Top 10 Things HBO's Chernobyl Got Factually Right And Wrong

Most based on a true story adaptations are overdramatized, inaccurate to the source material. Some details or more interesting bits are left out to conserve runtime.

About the accents. They probably could have dubbed them over with Russian VA. Or released two cuts, one with the actors attempting a Russian inflection. Actors get paid ridiculous amounts and they can't even be arsed to take a course in foreign language. It's whitewashing/whitecasting, only you're replacing a non-English language.

Narrator, if you're going to read a script that features foreign names, at least attempt to look up a pronunciation guide instead of stumbling through them?

Overall it was an interesting series, however there were a ton of details that were cut out. If you read the book “midnight in Chernobyl“ it is a much more accurate representation, as a matter of fact it’s the most accurate representation aside from the IAEA report. If you really want to know more about Chernobyl and what actually took place I would strongly recommend reading both. As mentioned the series is good, but a lot of true factual data and things that need to be said are left out. Also the order of events is generally correct, however you can tell that HBO overdramatized many things to make it better for TV. I would not necessarily judge this event in history based upon the series. Go ahead and read the actual report and the book to make your own opinion. Don’t just make opinions based upon the series.

How did the language factor in? Anyone watching would know that anyone living in 1986 Soviet Union Ukraine, would speak Russian, Belarusian and (DUH) Ukrainian. But its and American made series so of course it would be in English

“miners were brought to dig underneath” 💀

Did he really have cancer tho?

Viewers: Oh I wonder if they’ll talk about the fact that Dyatlov was wrongly vilified, it was actually Toptonov who pressed the button, there never was any argument over the power levels, Dyatlov acknowledged the reactor exploded a lot sooner, Lyudmila’s and Vasily’s baby wasn’t killed by radiation exposure from her father, or that Akimov and Toptonov were heroes and not cowards?

Watch mojo: they didn’t actually speak English guys. We know; shocking

they also vastly overstated how badly the disastor could have gone, the line about minks being threatened by a hydrogen bomb like explosion is a pure fabrication, you cant make a hydrogen bomb like explosion on accident, it is a very complicated thing

Watch Mojo writers really thought the USSR's nuclear reactor in Chornobyl was run by a bunch of English-speaking people. Wait until they find out that the people depicted in the show are a bunch of actors. That would help explain why they look so familiar to them.

The accents were correctly used as per the actors home accent. Far less disruptive than having Eastern European English accents. I can live with that!

There was actually a reason behind the actors speaking in their normal accents… in the Soviet Union, it would not have been uncommon for there to be multiple “accents” as the people portrayed came from different areas… and hence, there would have been a mix of accents.

Seriously ??...it's FALSE that the KEY-PLAYERS HAD MOSTLY BRITISH ACCENTS ??? ...Woow! ...I thought they all spoke witrh a Yorkshire-accent!...

How about NOTHING said in the mini-series (even after translation) was EVER said. I have never understood why people who watch biopics or “true-event” stories don’t realize that the entire script is written, planned out and much of the time invented for drama that never happened.

The corium is still burn so it actually might still melt through

I'd make those responsible to be put on jail until their end of life. The government is all of us. The responsibility starts with the individuals.

Yeah, I figured that woman scientist saving the day was a false composite, this kind of nonsense is why I haven't watched tv shows made in the last fifteen years. It's always women saving the day and men making things worse, every single time. I regret watching this piece of garbage show and HBO should feel ashamed for airing this lie, because many of these male scientists and their contributions were stolen, their time and effort all for naught because mentally unstable, woke idealists care for nothing but their own egos and shamelessly rewrite history as a result. Absolutely disgusting behavior.

Despite the inaccuracies about the actors, this show should be required watching at every school across the entire planet. Public, private, or homeschool. It should be provided to them, completely free of charge.

Because it absolutely shows how the single biggest cause of the Chernobyl disaster, was Communism. An ideology that disallows bad news, disallows disagreement, and disallows anything but the "official narrative". An ideology that praises ignorance, so long as it provides good news.

It showcases how governments use the excuse of "dangerous misinformation" to silence anything they do not like.

Sadly, we in the west, are about to experience that same ideology. I pray it doesn't take as long to collapse as the Soviet Union did.

Chernobyl never had a nucelar explosion - WatchMojo is just as bad as the netflix series to not know that....

....honestly.

"The people involved had mostly British accents - false".

No shit, Sherlock? Next, you'll be telling me that they DIDN'T resurrect Valery Legasov, but instead had an actor portray him, right??

First of all Nobody stood on that railway bridge. Chernobyl power plant is nicely visible from every window in every building in Pripyat, so no reason to go outside. I guess with that railway bridge scene, they were trying to show how unintelligent people were in the Soviet Union... sadly

I am sorry. This video is absolutely pointless. All of these facts have been stated at the end of the mini-series. Therefore, none of these was relevant. Since when did the TV show talked about British actors? MOJO get your live together. I used to like your content.

WTF THEY DONT SPEAK ENGLISH IN RUSSIA

I have a friend who evacuated to rhe west...she lost her voice due to laryngeal cancer. She is cancer free, but also lost her voice.

What a bloody stupid critique. Only americans could nitpick like that

WatchMojo is getting lazy.

#9 doesn't even need to be on this list. It ought to be obvious it's a casting thing only and not meant to actually make anyone think a bunch of Russians and Ukrainians were speaking English with native English accents. I mean fucking really.

The fact that they had to have one of their points being "they had British accents" just speaks to how accurate they made this show.

If you want more details I 1000% recommend the chernobyl podcast

Hmmm. British accents are problematic? Perhaps when Puntin gets taken down some Russian film producers and actors will remake the mini-series to true ruskie style and voice. NOT.

Now we just need a video for the top 10 inaccurate things that WatchMojo got right and wrong haha.

"The real tragedy is that the corium never melted through the concrete pad" - This leaves me just speechless. This sentence is so absurd in many ways that I don't even know what to start with to invalidate it.

Those minors are hero's, They safeguarded a nuclear disaster from getting worse.

Well, the helicopter crashed cause it hit a crane cable. Not cause of radiation. But it did happen MONTHS later.

Apparently, Dyatlov wasn’t as rude as he was portrayed! Of course, he did still break MANY rules of the reactor, However, I would prefer someone to me nice and dumb then rude and dumb!

Feminist propaganda

Let’s talk about number 9. Did people actually believe that the accents, and language being spoken were true to the real people?

Inaccurate information 👎👎

Helicopter crush is false because it was not on first day of droppings but some months later? He did hit crane cables in the movie because he did not see it because of smoke. In reality he did not see it because of the sun angle, he was blinded. Did you even watch all of the source material before making this video? There is a record of original helicopter crash.

it's a TV show made in USA it's normal for them to speak in English if you don't like it you can use Dub 🤷‍♂️😂🤣

Fun fact Jared Harris always has swamp ass

another bit of misinformation, the rods NEVER, jumped (physically impossible. Nobody was in the reactor hall at the time HBO potrayed, toptunov pressed AZ5, not toptunov, and multiple other horrible historical inaccuracies

and people want more nuke plants.

I don’t know why you bothered to mention the British cast accents. Were you that desperate for a 10th fact?

25M fools, if you ask me.

The bit about the evacuation and events being too soon is due to budget

The biggest tragedy of Chernobyl is this top 10
Maybe read the description of the series and the disclaimers at the end before you put out garbage like this.

This series is just anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. Everyone is thumping, they want to throw ministers out of a helicopter, an official walks with machine gunners, miners were the elite of the USSR and earned like ministers, and in the series they were shown as idiots. The evacuation of a city of many thousands in 3 days was carried out brilliantly.

Lies directly permeate everything - what the series said, but in fact the authors told about themselves.

I'm surprised they didn't have a Mexican accent....since they were from the Soviet Union

Ulana is absolutely terrible, not brilliant lol you can make composite characters if they're just observers, if they start being personally involved directly in the events and actively influencing them like she does that's just bastardising the history with falsehoods, now a whole generation will grow to believe that Ulana was a real person, that she's the reason we got testimonies, that she was the one who told them about the water and saved everyone. That she was the one who convinced Legasov to tell the truth, which also never happened, Legasov was and died a party man only daring to vaguely criticize management mistakes in the tape he left posthumously, in life he did absolutely whatever the party told him to do including lying (by omission) at Vienna which the show does cover but they add in this non-existent redemption arc fueled by Ulana which would make him an absolute unregretting bastard if they hadn't earlier made him much less of a party man than he really was IRL

It's really tragic because apart from this the show is perfect but Ulana absolutely ruins it, again composite characters are fine, but don't have them be as central to the events as protagonists as Ulana is in Chernobyl, literally 2 whole episodes worth are just Ulana and anything involving Ulana never happened, so it's 2 full episodes worth of filler fantasy. Shocking to me that you have people complaining about the accents ruining authenticity but somehow perfectly ok with the complete FANTASY that is Ulana's very existence on the show and the fact that she completely changes key characters and their behaviors from what they actually were IRL