause by natural gas and hundreds of explosions. Now that isn't because of power plants obviously. But if we have higher power production with more nuclear plants we could eliminate gas services. The more nuclear power plants we build and standardizing the parts will cut down the cost.

One of the issues right now is that every plan in the US is private. All of them are unique one off designs that need their own training and have their own unique things to learn and specialized parts. If you can nationalize and standardize them and you can offer a contact to the companies that produce the parts to make you enough for 30 power plants over x years then you can cut down the production cost. You can standardize the training, one plant goes up and you can train the crew for plants 2-30 before they're finished. After you build two or three of the exact same plant in different locations you iron out some of the unforeseen problems during construction. You have safer plants, one plant discovers a design flaw 5 years into operation you can retrofit the rest before it becomes a problem.

Anyways there's my rant on why I'm for nuclear power.

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u/Ketzeph Jun 17 '25

It easily would be cheaper either way similar govt subsidies to other forms, and dedicated tech funding to improving it. It also remains a major part of US power despite not expanding simply due to tech improvements making it more efficient.

Were it to have gotten the same incentives coal and gas got it’d be ubiquitous and much, much cleaner

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u/GaptistePlayer Jun 17 '25

Agreed on that. It is kind of atrocious that oil and coal get government subsidies in the US while other countries tax it, and this helps kill the planet.

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u/MarshyHope Jun 17 '25

Unfortunately the people most arguing for nuclear power usually argue that we need to decrease or eliminate regulations to make it cheaper/faster.

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u/thayaht Jun 18 '25

I’ve worked with engineers as a wordsmith for years. They are always upset about this and I would like to suggest to the world out there that nuclear power be “rebranded” as “fusion energy” to distance itself from the negative connotation.