Confirmed that Nolan is coming to China to promote the movie, in Beijing and Shanghai. The first major Hollywood movie to have such treatment after China ended Zero-Covid policy in winter 2022.

They also release a new Chinese trailer but of course no new footage: https://weibo.com/2108175657/NfaLdzlfc

Special look trailer aside, this trailer was actually the best showcase of the main cast.

DUNKIRKIE wrote: ↑

August 18th, 2023, 10:02 am

Confirmed that Nolan is coming to China to promote the movie, in Beijing and Shanghai. The first major Hollywood movie to have such treatment after China ended Zero-Covid policy in winter 2022.

They also release a new Chinese trailer but of course no new footage: https://weibo.com/2108175657/NfaLdzlfc

Excellent news. Thanks for the updates

Nice trailer!

About Stimson portrayal in the movie: https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2023/07 ... honeymoon/
About the soviet spying on the atomic bomb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_an ... _Rosenberg

Demoph wrote: ↑

August 18th, 2023, 9:14 pm

About Stimson portrayal in the movie: https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2023/07 ... honeymoon/
About the soviet spying on the atomic bomb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_an ... _Rosenberg

Just me being nitpicky, but I'd like to point out that, if you're interested in Soviet espionage on the Manhattan Project, the Rosenbergs are fairly tangential to the whole thing (especially since Ethel wasn't a spy to the best of our knowledge, although Julius certainly was). To quote General Groves' testimony during Oppenheimer's security hearings (in a passage that was classified until 2014!), "I think the data that went out in the case of the Rosenbergs was of minor value. I would never say that publicly. Again that is something while it is not secret, I think should be kept very quiet, because irrespective of the value of that in the overall picture, the Rosenbergs deserved to hang, and I would not like to see anything that would make people say General Groves thinks they didn’t do much damage after all." For the folks I'd personally consider more interesting and relevant, there's Klaus Fuchs (the one who showed up in the film), Ted Hall (a 19-year old physicist who just walked into a Soviet trade office with a stack of papers, wanting to prevent the United States from having a monopoly on the bomb), and Harry Gold (my personal favorite: to quote Alex Wellerstein in his book on nuclear secrecy, he was "a sallow chemist who apparently had fallen into spying not out of strong ideological or monetary affiliation, but because he was lonely and the Soviets provided friendship, appreciation, and comradery. Once he was in FBI lockup, however, this same desire for a human connection led him to happily share as much information as he could."). There are other spies of course (including two that were unknown until relatively recently), but those are the ones I'd recommend looking up (and, as always, Wellerstein has very interesting blog posts about them: https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2015/12/04/why-spy/ and https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/10 ... rosenberg/).

The spying by the Rosenberg may not have been very important, but I think their trial and death sentence are very relevant to how insane and unworthy of a democracy the American justice was in those years. Based on the elements they had, the justice had absolutely no reason to sentence Ethel (except maybe a few months since she was aware of her husband activity) and Julius didn't deserve more than a few years of prison, like all the other spys arrested, including Fuchs in England who did nine years in prison.

However, the prosecution, the judge and FBI had decided before the trial to orchestrate it in order to sentence both of them to death in order, either to make an example for other spys or push them to "name names", depending on whether or not they would end up giving their contacts, which they didn't.
It is sickening to read of such manipulation of justice, especially in a case that ended up with two death sentences. It is in that sense that I think their story is important.

Also the comment of Groves you write here, as well as the one in the Matt Damon thread makes me think that Nolan really went easy on Groves. There's only the trip to Washington where we see his real dark side, stopping Szilard from meeting authority and pushing for the bomb to be used twice on the Japanese population.

DUNKIRKIE wrote: ↑

August 18th, 2023, 10:02 am

They also release a new Chinese trailer but of course no new footage: https://weibo.com/2108175657/NfaLdzlfc

anyone saved that trailer? i am not able to open the link

Demoph wrote: ↑

August 19th, 2023, 5:01 am

The spying by the Rosenberg may not have been very important, but I think their trial and death sentence are very relevant to how insane and unworthy of a democracy the American justice was in those years. Based on the elements they had, the justice had absolutely no reason to sentence Ethel (except maybe a few months since she was aware of her husband activity) and Julius didn't deserve more than a few years of prison, like all the other spys arrested, including Fuchs in England who did nine years in prison.

Just to add to the sense of injustice, the only reason Ethel was sentenced was because David Greenglass (her brother-in-law and fellow spy) testified against her. And the only reason Greenglass did that was because he was given a deal where if he did that (and lie on the stand!), the charges against his wife would be dropped. Quoting Wellerstein, "he didn’t want to leave his children unwatched, even while he himself went to prison."

Demoph wrote: ↑

August 19th, 2023, 5:01 am

However, the prosecution, the judge and FBI had decided before the trial to orchestrate it in order to sentence both of them to death in order, either to make an example for other spys or push them to "name names", depending on whether or not they would end up giving their contacts, which they didn't.
It is sickening to read of such manipulation of justice, especially in a case that ended up with two death sentences. It is in that sense that I think their story is important.

Oh I 100% agree that the Rosenberg trial was extremely relevant historically, but that relevance comes after the actual spying during the Manhattan Project, in the manner you describe. It's very much an out of place event in history, as it was, so far as I know, the only time the United States punished espionage by execution, which is even stranger when you consider they had spied for a country that was an ally at the time (which is why Fuchs got his 14-year prison sentence instead of execution); the whole affair helped instill the fear of "cooperate with us or die" that characterized McCarthyism, and increased political polarization in the early Cold War. But at the same time, I'm inclined to agree with Wellerstein's view that it's difficult to be wholly sympathetic to the Rosenbergs when they deliberately chose to martyr themselves and make orphans of their children rather than confess to espionage. There were FBI agents ready to question them in case of a last minute confession, but the Rosenbergs chose death over prison. Why? For what?

Demoph wrote: ↑

August 19th, 2023, 5:01 am

Also the comment of Groves you write here, as well as the one in the Matt Damon thread makes me think that Nolan really went easy on Groves. There's only the trip to Washington where we see his real dark side, stopping Szilard from meeting authority and pushing for the bomb to be used twice on the Japanese population.

Absolutely, but I think that was intentional on Nolan's part. I don't think there's anyone who actually got along or liked Groves during the Manhattan Project; there's a famous passage from Nichols where he describes Groves as "the biggest sonovabitch I've ever met in my life" but that nevertheless "if I were to have to do my part all over again, I would select Groves as boss." The scientists, however, don't seem to have any praise for Groves. There's a paragraph in American Prometheus that describes the situation well, I think: "In retrospect, [Groves and Oppenheimer] were a perfect team to lead the effort to beat Germans in the race to build a nuclear weapon. If Robert's style of charismatic authority tended to breed consensus, Groves exercised his authority through intimidation. 'Basically his way of running projects,' observed Harvard chemist George Kistiakowsky, 'was to scare his subordinates to a point of blind obedience.' Robert Serber thought that with Groves it was a 'matter of policy to be as nasty as possible to his subordinates.' Oppie's secretary, Priscilla Green Duffield, always remembered how the general would stride past her desk and, without even a hello, say something rude such as, 'Your face is dirty.' This crude behavior made Groves the object of most of the complaints on the mesa, and this deflected criticism from Oppenheimer. But Groves refrained from such behavior around Oppenheimer, and it was a measure of Oppenheimer's leverage in their relationship that he usually got his way." So Groves and Oppie were essentially this "good cop, bad cop" duo at Los Alamos, but if that dynamic isn't fully apparent in the film, it's probably because Nolan's focusing on Oppenheimer's POV, where Groves refrained from displaying his "dark side," as you put it.

Also, the line in which Groves explains why specifically two bombs would be needed to end the war is a post-war rationalization. Before the Japanese surrendered, I believe Groves thought it would have taken the use of around five bombs before the war was over. (And if I'm being overly nitpicky, although Groves stopped the circulation of Szilard's petition, he didn't prevent Szilard from meeting Truman. Instead, Truman had Szilard meet with Jimmy Byrnes, who was to be secretary of state, and the meeting went very poorly.)