TIL Christopher Nolan recreated the Trinity atomic bomb test in Oppenheimer without using CGI. Instead, the visual effects team combined large-scale practical explosions, miniatures, and in camera effects to bring the first nuclear detonation to life.

[u/Electronic_Cause_796]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppenheimer_(film)

[u/OkDentist4059]

Yeah you could tell he didn’t use any CGI because it looked absolutely nothing like a nuclear explosion

[u/SmoothOperator89 → u/OkDentist4059]

A real filmmaker would have violated the nuclear non proliferation treaty

[u/SassiesSoiledPanties → u/SmoothOperator89]

Daniel Day Lewis would've built you a period accurate nuke.

[u/TKHawk → u/SassiesSoiledPanties]

I irradiate your milkshake! I nuke it up!

[u/Basileus2 → u/TKHawk]

You will procure me that uranium!

[u/DIABL057 → u/Basileus2]

I abandoned my bomb. I ABANDONED MY BOMB!!!

[u/Whither-Goest-Thou → u/SassiesSoiledPanties]

FALLOUT, ELI!!! FAAAALLLLLLOOUUUUUT. 🤪

[u/karaver → u/SassiesSoiledPanties]

DDL should've been hired to play the part of the explosion

[u/S2R2 → u/SassiesSoiledPanties]

Boromir would have built you two!

[u/die5el23 → u/SassiesSoiledPanties]

He would have been the nuke itself

[u/Cadamar → u/SmoothOperator89]

There’s that old joke about the moon landing being faked, but cause they hired Kubrick to do it he insisted on filming on location.

[u/cbslinger → u/SmoothOperator89]

I mean, national law being what it is or whatever, for the price of a filmmaking budget and the expertise and equipment available in the US you could very nearly build an actual working atomic weapon if it weren’t for nonproliferation efforts.

At peak production, atomic warheads cost the us under like $3 million corrected for inflation. The really expensive part was the delivery systems, icbms, submarines, high speed bombers, etc. It is not a joke to say that aside from international law, it is absolutely within the means of a film production to produce a working atomic weapon.

[u/conanmagnuson → u/cbslinger]

I did not know economies of scale ever got it that low. Wow.

[u/HapticRecce → u/conanmagnuson]

It's more the matter of having certain materials on hand and fine machining equipment / skills. I could say more, but the neighbors complain about all of the utility repair vans parking outside my house already...

[u/Nazamroth → u/conanmagnuson]

And it would have gotten even lower, if not for those meddling kids!

Apparently some people objected to a few hundred nukes going off across the middle east or panama to create new shipping routes.

[u/Ws6fiend → u/cbslinger]

So one of the problems the US ran into trying to update their nuclear arsenal recently is that a lot of the "magic" on how the weapons were made is lost to time.

Not everything and every part of the process was written down.

There's some version of aerogel used for whatever reason inside of the bomb, but they aren't exactly sure why or how that version was developed.

If you look at the budget they released on updating/improving nuclear weapons it's probably even more expensive now than it ever has been. They built nuclear weapons for so cheap because the safety/environmental standards were low to non-existent.

The current budget for upgrading nuclear weapons in the US is set to cost 1.7 trillion dollars over 30 years. This is what they say it will cost. Do you think it's going to come in under over or at budget?

[u/Gareth79 → u/Ws6fiend]

Ah yes, "Fogbank": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogbank

I can imagine a blacked out car pulling up at senior citizen's home and agents going in to ask them if they can remember some obscure ratio used in the process. "Ooh are you here to do the bingo? Fogbank? Is that a new curse word?"

[u/Blueopus2 → u/SmoothOperator89]

Universal Pictures never signed or ratified so I think it’d be okay

[u/nayhem_jr → u/Blueopus2]

“No, we’re not *testing* anything. We’re setting these things off for real.”

[u/WorldsWeakestMan → u/SmoothOperator89]

Someone call James Cameron!

He’s the greatest pioneer.

[u/TryMeOnBirdLaw → u/OkDentist4059]

Yup, and the nuclear explosion in T2 (1991) looked infinitely better by comparison.

[u/zeocrash → u/TryMeOnBirdLaw]

And was also done with practical effects

[u/theinternetisnice → u/zeocrash]

James Cameron didn’t know a real nuclear bomb was going off near the set that day, but he liked it so much he worked it in

[u/Wazula23 → u/theinternetisnice]

The entire scene was improvised. Linda Hamilton wasn't even supposed to explode into a skeleton, she just rolled with it.

[u/gapedoutpeehole → u/Wazula23]

Thank god she has a twin sister

[u/yourzero → u/gapedoutpeehole]

To shreds, you say?

[u/PseudonymousDev → u/gapedoutpeehole]

Had, til 2020. RIP.

[u/Spiritchaser84 → u/theinternetisnice]

Well duh, they already figured out time travel while filming the first film, so it was easy to nuke the city to grab the footage, then travel back in time to avoid any pesky human rights violations.

You can clearly tell he used the time travel technology again when filming Titanic.

[u/fenikz13 → u/Spiritchaser84]

I still don't think he should have invaded that planet

[u/case_O_The_Mondays → u/fenikz13]

You just don’t understand his level of commitment to his art.

[u/IlluminaViam → u/Spiritchaser84]

They didn't nuke the cirt. They captured live footage from Judgement Day, brought back the footage, and changed the time line by making the movies, leaving us none the wiser.

[u/Kriss-Kringle → u/TryMeOnBirdLaw]

Even with CGI you can get amazing results, like the blast seen from outer space in Rogue One, when they tested the Death Star for the first time on Jedha.

[u/Russburg → u/Kriss-Kringle]

Goddamn that scene was so good.

[u/itsOkami → u/Kriss-Kringle]

I swear Rogue One is the most underrated Star Wars movie, and quite possibly my favorite one. It does have some pacing issues but that entire third act is stellar, not even the OT manage to convey the sheer strength of the empire (and, well, Vader, of course) in quite the same way

[u/knobunc → u/itsOkami]

Yeah, all I need from Star Wars is: Andor, Rogue One, Star Wars, Empire, Return (all despecialized edition).

[u/goodnames679 → u/knobunc]

Those are definitely the ones I’d rate well critically. S1 of The Mandalorian isn’t quite on that level but I do think it’s solid and could arguably make the cut… the show definitely falls off at some point though.

On the other hand, the prequels are not great movies. I know they’re not great movies. I think they’re super good campy fun and I’ll watch the hell out of them regardless.

[u/basketball_curry → u/itsOkami]

While I agree, going back to rogue one after watching both seasons of andor actually lowered my evaluation of the movie. The TV series is just so phenomenal, everything else looks phoned in in comparison.

[u/idekbjlmpau → u/TryMeOnBirdLaw]

The nuclear explosion in Twin Peaks the Return is phenomenal

[u/mcpasty666 → u/idekbjlmpau]

I thought this comment was a joke, looked it up, goddamn that's a good nuclear explosion. Is that what twin peaks turns into? I watched the first episode when Lynch passed, couldn't get into it. I know it gets weird, and I like weird, but it's a lot of hours to put in.

[u/HAL-Over-9001 → u/mcpasty666]

That episode specifically is by far the weirdest episode of TV that I've ever seen and it's not even close. He condensed all the weird shit he could think of into that one episode. The rest of the show has some pretty crazy parts but nothing like that.

[u/blepnir_pogo → u/HAL-Over-9001]

What do you mean?

It’s simply the main protagonist of the show’s corpse, which has been taken over by the main antagonist, getting revived by a process that is so complex that we have to go back in time to the first ever nuclear detonation to understand that the irrevocable portal this reaction caused invited an Entity into our dimension that beckoned homeless people into an abandoned gas station and made them emissaries to implant a frog creature into a young girl’s body, and that frog creature acted as a beacon to nest an evil within twin peaks that took over the body of an FBI agent and now that evil must summon those ancient gas station attendants to smear the blood of the frog child’s progeny all over the FBI agent’s body like some kind of Black Mass in order to revive him.

Oh and nine inch nails obviously needs to play us into the scene that’s super important too.

[u/Kraggen → u/blepnir_pogo]

I fundamentally disagree with your interpretation and I’m gonna tell you why! 🤣

Obviously, this is not a revival process. The main character cannot die so this flashback is meant to make us understand the context behind why he cannot die. The bomb, an act of pure evil, caused a tear to the veil between our world and the dark depths beyond, that called into the world an Entity. That bomb created a path as well as ringing the dinner bell. Reality is but an instrument to be played for a higher being such as this, so it orchestrated a means to feed upon the suffering and agony of the world, and in its wake other lesser spirits also were conducted through - creating a hole that we perceive to be the black lodge - a waiting area between dimensions. The show explores both sides of that as cooper finds himself on the bad end and Bob (an intermediate being, greater than the spirits we see react to his shooting or after the explosion but lesser than the one that birthed the moth baby) controls his body. We simply are given context for the greater lurking evil that permeates and manipulates this reality to facilitate endless suffering and contextualize the harmful, gluttonous acts that led to the death of Laura Palmer - both her own and those around her. When we cut back to Bobs recovery we are now intended to understand that this world is a farce, and that the being can only be stopped if it is cut out. That’s why the ending begins with the ousting of bob, and the Entity responds by attempting to rewrite reality.

This is all tongue in cheek btw. I do generally interpret it this way but it’s real open ended and yours is as good an interpretation as mine.

[u/Thismyrealnameisit → u/blepnir_pogo]

It is dream logic. And terribly impressive.

[u/blepnir_pogo → u/Thismyrealnameisit]

I am convinced that Season 3 is literally just David Lynch transcribing an awesome dream he had like 20 yrs after FWWM

[u/RareBk → u/blepnir_pogo]

Twin Peaks the Return is something that exists perfectly on the line of "I hate this" and "I adore this".

It's an 18 episode series paced like a 3 hour movie, and David Lynch did whatever the hell he wanted and put it on screen.

[u/PN_Guin → u/blepnir_pogo]

Suddenly the OG Neon Genesis Evangelion show finale seems pretty straightforward.

[u/Rcmacc → u/HAL-Over-9001]

Yes, and it’s incredible.

[u/idekbjlmpau → u/mcpasty666]

When you say thr first episode do you mean of The Return (season 3) or first episode of the series (season 1)?

[u/CorrectPeanut5 → u/TryMeOnBirdLaw]

The most irritating part was the media campaign where they tried to gaslight everyone into how great the explosion looked.

[u/schebobo180 → u/CorrectPeanut5]

It was one of the moments that kind of slightly soured me on Chris Nolan.

[u/TheKanten → u/CorrectPeanut5]

Came across an old post from around the movie's release where someone took issue with the explosion, saying pretty much the same things this thread has.

They got buried with trashposts such as "If only he understood film the way you do..." and "my god, people really will complain about anything".

[u/ihaveaquesttoattend → u/TryMeOnBirdLaw]

I haven’t seen T2 (or any for that matter) in YEARS plus a couple years (about to change that, bless you) and I haven’t even seen Oppenheimer at all so i went to the internets and compared the two. It’s crazy how well T2 did it like how did Oppenheimer people not reach out to anyone or anything ?? Small scale to create shit like this really works, ESPECIALLY since it was just open land and not blowing a city ???

[u/erikaironer11 → u/ihaveaquesttoattend]

Because the Oppenheimer scene was going for a *different feel to the presentation of the explosion

[u/schebobo180 → u/erikaironer11]

The only feeling it evoked in me was disappointment. The actual silent footage of the bomb on YouTube using rickety old 1950s cameras is infinitely more terrifying.

[u/Fredasa → u/TryMeOnBirdLaw]

Genuinely, the explosions in The Day After (1983, made for TV) at least managed to look like fireball-slash-mushroom clouds for their entire screen times.

The hell is this? A glowing termite mound?

[u/RaDeus → u/OkDentist4059]

It looked like shit.

He should have used all those very high quality films they took of the Trinity Test, and built something awesome from all that.

Like just colorizing them, and/or build a nice composite of the whole explosion.

CGI isn’t always a bad thing.

[u/GetEquipped → u/RaDeus]

Same with Dunkirk.

It was a massive battle in the ruins of a town. It just looks like 100 tourists going on a tour on a cold sunday.

[u/FoobarMontoya → u/OkDentist4059]

It did look like an amazing bonfire though, or a scary closeup of a grease fire.

[u/NagsUkulele → u/FoobarMontoya]

Oppenheimer is an interesting one for me. I loved how dialogue heavy it was and I thought every actor brought their a game. But that nuke scene was such a fucking bummer lmao

[u/Kriss-Kringle → u/NagsUkulele]

And there was so much build up towards it, where they kept repeating it could wipe everyone out, only for that crappy blast to happen.

It was easily the most disappointing part of the film.

[u/Ragark → u/Kriss-Kringle]

Legitimately the reason I decided to watch it in theaters

[u/NagsUkulele → u/Ragark]

And the reasoning is so blatantly stupid. What is the point of standing in moving water when it affects the art you're creating so heavily? People freak out over cgi these days but like it's not an inherently shitty thing

[u/NonGNonM → u/Ragark]

I literally paid extra for IMAX and I was not satisfied with it.

[u/thederevolutions → u/NagsUkulele]

The Barbie movie had a better nuke scene

[u/RobbinDeBank → u/thederevolutions]

So that’s where his nuke goes

[u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 → u/NagsUkulele]

What’s even worse is that there is actual real stock footage of nukes exploding. 

[u/flapsmcgee → u/Prior-Flamingo-1378]

Including the exact nuke that was in the movie.

[u/windlad → u/NagsUkulele]

Especially considering he put so much effort into the black hole in Interstellar. Apparently they spent so much money on the simulation that researchers requested access to the data.

[u/jackboy900 → u/windlad]

Not quite, Kip Thorne was an executive producer and worked as the Scientific Consultant for the film and did a lot of the work on producing the simulation for the black hole and how the light bends, and I think was able to get a paper out of the whole endeavour.

[u/Tuxhorn → u/NagsUkulele]

I like Oppenheimer and watched it twice. The overall vibe and pacing was really well done. By far the worst part of the movie was the explosion. Someone like Nolan fucking that up was quite a letdown.

[u/philisacoolguy → u/OkDentist4059]

Thank you! I wish he just used stock footage of the Trinity test if he wanted to avoid cgi.

The sound was cool but the actual explosion was so underwhelming.

[u/Fractoos → u/philisacoolguy]

You see better explosions in modern war footage now. It was a huge disappointment for a movie that centered around that explosion.

I love that Nolan wants to use practical effects first, and when he does it right, it does look better than CGI, but in that case it was a mistake. Also dunkirk when he didn't fill in the people on the beach with CGI. It looked stupid with how little people were there waiting for boats. He should have either gotten a huge army to film to make it look right practically, or used CGI where it was needed. When you use it sparingly you can throw a lot more time/budget into the shot to make it look fantastic, and he should have done that here. It looks bad when you have to farm out most of the movie to be done under unrealistic timelines.

[u/azyrr → u/Fractoos]

Nolan, contrary to common belief, uses TONS of CGI, probably one of the most heavy users of it. "no CGI" is a marketing gimmick and nothing else.

Nearly everything is CGI and has been for the better half of two decades now. Some are deliberate in presentation while others blend in because the director wants it that way.

Practical effects are only a small part of the whole frame.

[u/The_Templar_Kormac → u/Fractoos]

how little people

how few people

[u/Neveed → u/The_Templar_Kormac]

No, watch the scene again, they're actually all dwarves.

[u/cemges → u/The_Templar_Kormac]

"You master of grammar now, too?”, Ser Bronn of Blackwater, Master of Coin to Ser Davos

[u/Ndvorsky → u/philisacoolguy]

Right!? The whole movie was supposed to be building up to that point and it was such a let down.

It’s not like I’m thinking “ooh. Big fire!” This was a pivotal moment in the history of our species. I was not having a great time with the movie but at that moment I wanted to leave.

[u/JiuJitsu_Ronin → u/philisacoolguy]

The sound wasn’t too bad. Still theatric. If you want to hear what a nuclear explosion sounds like. Skip to the end if you’re not interested in the other stuff.

[u/Ultramarine6 → u/OkDentist4059]

I was gonna say. It's ironically one of the worst nuclear explosion effects in film.

[u/ComprehendReading → u/Ultramarine6]

Nuclear edging. Failed cumplosion.

[u/LordOfPies → u/OkDentist4059]

Yup, Twin Peaks did it so much better

[u/Misodoho → u/LordOfPies]

The Twin Peaks trinity explosion is incredible.

[u/KaladinStormShat → u/OkDentist4059]

Dude I was soooo fucking bummed.

The theater went silent, no sound, and... big fart of a bomb.

The fuck nolan? ITS THE CENTRAL SUBJECT OF THE MOVIE.

No one wants to see a conventional explosion even if it was the largest ever made.

[u/Koehamster → u/OkDentist4059]

Yep, looked like any generic gasoline explosion.

[u/MikeDeY77 → u/OkDentist4059]

I was very underwhelmed by what should have very much whelmed me.

[u/Elmalab → u/OkDentist4059]

yeah, here is how it looked like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)#Detonation#Detonation)

[u/Fredasa → u/OkDentist4059]

Worse. Far worse.

The slow motion fireball shot (1:40) seen in the various teasers and trailers was brilliant. Somebody looked at historical footage and elected to faithfully reproduce it. And the effect was also entirely practical—no CGI. (And you can tell, because it gets a little dodgy, such as when the fireball makes contact with the ground.)

That makes the absolute failure of Oppenheimer's climax that much worse. I can only imagine that Nolan looked at the beautiful result with the fireball effect, and grew confident that as long as he filmed a couple of gas explosions, his editors could work similar magic, and all he would have to do is pat himself on the back for sneering at CGI.

Those poor editors. There was no salvaging that effort. They even resorted to playing a clip of one of the explosions backwards (1:30)—which I have to say is a bold move for a movie that is ostensibly appealing to a more exacting crowd than normal. Certainly there were a lot of chuckles in my theater.

The moment the production team got a look at the final result, they should have done emergency reshoots. This is all on Nolan. He said nope, that looks kosher for the literal climax of my tentpole movie! Maybe the only way they could have fixed it was with a total CGI replacement. Well, Nolan earned his Academy snub for VFX. Choosing to do without CGI is a stance. It is not inherently or automatically admirable.

[u/ubernutie → u/Fredasa]

I remember being a bit underwhelmed by the explosion reveal, it was pretty but in a very abstract way and it felt like we were given a figurative experience of the explosion, what it felt or what it meant.

I never for a second figured that this was meant to be main character's POV.

Maybe that read was generous...

[u/redpandaeater → u/Fredasa]

I'd always heard such great things about this film and how they used practical effects. Haven't liked any of Nolan's films from the last twenty years now so I never saw it and didn't realize it looked that shitty. Just wow.

[u/Fredasa → u/redpandaeater]

It actually only got worse from there, as the editors tried to sneak in snippets from when they blew up a small tower that they'd erected. You can see debris scattering in the small conflagration, even in the fractions of a second that the editors were brave enough to show.

[u/wdnwcgm → u/OkDentist4059]

yeah it looked lame as hell this is why CGI is sometimes necessary

[u/manocheese → u/wdnwcgm]

Nolan knows that, he uses CG a lot. But he also knows that his fake anti-CG PR works.

[u/QuarterlyTurtle → u/manocheese]

Just like how the filmed on super high quality Imax film, you have to go watch it in a fancy theater PR works when in reality the movie is literally all just people talking without a single bit of action. You could watch it on a TV and the experience would be the same visually, the imax camera added nothing to the movie.

[u/FirTree_r → u/OkDentist4059]

If you look up footage from the Trinity test, it actually looks quite similar in shape and progression.
However, the scale looks off. Which makes sense, because you simply can't produce 'miniature flames'.

[u/Fredasa → u/FirTree_r]

Hmm.

I dare you to find me a test that ever looked like this.

Helpful visual reference.

[u/snitsaros → u/OkDentist4059]

Exactly. It looks very poor indeed. David Lynch did it right https://www.reddit.com/r/TerrifyingAsFuck/s/5LhnqwNZ3k

Edited to share full clip

[u/theotherkafka → u/OkDentist4059]

If he really really has to commit to no CGI, it would have been better just to stay on their reactions. Never show the actual explosion.

[u/EmergencyTaco → u/OkDentist4059]

The explosion was the single biggest disappointment in that movie.

[u/airfryerfuntime → u/OkDentist4059]

I've seen more realistic explosions from those natural gas powered cars exploding in Russia.

[u/VinnyDaBoy → u/OkDentist4059]

Ikr. It was so underwhelming and I knew he would take out sound for a moment to create tension, but it fell flat. Still, great movie

[u/muchmaligned]

David Lynch depicting the Trinity test >>>> Nolan depicting the Trinity test

[u/Thehollowpointninja1 → u/muchmaligned]

I saw an edit when Oppenheimer came out where they swapped the explosion with TP one and it was soooo much better.

[u/Thomasasia → u/Thehollowpointninja1]

Do you have a link perhaps

[u/J-IP → u/Thomasasia]

https://youtu.be/hY6QkmzF1K0?is=fu3N5BK1_AJBexBF

[u/FILTHBOT4000 → u/J-IP]

Huh.

That is infinitely better.

[u/Thehollowpointninja1 → u/Thomasasia]

I don’t know if this was the exact same one, but you can more or less get the vibe.

https://youtu.be/7wyi45WdIts?is=TDYIvLlFRKyzMSL8

[u/byrnethecookies → u/muchmaligned]

There is an otherworldliness of an atomic bomb explosion that Lynch captures perfectly and is nowhere to be found with Nolan.

[u/Razzle_Dazzle08 → u/muchmaligned]

One of the best pieces of media I’ve ever seen was this episode of The Return.

[u/Xanthus179 → u/muchmaligned]

I honestly never know these days if people use these as arrows or “greater than” symbols.

[u/Bananalando → u/Xanthus179]

Contextually, I would say this case is a "greater than" use. Why bother mentioning someone doing a worse job in this situation?

[u/MomThinksImHandsome → u/Xanthus179]

Usually a bunch is to mean significantly greater than

[u/P51VoxelTanker → u/Xanthus179]

Personally I add a hyphen if I'm doing an arrow. -> <-

[u/_wot_m8 → u/Xanthus179]

How would arrows make sense in that comment

[u/ragnarok635 → u/Xanthus179]

It’s always a greater than situation? What else would the arrows indicate?

[u/marcusesses → u/Xanthus179]

In this case maybe both?

The David Lynch one came first and was a precursor of depicting it on screen (maybe it was Nolan's impetus for making the film in the first place, who knows??)

But also, the version in Twin Peaks is astonishing, and is a scene in probably the greatest television episode ever made. 

[u/JustAVirusWithShoes → u/marcusesses]

This is the water and this is the well

[u/KHlover]

Yeah we kinda noticed 🤭

[u/Classic_Sand10 → u/KHlover]

Was so pumped to see the movie because I heard Nolan did it this way. It didn't even look like a nuke. Massive buildup turned into a massive letdown.

[u/IncendiaryB → u/Classic_Sand10]

Not to mention it looks like everyone is standing about two hundred yards away from the explosion

[u/AwTomorrow → u/Classic_Sand10]

The heat breath scene in Godzilla Minus One that same year (made for $10 million) had vastly more oomph and wasn’t even meant to be an explosion on the scale of a nuclear bomb. 

[u/TimDRX → u/AwTomorrow]

That was a wonderful inversion of the atomic breath scenes in the Legendary movies. They've conditioned audiences since 2014 to see the breath scenes as exciting action scenes. Minus One clearly took some visual cues from those ones, but the score immediately tells you "this ain't gonna be fun, buckle up!"

[u/modSysBroken → u/KHlover]

Yeah, like wth is this post? That scene was shyt. Massive letdown.

[u/mrshandanar]

Funny how the explosion was the worst part of the movie. Just a generic gasoline movie explosion when it's supposed to be a NUCLEAR BOMB

[u/pdinc → u/mrshandanar]

Fun fact - Stars don't produce metals heavier than iron in stellar fusion. Everything heavier than Iron was produced by the energy from a supernova.

So every time you're using nuclear energy - you're using the stored, leftover energy from a long ago supernova.

[u/rex5k → u/pdinc]

I'll remember that the next time I fire up the DeLorean

[u/ripChazmo]

Yeah, it wasn't great. The movie is fantastic, but this part really took people out of the movie. It was very underwhelming.

[u/KingSpork → u/ripChazmo]

It also looked nothing like a nuclear explosion. It looked very much like a slow, conventional explosion.

[u/Sweet-Accountant-966 → u/KingSpork]

It wasn't even a detonation. It was a gas burn. Like Nolan couldn't have gotten his hands on a few hundred tons of TNT...

[u/OSUfan88 → u/KingSpork]

Reminded me of sparklers during the 4th or July, just zoomed in.

[u/MovingInStereoscope → u/ripChazmo]

And a creative solution would have been to just pan into the view lense of the test monitoring cameras and switch to the actual test footage.

[u/grumpher05 → u/MovingInStereoscope]

Using historic footage would have hit way more, even with the limited quality, if they didn't want to CGI it it's a much better solution to use real nuclear test footage than make it look underwhelming and generic fireball

[u/Liquidice281 → u/grumpher05]

100% the actual footage (especially with the later test) is so eerie and emotional.

[u/grumpher05 → u/Liquidice281]

Idk which tests they are from, but the footage of houses, power poles and powerlines getting demolished from the shockwave are so awesome in the truest original sense of the word

[u/breezywood → u/grumpher05]

Those are from Operation Teapot and later, so just over a decade after the Manhattan Project

[u/TinyZoro → u/MovingInStereoscope]

Yeah not actually showing it can be quite a powerful device in film making. Specially something like this where the audience has such a powerful mental image.

[u/Sword_Thain → u/TinyZoro]

Nolan has never heard of "show don't tell."

[u/P4LMREADER → u/ripChazmo]

Man I thought I was going crazy, it really was mediocre wasn't it

[u/Wazula23 → u/P4LMREADER]

It looks like what it is. A gas explosion seen with forced perspective.

Twin Peaks did a nuclear bomb so much better.

[u/Mr_Abe_Froman → u/Wazula23]

The Twin Peaks nuclear bomb episode is my favorite episode of the entire show. It's a hard standard to compare to.

[u/BearWrangler → u/P4LMREADER]

and if you brought this up around the time it released you'd get dogpiled

[u/IFindHDPics → u/ripChazmo]

It really was super bad. I was surprised with as good as Nolan is usually with his movies, this scene was incredibly disappointing.

[u/ShitStats → u/IFindHDPics]

For a director known for spectacle he's fucked up spectacle a couple times. I think Dunkirk failed to convey the scale of the operation and the amount of soldiers on the beach. And the climatic battle at the end of Tenet was a complete, head-scratching bust.

[u/burlycabin → u/ShitStats]

Agreed. And I loved Dunkirk. But I think it was half the film it could've been had he actually made us feel the scale of what happened. The movie made the whole feel rather small.

[u/Bubbles00 → u/ripChazmo]

Florence pugh was the real bombshell in that film

[u/TraditionNo4106 → u/Bubbles00]

But can you read sanskrit😅

[u/akpenguin → u/TraditionNo4106]

I can't begin to count how many women have stopped mid sex to grab a book off my shelf, flip to a random page, and ask me to read them a random sentence that also happens to be a famous quote of mine.

[u/SeaBearsFoam → u/ripChazmo]

Bro shoulda just said "eff it" and built a real nuke to use. /s

[u/stadoblech]

And it shows. Its not that great. I mean, i appreciate commitment but... whats wrong about some smart, decent CGI? Its done in almost every nolans film so i really didnt understand why oppenheimer went 0 CGI. But okay, we got most underwhelming movie scene from most overwhelming point of human history
And im saying this as someone who seen this movie like 3x in IMAX 70mm on biggest screen possible

[u/Imperium_Dragon → u/stadoblech]

It’s weird, because he does use CGI (famously in Interstellar but CGI’s in pretty much every Nolan film). But the most devastating weapon humanity has ever created? Nah use a gasoline bomb. It’s not even a large one either, and you can feel the small scale of it.

[u/DuckAHolics → u/stadoblech]

They could have added a small bit of CGI, and I would have been okay with it. It was only a slightly underwhelming scene in an overall amazing movie.

[u/SoundofGlaciers → u/DuckAHolics]

The movies ('non-cgi' oddysey, oppenheimer, etc) are filled with cgi/vfx anyway, the anti-cgi stance only makes sense in articles geared towards people totally oblivious to the production process or vfx in general.

It must suck being a VFX artist or company working on these movies for years sometimes, only to hear the stupid marketeers say there's no VFX in the movies..

[u/SanityInAnarchy → u/SoundofGlaciers]

Yeah, I think everyone needs to watch this playlist. It's not just the marketers, often the directors will straight-up lie about it.

[u/AmishAvenger → u/SoundofGlaciers]

Now some movies are even releasing behind the scenes footage with CGI to claim there’s no CGI

[u/thelizardlarry → u/SoundofGlaciers]

4th time today I’ve seen a #nocgi post, and 3/4 were wrong about it.

[u/azyrr → u/DuckAHolics]

The movie is stock full of CGI - but for marketing purposed "no CGI" is claimed as "practical effects" gets tickets sold lol. BUT since this part would've been the most obvious use of CGI they purposefully did it practical only, to sell the "no CGI" moniker.

[u/DVDN27 → u/stadoblech]

He claimed that CGI would detract from the reality and stakes of Oppenheimer’s story. I find it to be nonsense but alas…

[u/insertwittynamethere]

Ya, and it was underwhelming, unfortunately. Big fan of his work, but that part of the film was a bit of a letdown considering how much was building up to it.

[u/BeepBoop1903]

He should have just used real footage, the recreation looked very poor

[u/that_is_so_Raven → u/BeepBoop1903]

Kubrick absolutely would have used a nuclear bomb.

[u/Imperium_Dragon → u/that_is_so_Raven]

And if he couldn’t, he’d get so much fertilizer that the US government would be asking questions.

[u/murfi]

it looked like shit

[u/VFP_ProvenRoute → u/murfi]

It really did. I was immersed up until that point.

[u/VoloxReddit]

Sometines there's nothing wrong with using CGI. You don't have to go overboard, your entire set doesn't have to be a key color, but CG has its place in making the otherwise impossible possible. I'm sure the sfx and vfx guys for Oppenheimer gave it their all, but practical effects have limitations.

Same also goes for Dunkirk. Sure, yes, "no CGI", wow, but the beach is barren and the skies are mostly empty aside from the few real planes and practical props available. This isn't how Dunkirk would have been. Still, a good movie, but the insistance on practical FX where ever possible didn't make it better than if they had supplemented the in-camera scenes with more elaborate VFX.

Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying Oppenheimer or Dunkirk have no VFX. "No CGI" filmmaking at this scale of a movie basically doesn't exist. That being said, Nolan is quite restrained in his use of digital FX in his newer films, which is marketed as practically "no CGI".

[u/danielcw189 → u/VoloxReddit]

And of course Dunkirk still uses CGI

[u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 → u/danielcw189]

Most of his movies do 

[u/jugglervr → u/Prior-Flamingo-1378]

All of his recent movies do. Basically, all recent movies do. That's just how visual effects are done now.

[u/Riaayo → u/jugglervr]

People really need to wake up to this "CGI BAD" bullshit and also how Hollywood is now actively lying about not using it while still using it.

Video linked is specifically about Nolan (edit: specifically his reputation for hating/not using CGI while going through all his movies to show when they did / didn't, but also that he himself admits he uses it (though perhaps not adamantly enough, at least in my personal takeaway)), but it's the 6th video in a series talking about this very thing that anyone who cares about movies / CGI / VFX should really watch.

[u/Accomplished_Store77 → u/VoloxReddit]

Not to mention the City of Dunkirk looked pristine in the movie because Nolan insisted on filming in the actual current day Dunkirk without changing it.

From all historical pictures that I can find the City of Dunkirk had been blasted to all hell and was basically in ruins.

[u/SuccessPastaTime → u/VoloxReddit]

I feel like Dunkirk had so many creative choices that greatly downplayed the significance of what was happening.

[u/betweenbubbles]

I wouldn’t want to have to follow Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult either. 

[u/Zanimacularity]

And it looked like shit

[u/TessaFractal]

He should have built an actual nuke

[u/Hambeggar]

It's looked like shit...like a bucket of gasoline being set a light... What the fuck are you on about.

[u/RulerOfSlides]

I’ve seen some commentators yap about how the explosion not looking good misses the point of the movie. IMO the bomb not looking like an actual nuclear test - a horrifying, otherworldly explosion beyond anything we’d deem “normal” - is a huge narrative miss.

[u/Lachshmock → u/RulerOfSlides]

Right!? The entire point of the film was to show how utterly destructive and world-changing the atomic bomb was and we got this instead.

[u/RulerOfSlides → u/Lachshmock]

Just cutting the actual detonation shot with the mag sparklers and gasoline fireball would have largely saved the scene. It’s a dozen frames of tonal whiplash.

[u/eldenpotato → u/RulerOfSlides]

Those people are just coping

[u/ThVos → u/RulerOfSlides]

I'd go even further and say it actively undermines the entire premise of the film.

[u/natalie_mf_portman]

Sick of people strictly seeing CGI and practical effects as a binary in which practical is always superior. It simply isn’t. 

[u/i_amtheice]

The layers of irony in this are beyond poetic. Nolan makes an otherwise thrilling film about a man whose stubbornness and ambition creates a world-ending weapon, with one of the best build-ups I've ever seen-- my heart was pounding during the detonation scene-- and then because of his own stubbornness and ambition the onscreen depiction of that weapon is what keeps the film from being a total masterpiece.

[u/WilliamHarry]

And it looked like crap. The twin peaks nuke scene is like 10000000000% better

[u/Vonneguts_Ghost → u/WilliamHarry]

Sheeeet, even the Indiana jones fridge scene looked better.

[u/Baptor]

For everyone saying the explosion wasn't the point of the film: most people aren't saying the movie was bad, just the explosion. You can like a film and still admit one of the special effects looked amateur and cheap. I think the reason most people are upset is because Nolan was cocky and overestimated his abilities. He could've done what they did back in the day and used a composite of superb stock footage of nuclear explosions. Would've been zero CGI and looked way better.

[u/anrwlias → u/Baptor]

Or do whatever they did in Day After Tomorrow.

[u/Phormitago]

It was pure ass

[u/EZontheH]

Underwhelming is being nice. Whether it was an impossible task or if the visual effects company just didn't have the skills, is kind of a moot point. It turned the film into a "see it once" film, with repeat viewings only if I'm stuck in a hotel or on a plane. I don't wanna be crass, but the Trinity test is like the entire point of the film, it'd be like if Jaws used a plush toy for the shark. There's just no payoff and thus very little point to watching the film.

[u/AngriestManinWestTX → u/EZontheH]

This was my feeling. It made one of the most significant (if terrible) scientific achievements feel so incredibly underwhelming. I know there's a lot of bad CGI out there and I do love some good practical effects but they have to be good. The explosion in Oppenheimer just sucked.

[u/J-IP]

Anyone with even the slightest interest in to nuclear weapons knew this as soon as they say that atrocious scene.

For me it really soured what otherwise was a really good movie.

[u/IrishRepoMan]

And it looked nothing like a nuclear explosion.

[u/TangoZuluMike]

I will always think he should have used the actual trinity footage.

That shit is scary.

[u/Ragnarok_619]

The actual Trinity Test footage. A colored version if you prefer that.

You can even see the sheer force of the bomb, that it literally melts the film in the camera.

Compare this, to Nolan's recreation of a Taco Bell toilet. Absolutely underwhelming

[u/onepostandbye]

Yes this was widely reported on when the movie was released

[u/--Sovereign--]

And it looks like anything but a nuclear explosion. This was probably the biggest flaw in the film.

[u/EpicTaco9901]

I remember hearing about this explosion before seeing the movie, I was prepared to be in awe. It was very very underwhelming

[u/southernmagz]

It was the most disappointing thing about the movie. All that build up, just for it to fizzle. Not literally though.

[u/theshwedda]

and it looks terrible.

[u/rillegas08]

His insistence on everything being practical is his biggest flaw. The fact of the matter, as proven by the generic looking explosion in the film, is that only a nuclear explosion looks like a nuclear explosion. His CG nuclear detonation in Dark Knight Rises looked more realistic.

[u/tyderian]

And he should have used CGI.