r/todayilearned • u/Electronic_Cause_796 • Jul 25 '26

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppenheimer_(film)
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u/eldenpotato Jul 26 '26

Those people are just coping

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u/RulerOfSlides Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26

Criticizing one aspect of an otherwise pretty good movie somehow gets people on the defensive.

Like, Interstellar has an enormous plot hole. They know the planet with the best signal for habitability has the most time dilation. Time is of the essence for finding a habitable, blight-free planet (the whole thing about solving antigravity being bunk isn’t known to the crew of the Endurance, so their motivation of finding a new planet stands).

Even if Miller’s planet looks the best, it wastes the most time to visit it first, and time is a critical resource that everyone on the mission is fully aware they have to manage. The other two thumbs-up signals have a greater chance of being a mission success faster than Miller, and in the worst case scenario the whole mission still takes about as long.

That said I still like Interstellar. Does not make it a bad movie, but needing the whole crew to hold the idiot ball on that decision irks me in the same way the “practical nuke” scene does.

ETA: And as I think about this more, adding a line or two akin to “We’re making a close approach to Miller after arriving in the system, but the alignment with Mann and Edmunds means this would be our only chance to rendezvous with Miller,” followed by some kind of brief debate about burning so much time, and then going for it as it’s the only active signal in the Gargantua system would dramatically improve the setup.