Why was the world in total ruins?
Yeah so I'm trying to figure out why saving JFK cause the destruction of what seemed to be all of America. Or at least that town.
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MovieChat Forums > 11.22.63 (2016) Discussion > Why was the world in total ruins?
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Do none of you people know any history? Sheesh! What are they teaching in schools these days? Clearly not Amercian History!
The world was closer to nuclear war at this point in time than any other.
Read up on the Cuban Missile Crisis on Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
The suggestion of this devastation in the show (and the book) is that if Kennedy survived, a nuclear war would have eventually occurred.
But read up on The Cuban Missile Crisis.
Why would I read when I can watch what ACTUALLY happened in X-Men First Class:)
shareOk you guys... geez. If you're so smart get busy and write a screenplay with the first scene being Oswald missing and Kennedy escaping Dallas.
shareIf you want the timeline laid out from the book as to why it's in ruins, here it is:
*1964 election: John F. Kennedy defeats Barry Goldwater. Lyndon Johnson remained Kennedy’s Vice President. Texas Governor Connally “worked like a slave for Kennedy” because Connally was personally embarrassed by the 1963 assassination attempt on Kennedy in Dallas. This was called ‘The Embarrassment Endorsement”. Many who would have opposed Kennedy’s “New Frontier” initiatives supported them because they were ashamed that Kennedy was almost killed in Dallas.
* 1964 election: Kennedy thought he would sweep Goldwater but instead only won by 40 electoral votes.
* 1965: Kennedy upsets right-wing voters and “the military establishment” by declaring “North Vietnam less a danger to our democracy than the racial inequality in our schools and cities”.
* 1965: Kennedy does not withdraw American troops entirely from Vietnam, but restricts troops to just the city of Saigon and a perimeter around it he called “The Green Zone”. In Kennedy’s second term, troops were not sent to Vietnam as reinforcements…and instead economic aid was sent.
* 1965-1969: civil rights reforms did not happen because Kennedy was still president and had no inclination to do the things that Johnson did in our timeline.
* King claims that “Republicans and Dixiecrats filibustered for one hundred and ten days, with one actually dying on the floor and becoming a hero”…and this made Kennedy give up on civil rights. Kennedy makes the quote: “White America has filled its house with kindling; now it will burn”.
* 1965-1968: Race War; Martin Luther King is assassinated in Chicago. The assassin turns out to be a former FBI agent working under the orders of J. Edgar Hoover. Blacks burn Chicago to the ground in retaliation and set fire to a dozen other American cities.
* 1965-1968: Kennedy preoccupied with Race War and allows South Vietnam to fall to North. Public opinion heavily swings against Kennedy and he will leave office a broken, battered, and maligned figure.
* Jake Epping himself became a point of fixation for conspiracy buffs, since after saving Kennedy he just “vanished” and no one was ever able to find him again. He had been using the name “George Amberson” in the past; President Kennedy was able to call him and thank him for saving his life on the telephone, but “Amberson” disappeared shortly after that. When “Amberson” never made it to the White House to accept Kennedy’s thanks in person, people started wondering what happened to him. By 2012, whole conventions emerged around the cottage industry of who Amberson really was and why he saved Kennedy’s life that day.
* 1967 — “The Great Saigon *beep*-All”; Instead of a Tet Offensive happening in 1968, it happened in 1967.
* 1968: George Wallace elected 36th President of the United States with Curtis LeMay elected Vice President.
* 1968: Earthquakes begin hitting the world as ramification for all of the changes to the timeline.
* 1969 — “Hanoi Hell”, when nuclear weapons were dropped on Vietnam. Between 1969-2012 more than twenty-eight atomic bombs were used in various wars around the globe.
* June of 1969: President Wallace declares all-out-war on Chicago and attempts to regain control of the city from the blacks who set fire to it and took control, creating a fiefdom in Illinois.
* June of 1969: President Wallace gives Ho Chi Minh an ultimatum: make Saigon a free city like Berlin or see Hanoi become a dead one like Hiroshima.
* August 9th, 1969: “Uncle Ho” thought Wallace was bluffing, but Wallace marks the 24th anniversary of President Truman dropping “Fat Man” on Nagasaki by turning Hanoi into a radioactive cloud. Wallace gains enormous approval ratings from the bombing.
* May 15th, 1972: President Wallace assassinated by man named Arthur Bremer with a .38 revolver “Police Special” in a shopping mall in Laurel, Maryland.
* May 15th, 1972: Curtis LeMay becomes the 37th President of the United States.
* November 1972: Humbert Humphrey elected the 38th President of the United States.
* 1972: Earthquakes worsen, world suicide rate explodes, religious extremists seize chaos as opportunity for war between India and Pakistan. Bombay and Karachi are destroyed by nuclear bombs.
* 1972-1976: US, Russia, and China join together to force India and Pakistan to end their war — or risk being bombed “back to the stone age” by this coalition.
* 1976: Ronald Reagan elected the 39th President of the United States in a coast-to-coast landslide where “The Hump” couldn’t even hold onto his home state of Minnesota.
* 1979: 2,000 commit suicide in Jonestown, Guyana.
* November 1979: Iranian “students” overrun the American embassy in Tehran and take 200 hostages. Muslims executed Americans on live TV by beheading. President Reagan does not use nuclear weapons on Iran, but sends in military troops. Muslims form terrorist group called “The Base” — in Arabic, “Al Queda” — to plant roadside bombs in a guerrilla war against Americans in Iran.
* 1980: The Beatles reunite for a “peace concert”; a Muslim terrorist bomber detonates his vest and kills 300 spectators while also blinding Paul McCartney.
* 1980: The entire Middle East goes up in flames as militant Islam seizes on the chaos to enact the battle plans of the Koran.
* 1981: The Soviet Union collapses. Former Soviets begin selling the USSR’s nuclear arsenal to Muslims in Al Queda.
* 1983: John F. Kennedy dies
* By 1994: Middle East oil fields are “so much black glass”
* 6/19/1999 — “Vermont Yankee went China Syndrome”; a nuclear reactor in Vermont was hit with an earthquake that irradiated New England and southern Quebec. The radiation slowly turned most New Englanders into radiation zombies whose faces gradually melted off.
* 2004: Hillary Clinton elected the 44th President of the United States…after Bill Clinton dies of heart attack at Democrats’ convention and Hillary is named the nominee in his place. No word on who her Vice President is.
* 2005 — Maine becomes a province of Canada
* massive, regular earthquakes in the Midwest, California, Europe, and China
* 2008 — four of the Japanese islands swallowed by the ocean “like they were dropped by an elevator”; Hokkaido and “three smaller islands”. Scientists say “it’s something to do with the Earth’s crust”
* 2008: Hillary Clinton re-elected; man on the street says “she’s doing a good job” and isn’t being blamed for the natural disasters since “no one can legislate against earthquakes”.
* 2010: Muslims detonate suitcase nuclear dirty bomb in Miami, rendering the city uninhabitable for 80 years
* 2011: Gulf of Mexico declared “Dead Soup” from Islamic nuclear attack
* 2012: No mention is made of who is running for the 2012 presidential election. Since the apocalypse is near
* 2080 — the year scientists believe Earth will be torn apart into an asteroid belt by the earthquakes
Thanks Rico112 - this info could never have been covered in the show and the background/timeline provides significant insight into the storyteller's perspective. Much appreciated!
shareSpencersMomInPA, why the beep are you thanking the guy for?
It is clearly fan fiction.
He made all that up.
If you don’t like what I wrote please simply press ALT + F4!
Bob White - Bagel Technician
I agree with you MrBobWhite. I think Screenwriter's entire post is a crock of s**t!
Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.
No its not. It is in the book 11.22.63. They just cut it out of the show. I wish they would have had at least brought up the earthquakes, and explain they are tearing the Earth apart. It would showed better the consequences of changing the past.
shareI've read the novel. Screenwriter's (who has since renamed himself Rico) ;) outline of events is exactly how it goes down. It actually gave me chills when reading, just seeing it unfold.
The war is not meant to be won... it is meant to be continuous.
HOLY CRAP!
-ahem-
Um. Just WOW. Seriously wow! That entire timeline went to crap. Thank you so much for that detailed post. I want to say more but I'm a bit stumped by how everything fell apart the way it did. That was the perfect example of the butterfly effect. Stephen King is brilliant. The amount of research he had to do in order to write this book must have been a pain.
Race wars. That one really shocked me because it feels like it could have easily happened. And the whole thing about Kennedy giving up on civil rights was just sad.
I want to say more but I'm in to much shock... maybe I'll have my thoughts together later. I'll have to send this post of yours to my Aunt and Cousin. They are just as lost as I was about the ending.
Thank You so MUCH!
I don't think Kennedy "Gave up" on Civil Rights in the new time line in 11/22/63. He was just no LBJ, who was able to work with Congress better-plus in the "Real" timeline, Kennedy's death still hung over everything, and that also helped LBJ push it through.
sharePrecisely. Watch any documentary about Johnson's presidency. It pretty much confirms that he was the driving force (and had enough Southern connections) to make more strides in Civil Rights than Kennedy ever did.
Add to that, the death of a President (and other national disasters) momentarily brings unification along with the grief. Without the tragedy of the assassination, and the need to act, much of Congress would have been complacent and less motivated (as they'd been for years).
The war is not meant to be won... it is meant to be continuous.
very good point. I think even the movie said something like that. forget the exact line but something about how adversity is what often makes people stronger and united.
just like when he saved that guy's family from being murdered he actually made that guy's life worse.
look throughout history.
look at Japan after the World Wars, they concentrated on electronics. Germany concentrated on cars. had they not lost the war and had to rebuild those things may have never happened.
look at Israel and the Jewish people would they be as strong as they are today without constant adversity throughout their history??
so a lot of the same "tragedies" even stuff like Lincoln's assassination along with JFK's, 9/11, MLK Jr, etc. it was them being killed that ultimately helped push through some of the measures they had wanted, had they stayed alive they may have faced continued opposition and given up. but once something tragic happened then people became united and felt there was a greater need to do something.
Excellent timeline! Thanks Rico112!!!
"When Life Gives You Lemons"
Ezra: write a book about the lemons
Damn. That's so detailed and precise, it makes me wonder if King walked through the portal and witnessed the timeline for himself.
Thanks for posting, I was trying to find the full story for the nuclear fallout scenario, but Wikipedia didn't mention any of the details from the book.
As for my thoughts on the finale, it was middling for me. The fact that Jake had 3 years to plan and prepare to stop Oswald for the big event...and then ended up getting there with barely a fraction of a second to spare was typical Hollywood baloney. And the fact that he brought Sadie along was eye-rolling...OF COURSE she was going to get it.
I would have liked more answers to the bungled future scenario, which is why I came here.
I guess it was admirable that Jake didn't go back for Sadie and allowed her to live her life as normally. The last dance was bittersweet and touching and the right note to go out on.
What's to stop someone else from walking through that portal, though? I thought for sure those kids from alternate 2016 were going to follow him down.
I also didn't understand the role of the "Yellow Card Man" in the show, but Wikipedia helped me out. Yay, goldfish generation.
1. What's to stop someone else from walking through that portal, though
Many people probably did travel through the portals. Each time a person went back in time they pretty much created a new past so nobody from the past knew the portal was there because it ever existed until a person from the future walked through it. From the future though there could of been people taking trips which shaped the "main string of time". Jake talks about him thinking that Al's travels could of caused 9-11 and the large Japanese earthquake (in the main time string) so he thinks this could be how it works.
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I appreciate you taking the time to post all this crazy *beep* but this just better confirms what I've said about this miniseries and that is, it's complete and total garbage.
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Someone needs to add this post to trivia.
"Girls just wanna have fun"
So I can find it and add to trivia
"Girls just wanna have fun"
Autism? What are you referring to here?
"When Life Gives You Lemons"
Ezra: write a book about the lemons
People being brainwashed and bringing their political views into the discussion for the show primarily.
shareWhat has politics got to do with autism lol? I have aspergers and don't see the correlation? :/
"When Life Gives You Lemons"
Ezra: write a book about the lemons
Nothing, that person doesn't know what he/she is talking about. Brainwashing has nothing to do with autism, either. Don't let it bother you :-).
-Dad, who's that?
-Oh, that? One of my patients. He's...sick.
-Will he live?
-It's looking grim.
that is not autism you blathering imbecile
shareI haven't watched the show, but the book says the reason everything is so bad is because they were messing with time. The Green Card man tells Jake that every alternate action in the past causes problems going forward. A big action, like saving Kennedy, basically ruined the universe.
shareThis is the correct answer. Yes, history changed, but the world went to hell because the past was changed so dramatically with JFK's non assassination that the "time strings" moving forward were exceptionally unstable.
shareTrump!
Captain Trumps done it.