This is the most important thing to happen in the history of the world.

May 9, 2023 1:59 PM

The Oppenheimer trailer is here. The film is directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy as the title and historical character.

(Official site; IMDB; Rotten Tomatoes)

posted by doctornemo (101 comments total)

This look compelling, although I have heard people complaining it looks like all the action is in the trailer.

I already have plans to see Barbie on 7/21, but if I have more time to spare I do imagine it could be an interesting double feature
posted by CostcoCultist at 2:11 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I bet there's gonna be lens flare.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:13 PM on May 9, 2023 [12 favorites]

Oh goodie, a movie that teaches that the way to solve problems is with a giant bomb.
posted by amtho at 2:28 PM on May 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Which is not really the way to _solve_ problems, and it's likely the movie has that as a message -- but very few people will get that part of the movie, and tons of people will see the preview, be reminded about the historical facts, and not at all get the long-term consequences, the idea of what was lost, or any nuance at all.
posted by amtho at 2:29 PM on May 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

and it's likely the movie has that as a message -- but very few people will get that part of the movie, and tons of people will see the preview, be reminded about the historical facts, and not at all get the long-term consequences, the idea of what was lost, or any nuance at all.

It's amazing how this comment gives people at once a ton of credit (that they will bother to take away a significant amount of anything if, indeed, they watch this trailer at all) and no credit at all (that they are too bone stupid to possibly interpret a film correctly, even if they see it, which they won't).
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:32 PM on May 9, 2023 [13 favorites]

Nolan usually delivers so I'm going to reserve my initial reaction that this looks really terrible and wait to see it before I hate it.
posted by dis_integration at 2:34 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

After reading about Op in The Making of the Atomic Bomb, can't wait! Now if they'd only make a movie about Leo Szilard, who Manhattan Project General Leslie Groves characterized as "the kind of man any employer would've fired as a troublemaker." And yet, it was all his idea.
posted by Rash at 2:35 PM on May 9, 2023 [14 favorites]

Too bad Thanos is dead in the MCU, we could have had a rematch of the rap battle he and Oppenheimer had a few years back (one of the best performances in Epic Rap Battles Of History by Nice Peter as Oppenheimer).
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 2:38 PM on May 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

Cillian Murphy would be great in a David Byrne biopic. Or, even better, a surrealist film in which a fictionalized David Byrne makes a cameo.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:39 PM on May 9, 2023 [10 favorites]

Going to withhold judgement on this until it comes out. Interested to see how they handle the Soviet spies - would it have been a better world if only the USA had the atomic bomb for longer? I could see a great movie on this topic being made under the working title Conspiracy Against The Human Race. Also interested to see in what detail and how accurately they treat the physics - one thing you really get a sense of reading the Rhodes book is what an absolute pain in the ass it is to refine uranium.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 2:39 PM on May 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

Now if they'd only make a movie about Leo Szilard, who Manhattan Project General Leslie Groves characterized as "the kind of man any employer would've fired as a troublemaker." And yet, it was all his idea.

To cut Groves just a wee bit of slack, he was under a mandate to get a bomb built before the Germans did, so he pretty much had to hire anyone and everyone with applicable talent.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:42 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

one thing you really get a sense of reading the Rhodes book is what an absolute pain in the ass it is to refine uranium

My admittedly low-level layman's understand of it is you have to vaporize the uranium with fluorine and then spin the gas in centrifuges to get the heaviest particles to sort out and then do that again and again and again.
posted by hippybear at 2:47 PM on May 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

If it's focusing on Oppenheimer, I imagine his reckoning with the doom he birthed will be front and center. At least I hope so. Famously, "I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:48 PM on May 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

This is the most important thing to happen in the history of the world.

Man, the bad timing to release this trailer so soon before the trailer for The Meg 2 The Trench
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:49 PM on May 9, 2023 [12 favorites]

METAFILTER; a surrealist film in which a fictionalized David Byrne makes a cameo.
posted by philip-random at 2:49 PM on May 9, 2023 [13 favorites]

I could hear the dialogue!
posted by betweenthebars at 2:55 PM on May 9, 2023 [13 favorites]

I second the request for a movie about Leo Szilard. Maybe a bad employee, but an interesting character. Among other things, he wrote an interesting set of Ten Commandments.

But this movie also looks pretty good!
posted by mersen at 2:56 PM on May 9, 2023 [7 favorites]

what an absolute pain in the ass it is to refine uranium.

Thank god.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:03 PM on May 9, 2023 [13 favorites]

"build a town, build it fast"

David Strathairn, Dwight Schultz, Daniel London, Cillian Murphy. This looks worth a look. 'Day One' s pretty good, esp. the shutting out of Szilard. Interesting about the 18 months qoate" how do you know that".

"But lost to popular memory is the strange and amazing story of how the United States tried to head off Heisenberg and the Nazis’ efforts. That story started in Ann Arbor, Mich., "

posted by clavdivs at 3:10 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

My stepfather and I shared a love of the original BBC Oppenheimer series, and in fact went to Trinity in New Mexico twice. He's read at least one biography. Early last year he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and not expected to live out the year (and came close to passing away multiple times). Somewhere in there I heard about this version, but didn't tell him because I didn't want to tease something he would have loved but likely not been able to see. He then heard about it through another channel, and we talked about it.

In December he had a rally, and while he's still going to pass away from the cancer, it'll probably be a few years at least. Hopefully he'll be able to see this on streaming sometime.
posted by Gorgik at 3:10 PM on May 9, 2023 [28 favorites]

I grew up close enough to Trinity Site that I've been there more than once and my father has a contraband piece of trinitite he picked up before I was born that will probably be mine someday.
posted by hippybear at 3:12 PM on May 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

But, but.. what if there's time travel?
posted by sammyo at 3:25 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

If sammyo's comment gets deleted, we know there's time travel.
posted by hippybear at 3:26 PM on May 9, 2023 [10 favorites]

But wait, now they can't delete that comment, because we'd know there is time travel. So if it isn't deleted, there's time travel.
posted by hippybear at 3:27 PM on May 9, 2023 [7 favorites]

But wait!
posted by hippybear at 3:27 PM on May 9, 2023 [9 favorites]

Man, the bad timing to release this trailer so soon before the trailer for The Meg 2 The Trench

Oh, it's even worse: the film is being released against Barbie!!!

But, but.. what if there's time travel?

That only works if you have a baby carriage.
posted by praemunire at 3:27 PM on May 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Making the bomb into a character is an interesting choice as was the decision to cast Sir Michael Caine as the bomb. It’s his most explosive role since Carter.
posted by interogative mood at 3:47 PM on May 9, 2023 [10 favorites]

I do have to say... watching this trailer made me wish to whatever divine powers may be that we still had our actual IMAX screen here. I would love to see this projected in 70mm IMAX onto a five story tall movie screen.

Sadly, when they built the fake mall IMAX screens in town, they had a contract that killed the actual IMAX screen from getting actual IMAX big studio movie releases, so while I saw 3 of the Harry Potter films in real IMAX, that contract killed any ability for that screen to make money. Relegated to showing basically only nature documentaries, many of which were really old, that IMAX theater closed down and was actually torn down and no longer exists here.

Nolan is doing what he can to keep true IMAX alive with how he films his movies, but IMAX itself is working to dilute and kill the brand.

/rant
posted by hippybear at 3:56 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

You could also watch the Met Opera recording of John Adams’ opera Doctor Atomic. Here’s an excerpt.
posted by matildaben at 4:06 PM on May 9, 2023

I'm not quite sure this film should be rated "G".
posted by mikelieman at 4:13 PM on May 9, 2023

How I Became Death, the Destroyer of Worlds

or

Things To Do In Las Cruces When It's Hot
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 4:24 PM on May 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

The development of the bomb was more a Los Alamos thing, but White Sands Missile Range is not only very close to Las Cruces but also contains Trinity Site, so it's a weird confluence of various regions across this state that many don't even know exists.
posted by hippybear at 4:28 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Curious what the tone/message of this movie is. Is it valorizing Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project? Or showing how he opened the world to a new stage of horror? Or both? I don't doubt that it will at least try to balance these things, but as I live in Japan, I can just imagine what the reaction of Japanese audiences will be to this movie. And if it deals with Hiroshima and Nagasaki or ends before it gets to that point.
posted by zardoz at 4:30 PM on May 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

There's, like, at least five people in this movie who look exactly like the guy from Mr. Robot. Whosit. Rami Malek. Oh wait, he's in it too! Did people in the 40s maybe just look like that or something?

I mean, seriously, check out this guy. And to a slightly lesser degree, this guy, and of course this guy. Am I crazy? Tell me I'm crazy.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 4:32 PM on May 9, 2023

And a Safdie as famed Magyar ghoul Edward Teller? I’m in.
posted by tftio at 4:37 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Two slightly distracting things about this trailer:

1) Cillian Murphy's voice sounds like he's doing an impersonation of Robin Williams

2) I could not take Matt Damon's delivery of "Why? WHY?! Because it's the most important thing to happen in the history of the world!" seriously. It was like he was doing his character from 30 Rock
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:38 PM on May 9, 2023 [9 favorites]

Will it show hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians--young children, the elderly--getting incinerated, maimed, or doomed to live out the days of their remaining lives in horrible suffering?

Because if it doesn't, it's a fake reality and nobody should pay two cents worth of attention to it. Whether you think the decision to deploy these weapons was ethically justifiable or not, you can't simply ignore the costs to innocent human life imposed by them.
posted by mikeand1 at 4:40 PM on May 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

It could easily be said that those who had things like The Day After or Threads as part of their formative media experiences are maybe better off for the horrors of nuclear war than those which haven't.

I don't think this movie is going to delve into the horrors of nuclear war and the aftermath of the dropped of such a bomb.

I do think there is an argument to be made, even in this supposedly post Cold War era, that we might need more media events depiction the horrors of nuclear war. I don't know if the younger people today cringe in terror the same way people my age do when thinking about this kind of war.
posted by hippybear at 4:49 PM on May 9, 2023 [7 favorites]

Safdie's a really good choice for Teller, I have to say, I recognized him right away without knowing who it was supposed to be (although his line kind of hints at it). I'm sure this is going to be a good film, but I'm a bit worried about Nolan's politics and how they will affect the message. And I worry about the sound mix, as usual, although the trailer was pretty intelligible.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:56 PM on May 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

Oh, it's even worse: the film is being released against Barbie!!!

This joke has been run into the ground so hard on every film enthusiast focused website over the last few months that’s it’s come out the other side of Earth, and now so many films nerds have promised to see Barbie first that if you have little kids looking forward to it you’ll probably have to wait a couple weeks after release to be able to score tickets.

Lots of these people are planning on seeing Barbie and then Oppenheimer on the same day.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 4:57 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

This looks great, but because I am the worst, the main thing I came away wondering is if a general would have called it "World War II" just then, rather than "the war." Turns out it's in period! I am noting this here for any other pedants.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:00 PM on May 9, 2023 [6 favorites]

Bully: face it loser, you'll never become death, destroyer of worlds

Young Robert Oppenheimer: (wipes away tears to reveal expression of newfound determination)
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:13 PM on May 9, 2023 [10 favorites]

Gentlemen… BEHOLD!

/unveils worlds most complicated and destructive cigarette lighter
posted by Artw at 5:18 PM on May 9, 2023

My grandfather was part of the Manhattan Project; Oppenheimer was a family friend (I never met him), as were folks like Stan Ulam and Hans Bethe (I did meet Hans a number of times, including the hilarious occasion when my cousin informed him that he was famous). After the war, my grandfather ended up running T-division for a bunch of years.

I’m not going to watch the trailer for this, but I probably will go see the movie when it comes out. I prefer to go into movies I’m interested in knowing as little as possible, is all. I don’t know what the focus of the film will be, but I’m hopeful it pays as much or more attention to Oppenheimer’s life after the war as before and during. That stuff, and his eventual destruction, say some things about America that I think general audiences could stand to hear these days. So does the development of the bomb, of course, but they’re different things and we hear them more often already.

I don’t mean to come off as an insider or anything; most of the famous folks had left Los Alamos and/or died by the time I lived there. My dad and his siblings knew a lot of them, though - Feynman apparently took my dad to a carnival when he was little; I remember hearing that my aunt once babysat for the Rosenbergs’ kids. Much of my knowledge of the time and characters comes from hearing about people in conversation, and later coming across the names in books and making the connection. (It wasn’t until I was in college, I think, that I understood why “Teller” was spoken in the tone it was - I just knew he wasn’t a very popular fellow, as my grandfather would have put it)

I haven’t read Richard Rhodes, but I remember my brother reading The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb and my grandfather walking through the living room. He looked at my brother, took a puff on his pipe, and said “Rhodes, eh? He got it right with that one.”
posted by nickmark at 5:31 PM on May 9, 2023 [33 favorites]

Which is not really the way to _solve_ problems, and it's likely the movie has that as a message -- but very few people will get that part of the movie, and tons of people will see the preview, be reminded about the historical facts, and not at all get the long-term consequences, the idea of what was lost, or any nuance at all.

/waves vaguely at the entire contents of the book, gives up.
posted by Artw at 5:34 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Rhodes' The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb is the best history of the atomic era and I've read a lot of them. (If you have a physics degree and want to understand the pertinent nuclear physics, read Serber's Los Alamos Primer.)

I've had a copy of American Prometheus, upon which the movie is based, for over a decade. Two friends and I have a pact to read the book, see the movie together (we live in different cities), then argue about it over dinner afterward.
posted by neuron at 5:43 PM on May 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

The original trailer was much more art film, Tree of Life stuff, definitely more psychological. I'd be interested to see if the film is more like rather than a more standard hollywood fare.
posted by sandmanwv at 5:56 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Be warned thar the book contains Oppenheimers second most terrifying creation, some absolutely awful teen/early twenties poetry.

I was also suprised going into the book how much of the early part of it is about the history of antisemitism in America, and really I probably should not have been.

(Cannot claim to be in “have finished the book” club)
posted by Artw at 5:57 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

It’s fun to know about Edward Teller when reading the book with someone as any time he is mentioned you can shout “that fucking shit”. I imagine he’ll show up in the movie.
posted by Artw at 5:58 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

no credit at all (that they are too bone stupid to possibly interpret a film correctly, even if they see it, which they won't)

A) People not seeing the movie are a HUGE part of my point;

B) If one already believes the naieve "point" -- and I'll be surprised if you think such people don't exist in growing numbers -- then the blurb/naieve/overly simplistic version of this might feed your confirmation bias like a stereotyped Italian grandma in a 70's cop drama.
posted by amtho at 5:59 PM on May 9, 2023

I expect there will be just enough critique of the bomb, "I am become death," ambiguities, etc, that they can claim the film is even-handed or even anti-bomb, while at the same time glorifying it in every way -- the awesome spectacle, the war-time urgency, the brilliance of the scientists, the might of the US government, the power of people working together, the importance of everyday human kindness, the joys of movie-making and movie-watching.

Which would be ok, if this wasn't the single most evil invention ever created by humanity. Every participant deserves to burn eternally in hell, and if their participation was necessary to win, then like those who justify torture by dire necessity, they should be willing to pay the price, burn in hell, and be castigated for all time.

(Maybe I'm being too pessimistic though. Who knows -- maybe it will turn out to be the Starship Troopers of its time.)
posted by chortly at 6:00 PM on May 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

Came to recommend the Richard Rhodes, naturally was beaten to the punch.

If we are suggesting movies about Manhattan Project-Era physicists I would like to register my vote for Fermi. We've already learned that Feynman can't be done, sadly, and in any case he has so many excellent documentaries. In this same vein may I also H I G H L Y recommend "The Pope of Physics" by Bettina Hoerlin and Gino Segre.
posted by hearthpig at 6:01 PM on May 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

As little as I think of him as a person, I think Teller is the truly astonishing figure in the story. I'd love to see a story about him that's more nuanced than Strangelove (which is of course wonderful but).

As a child of the late Cold War (born in '71) I soak up all nuclear war shit like a sponge. I'll be interested to see what Nolan, who is a pure formalist, does with a human tragedy like Oppenheimer.
posted by tftio at 6:06 PM on May 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

I would like the Manhattan Projects comic and for it to be utterly bonkers, but that would be a very different kind of thing.

This one seems more clearly to be a tragedy, as it follows Oppenheimer through his early life and then WWII, the creation of a bomb to fight the Nazis that ended up being for something else, and the subsequent Cold War years and persecution.
posted by Artw at 6:06 PM on May 9, 2023

As little as I think of him as a person, I think Teller is the truly astonishing figure in the story.

/kneejerk “that fucking shit!”
posted by Artw at 6:07 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

The famous Bhagavad-Gitad quote, as recounted by Oppenheimer.
posted by mr vino at 6:15 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

/kneejerk “that fucking shit!”

Well, I mean, yeah.
posted by tftio at 6:15 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

→ Famously, "I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

But he may have actually said something closer to "Wow! That was really bright!"
posted by scruss at 6:20 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Sir Michael Caine as the bomb

"You were only supposed to blow the bloody world up!"
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:39 PM on May 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

"... and he is reminded
That Dr. Robert Oppenheimer's optimism fell
At the first hurdle"
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:25 PM on May 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

As little as I think of him as a person, I think Teller is the truly astonishing figure in the story. I'd love to see a story about him that's more nuanced than Strangelove (which is of course wonderful but).

The truth about a person is always more interesting than a Strangelove-type caricature would suggest. Teller really was a curious figure, and in at least one way a prophetic one. In 1957 he addressed the American Chemical Society and warned about the climatic and societal effects of continuing to burn fossil fuels: specifically, melting ice caps and submerged coastlines. This issue was on approximately nobody's radar in 1957. Two years later he gave the same warning in a speech to the American Petroleum Institute. Suffice to say that they did not take the warning seriously.
posted by cubeb at 7:38 PM on May 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

I expect there will be just enough critique of the bomb, "I am become death," ambiguities, etc, that they can claim the film is even-handed or even anti-bomb, while at the same time glorifying it in every way -- the awesome spectacle, the war-time urgency, the brilliance of the scientists, the might of the US government, the power of people working together, the importance of everyday human kindness, the joys of movie-making and movie-watching.

No - that movie was already made in 1947. It was called The Beginning Or The End, and was a US Government, Pentagon-approved docudrama about the development of the bomb that also did much to cement the "Japan would never have surrendered if we hadn't used it" narrative in the public. Hume Cronyn played Oppenheimer.

(I stumbled on a recent book about the making of that film; it discusses how Oppenheimer and many of the scientists only agreed to participate because they thought it was their chance to tell the public just how dangerous the bomb was, but the Pentagon slowly and methodically shut them out. It's kind of tragic.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:02 PM on May 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

their chance to tell the public just how dangerous the bomb was, but the Pentagon slowly and methodically shut them out

Weren't there tourist trips out from Las Vegas to the testing grounds to see the bombs being set off back in the day?

From an appropriate distance, of course.
posted by hippybear at 8:08 PM on May 9, 2023

I have a (maybe not?) irrational fear of atomic bombs. I have nightmares about them. I grew up in Vegas and visiting that fucking museum was like making an arachnophobe visit a dark old building in the middle of a black widow spider infestation.

The “I can watch a spider through a window at the zoo” person in me wants to see this movie because I think it might be fascinating. But I don’t know if I can get through it or handle the aftermath.

Someone please see it first (in the future!) and report back how many mushroom clouds there are, realized in graphic Nolan hyper/sur/realism.
posted by haplesschild at 8:39 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

haplesschild: I don't know how old you are, but if you are my years old, you lived through an era when nuclear bomb nightmares were sort of part of the general atmosphere of existence because Cold War. I'm sorry you are living through this, it is not fun.
posted by hippybear at 8:44 PM on May 9, 2023

In 1957 he addressed the American Chemical Society and warned about the climatic and societal effects of continuing to burn fossil fuels: specifically, melting ice caps and submerged coastlines. This issue was on approximately nobody's radar in 1957. Two years later he gave the same warning in a speech to the American Petroleum Institute. Suffice to say that they did not take the warning seriously.

That’s actually pretty cool though Teller being Teller I Barbour a suspicion that it was because he had a scheme to fix it by blowing something up with a hydrogen bomb.
posted by Artw at 8:52 PM on May 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

I would love to see this projected in 70mm IMAX onto a five story tall movie screen.

At the least, I’m hoping Chicago’s Music Box gets the standard 70mm print.
posted by hwyengr at 9:26 PM on May 9, 2023

B) If one already believes the naieve "point" -- and I'll be surprised if you think such people don't exist in growing numbers -- then the blurb/naieve/overly simplistic version of this might feed your confirmation bias like a stereotyped Italian grandma in a 70's cop drama.

I expressed no opinions about the film one way or another, I was just tickled by the "this food is terrible! and such small portions!" view of the filmgoing public.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:34 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

For those recommending Rhodes know that "the making of the atomic bomb," and its sequel "dark sun: the making of the hydrogen bomb" , while both are comprehensive..... They are very different in terms of readability, the former being much better IMHO.
posted by lalochezia at 9:57 PM on May 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

IIRC, Teller was the one who wanted to use nuclear bombs to build a harbor in Alaska. The proposal did not go over well with the locals.

My grandfather was approached by the Corps of Engineers to run the power plant at Oak Ridge, TN, where they processed the uranium for Fat Man and Little Boy. It's kind of astonishing to consider how my family history would have changed, had he accepted the offer.

I do wonder how different this movie is or will be from the tv show Manhattan, which I definitely recommend.
posted by suelac at 10:19 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I talk to friends and family about the development of the bomb occasionally, when we discuss our nation’s reluctance to conquer seemingly insurmountable problems. It’s documented proof that we, as a nation, can do whatever we put our minds to.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 10:40 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

The famous Bhagavad-Gitad quote, as recounted by Oppenheimer.

Famously, "I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

If there’s one thing I’m hoping will come out of this movie it’s that somebody out there will google the Bhagavad Gita and realize what Oppenheimer actually meant by this quote, which is maybe not quite what people seem to get from the face value reading.
posted by atoxyl at 10:41 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Somehow I had totally missed the news that last December Oppenheimer was posthumously exonerated by the US government and cleared of any disloyalty charges.
posted by autopilot at 12:13 AM on May 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'm sorry but the scene with Einstein here was just goofy af. Borrowing some pithy lines from a poster at another forum: "Like he's some superhero that Oppenheimer has to meet. Real E=MCU moment."
posted by Pachylad at 12:52 AM on May 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

I hope they cover the idea that Oppenheimer and Fermi were so casually discussing, that of radioactive poisoning of the food supplies.

In the letter, Oppenheimer refers to the plan as if it were Fermi's idea, discusses various technical problems to be solved and concludes:

"I think we should not attempt a plan unless we can poison food sufficient to kill a half a million men, since there is no doubt that the actual number affected will, because of non-uniform distribution, be much smaller than this."

The letter does not give details on how the poisoning plan would be carried out but does suggest that strontium, a radioactive byproduct of atomic fission, "appears to offer the highest promise." Presumably the strontium would somehow be mixed into food supplies destined for the tables of Germans or Japanese.

The letter was found by Barton J. Bernstein, a Stanford University historian who specializes in science and technology policy.

Bernstein describes his find and its implications in the May/June issue of Technology Review magazine. Bernstein said he came across the letter while perusing recently declassified documents at the Library of Congress.

The letter, Bernstein wrote, "illustrates an important fact: Amid the horror of World War II, including German concentration camps and the mass killing of Jews, many U.S. scientists, like rank-and-file civilians, were willing to devise new ways to kill the enemy by the thousands and even hundreds of thousands."

I hope the movie covers the absolute amoral horror and stupidity of war.

Einstein (ref):

"I do not consider myself the father of the release of atomic energy. My part in it was quite indirect." Nevertheless, Einstein was frequently asked to explain his role—as he was when a Japanese magazine editor asked him, "Why did you cooperate in the production of atomic bombs, knowing full well their... destructive power?"

Einstein's answer was always that his only act had been to write to President Roosevelt suggesting that the United States research atomic weapons before the Germans harnessed this deadly technology. He came to regret taking even this step. In an interview with Newsweek magazine, he said that "had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing."

posted by vacapinta at 2:08 AM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

... somewhat inadvertently my kid and I watched "Dunkirk" - neither of us knew anything about it, for whatever reason, but we knew it was by the guy who did X and Y and so might not suck. And it did not. I remember seeing "Memento" and appreciating its time-memory stunt and have found so often in so many of his movies this exploration of time and its caprices to be worthwhile.

I'm gonna hope this is similar.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:33 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Another famous Oppenheimer quote is "physics has known sin, and cannot lose this knowledge."
posted by jamjam at 2:36 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Gotta light?
posted by GallonOfAlan at 3:03 AM on May 10, 2023 [8 favorites]

Do Judy and BOB make an appearance?
posted by waving at 3:37 AM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

They are very different in terms of readability, the former being much better IMHO.

Unfortunately, Rhoades wrote his magnum opus and then just went ehhh whatever I write is good now right. Dark Sun is not the worst, that prize goes to the third one in the series (even shorter and even more careless), Arsenals of Folly. That book, despite being published in 2008, sounds like he took all of cold war propaganda seriously.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 4:44 AM on May 10, 2023

How I Became Death, the Destroyer of Worlds
or
Things To Do In Las Cruces When It's Hot

Things To Do In Deming When You're Death
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 5:24 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Lots of these people are planning on seeing Barbie and then Oppenheimer on the same day.

Wow, that's rough. I mean that's a lot of brutal WW II history in one . . . what? What's that? Oh, sorry, I'm just hearing . . . My bad.

Wrong Barbie.
posted by The Bellman at 7:05 AM on May 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

*record scratch*

Yep, that's me: Death, the Destroyer of Worlds. I guess you're wondering how I got here...

Seriously though, it's a movie trailer. It's impossible to know in a 3-minute segment whether the movie will be pro-bomb, anti-bomb, or something else. My main takeaway was how many recognizable people are in it, but I guess a lot of people want to work with Christopher Nolan.

Also, I like Matt Damon, but Matt Damon is now 52 years old and somehow still looks like a 25-year-old in old-man makeup.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:02 AM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

The original trailer was much more art film

This was my thought too, and I was looking forward to a psychological examination of the complex character of Oppenheimer presented in the book American Prometheus (which was my Covid quarantine read), not a big-budget remake of Fat Man, Little Boy. (oh, BTW, the Oak Ridge facility refined the Uranium for Little Boy, but the Trinity Gadget and Fat Man used plutonium processed at Hanford.)
posted by St. Oops at 8:45 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Spoiler: It's a bomb.
posted by banshee at 8:51 AM on May 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Seriously though, it's a movie trailer. It's impossible to know in a 3-minute segment whether the movie will be pro-bomb, anti-bomb, or something else.

It's not even the only trailer. There have been two others prior which focused only on Oppenheimer and the bomb itself, and suggest that things will be handled more seriously than people in here are somewhat glibly assuming.

I'm actually curious how similar it is to the film Fat Man And Little Boy from 1989. That dealt with the same subject, but ended at the first test, prior to Hiroshima. Roland Joffe alluded to the dangers of radiation by inventing a character named Michael Merriman, a physicist on the project who was exposed to lethal levels of radiation a few days before the test and died a few days later. Merriman's story was largely based on a physicist named Louis Slotin, who was killed by a lab accident a few months prior to the test.

Incidentally, that book I mentioned was kind of a fascinating read, especially for this Cold War Baby. I'd come of age at a time when the threat had grown so huge that it took films like Threads to scare everyone enough to back down, but I'd always assumed it was simple ignorance that kept everyone thinking nukes were survivable. Turns out that there was a whole team of scientists who wanted to get the word out back in the 1940s that this was a huge problem, but they just got totally shut out by the government with that film. And the story of the film itself is just nuts - the whole thing got kicked off when Donna Reed's old high school science teacher wrote to her to say he had an idea for the film, and they also had Ayn Rand working on one of the screenplay drafts.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:52 AM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm actually curious how similar it is to the film Fat Man And Little Boy from 1989. That dealt with the same subject, but ended at the first test, prior to Hiroshima.

Using my cinema detective skills to pick up vital clues (some bits are in black and white) I suspect we are getting the hearings over his security clearance as framing sequence, so it will be going beyond that. Not doing so would be a pretty weird way to adapt the book, also.
posted by Artw at 9:04 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Not doing so would be a pretty weird way to adapt the book, also.

....Book?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:09 AM on May 10, 2023

I'm sorry but the scene with Einstein here was just goofy af. Borrowing some pithy lines from a poster at another forum: "Like he's some superhero that Oppenheimer has to meet. Real E=MCU moment."

Feynman and Oppenheimer are in the Manhattan Project rec room playing craps. Einstein enters, speaks sternly… “god does not play dice!”

The boys faces fall…

Einstein brings out a deck of cards and smiles.

Big laughs all around.

(Einstein takes them for everything they’ve got)
(Cut to Heisenberg in Germany, miserable)
posted by Artw at 9:33 AM on May 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Bully: face it loser, you'll never become death, destroyer of worlds

Young Robert Oppenheimer: (wipes away tears to reveal expression of newfound determination)

I can't help myself. I read that as Buffy.
posted by Ber at 11:03 AM on May 10, 2023

About the I am become Death quote: Oppenheimer and the Gita, by historian of science (and nuclear weapons) Alex Wellerstein.
posted by elgilito at 12:19 PM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

(I have not seen the trailer and I am not going to see the trailer, because the trailer is Advertising, advertising is evil, and I'm going to see the film anyway)
I'm probably quite a lot younger than most of MeFi and did not spend the bulk of my childhood being taught to live in terror of nuclear war. (Instead, courtesy of my brother the intelligence analyst, I get to spend my 20s doing that...) I disagree absolutely with the notion expressed in this thread that the whole project was evil and should never have been started. Plenty of things are evil and should never have been invented and we know that now, and we should tell people that now, but it's implausible to suggest that the poor useless fuck who invented the semiautomatic firing mechanism in the 1880s is personally responsible for every death caused by the thing, much less the peons who build those weapons in factories. I think this is somewhat similar. Yes, absolutely, many people died horribly. So it goes. Your country would not be what it is today without The Bomb, for better or for worse.
Everyone, every day, is doing something akin to being told 'pull this very slender cord that reaches behind this very opaque curtain' and everyone, every day, pulls the bloody cord because of scientific discovery or politics or boredom or because it's what lets them pay the rent, and no single person can fully understand the system of pulleys behind the curtain that slowly raises the lid of a box and makes us all Pandora. That's history. That's how it works. If you can honestly say that you would turn down the opportunity to receive a blank check and permission to do whatever you needed to do to complete the project that is nearest to your heart and the object of your wildest curiosity, then you're a better person than Oppenheimer and a better person than me. Congratulations. Don't choke on it.
My city library has an interesting skew towards buying books about 'the women who were also working on this very famous historical project and who regular history books insist on omitting, fuckers' so I have read the book in that vein about Oak Ridge and it has a curious through-thread that apart from a very few people very high up, nobody really knew what was happening. The people actually refining the uranium were mainly very young women who had no idea what the machine they were running every day did.
I'm now trying to find both the book the movie is based on and the Rhodes book everyone is rhapsodizing about, because I obviously have very strong feelings about this and I obviously need to refine them more.
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:12 PM on May 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

About the I am become Death quote: Oppenheimer and the Gita, by historian of science (and nuclear weapons) Alex Wellerstein.

Good explanation here. Not to say that it only has one interpretation but even just knowing the basic frame story of the Gita it’s so clearly apposite to Oppenheimer’s situation that it bugs me how often the quote is taken as a one-dimensional “oh no what have I done!?”
posted by atoxyl at 1:55 PM on May 10, 2023

Blast Hardcheese: ... I was just tickled by the "this food is terrible! and such small portions!" view of the filmgoing public.
With Nolan, not so small portions are they?
posted by k3ninho at 3:19 PM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Plus I’m gonna see it on IMAX.

BIG POTATOES TO THE MAX.
posted by Artw at 3:24 PM on May 10, 2023

popping in to add a nudge to “the making of the atomic bomb.” a tome, and yet it was an absolute pageturner. for me, at least. the sequel (dark sun), as mentioned above, is fascinating but not nearly as compelling a read. my understanding is that much of “dark sun” was made possible by the fall of the ussr and previously unavailable info from behind the iron curtain … can’t speak to the veracity of that, but it feels rushed. but still worth reading for the history. it was a remarkable and sometimes scary time for those of us growing up in the 1970s and 80s. thank goodness i was not here yet for the cuban missile crisis. highly recommend “making of” as a stellar historical read, and not just for the manhattan project, but the in depth history of atomic research that led inexorably to trinity.
posted by buffalo at 4:14 PM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I will never understand why anyone takes Christopher Nolan seriously as a director.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:44 PM on May 10, 2023

Merriman's story was largely based on a physicist named Louis Slotin, who was killed by a lab accident a few months prior to the test.

Slotin didn't die until May 1946, and was in fact the person who assembled the Trinity Gadget. I would assume he's going to show up in the film. Daghlian's fatal accident was much closer to the Trinity explosion, but also after (and after Hiroshima), at the end of August 1945. They were both killed by criticality excursions in the same plutonium core, the famous "demon core". Daghlian's death was a dumb accident caused by insufficient safeguards, Slotin's was dumber, and mostly because Slotin was a bit of a cowboy.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:21 PM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

That demon core... one of those "just because we can doesn't mean we should" classics.
posted by hippybear at 6:19 PM on May 10, 2023

No - that movie was already made, in 1947.

The Beginning Or The End, available at the Internet Archive.
posted by Rash at 7:49 PM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

That quote is a mistranslation.
Chapter 11, verse 32 of Bhagavad Gita (without the accent marks):
Bhagavan uvaacha
kalosmi loka-kshaya-krit pravriddho
lokan samahartum iha pravrittah
riteapi tvaam na bhavishyanti sarve
yevasthitaah pratyanikeshu yodhaah

The more appropriate translation is:
The Blessed Lord said:
I am TIME, the mighty destroyer of worlds
here manifest for the purpose of their annihilation.
Even without thee, none of the warriors arrayed in the other armies shall live.

(meaning: even if you do not fight, the end of all these warriors is inevitable, because I as Time have already killed them, so your instrumentality in that work is insignificant)
"Death" is less common translation of "Kalam", Time is the correct one in the context of the verse. This one has bugged me for years, and feels good to finally let it out!

Here the emphasis is on Arjuna's duty as a warrior regardless of the inevitability of the outcome.
posted by techSupp0rt at 7:05 AM on May 11, 2023 [6 favorites]