Oppenheimer - General Information

The upcoming epic thriller based on J. Robert Oppenheimer, the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it.
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hasanahmad
Posts: 489
Joined: December 2011
Take this as a rumor but some leaker who has leaked in past after i asked him to dm me what he knows says about the plot line
The movie is separated into 2 portions. Black and White and Color. The sequences in Color happen before the detonation while Black and White happens after detonation. The detonation is actually shown at the end of the movie as a long sequence but the sequencing is done in classic nolan style ala Memento + Dunkirk where the timelines of his being called a communist and public humiliation and the time he starts helping US build a nuclear bomb converge on the final scene whcih is a detonation. There is apparently no hiroshima shown. so essentially if the movie was shown in sequence it would be start of nuclear testing followed by detonation followed by public humiliation, but Nolan builds tension and converges both parts of his life converge onto the sequence which is as of now over 3-4 minutes long (detonation)
KEM
Posts: 1010
Joined: December 2019
hasanahmad wrote: ↑
December 22nd, 2022, 2:47 am
 Take this as a rumor but some leaker who has leaked in past after i asked him to dm me what he knows says about the plot line
The movie is separated into 2 portions. Black and White and Color. The sequences in Color happen before the detonation while Black and White happens after detonation. The detonation is actually shown at the end of the movie as a long sequence but the sequencing is done in classic nolan style ala Memento + Dunkirk where the timelines of his being called a communist and public humiliation and the time he starts helping US build a nuclear bomb converge on the final scene whcih is a detonation. There is apparently no hiroshima shown. so essentially if the movie was shown in sequence it would be start of nuclear testing followed by detonation followed by public humiliation, but Nolan builds tension and converges both parts of his life converge onto the sequence which is as of now over 3-4 minutes long (detonation)
Has this leaker been accurate in the past?
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Oku
Posts: 3759
Joined: May 2012
Yeah, what does his track record look like?
Because the color switch happening at the time of detonation sounds like it's the majority consensus right now, but I don't think it lines up with what Mr. Nolan said in the Total Film interview.

Nonetheless, if this is a real leak, then I'm glad to hear about the no-show of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, which is sure to disappoint spectacle-hungry folk but makes sense given everything that we've come to know about the film.

I am, however, worried about how the detonation not being shown until the final moments of the film is gonna play in terms of audience reception, given how heavily it's been teased by the regular trailer, the IMAX trailer, and the latest poster.

I can definitely see a negative audience reception along the lines of, "We had to wait two hours for that and it's over? That's it?", reminiscent of Godzilla (2014) and people's disappointment at how little Godzilla was in it.
EOLB
Posts: 402
Joined: April 2022
ConcreteDrifter wrote: ↑
December 21st, 2022, 6:48 pm

Has anyone seen this film with Strathairn and Dennehy on the same subject matter? Seems like it was rated an excellent film by the few viewers that have commented on it, and would be a good appetizer to 7.21.23 Oppenheimer! Thoughts?
I have. It's a great companion piece to 'Oppenheimer' (1980). While it covers the same events with the exception of the security hearing, it focuses a lot more on how many people in the scientific community and the government opposed to the use of the atomic bomb even before Trinity. And general Leslie Groves is even more of a leading role than Robert Oppenheimer. Brian Dennehy is excellent in it.

Those two are the best, in my opinion. 'Oppenheimer' (1980) gives you a better idea of the full story this film will cover, though.
EOLB
Posts: 402
Joined: April 2022
hasanahmad wrote: ↑
December 22nd, 2022, 2:47 am
 Take this as a rumor but some leaker who has leaked in past after i asked him to dm me what he knows says about the plot line
The movie is separated into 2 portions. Black and White and Color. The sequences in Color happen before the detonation while Black and White happens after detonation. The detonation is actually shown at the end of the movie as a long sequence but the sequencing is done in classic nolan style ala Memento + Dunkirk where the timelines of his being called a communist and public humiliation and the time he starts helping US build a nuclear bomb converge on the final scene whcih is a detonation. There is apparently no hiroshima shown. so essentially if the movie was shown in sequence it would be start of nuclear testing followed by detonation followed by public humiliation, but Nolan builds tension and converges both parts of his life converge onto the sequence which is as of now over 3-4 minutes long (detonation)
No Hiroshima/Nagasaki is hardly surprising, but I wonder if he uses any archive news reel footage of those places post atomic bombings.

I do think Oku's concern is valid. I wonder how engaged people will be if the only action sequence is only shown (in full?) as the ending.
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Insomniac
Posts: 916
Joined: February 2012
hasanahmad wrote: ↑
December 22nd, 2022, 2:47 am
 Take this as a rumor but some leaker who has leaked in past after i asked him to dm me what he knows says about the plot line
The movie is separated into 2 portions. Black and White and Color. The sequences in Color happen before the detonation while Black and White happens after detonation. The detonation is actually shown at the end of the movie as a long sequence but the sequencing is done in classic nolan style ala Memento + Dunkirk where the timelines of his being called a communist and public humiliation and the time he starts helping US build a nuclear bomb converge on the final scene whcih is a detonation. There is apparently no hiroshima shown. so essentially if the movie was shown in sequence it would be start of nuclear testing followed by detonation followed by public humiliation, but Nolan builds tension and converges both parts of his life converge onto the sequence which is as of now over 3-4 minutes long (detonation)
Isn't that exactly how Fat Man and Little Boy ends?

Also, I find it hard to believe that Nolan would put so much footage from the climax of the movie into the film's trailers. Very atypical of him.
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Janky Sam
Posts: 143
Joined: March 2017
Oku wrote: ↑
December 22nd, 2022, 6:12 am
Because the color switch happening at the time of detonation sounds like it's the majority consensus right now, but I don't think it lines up with what Mr. Nolan said in the Total Film interview.
I don’t think it contradicts anything Nolan said in the Total Film interview:

"I very much loved the structural assistance and the aesthetic charge of shifting between color and black and white that I had on Memento,” recalls Nolan in Total Film’s upcoming 2023 Preview issue. "I’d always been looking for a reason to go back to that. And in the case of Oppenheimer and the way in which we tell this story, it’s very subjectively [told], but also with a more objective story strand that intertwines with that. It was really the perfect time to go back to that device that I loved so much."

I think the “subjective” story is the one in color where they’re building the bomb, and the “more objective story strand” is the B&W scenes showing the security hearing years later.
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A Borges man
Posts: 686
Joined: November 2019
Oku wrote: ↑
December 22nd, 2022, 6:12 am
 Yeah, what does his track record look like?
Because the color switch happening at the time of detonation sounds like it's the majority consensus right now, but I don't think it lines up with what Mr. Nolan said in the Total Film interview.

Nonetheless, if this is a real leak, then I'm glad to hear about the no-show of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, which is sure to disappoint spectacle-hungry folk but makes sense given everything that we've come to know about the film.

I am, however, worried about how the detonation not being shown until the final moments of the film is gonna play in terms of audience reception, given how heavily it's been teased by the regular trailer, the IMAX trailer, and the latest poster.

I can definitely see a negative audience reception along the lines of, "We had to wait two hours for that and it's over? That's it?", reminiscent of Godzilla (2014) and people's disappointment at how little Godzilla was in it.
As far as everyone running with this one theory is concerned, I doubt the trinity test is being saved for last. I'm trying not to make any assumptions about structure. The book is linear, there is a lot of raw material to sculpt with. Knowing Nolan, their will be structured approach, but I want it to be something unexpected: I don't want it to be a Memento like structure, where the color (past) Black and White (present) alternate or a Citizen Kane/Social Network structure of testimonies that push and pull the narrative through different time. OR it could be like Batman Begins where associations connect the different moments in time.

Since none of the major players, where at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, I also hope we don't get spectacle set pieces of them.
Waitedalongtime
Posts: 285
Joined: March 2022
A Borges man wrote: ↑
December 22nd, 2022, 11:25 pm
Oku wrote: ↑
December 22nd, 2022, 6:12 am
 Yeah, what does his track record look like?
Because the color switch happening at the time of detonation sounds like it's the majority consensus right now, but I don't think it lines up with what Mr. Nolan said in the Total Film interview.

Nonetheless, if this is a real leak, then I'm glad to hear about the no-show of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, which is sure to disappoint spectacle-hungry folk but makes sense given everything that we've come to know about the film.

I am, however, worried about how the detonation not being shown until the final moments of the film is gonna play in terms of audience reception, given how heavily it's been teased by the regular trailer, the IMAX trailer, and the latest poster.

I can definitely see a negative audience reception along the lines of, "We had to wait two hours for that and it's over? That's it?", reminiscent of Godzilla (2014) and people's disappointment at how little Godzilla was in it.
As far as everyone running with this one theory is concerned, I doubt the trinity test is being saved for last. I'm trying not to make any assumptions about structure. The book is linear, there is a lot of raw material to sculpt with. Knowing Nolan, their will be structured approach, but I want it to be something unexpected: I don't want it to be a Memento like structure, where the color (past) Black and White (present) alternate or a Citizen Kane/Social Network structure of testimonies that push and pull the narrative through different time. OR it could be like Batman Begins where associations connect the different moments in time.

Since none of the major players, where at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, I also hope we don't get spectacle set pieces of them.
I wonder how that'll be handled since obviously Hiroshima especially can't be ignored. I'm betting it won't be shown but merely stated onscreen and if we see anything it'll be the awful results. It'll hit Oppenheimer and start both his guilt and also his attempt at redemption, as well as the collapse of his professional life.
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A Borges man
Posts: 686
Joined: November 2019
Waitedalongtime wrote: ↑
December 23rd, 2022, 8:58 am
A Borges man wrote: ↑
December 22nd, 2022, 11:25 pm
Oku wrote: ↑
December 22nd, 2022, 6:12 am
 Yeah, what does his track record look like?
Because the color switch happening at the time of detonation sounds like it's the majority consensus right now, but I don't think it lines up with what Mr. Nolan said in the Total Film interview.

Nonetheless, if this is a real leak, then I'm glad to hear about the no-show of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, which is sure to disappoint spectacle-hungry folk but makes sense given everything that we've come to know about the film.

I am, however, worried about how the detonation not being shown until the final moments of the film is gonna play in terms of audience reception, given how heavily it's been teased by the regular trailer, the IMAX trailer, and the latest poster.

I can definitely see a negative audience reception along the lines of, "We had to wait two hours for that and it's over? That's it?", reminiscent of Godzilla (2014) and people's disappointment at how little Godzilla was in it.
As far as everyone running with this one theory is concerned, I doubt the trinity test is being saved for last. I'm trying not to make any assumptions about structure. The book is linear, there is a lot of raw material to sculpt with. Knowing Nolan, their will be structured approach, but I want it to be something unexpected: I don't want it to be a Memento like structure, where the color (past) Black and White (present) alternate or a Citizen Kane/Social Network structure of testimonies that push and pull the narrative through different time. OR it could be like Batman Begins where associations connect the different moments in time.

Since none of the major players, where at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, I also hope we don't get spectacle set pieces of them.
I wonder how that'll be handled since obviously Hiroshima especially can't be ignored. I'm betting it won't be shown but merely stated onscreen and if we see anything it'll be the awful results. It'll hit Oppenheimer and start both his guilt and also his attempt at redemption, as well as the collapse of his professional life.
In the book they talk about how, i'd have to check to know exactly who, one of the Manhattan Project people was sent to Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped and documented the destruction. Then the major players sat in a room and he projected all the photos, stuff like horses being completely singed on one side things like that.
Edit
Found it:
"On The Hill, many people had similar emotional responses—particularly after
Bob Serber and Phil Morrison returned from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in October
with the first group of scientific observers. Until then, people sometimes
gathered in their homes to try to grasp what had happened. “But Phil was the
only one who really made me understand it,” recalled Jean Bacher. “He’s got quite a wizard tongue and descriptive power. I was just absolutely undone. I
went home and I couldn’t go to sleep; I just shook all night, it was such a shock.”
Morrison had landed in Hiroshima just thirty-one days after the Enola Gay
dropped its deadly load. “Virtually everyone in the street for nearly a mile
around was instantly and seriously burned by the heat of the bomb,” Morrison
said. “The hot flash burned suddenly and strangely. They [the Japanese] told us
of people who wore striped clothing upon whom the skin was burned in stripes. .
. . There were many who thought themselves lucky, who crawled out of the ruins
of their homes only slightly injured. But they died anyway. They died days or
weeks later from the radium-like rays emitted in great numbers at the moment of
the explosion.”
Serber described how in Nagasaki he noticed that the sides of all the telephone
poles facing the explosion were charred. He followed a line of such charred
poles out beyond two miles from ground zero. “At one point,” Serber recounted,
“I saw a horse grazing. On one side all its hair was burnt off, the other side was
perfectly normal.” When Serber somewhat flippantly remarked that the horse
nevertheless seemed to be “happily grazing,” Oppenheimer “scolded me for
giving the impression that the bomb was a benevolent weapon.”
Morrison gave a formal briefing in Los Alamos on what he had seen, but he
also summarized his report for a local Albuquerque radio station: “We circled
finally low over Hiroshima and stared in disbelief. There below was the flat level
ground of what had been a city, scorched red. . . . But no hundreds of planes had
visited this town during a long night. One bomber and one bomb, had, in the
time it takes a rifle bullet to cross the city, turned a city of three hundred
thousand into a burning pyre. That was the new thing.” (American Prometheus, 357-358)
Actor Michael Angarano is play Robert Serber, presumably based of the book, he will have meaty moments.
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