First, I would show Mr. Nolan this:
The haunting opening text is lessened by the presentation that makes it look borderline illegible. Like, black text on a partly-black background? Really?
The pseudo-illegibility also makes the thing looks sort of amateurish, like 2003-era Microsoft Office WordArt.
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Second, I would point out to Mr. Nolan his over-reliance on the word "thing".
"Thing" is a filler word that belongs in daily conversations, news articles, and first drafts.
I firmly believe that any and all writing can instantly be improved by removing all instances of the word "thing" and replacing it with another, more appropriate word.
That is especially true in the case of screenplays, which are written and re-written and re-written in advance, and especially truer in Oppenheimer's case, which is in serious contention for best screenplay of the year.
I really do feel that Mr. Nolan himself isn't even aware of just how much he over-relies on the word as a crutch. The word appears frequently in all of his (recent) films and once you notice it, it's impossible to ignore. It's like a "You are now breathing manually" type of thing.
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Third, yes, the Trinity explosion.
I defended the Trinity explosion scene when the film first came out, but the more time goes on, the harder it is to defend how inaccurate it is.
The problem isn't really, "It was underwhelming, it needed more spectacle, it need to be bigger." Instead, I think that the problem with the Trinity explosion scene is two-fold:
1. None of the shots really, genuinely, convincingly look like an atomic/nuclear explosion. The worst offender of course is that pillar of fire shot, you all know which, the one in the top-right of this thumbnail:
2. Second, it's not bright enough. When we see the actors' reactions, their acting says "Goddamn this is bright AF" but the only thing that's lit up is their faces, and only mildly at that. Meanwhile, the background behind them remains completely dark.
In the same way that Mr. Nolan is always insisting that 'whether the audience realizes it or not their brains can subconsciously tell the difference between practical and CGI', people's brains are telling them that something is wrong in this scene because the expressions on the actors' faces just doesn't line up with the rest of the scene.
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Fourth, trim the scene where Kitty goes into a lengthy backstory about her previous husband. It feels like extraneous detail that should have been cut along with the other stuff that got cut when the original four-hour screenplay was trimmed down to three hours.
No matter how 'important' it is, if it's not directly relevant to the main objective (in this case, telling the story of Oppenheimer), then kill your darlings.
The haunting opening text is lessened by the presentation that makes it look borderline illegible. Like, black text on a partly-black background? Really?
The pseudo-illegibility also makes the thing looks sort of amateurish, like 2003-era Microsoft Office WordArt.
-
Second, I would point out to Mr. Nolan his over-reliance on the word "thing".
"Thing" is a filler word that belongs in daily conversations, news articles, and first drafts.
I firmly believe that any and all writing can instantly be improved by removing all instances of the word "thing" and replacing it with another, more appropriate word.
That is especially true in the case of screenplays, which are written and re-written and re-written in advance, and especially truer in Oppenheimer's case, which is in serious contention for best screenplay of the year.
I really do feel that Mr. Nolan himself isn't even aware of just how much he over-relies on the word as a crutch. The word appears frequently in all of his (recent) films and once you notice it, it's impossible to ignore. It's like a "You are now breathing manually" type of thing.
-
Third, yes, the Trinity explosion.
I defended the Trinity explosion scene when the film first came out, but the more time goes on, the harder it is to defend how inaccurate it is.
The problem isn't really, "It was underwhelming, it needed more spectacle, it need to be bigger." Instead, I think that the problem with the Trinity explosion scene is two-fold:
1. None of the shots really, genuinely, convincingly look like an atomic/nuclear explosion. The worst offender of course is that pillar of fire shot, you all know which, the one in the top-right of this thumbnail:
2. Second, it's not bright enough. When we see the actors' reactions, their acting says "Goddamn this is bright AF" but the only thing that's lit up is their faces, and only mildly at that. Meanwhile, the background behind them remains completely dark.
In the same way that Mr. Nolan is always insisting that 'whether the audience realizes it or not their brains can subconsciously tell the difference between practical and CGI', people's brains are telling them that something is wrong in this scene because the expressions on the actors' faces just doesn't line up with the rest of the scene.
-
Fourth, trim the scene where Kitty goes into a lengthy backstory about her previous husband. It feels like extraneous detail that should have been cut along with the other stuff that got cut when the original four-hour screenplay was trimmed down to three hours.
No matter how 'important' it is, if it's not directly relevant to the main objective (in this case, telling the story of Oppenheimer), then kill your darlings.