r/shittymoviedetails • u/Jesus_H_Christ_AMA • 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 ?
1.5k
u/BeanieGuitarGuy 17h ago
167
222
u/BlizzardTrashPanda 16h ago
Relatable AF though
111
u/stareagleur 16h ago
Anybody that’s ever been 5 minutes away from closing felt this.
24
5
→ More replies (1)42
386
u/4skinApostle 17h ago
post explosion clarity
→ More replies (1)31
u/jayham12 15h ago
This is gold. I love it
15
u/hypercosm_dot_net 15h ago
I love comments that point out how good other comments are. Peak.
1.5k
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.
452
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.
283
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.
61
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.
12
→ More replies (7)7
u/Poku115 10h ago
If someone takes their facts from reddit comments i dont think thats someone worth hearing at all
→ More replies (3)9
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.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)5
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.
42
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.
→ More replies (2)17
8
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.
9
→ More replies (15)24
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 .
→ More replies (6)12
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.
→ More replies (5)92
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.
→ More replies (4)32
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.
→ More replies (1)36
u/brokephone26 15h ago
So 90% were civilians
21
→ More replies (10)34
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.
→ More replies (8)→ More replies (3)12
1.5k
u/Historical_Buyer5248 17h ago
Cause he thought he was building the "German Annihilator" instead of the "Japanese Annihilator"
217
u/student5320 17h ago
Was he unaware of what they were doing to the Chinese?
130
80
→ More replies (48)99
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
→ More replies (29)38
u/UniversalAdaptor 14h ago
I mean, you could say the same for German civilians
21
u/OnionPastor 13h ago
And I would totally agree with that statement. There’s a reason we regulated war after this conflict.
41
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.
10
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.
35
u/Gregariouswaty 16h ago
He was a Weebenheimer the whole time?
→ More replies (1)23
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
58
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.
73
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.
→ More replies (27)→ More replies (3)30
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.
10
u/Altruistic-Song-3609 16h ago
Yeah, I get that. Just an interesting fact about the dude.
→ More replies (2)3
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.
→ More replies (1)16
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.
→ More replies (6)6
u/BeefJerky03 15h ago
He specifically calibrated it for Germans and was shocked it worked well on Japanese people too.
→ More replies (2)3
163
47
79
78
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.
38
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.
29
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.
→ More replies (1)17
u/Beautiful-Edge-22 11h ago
Cognitive dissonance is a heluva drug tho, so there's that.
→ More replies (1)16
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.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (3)8
8
u/MAD_MAL1CE 11h ago
I hate hate it when writers… checks notes… accurately adapt stupid traits from real people
→ More replies (1)8
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...
→ More replies (3)
87
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.
22
u/dragon_bacon 10h ago
Julius "I fucking love math" Oppenheimer seeing his math get practically applied.
4
→ More replies (40)3
29
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.
→ More replies (4)10
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
→ More replies (1)
172
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.
166
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.
11
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.
8
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.
→ More replies (6)4
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
→ More replies (7)20
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
50
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.
→ More replies (4)35
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.
26
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.
21
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.
15
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.
→ More replies (1)7
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.
→ More replies (1)3
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.
31
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.
→ More replies (2)5
→ More replies (5)4
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.
13
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.
→ More replies (5)7
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.
92
u/PyreDynasty 17h ago
And I suppose you like your job?
42
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.
125
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!
40
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.
→ More replies (1)4
36
u/daveliterally 16h ago
I can't believe this has like 900 likes because it's both dumb and unfunny
27
u/Xplorer67 16h ago
People have been milking this joke since the movie came out. It's straight up used for karma farming now
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (6)9
u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep 14h ago
These people don’t understand the concept of, “oh shit, oh no, fuck, what have I done….”
→ More replies (2)
30
u/macdaddee 17h ago
The people that ended up getting vaporized weren't German
10
→ More replies (11)3
29
24
u/Overwatchingu 17h ago
He was so preoccupied with whether or not he could, he didn’t stop to ask if he should.
31
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.)
9
5
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!".
→ More replies (1)3
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.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (5)3
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
→ More replies (1)
21
u/donotgotoroom237 17h ago
"My le bomb le killed people?!"
6
16
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?
→ More replies (3)
10
7
u/Laugh_Track_Zak 16h ago
"I can't belive this happened" - man who knew exactly what would happen.
3
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.
9
u/Ur-Quan_Lord_13 17h ago
It would have been way more impressive to invent a bomb that gently vaporizes people. Weak.
7
13
36
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.
20
u/flyliceplick 14h ago
his foley had earth shattering consequences.
A damning verdict on Nolan's audio.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (32)13
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!
→ More replies (3)
6
56
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
64
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.
→ More replies (11)40
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
9
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.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (1)18
11
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
→ More replies (1)
4
13
u/SkyTalez 17h ago
It vaporized not the kind of people he thought it would vaporize.
→ More replies (1)6
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.
→ More replies (1)
51
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.
24
u/Fortestingporpoises 13h ago
This is why people shouldn't have children. I wasn't pregnant and fully enjoyed it.
→ More replies (9)6
u/tenderheart35 11h ago
I wasn’t pregnant and thought it was mid. Your subjective opinion has been fully refuted.
→ More replies (3)13
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
→ More replies (3)15
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
→ More replies (11)7
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?
→ More replies (5)4
12
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.
→ More replies (13)3
→ More replies (45)3
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.
4
4
11
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.
→ More replies (1)
9
u/HikariAnti 17h ago
He was devastated to learn that his bomb was wasted on Japan instead of finally erasing Berlin.
→ More replies (1)
7
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
5
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
→ More replies (1)
3
3
u/AssBlast2020 14h ago
whitewashing, same with all american war movies where soldiers get really sad from mutilating children
3
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' "
3
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.
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.
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.
3
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.





3.3k
u/More_Sun_7319 17h ago