History ComicBook / WhenTheWindBlows

** In the film, we get to hear Jim's side of his telephone conversation with his son Ron about building an inner-core-or-refuge. From what we hear, Ron (rightly) thinks the advice given in the official leaflets is "cobblers", though Jim still thinks he knows best and berates Ron for not taking the situation seriously. The comic simply has Jim going to make the phonecall, then reporting to Hilda that:

** In the film, Jim and Hilda hear a dog howling in the distance when they go outside after the attack(first heard in the radio adaptation). We also get to see the ruins of the nearby village, though it's unclear how many of its inhabitants are still alive, as the only signs of life are the aforementioned dog and a bird, the latter of which is in its death throes. However, as in the comic, it's all but certain that the "roast dinners" Jim and Hilda can smell are actually the corpses of people and animals caught outside during the attack and burned to death. The comic simply has Jim and Hilda standing in their garden and looking over the hedge; we don't see what's on the other side.

** In the comic, the nuclear explosion is represented by two blank white pages followed by several distorted frames which gradually straighten out to reveal Jim and Hilda crouching in their inner-core-or-refuge. In the film, we actually get to see the effects of the nuclear blast with cars crashing, a train derailing, sheep being blown across a field, and two windmills collapsing. This sequence is accompanied by the last words Hilda utters before the Bomb goes off:

* AdaptationExpansion: The film adds Jim's telephone conversation with Ron. Also, the Bloggs hear a dog howling in the distance when they go outside (first heard in the radio adaptation).

--->'''Jim:''' "Science has leapt forward with giant strides... science is still in its infancy."

* ShootTheShaggyDog
* SkewedPriorities: "The cake will be burned!"

[[NamesTheSame Not to be confused with]] the novel by Creator/JamesPatterson.

* TooDumbToLive: Though they are more naive than dumb, the Bloggses, especially Hilda, just have no grip whatsoever on the true implications of "the bomb" being dropped, likening it to the nightly bombings carried out by the Luftwaffe on the British mainland during World War II. Among other things, they fail to consider their root cellar as a viable shelter, relying instead on the shoddy and useless "Inner Core or Refuge." [[spoiler: Yes, they do fail to survive.]]

* AdaptationExpansion: The film adds Jim's telephone conversation with Ron. Also, the Bloggs hear a dog howling in the distance when they go outside.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Jim and Hilda thinks the coming nuclear war will be like the Blitz and the Second World War. They learn the hard way that it is not.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: Hilda points out they could have used their root cellar instead of a makeshift shelter built out of wooden doors.

* ForegoneConclusion: It's obvious that the shelter and all of the other measures Jim and Hilda took are completely useless and that they'll be dead of radiation poisoning within a matter of days.

* DigitalDestruction: The Blu-ray release for the film does a good job of improving the quality of the video, but the audio quality has a slightly metallic sound for some unknown reason.

* IllGirl: Both Jim and Hilda falling ill of radiation sickness.

--->'''Jim:''' Ron will be all right. He won't go to pieces. The whole family will [[BodyHorror stick together]].

* PopStarComposer: Music/RogerWaters did the score, Music/DavidBowie wrote the title song, and Music/{{Genesis}}, Music/{{Squeeze}} and Paul Hardcastle appear in the score too.

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: Heavily referenced and invoked to show the Bloggses' naivete. Having lived through the Blitz, Jim and Hilda see the situation through a romanticised, inaccurate vision of the War ([[StiffUpperLip keep calm and carry on]], [[BlackAndWhiteMorality "all that mob on the other side"]], etc.), so much that they not only can't grasp the reality of the hell they find themselves in (thinking someone will come by eventually like an air raid warden and signal the all-clear), but [[DiscoDan that this IS just like the War]] -- Jim believes "Ike and Monty" are still in charge, and, not knowing anything about the "Russkies" or why they fell out with "Joe Stalin", sometimes accidentally calls them "Jerries", even after correcting his own wife for doing it.

* FilkSong: "When the Wind Blows" by Music/DavidBowie (made for the movie, see PopStarComposer below), and "When the Wild Wind Blows" by Music/IronMaiden (which replaces the ending with [[spoiler:the couple mistaking an earthquake for a nuclear bomb and killing themselves]]).

!!''When the Wind Blows'' provides examples of:

* CosyCatastrophe: Deconstructed. Jim and Hilda both lived through the Blitz when they were young and look back on life during World War II with rose-tinted nostalgia, so they adopt the same attitude towards nuclear war. That attitude turns out not to help them at all, since their nostalgia has blinded them to the true horrors of war and the aftermath of nuclear war is ''much'' worse than the Blitz. It also doesn't help that the instructions the British government provides for dealing with the fallout are [[FalloutShelterFail completely useless]].

A classic weapon of the anti-nuclear weapon movement, ''When The Wind Blows'' uses its bright colours, eccentric characters and art style similar to Briggs's classic children's story ''ComicBook/TheSnowman'' to [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped hammer home the horrors of nuclear war]], and [[BlackComedy make dark satire]] about government leaflets advising how best to survive a nuclear attack. Naturally, its child-like style in both art and the characters' personalities make it one of the more famous examples to come from the AnimationAgeGhetto.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Hilda and Jim eventually die from radiation sickness some days after the bombing.]] Just after this, the skies clear, and it seems that the nuclear fallout is gone, only for an off-screen telegraph to tap out [[spoiler: M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction)]] in Morse code at the end of the credits. [[spoiler:Either this wasn't a one-off nuclear attack, and a war is about to ensue, or the war is over and NATO and Warsaw Pact have wiped each other out.]]