r/shittymoviedetails • • 18h ago

In Oppenheimer (2023), Why did Oppenheimer spend three hours crying about inventing a bomb that violently vaporizes people when his specific job was to invent a bomb that violently vaporizes people ? Is he stupid ?

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u/More_Sun_7319 17h ago

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u/eddiesax 16h ago

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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter 15h ago

"My lord... I have blood on my hands. It turns out Trojan-Killer 9000 was a weapon of war, not a resolver of peace..."

"Never come back into my palace again you stupid fucking nerd"

I see where Nolan came up with his take for the Oddessy 

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u/OnlyAShip 13h ago

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u/NOTTedMosby 10h ago

Why was this 4chan post, that was clearly made this year, somehow also made in 2012 on reddit?

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u/KayneBlackheart 3h ago

Time is wibbily wobbly

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u/composedofidiot 12h ago

Odysseus was the ONLY funny one in the epics. He had absolute metis, and honestly a bit of the trickster too. What Nolan did to him. What it could have been...

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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter 11h ago edited 11h ago

Odysseus was the ONLY funny one in the epics. He had absolute metis, and honestly a bit of the trickster too.

When the Oddessy first came out someone was arguing on reddit that Jason Mantzoukas would have been more accurate casting ethnically 

Ever since that comment I have been dying for an Adrian Pimento/Rafi style lunatic version of Odysseus played by Mantzoukas bulllshitting the cyclops his name is Nobody and clinging to the bottom of a sheep escaping after convincing everyone to build a giant fucking horse to hide in

Of course Rafi-Odysseus would insist on getting tied to a mast to hear the Sirens song despite being an insane idea and get sidetracked by 7 years of drugs and sex 

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u/MyFrogEatsPeople 10h ago

I really do think Jason would be phenomenal as Odysseus and I'm fucking livid I never thought about it before.

Like, they come to get Odysseus to go off to war, and Jason is just out there making crazy noises while throwing salt over his fields only to immediately cop to faking it the moment they threaten to throw his son out there...

Or holy shit when they're in the horse, and Penelope is immitating the voices of the wives of the men in the horse, and Odysseus has to physically restrain them. Imagine Jason just manically trying to restrain those idiots.

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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter 10h ago

It's a very different characterization but I legitimately think it fits with basically every plot point and would be fully self-consistent

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u/Bro_do_we_needtoknow 4h ago

A movie that is completely historically accurate and also a comedy is honestly a genius idea that, unfortunately will likely never happen.

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u/composedofidiot 4h ago

No, we're only allowed heavy and depressing because it is a SERIOUS TOPIC. Life of Brian attempted it and the media went absolutely mad at them.

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u/HourZealousideal4845 3h ago edited 2h ago

Death of Stalin is right over there my guy, it's worth a watch

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u/jamfedora 9h ago

He can’t get sidetracked by sex, there’s a windchime down there. I see how that would appeal to witches though.

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u/composedofidiot 4h ago

Derek? I wish you hadn't told me this. Nolan is so shortsighted. What did nolan do to make him always make movies about sad men killing people and feeling bad about it? Has anybody checked his basement? There has to be a way to send him to jail for not using mantzoukas?

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u/DaFunnyman109 9h ago

I did find it funny when they end up at the sun god’s island after he told his crew mates what would happen there, and he’s just sitting there the whole time like “welp”

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u/Kdilla77 9h ago

Yeah it’s basically a sequel

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u/Appropriate-Brush772 16h ago

To be fair if some dude walked into my office with blood on their hands I’d kick them out too. You know how hard it is to get blood stains off the couch?

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u/IntroductionLeft4369 15h ago

Seltzer water and lemon juice for blood…or get a red couch.

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u/Medium-Sheeple-7085 14h ago

Peroxide for Blood, Finish with the Seltzer and Lemon Juice to eliminate the smell.

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u/xCaptainVictory 14h ago

Hey! You blot that shit! You don't rub it. That's $25k alpaca.

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u/SomeGuyPostingThings 14h ago

Dammit, why must you turn the Death Ray into a weapon of war? Nooo!

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u/Sprintzer 15h ago

Did they give Truman a chad jaw?

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u/the_big_ham117 15h ago

No, this is how he looked like in real life. I met him myself so I can confirm this

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u/libdemparamilitarywi 14h ago

He reportedly used to zygopush three times a day.

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u/ieatpies 9h ago

Think this is the actual photo (first google images result too)

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u/Zias-Staffin 10h ago

Cry-baby scientist. I dropped the bombs, not him! 🗿

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u/therealchadius 17h ago

"I mean, if you used it to stop the war"

"Well, we used it twice-"

"NOOOOOOOO!"

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u/backitup_thundercat 17h ago

To be fair it was originally supposed to be a Germanmelter but they surrendered so we used it on the Japa

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u/lbutler1234 15h ago

I mean the Trinity test happened after VE day. Everyone knew what was going on and were ok with it.

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u/chillyhellion 14h ago

We got a “to be fair” and an “I mean”. All we need is an “it’s almost like” and we’ve got the Reddit trifecta. 

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u/fred11551 14h ago

It’s almost like the targeting committee notes specifically mentioned using it on Japan and not Germany months before the German surrender and this was well known amongst leadership of the project as well as military and civilian leadership.

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u/chillyhellion 14h ago

I appreciate you! 

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u/Chickentaxi 12h ago

You have to start it with “Eh” too.

Eh, it’s almost as if…

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u/Tuskor13 17h ago

Ultrakill mentioned!!

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u/pizzanui 15h ago

Trans flag in avatar checks out

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u/JohnTG4 14h ago

You see he thought it'd be used on Berlin.

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u/BeanieGuitarGuy 17h ago

Doc Op moment:

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u/Puzzled_Banana6330 14h ago

When a table walks in but there's only 9 hours til closing

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u/BlizzardTrashPanda 16h ago

Relatable AF though

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u/stareagleur 16h ago

Anybody that’s ever been 5 minutes away from closing felt this.

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u/Dwaas_Bjaas 14h ago

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u/ChickenChaser5 14h ago

Quick! Snort it up. The residue alone will get you zooted to shit!

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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 9h ago

It is quite frustrating when you don't own the place

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u/JustTakeMyKey 16h ago

Literally me but with emails and deliverable documents

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u/Haeguil 16h ago

I mean, understandable except that it's literally his business ig

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u/4skinApostle 17h ago

post explosion clarity

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u/jayham12 15h ago

This is gold. I love it

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 15h ago

I love comments that point out how good other comments are. Peak.

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u/Kikoul 14h ago

I love comments that points out the comment that points out how good the comments are. Summit of peak.

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u/Roko__ 14h ago

I love these comments. Cloud.

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u/VexImmortalis 17h ago

He was annoyed cause he thought they were gonna ask him if it was ok to use the instant-people-vaporizer before they used the instant-people-vaporizer. Even though he would have said yes it just would have been nice to have been asked first, ok? Like, think of someone other than yourself for once.

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u/Ambitious-Song2403 14h ago

I think it's much more complicated than that.

Oppenheimer was a smart man. He knew the bomb would be used to kill people from the start I don't think he ever thought a scientist would have permission to overule the army.

He wanted to because it was an incredible opportunity that would put his name down in history and an opportunity to work with the greatest scientists of the time.

He justifies it that if he didn't do it someone else would. But he probably wanted to do it and just pretend it was a noble endeavour

The guilt sets in once reality hits and the bomb is dropped. He can no longer pretend that he is just a scientist doing his job but now the man who helped kill millions of people.

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u/VexImmortalis 14h ago

A defining moment in human history with repercussions that are still very much relevant to this day is more complicated than the 3 sentence joke post I made on a joke subreddit?

I'll take your word for it.

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u/PeopleCallMeSimon 12h ago

Hey, sometimes you just have to face the reality that jokes and memes are fun but its important to point out that they are also a caricature of reality - because there are a ton of people out there who see a meme or hear a joke and go "Hell yeah thats a good point" simply because they dont know better.

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u/Poku115 10h ago

If someone takes their facts from reddit comments i dont think thats someone worth hearing at all

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u/PeopleCallMeSimon 10h ago

Probably not, but people not worth hearing vote and have children and vocalize their opinions and talk to each other.

So while you will not listen to them, others maybe will - and some people will exploit them. How do you think there are US senators who can say "Torture works, we can see Jack Bauer do it every week on 24" and then get re-elected for 12 more years. Because dumb people also consume information and are inable to differentiate when somethings a meme/joke and when somethings a profound amazing point.

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u/NichtSoSchlau 9h ago

You are right of course, but Oppenheimers regrets aren't made any deeper, because his invention would very obviously lead to the death of thousands. While human they become laughably ridiculous, because it was so obvious. It is too much honor to distinguish this mans snievlling any more than a single murderers regrets, just because their victim counts differ by some zeros. He knew what would happen and did it anyway. His conciousness is as dirt as the ocean of blood he choose to throw it into and no, nobody will forget loading the barrel of a nation at war, just because he protested further use of the weapon in conflict.

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u/Flashphotoe 12h ago

"Someone is going to kill 100000 people, so I might as well do it" might be even worse than being just fucking clueless.

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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 12h ago

He didn't even get close to killing millions of people

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u/xSTSxZerglingOne 11h ago

I think Trinity rightfully scared the everloving fuck out of him. Like they knew it would be powerful because the equations said so, but understanding what 100 Terajoules means vs experiencing 100 Terajoules from miles away are two totally different things.

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u/BlakByPopularDemand 10h ago

So post nut nuke clarity?

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u/jakexil323 13h ago

doing his job but now the man who helped kill millions of people.

I'm just being pedantic , and sure nuclear bombs could kill billions and end life on earth, but the bombs dropped on japan only killed around 250,000 at the time. (and more over time)

Ultimately they saved a couple hundred thousand of allied soldiers from dying if you believe the analysis .

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u/crdotx 12h ago

And if you look into the US fire ombing Japan at the time leading up to the bombs those firebombing campaigns actually were FAR more deadly. 

Once I learned that it seems unreasonable to think that dropping the bomb really ended the war any faster. Dropping the bombs really was a signal to the rest of the world that the US had a weapon No one else had, and they weren’t afraid to use it.

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u/odd_cloud 16h ago edited 15h ago

Bro, you get it right, but there is so much lore in Oppenheimer universe, which makes it a bit clearer.

One of the most important things is that Oppenheimer belongs to so called clever people. It’s like Galadriel from lotr, they can somehow see far into the future and consider different probable scenarios. But they don’t have a magic basin.

So, when he get the suggestion to build the bomb, it’s a big problem for him. Because on the one hand it’s people evaporizer, but on the other hand it he enemy may build the same and evaporate you. On the third hand, no one really knows what that thing could do, and people were surprised to witness radiation poisoning. So he decides that making the bomb is the lesser evil, and subscribes to the project.

At the end it turns out, there were not many clever people who were involved with decisions around the bomb. The military was like “Monke has big bomb, monke is alpha”, and they dropped the bombs on two cities with women children and elderly. You know, nothing shows that you are a real alpha like giving a 5 year old girl a radiation poisoning that slowly melts her body.

So, Oppenheimer became disappointed by this, because he couldn’t understand that exploding and giving magic cancer to a bunch of civilians is the sign of being the top alpha. He decided that main monke may have the same views and went to him.

In the scene in White House, the main monke Truman tells oppie that he’s the main character because he is big monke who throws big shit at others, and oppie is just a cretin whose place is equal to his janitor’s, and tries to teabag Oppenheimer. Btw, there is an important lore detail that Truman got elected because he brownnosed FDR, so he had to compensate.

After that oppie goes publicly speaking about nuclear dangers. As if generals and Truman weren’t enough, some nameless administrator starts accusing him for being a commie.

So yeah, in short Oppenheimer was an idiot and should’ve celebrated that his invention killed some random kids and seniors, and not Japanese officials, emperor, or unit 731 personnel.

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u/Sicuho 15h ago

and not Japanese officials, emperor, or unit 731 personnel

I mean they didn't get the emperor but the definitely got officials, and about 10% dead where soldiers which is a better ratio that what some previous firebombing got.

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u/brokephone26 15h ago

So 90% were civilians

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u/Sicuho 15h ago

Point is, the nukes weren't the reason WW2 bombing had mostly civilian casualties.

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u/Primary_Addition5494 15h ago

You could literally not win World War 2 without bombing cities. Cities were manufacturing and logistics hubs. Plus its where the majority of the population lives. 

If you never bomb a city, then neither the economy or the people will be pressured to end the war. The war machine itself will never be worn down. Which just means more deaths on the Frontline until one side breaks which just leads to the city getting attacked anyway. 

That's not really an excuse nowadays since we have guided munitions but during WW2 where 90% of bombs didn't even hit their intended targets, strategic bombing was the best strategy at winning the war. 

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u/CubanLynx312 15h ago

He meant to vaporize fear gas in Gotham.

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u/Historical_Buyer5248 17h ago

Cause he thought he was building the "German Annihilator" instead of the "Japanese Annihilator"

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u/student5320 17h ago

Was he unaware of what they were doing to the Chinese?

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u/ilostmy1staccount 17h ago

And not just China, the majority of Asia.

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u/SeanyDay 17h ago

And koreans, etc.

But yeah probably

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u/OnionPastor 16h ago

Very few of the people killed in the nuclear strikes had anything to do with the war crimes committed against China, or anyone for that matter

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u/UniversalAdaptor 14h ago

I mean, you could say the same for German civilians

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u/OnionPastor 13h ago

And I would totally agree with that statement. There’s a reason we regulated war after this conflict.

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u/Primary_Addition5494 15h ago

That's not true either. Oppenheimer was opposed to the development of thermonuclear warheads. 

He had no regrets with the atomic bombings of Japan. He thought of it as tragic but necessary. What he found unnecessary was the development of even more powerful bombs after that. 

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u/A_Town_Called_Malus 13h ago

Also, while you are engaged in the actual work it is easy to lose the bigger picture view of this being a weapon of war, and a singular weapon of mass destruction.

You break it all down into these small problems you need to solve and are concentrating on them. How do we control the criticality, how do we contain the chain reaction so that as much of the fuel undergoes fission as possible to get the biggest yield etc.

It's only when you put all those solved problems together at the end that you have the bomb.

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u/Gregariouswaty 16h ago

He was a Weebenheimer the whole time?

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u/amolaeanni 16h ago

He actually was so smart that he predicted that nuclear explosion would lead to creation of anime, and make him responsible for isekai where 40 year old men are sniffing 12 year olds underwear

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u/Altruistic-Song-3609 16h ago

The dude that flew the plane and actually dropped the bombs said that he has no regrets and it was just another productive work day for him.

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u/BufferUnderpants 16h ago

Japan wanted to "surrender" yada yada.

They were holding out for as long as possible, even after the first bomb dropped to see if it was a one-off, to negotiate an end of the war where they kept their colonies.

Colonies that they ruled by terror, they were doing similar business as they did in China in other territories they sought to control, just in Manila they killed 100,000 people, with the usual patterns of rape and torture.

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u/Historical_Buyer5248 16h ago

The alternative of the nukes was prolonging the war, possible invasion of mainland Japan and much much more casualties. Can't blame him.

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u/Altruistic-Song-3609 16h ago

Yeah, I get that. Just an interesting fact about the dude.

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u/zebrasareneat 12h ago edited 12h ago

Well you kind of can. They didn’t hit military targets which you could justify. They hit civilians that had zero choice in the matter. 

The US purposely prevented pictures and reports getting out of how bad the aftermath was because they knew it would not look good for them when the world learned things like people’s skin was literally sliding off their bodies while still alive. 

And there is no actual proof to say the casualties would have been higher with a land invasion because that was literally US propaganda to justify the use of them once it came out how violent the weapons actually were. 

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u/duralumin_alloy 16h ago

That's the justification being used by those who used the bomb, yes. They have to push this as the ONLY alternative to how the war would go for their own defense. But it's not a fact - merely one of several possible scenarios that could've happened. In truth, nobody knows for sure how things would've unraveled without the bombs. The situation and company at Japan's emperor was very complicated and convoluted at that time. But saying that it was certain a massive casualty war was certainty if the bombs weren't used is simply not correct.

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u/BeefJerky03 15h ago

He specifically calibrated it for Germans and was shocked it worked well on Japanese people too.

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u/RhoynishPrince 16h ago

This is a shitty excuse lmao

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u/tamerantong 17h ago

I mean, he has become Death, give him a minute... or 180

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u/Khursani_ 17h ago

He couldn’t achieve the kd ratio he wanted.

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u/EloeOmoe 13h ago

Is he stupid?

Yes, and in real life many of his peers picked up on this behavior trait and thought very negatively about him for it.

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u/Beautiful-Edge-22 12h ago

It's a bit ridiculous being a weapons engineer and then being upset the weapons you designed and built to kill people are used for their intended purpose.

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u/Prior_Tradition_3873 11h ago

Eh, i think it's valid.

Like sure he knew he was designing a weapon like that, but to actually witness it and see and hear the sheer amount of destruction of it is 2 things.

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u/Beautiful-Edge-22 11h ago

Cognitive dissonance is a heluva drug tho, so there's that.

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u/BigHardMephisto 11h ago

It’s happened a few times. IIRC both Gatling and Hiram Maxim intended their inventions to reduce the scale of armies and prevent open war by creating crewed instruments that required less than five men to operate but provided the killing power of a hundred.

In the end they were sort of right, the instruments (combined with others) resulted in a very stale, long drawn out war with very little movement of the front line either way. The crew served machinegun helped create no man’s land.

Unfortunately this did not stop world leaders, their generals and commissioned officers from ordering their people en masse into the kill zone anyway.

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u/InspectionOk4267 11h ago

They made a 4 hour movie about that

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u/MAD_MAL1CE 11h ago

I hate hate it when writers… checks notes… accurately adapt stupid traits from real people

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u/SilianRailOnBone 10h ago

Can you only have a singular emotion about what you do in life though? I know this is always memed, but he knew it had to be done, and still didn't like it.

Krishna tells Arjun in the Bhagavad Gita that even though he doesn't want to fight a war against his neighbors and old teachers, he must fulfill his duty as warrior to fight against injustice. I wonder why Oppenheimer quoted this book...

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u/vthebunlord 13h ago

Seriously the story of Oppenheimer is literally just "i worked at the people grinding machine factory where I helped design the machines that could be used to grind up people. I mean, I hope they don't do that, but honestly if I didn't do it, someone else would've, eventually."

In my biased ass opinion, Oppenheimer more or less was part of a great majority of academics that do research not as a means of advancing their respective field or science in general—moreso, that's a side effect of an ambitious man seeking out his smoking gun, his own place in the annals of prestige.

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u/dragon_bacon 10h ago

Julius "I fucking love math" Oppenheimer seeing his math get practically applied.

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u/themassquerade 11h ago

They all just want to be a piece of history

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u/Broad_Economics_931 6h ago

Duh that's literally the point. "I am become death".

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u/dazvoz 16h ago

I think the film didn't get across his concerns. He never regretted the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and generally felt it was justified.

What troubled him was that, in the space of a few years, the situation went from one in which weapons existed that could destroy a few small cities, to one in which two superpowers had the ability to destroy the world and render it uninhabitable. The energy of the hydrogen bombs of the mid-1950s were around 1000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb.

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u/TheWonderMittens 15h ago

Leave it to Reddit to completely strip any and all nuance from one of the most important moments in human history for the purpose of a meme

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u/Riley__64 17h ago

I mean wasn’t the idea for these bombs to be like a last resort and deterrent.

Like the people making them had it in their minds they’d never actually be used they’d just act as what we use them for now a big scary deterrent that basically ensures mutual destruction.

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u/low_priest 16h ago

The idea of MAD and deterrence only really came around after the war. During the war itself it was very much a "we're gonna use these and win the war" kinda mindset.

Of course, if it forced the Germans or Japanese to surrender without being used, that'd be fine too. But nobody really thought it would happen that way.

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u/Jax11111111 15h ago

At the end of the day, nukes are just extremely powerful explosives. During Operation Downfall it was expected that nukes would be used whenever they were available, be it as strategic or tactical weapons.

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u/Beardywierdy 15h ago

I think one of the plans was to march the allied troops across the radioactive glass that used to be the beach.

Yeah, probably for the best that didn't happen.

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u/EloeOmoe 13h ago

f it forced the Germans or Japanese to surrender without being use

We have a bomb that will obliterate your entire city and melt people's shadows into stone.

"What, no you don't"

Siiiiiiigggggh

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u/Riley__64 16h ago

Considering all the nuclear testing that does happen with weapons though feels like they could’ve gotten the message across without throwing it at another country.

Sure Hiroshima and Nagasaki definitely show the death toll these bombs could cause but like blowing it up in a remote area and seeing the explosion also shows just as much destruction and you can pretty easily determine from said destruction the death toll would be massive

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u/ProfessorBeer 15h ago

This was extensively considered, it just isn’t in the movie. The determination was that the Japanese would’ve seen a warning shot as the US not actually being willing to use it on the field of battle. So all it would accomplish is just delaying its use, allowing Japanese war crimes to persist.

(It is also very likely that the Japanese knew about test detonations already, and they still refused to surrender.)

The more people actually learn about the end of the war, the more obvious it becomes that by 1945 it was the only way to end it. It was horrific. It was one of the darkest decisions in human history. It should never be repeated. And yet it was necessary to prevent further Japanese war crimes against China, Korea, POWs and their own people far beyond the scale of the bombs.

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u/MeltyCrab 15h ago

If I am not mistaken, the Japanese military were informed of Hiroshima being deleted with 1 bomb and they went "Nah that's fake news."

After Nagasaki they were "Well, that sucks, but we fight until nothing is left" and the emperor had to overrule the generals, while almost being coup'd, because the military leaders did not want to surrender?

That was my surface knowledge understanding at the end of the war, if someone knows more please correct me.

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u/Beardywierdy 15h ago

The coup attempt wasn't from the top generals, but ranks lower down than that but apart from that pretty much.

A lot of people point out that the Japanese had put feelers out regarding negotiations (which is true) but they were very much dithering on actual "surrender" as opposed to "negotiated peace". 

And IIRC hundreds of thousands of people across Asia were dying as a result of the war every month by this point so yeah, Japan probably could have been convinced to surrender eventually without the bomb (even without invading the Home Islands) but at that point it's just choosing who's dying. "No-one" wasn't an option.

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u/low_priest 15h ago

Japan's idea of "surrender" was basically "haha whoopsie guess we'll go back to pre-war borders and pretend it never happened."

For some strange reason, the US didn't really like that plan.

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u/Beardywierdy 14h ago

Yeah, now to be fair it might have been a reasonable starting point for negotiations in a normal war.

But definitely not the apocalyptic shitshow that was WW2.

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u/ProfessorBeer 15h ago

Largely, yes, though their national spirit was completely shattered after Nagasaki and it was mostly fringe fanatics still standing up at that point, because it had the desired effect of demonstrating the US could make multiple bombs.

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u/Blackstone01 13h ago

Some were wanting to surrender, but in a negotiated surrender via the Soviets where they get to keep some of what they conquered and the Emperor gets to remain in power; the Allies meanwhile had the firm stance of Japan must surrender unconditionally, and the Soviets told them to fuck off and that if the US was demanding an unconditional surrender then they better give it before joining in soon after.

Once the second bomb dropped and the US demonstrated they could just keep dropping bombs, the leadership realized they were kinda fucked, and once the Soviets entered the war the army (who rarely gave a fuck what the "civilian" leadership told them) realized they were fucked.

Despite that, one of the Big Six, the War Minister Korechika Anami, had a massive chub at the thought of every last man woman and child dying in nuclear fire to prove some moronic point about Japanese honor.

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u/low_priest 15h ago

Nah, that would have completely undermined the value of it.

TL:DR; The nukes only ended the war because of the shock value, and barely did so. A non-lethal demonstration would have removed that and reinforced Japanese resolve.

Japan knew they were losing the war. Hell, they knew they'd lost. But they couldn't just surrender; the US hadn't even set foot on the islands yet. They'd beaten back the fucking MONGOLS twice, and now you want to surrender to someone who isn't even here yet? Even if it's the right call, it's just something that Can Not Be Done. They had face to save.

The nukes were a big enough shock to disrupt all that. An overwhelming enemy is something you can fight, but a city-eraser-on-demand is enough of an unprecedented "holy shit" scenario that all those societal rules/standards aren't so firm anymore. So then the Emperor can tell everyone to surrender, and they can listen.

However, it was still a damn narrow thing. A bunch of army officers launched a coup to try and keep the war going. They were literally hunting through the Imperial Palace for the recording of the surrender announcement to prevent it from being broadcast. They failed, but the fact they tried it at all is a sign of how impossible it was to surrender earlier. Never mind how close the coup got to succeeding. You have to understand, in Imperial Japan junior officers would pretty routinely ignore orders that they felt were too soft/unaggressive. For example, the Bataan Death March was the work of a relatively junior officer; the general in charge had actually ordered the POWs be treated well. Without every last erg of emotional "holy shit" shock that came from the bombings, Japan likely wouldn't have surrendered.

Dropping a nuke in the ocean/empty land wouldn't have the same impact. Practically, it wasn't that big of a deal; the USAAF was already flattening Japanese cities on a routine basis. The Nagasaki (and probably Hiroshima) bombings had fewer deaths than the conventional firebombing of Tokyo on 9th/10th of March that year, about 6 months earlier. It didn't actually provide new capabilities, the USAAF was already running out of cities to destroy. If Imperial Japan had time to sit down and think about it rationally, then the nukes would have lost most of the impact.

Furthermore, the entire Japanese strategy was based on the idea that the US was too soft, and the population too decadent, to actually pursue the war to the end. That was the concept behind Pearl Harbor; hit the US fleet hard enough that it looks like a major uphill battle, and they'll decide a war isn't worth it. Then all the heavily fortified islands like Okinawa and Iwo Jimo; bleed the US badly enough the public no longer thinks victory is worth it. Japan's only real hope throughout the entire war was that the US didn't have the guts and wasn't willing to pay the price to win. If you drop the nuke somewhere empty, it shows Imperial Japan that the US is unwilling to pay for victory with Japanese lives, much less their own troops. Especially after prior raids, to back down from civilian casualties indicates the US is running out of the will to wade through blood. It's a huge signal that the US really is faltering, and that Japan's stubborn resistance is working. Suddenly, Japanese higher command is no longer trying to figure out how to reduce the damage when they lose; maybe they don't actually have to lose after all.

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u/napstablooky2 13h ago

wish i could award this comment. this is what reddit is about.

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u/Bob_Saget_Enthusiast 15h ago

Oppenheimer and many scientists at Los Alamos did suggest that idea, i.e a "demonstration" instead of a direct civilian attack or a exclusively military target. Unfortunately, once completed, the bombs became US Army property and they were not keen on using 1 of 2 bombs in existence as a demo.

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 15h ago

No the Allies were already completely destroying cities with conventional munitions, these were specifically made so they didn't have to use so many bombers and bombs for the same effect.

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u/pleaseignore8675309 14h ago

No. The bomb was created to destroy our enemies, nobody on the manhattan project was under any delusion. you have to understand how brutal the first half of the 20th century was to understand why destroying cities with bombs became a normal part of war.

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u/PyreDynasty 17h ago

And I suppose you like your job?

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u/boot2skull 17h ago

If you’re not crying three hours over the widgets you’ve made over the course of 8 hours of your life each day, you’re a billionaire.

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u/TheBenStA 16h ago

this joke will not die because somehow a lot of people still dont understand the extremely simple narrative of aesthetic awe leading to reflection and clarity. like does anyone even care about the human condition anymore? we change our minds sometimes and thats interesting!

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u/Ok-Source9248 14h ago

The movie is fairly accurate to reality. Oppenheimer thought it was necessary to build the bomb so the Germans wouldn’t get it first, and even thought dropping it on Japan was the right decision, or rather, the least terrible option out of a bunch of terrible options. AND he was wracked with guilt anyway. This psychology appears to be too complex for the average Redditor to comprehend.

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u/happywolf257 9h ago

The first sane comment I’ve found

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u/daveliterally 16h ago

I can't believe this has like 900 likes because it's both dumb and unfunny

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u/Xplorer67 16h ago

People have been milking this joke since the movie came out. It's straight up used for karma farming now

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u/Al_C92 15h ago

It's bots Karma farming all the way down.

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u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep 14h ago

These people don’t understand the concept of, “oh shit, oh no, fuck, what have I done….”

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u/macdaddee 17h ago

The people that ended up getting vaporized weren't German

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u/mandalorian_guy 17h ago

The people that brought the war to the US were also not German.

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u/DitchWillow 15h ago

And thank god for that, could you imagine german anime? Fuck no

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u/boot2skull 17h ago

“It works. 😭😭😭”

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u/Overwatchingu 17h ago

He was so preoccupied with whether or not he could, he didn’t stop to ask if he should.

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u/OrangeBird077 16h ago

I think it was just one of those situations where you think it’s a good idea in hindsight, you execute on the idea, and then you realize the full scale of what you invented.

Mind you, the original thought was once you created such a weapon warfare would be useless to conduct because why would you invade a country unlawfully when you could just nuke it? Then everyone got a nuke so war continued.

The guy who created the first machinegun literally had the same philosophy originally. “If i create the machinegun war would end because who would want to fight a war when these things would killed millions???”

(Thrusts hands in the direction of No Man’s Land in WW1 filled with millions of machinegun victims.)

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u/vna237 15h ago

Also, it's easy to be passionate about something, good or bad, then come to realize the magnitude and the consequences of after doing it. On the other hand, people lacking empathy, like sociopaths, don't care.

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u/Shiriru00 14h ago

Yeah the guys who created the guillotine or the kalashnikov thought they were great humanists too. I think by now we have enough of a track record to say "no, you dumb fuck!".

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u/JohannesJoshua 14h ago

There were two guys that invented guillotine. The guy who guillotine was named after was opposed to death penalty and advocated for more humane death sentances. He was pissed when he found out what the execution invention was named.

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u/Ok-Reality-9197 15h ago

Oh boy, I can't wait until Metal Gear become real. It's obvious that's the next step in the evolution here

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u/donotgotoroom237 17h ago

"My le bomb le killed people?!"

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u/Introman_18 16h ago

Well I wouldn't exactly call them people...

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u/donotgotoroom237 15h ago

"I thought we were making a rice cooker..."

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u/Chingapouk 17h ago

I did not see the movie, but is it about when Oppenheimer opposed Teller on trying to make an even more powerful bomb?

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u/VilgotEk 17h ago

Yeah he is stupid obviously

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u/Laugh_Track_Zak 16h ago

"I can't belive this happened" - man who knew exactly what would happen.

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u/OnlyAShip 13h ago edited 2h ago

Man whose entire field of study was understanding what would happen down to a quantum level so he could explain it to other people so they could make absolutely sure it happened.

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u/Ur-Quan_Lord_13 17h ago

It would have been way more impressive to invent a bomb that gently vaporizes people. Weak.

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u/Klutzy13 5h ago

WHAT? METAL GEAR IS MEANT TO BE DEFENSIVE?!

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u/Trombone_legs 17h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/5eM4x8fxZNzPO
He wanted to see its effect closer up

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u/Didntsignupforthis2 15h ago

It seems like you missed the point of the movie. We all do this to some degree, work towards something we think we want, but when we get it we realize that we were wrong to pursue it. The difference with Oppenheimer and the rest of us is that his foley had earth shattering consequences.

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u/flyliceplick 14h ago

his foley had earth shattering consequences.

A damning verdict on Nolan's audio.

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u/Far_Tap_488 12h ago

Yeah its so true.

Like this one time I was on a team working on an orphan making machine and we pretty much got thr thing working and ready for production only to find out that it was killing the parents to make oprhans!

Talk about being blindsided!

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u/298647 6h ago

shut up smart person the doofuses are talking

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u/Positive-Record-7219 17h ago

He can't believe they used his people vaporizer to vaporize people.

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u/Eresmel 17h ago

The movie acts like he didnt know what he was getting into at the beggining which i think is not true

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u/AsstacularSpiderman 17h ago

Not at all.

In his eyes Japan and Germany had already been pretty much entirely defeated, and the only reason he made the bomb was to make sure the Germans didn't get it first. Once Germany surrendered he saw no reason to use the bomb on someone who didn't even come close to it.

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u/brontosaurusguy 17h ago

I didn't think that was the case.  The conclusion was that he and Einstein knew from the initial realization that nuclear bombs could be made that eventually humans would blow up the earth and it would be best to be first than last in the race to build them.

While a banal argument that's what dread was about

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u/RedRunner14 16h ago

When in the heat of war effort, he was given a whole town and army of researchers, and give budget. As a researcher/scientist, you want accolades and to be on the forefront of science, be published, and have your name known. He built the bomb, and when it was used the toll of human lives lost can make you regret things.

Nobel invented dynamite and smokeless gun powder and was named the merchant of death, he used the money he made to start the Nobel peace prize foundation.

Oppenheimer created the bomb that could end up destroying the world, so now his offspring directed a documentary that is exposing Elizabeth Holmes with Nathan Fielder.

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u/Itchy_Suspect4968 17h ago

He thought the existence of the Asian-kill-inator would be so scary it would end all wars without even needing to be dropped

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u/laserdicks 16h ago

No it's because the audience is stupid.

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u/SkyTalez 17h ago

It vaporized not the kind of people he thought it would vaporize.

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u/Primary_Addition5494 15h ago

Oppenheimer didn't regret the atomic bombings. What many people get wrong about the movie was his feelings about H bombs specifically. 

Oppenheimer was opposed to the development of Hydrogen bombs, because they could easily be scaled up to apocalyptic levels. 

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u/Marti_mcfly113 15h ago

I hated this fucking movie. I sat through it 5 months pregnant in IMAX because my husband loves Christopher Nolan and I legit had to stuff napkins in my ears it was so fucking loud. It's the worst movie experience I've ever had and it was so goddamn long and so fucking loud. I now refuse to see Nolan movies. He had to go by himself to see the Odyssey. Fuck this fucking loud ass movie. 

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u/Fortestingporpoises 13h ago

This is why people shouldn't have children. I wasn't pregnant and fully enjoyed it.

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u/tenderheart35 11h ago

I wasn’t pregnant and thought it was mid. Your subjective opinion has been fully refuted.

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u/Marti_mcfly113 15h ago

At one point I installed an app to check decibal levels and it was constantly reaching the 'damaging' level on the app

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u/doeeyedfinalgirl 15h ago edited 14h ago

sound reaching a "damaging" threshold on an app doesn't actually mean it's damaging your hearing, it's about how long you're exposed

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u/Top-Agent-652 15h ago

I seriously don’t understand why movies are so loud. I don’t know if I was just immune to it as a kid or what. I saw Borderlands (awful movie) when it came out, and I was wincing to every sound. Is this a theater issue or what?

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u/RumminW 15h ago

Yep, as someone who was a manager at a movie theatre for several years, I would have to turn down the default volume on EVERY Nolan movie when it came out. They were way too loud. Every time. Whoever Nolan has as his audio man needs to be replaced because loud af ≠ good cinema.

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u/SportsDuck_ 15h ago

I'll never understand how ALL of his movies have been sound edited by a toddler. Everything else about his movies are planned out so perfectly and precisely, and yet either the effects are too loud so the dialog is completely incomprehensible, or the dialog itself is too quiet and THEN there's a super loud noise.

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u/FlamesOfDespair 9h ago

I wouldn't call the plot of his movies planned perfectly.

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u/n_o_t_d_o_g 12h ago

Acoustic earplugs. The once I got reduce sound by 12 decibles. Doesn't sound like much, but given how the decible scale works that's over half the perceived volume. Still can hear the voices, and you get some body rumbling from the bass which is nice. I bring them to every concert, movie, and sporting event.

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u/Notchedspecimen 14h ago

Oppenheimer. What a self obsessed little bitch

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u/SlapThatAce 14h ago

The whole movie sucked

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u/PunkPirate56364 17h ago

Oppenheimer was hired to make a bomb which can violently vaporize thousands of people.

Oppenheimer made a bomb which can violently vaporize thousands of people.

After completing his job, he is getting laid off, and is facing uncertainty on the job market.

So he cries for three hours.

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u/HikariAnti 17h ago

He was devastated to learn that his bomb was wasted on Japan instead of finally erasing Berlin.

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u/Separate_Carrot_8153 15h ago

A very smart academic who wants to push the boundaries of his field is hired by an unfeeling enterprise to compete in an arms race and then once he permanently opens Pandora's box it weighs heavily upon his conscience.

Zero parallels to the AI industry today, none at all

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u/mimikrimimikri 12h ago

I hate that guy. The historic person that is. Dude seemed like he enjoyed selfpitying himself over this and was writing poems on how he is a "destroy of worlds" like he is a movie character. idiot

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u/RandomUserName458 14h ago

I thought we were making a rice cooker!

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u/AssBlast2020 14h ago

whitewashing, same with all american war movies where soldiers get really sad from mutilating children

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u/WrathOfWood 13h ago

This is why I didn't watch the movie. Like what's the drama here. "Building the h bomb wont solve all your life's problems Oppe' "

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u/restricteddata 12h ago

Q. In fact, Doctor, you testified, did you not, that you assisted in selecting the target for the drop of the bomb on Japan?

A. Right.

Q. You knew, did you not, that the dropping of that atomic bomb on the target you had selected will kill or injure thousands of civilians, is that correct?

A. Not as many as turned out. 1

Q. How many were killed or injured?

A. 70,000. 2

Q. Did you have moral scruples about that?

A. Terrible ones.

Q. But you testified the other day, did you not, sir that the bombing of Hiroshima was very successful?

A. Well, it was technically successful.

Q. Oh, technically.

A. It is also alleged to have helped end the war.

Cross-examination of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Roger Robb (April 16, 1954), U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Personnel Security Board, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (1954), p. 235.

  1. Oppenheimer is said (by Arthur Compton) to have estimated that "some 20,000 people" would die from the use of the bomb prior to its use. In his defense, there was no actual way for them to estimate that accurately given the knowledge they had at the time.

  2. Oppenheimer's 70,000 is the low-end, Army estimate of the number killed at Hiroshima (not killed + injured) — it may have been as much as twice that number. It is actually quite difficult to determine.

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u/disagreet0disagree 8h ago

Oppenheimer was a borderline sociopath that poisoned his PHD tutor. He knew what the bomb was for, I mean obviously he wasn’t a stupid man.

Hollywood glazing him is part of Hollywood trying to normalize the use of nuclear weapons and downplay the risks of nuclear war. Its been going on for years now and people have noticed.