Oppenheimer the movie and my most recent haircut

[gamecockcat]

While waiting on my stylist (who is quite hot AND really good at her job - win/win!!), she was cutting a 50-ish woman's hair. The client was telling my stylist about going to see Oppenheimer and I overheard her describe the movie she just watched a day or two previous.

1. Said she 'thought' is was about the nuclear bomb.
2. Said it was set in the 'late 50s or early 60s'.
3. Couldn't remember the President who was obviously in the movie.
4. Said she really liked the movie.

I haven't seen the movie but someone with even a hint of historical knowledge should know that the a-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. Or, barring that, during World War II. Which means that it was developed under Roosevelt (FDR) and dropped under Truman. I told my stylist and she laughed her butt off. I mean, how could you watch Oppenheimer and not pick up on any of those very basic historical facts? I mean, I'm assuming they talked about being in the midst of WWII sometime in the movie, which as I recall, was NOT in the late 50 or early 60s. Have we 'educated' a bunch of morons in the US? It's like watching 'Gettysburg' and say it was set in the late 1700s and not sure who was President during that battle but the movie was good. Geez...

 

[Tskware]

But . . . were there any car crashes and chases and bloody shootouts? Those are the most important questions of any movie today, Barbie notwithstanding.

 

[Nightwish84]

None of that is shocking. Have you seen someone on social media have a post of theirs deleted and then go on a rant about freedom of speech? Or talk about how they're supposedly surrounded by tyrants, nazis, and/or brown shirts? How many present and past leaders have been called Hitler by folks who clearly don't know their history?

We're Americans...we say a lot of stupid shit but act like we know everything. Somehow, we do that all at once.

(I'm still amazed at how great Oppenheimer was)

 

[SosaUK1987]

Can’t wait to see it.

 

[JDHoss]

None of that is shocking. Have you seen someone on social media have a post of theirs deleted and then go on a rant about freedom of speech? Or talk about how they're supposedly surrounded by tyrants, nazis, and/or brown shirts? How many present and past leaders have been called Hitler by folks who clearly don't know their history?

We're Americans...we say a lot of stupid shit but act like we know everything. Somehow, we do that all at once.

(I'm still amazed at how great Oppenheimer was)

Not surprising. I used to moderate a local high school sports message board back in the late 90s - early 2000s. I had people physically threaten me and threaten to sue me over their FrEeDoM oF SpEaCh!!!1!! rights. I explained to them that when they read the Terms of Service and clicked on the AGREE box, that they had agreed to abide by the forum rules, which were explicit, they could have posts removed or banned for repeat offenders. Explaining it to them, and how freedom of speech doesn't apply to a message board was a waste of time.

 

[JDHoss]

While waiting on my stylist (who is quite hot AND really good at her job - win/win!!), she was cutting a 50-ish woman's hair. The client was telling my stylist about going to see Oppenheimer and I overheard her describe the movie she just watched a day or two previous.

1. Said she 'thought' is was about the nuclear bomb.
2. Said it was set in the 'late 50s or early 60s'.
3. Couldn't remember the President who was obviously in the movie.
4. Said she really liked the movie.

I haven't seen the movie but someone with even a hint of historical knowledge should know that the a-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. Or, barring that, during World War II. Which means that it was developed under Roosevelt (FDR) and dropped under Truman. I told my stylist and she laughed her butt off. I mean, how could you watch Oppenheimer and not pick up on any of those very basic historical facts? I mean, I'm assuming they talked about being in the midst of WWII sometime in the movie, which as I recall, was NOT in the late 50 or early 60s. Have we 'educated' a bunch of morons in the US? It's like watching 'Gettysburg' and say it was set in the late 1700s and not sure who was President during that battle but the movie was good. Geez...

I had a coworker in 2004 telling me about her niece who was a sophomore at ETSU stopping by her house to eat supper with them early one evening. The news was on, and they were interviewing John Kerry. Her niece said, "who's this guy?" My coworker said, "that John Kerry" Her niece said "who's he?" My coworker said, "he's running for president." Her niece replied with "oh...okay...who's he running against?" My coworker said she nearly choked on her food with that...

 

[Spica Orbit]

But . . . were there any car crashes and chases and bloody shootouts? Those are the most important questions of any movie today, Barbie notwithstanding.

---
And did Vin Diesel play Oppenheimer?

 

[gamecockcat]

But . . . were there any car crashes and chases and bloody shootouts? Those are the most important questions of any movie today, Barbie notwithstanding.

Don't forget superheroes, man!

 

[DreadLox]

It's a good to pretty good movie. But

a) it's a bio-pic and I hate bio-pics
b) it's too damn loud
c) the actors mumble their lines so badly that it needed subtitles
d) so many namechecks that if you blink, you've missed a plot thread that shows up later

The moral quandary of the movie seems to be resolved this way:

Sure, we're going to blow ourselves up, but it's better that we all die than to let those guys kill just us
OR

Blowing everything up doesn't matter because human self-destruction is inevitable.

But I could be wrong.

As a tangent:

Klaus Fuchs presence is a minor thread. Did the movie mention the Rosenbergs? I missed it if it did. But his betrayal apparently (or allegedly) didn't do anything because the Soviets didn't trust his information and just developed their own bomb through trial and error.

 

[Creed Bratton]

It's a good to pretty good movie. But

a) it's a bio-pic and I hate bio-pics
b) it's too damn loud
c) the actors mumble their lines so badly that it needed subtitles
d) so many namechecks that if you blink, you've missed a plot thread that shows up later

The moral quandary of the movie seems to be resolved this way:

Sure, we're going to blow ourselves up, but it's better that we all die than to let those guys kill just us
OR

Blowing everything up doesn't matter because human self-destruction is inevitable.

But I could be wrong.

As a tangent:

Klaus Fuchs presence is a minor thread. Did the movie mention the Rosenbergs? I missed it if it did. But his betrayal apparently (or allegedly) didn't do anything because the Soviets didn't trust his information and just developed their own bomb through trial and error.

And it's too long. They could have easily cut the movie from 3 hours down to 2 and it wouldn't have hurt a thing.

 

[gamecockcat]

And it's too long. They could have easily cut the movie from 3 hours down to 2 and it wouldn't have hurt a thing.

And, evidently, not missed out educating at least one viewer .

 

[LordEggForgotHisPassword]

My wife has a PhD in a real discipline (not history) and would believe that the victors in the Peloponnesian War were the Pelops.

 

[NociHTTP]

If someone is really poor at history, it's possible that they might think the nuclear bomb was dropped in the 1950's.

You may find it interesting that the video game Fallout 4 has a bunch of nuclear-themed music about the atom bomb, and some of that music actually are from the 1950's. Apparently back then they had music about that stuff playing in the juke boxes. Everything you see in that game from "before the war" has a 50's look to it. The weapons, clothing, armor, automobiles, signs, homes, everything. Even if that type of game isn't up your alley, from a historical (loosely so) perspective it's worth taking it in. If you haven't heard that music before, it will haunt you.

 

[Ron Mehico]

Are you asking me if I believe a young girl (I think it’s a young girl) thought the atom bomb was made 70 years ago instead of 80 years ago? That’s what’s blowing your mind?

 

[gamecockcat]

Are you asking me if I believe a young girl (I think it’s a young girl) thought the atom bomb was made 70 years ago instead of 80 years ago? That’s what’s blowing your mind?

The women in question was in her 50s at least. And, we're supposed to excuse being completely ignorant of history just because a person is young? Bear in mind, the woman had just seen the movie so it wasn't like a pop quiz.

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life - Dean Werner. (Not directed at you RM but the clueless woman).

 

[Ron Mehico]

The women in question was in her 50s at least. And, we're supposed to excuse being completely ignorant of history just because a person is young? Bear in mind, the woman had just seen the movie so it wasn't like a pop quiz.

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life - Dean Werner. (Not directed at you RM but the clueless woman).

I’m not saying she isn’t ignorant, I’m just saying being a decade off is certainly tame compared to some of the incredibly stupid stuff I run into on a regular basis. But I haven’t seen the movie so I’m sure that definitely ups the ignorance for her as I’m sure they made it obvious what decade they were in.

 

[J_Dee]

To digress, a core bit of low-yield nuclear trivia that I like to drop on students:

The Superman story "The Battle of the Atoms" was written and drawn in late 1944 and was intended to see publication in Superman 34 in early 1945, but:

["The Battle of the Atoms"] featured a classic battle with Luthor save for the fact that Luthor's new weapon was an "atomic bomb".

Spoiler

Since the Manhattan project...was in full swing in 1944, the Defense Department wanted nothing tipping off the Germans that America was even considering work on an atomic bomb, not even from a comic book. While the weapon used by Luthor looked nothing like the actual weapon, and was not anywhere near as destructive as the real bomb, government agents came to DC's offices and demanded that the story not be printed until official clearance was given, citing the need for a unified national defense. Obviously, the people at DC were confused, realizing that they must have come up with something more than their normal fantastic story.

"The Battle of the Atoms" was finally published in Superman 38, which dropped onto newsstands on October 31, 1945, just a few months after Little Boy and Fat Man dropped onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9.

In addition, in April of '45:

Alvin Schwartz wrote a story for the syndicated Superman newspaper strip, which involved the use of an atom smasher, or cyclotron. At the time, this concept was still science fiction, but Schwartz's story was close enough to reality that agents from the Defense Department demanded that the sequence not be run to eliminate the possibility of leaks. In an interview with Schwartz, he said, "I'd gotten my material about cyclotrons from a 1935 issue of Popular Mechanics, so I didn't have any idea about the bomb. I never even knew that the FBI got involved until years later when I saw an article in the New York Post which said, 'Superman had it first,' in other words, the bomb."

Jack Schiff, an editor of the Superman comics and newspaper features, recalled in an interview that, "A pair of FBI agents visited DC Comics publisher Harry Donenfeld in early 1945. They insisted we get rid of the cyclotron, and bring the story to a quick conclusion. I refused to make the changes, so Donenfeld arranged for someone else to ghost the changes."

Spoiler

Once the war ended, there were several stories in Time and Newsweek mentioning the censorship of the Superman comic strips. In 1948, Harper's published a previously confidential memo written in 1945 by Lt. Col. John R. Lansdale, Jr, that outlined the War Department's discomfort with the information in these stories. The memo stated that they did not have enough staff to read all comic stories and proposed approaching the companies to police themselves. As Newsweek said, "while Superman could withstand a three-million volt bombardment from a cyclotron... what he couldn't take was the Office of Censorship, which asked McClure Newspaper Syndicate to discontinue references to atomic energy."

Source: https://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/comics.php?topic=articles/supes-war

How these various government agents even found out about the stories in the first place is anyone's guess, but I'd bet DC had at least one mole in the office.

Anyway, these next nuclear covers are only included because I like 'em.

Action Comics 101 (1946) features Superman filming one of the Operation Crossroads detonations (either Gilda, which missed its target by almost half a mile, or Helen of Bikini, which was detonated underwater) that were studied at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the summer of '46.

Superboy 115 (1964) opens with a scientist saying "Superboy, I'm sorry we asked you to swallow..." 'Nuff said. XD

And Action 408 (1985) was published just days after Gorbachev completely took the reigns of the Soviet Union, and soon after, Russia was testing nukes in Kazakhstan.

Spoiler

 

[megablue]

I saw it and thought it was pretty good, but I didn't think it lived up to the hype.
I will say the three hours went by pretty fast, so its length was not a problem.
I will probably not see it again, even when it comes out on Prime or Netflix.

 

[gamecockcat]

I saw it and thought it was pretty good, but I didn't think it lived up to the hype.
I will say the three hours went by pretty fast, so its length was not a problem.
I will probably not see it again, even when it comes out on Prime or Netflix.

Would you say the filmed 'bombed' at the box office?

 

[megablue]

Would you say the filmed 'bombed' at the box office?

I realize it is the fifth grossing movie of the year, so far, and appears to be successful.
I definitely enjoyed it, but just did not feel it was as good as I was expecting it to be.

The Numbers - Movie Market Summary for Year 2023

Annual Movie Market Summary for 2023

www.the-numbers.com

 

[The-Hack]

I'm still amazed at how great Oppenheimer was)

It was well done. It is as though they had a checklist of historical facts/relationships, and fairly smoothly worked them all in.

I was discussing it at a bar with a former physics minor and complained that there’d
been no mention of Fineman. In fact, he was the bongo player at the Christmas party!!

 

[WildcatFan1982]

I read a post on the main board that complained that the movie didn’t mention his ties to communists at all. Which makes me wonder if the poster watched Barbie by mistake

 

[J_Dee]

I was discussing it at a bar with a former physics minor and complained that there’d
been no mention of Fineman. In fact, he was the bongo player at the Christmas party!!

I didn't know that Jack Quaid had been cast as Feynman until a few days before Oppenhiemer's premiere. I'm a Star Trek fan and he also plays one of my favorite Star Trek characters, so seeing him as my favorite physicist was awesome. =)

Spoiler

"We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. It is our responsibility to leave the people of the future a free hand. In the impetuous youth of humanity, we can make grave errors that can stunt our growth for a long time. This we will do if we say we have the answers now, so young and ignorant as we are. If we suppress all discussion, all criticism, proclaiming 'This is the answer, my friends; man is saved!' we will doom humanity for a long time to the chains of authority, confined to the limits of our present imagination. It has been done so many times before.

"It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations."

 

[WayneDougan]

I was in line at a restaurant right after the movie came out. A woman working there announced to a few other people that she watched the movie on Amazon and it was really boring. She couldn't believe people thought the movie was good.

We all kind of looked at each other puzzled... someone then asked "are you sure you watched Oppenheimer? It's not on Amazon yet."

She said of course. And then said asked why a documentary would be such a big deal.

So clearly she was watching something else, but I bring this up because it's amazing how out there some people are.

 

[roguemocha]

Dude just ask a black person in their 20s who freed the slaves, or a whites person(especially females) if they’re against female suffrage. It’s sad.

 

[The-Hack]

It’s sad.

Watch TV folk asking random passers by which country is to our North, and which to the South.

Or asking which is farther North, North or South Dakota . . . .

 

[JumperJack]

Would you say the filmed 'bombed' at the box office?

The reviews are positively glowing.

 

[The-Hack]

I read a post on the main board that complained that the movie didn’t mention his ties to communists at all. Which makes me wonder if the poster watched Barbie by mistake

There was more Commie talk than the time spent on watching the first bomb pop off.

I was disappointed for the lack of topless women!

[Hey, wait . . . just . . . a . . . minute!!].

 

[The-Hack]

so seeing him as my favorite physicist was awesome. =)

Surely you’re joking Mr. J_Dee!

 

[DreadLox]

There's a dramatic refocus in the movie that should be emphasized. All during the bomb's development, Oppenheimer's neuroses and conscience give him fits. After the bombing, Oppenheimer gets some facetime with Harry Truman in which he lays out his personal anxieties and moral qualms. Truman nods and then tells Oppenheimer that the Japanese didn't care who made the bomb. They only cared who dropped the bomb. And that, he said, was me.

Then, as Oppenheimer leaves, we hear Truman tell an aid, "Never let that crybaby in this office again."

The conflict between public morality and private morality.

The same thing plays out from the other direction near the end when the movie grows very preachy. There's a scene where the Los Alamos team gets together for a celebration after the bombings, and long buried nationalism turns the scene into something out of Lord of the Flies. Success has a different moral allure.