re: Oppenheimer | Official Reaction Thread | Spoilers

I was glad to see Josh Hartnett back on the big screen. Hope we see him in some more films.

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As hyped as I was to see this movie, I left somewhat disappointed. I liked it. But I expected to love it.

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Just watched it in 70mm. Couldn’t agree more, was quite a snoozer if I’m being honest. 6.5/10

I thought this movie was terrible. They focused on the wrong things and strung it out way too long. This could have been a much more powerful movie if they cut 1/3 of it

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I thought this movie was terrible. They focused on the wrong things and strung it out way too long. This could have been a much more powerful movie if they cut 1/3 of it

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While I wholeheartedly disagree with you, I’m genuinely curious what you think should have been cut out and what was the “wrong things” they focused on?

I think it’s also worth noting that the movie is based on American Prometheus, a biography of Oppenheimer and not solely focused on the creation of the bomb by itself.

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Awesome movie and had no idea until now that Gary Oldman was playing Harry Truman.

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Gary Oldman trying to play every pivotal WWII leader. See him next as Stalin

This is a top 3 film of Nolan in my opinion. Very well done!

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I got a physics degree. I took quantum mechanics with no other students. I just went to the professor’s office.

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That reminds me of one of my favorite scenes. It’s when Opp 1st gets to Berkley and after meeting Josh Hartnett in the lab (very underrated performance btw—I thought he was great) and then leaves to go teach his 1st class to his only 1 student. He gets on the chalk board and has something drawn on there, and asks the student if light acts as protons or waves. Then doesn’t let the student answer and says “it’s both.” Student says, “but that’s impossible, it can’t be both.” And Opp says, “I know. But it is.”

Reminded me of the 1st time I actually understood something about quantum mechanics. I had heard the term before, but didn’t really know much about what it meant. Until somebody on the OT started a thread about the double split experiment with a little cartoon illustration. Blew my fricking mind. I remember being in the office/computer room and trying to wrap my head around how an “observer” could change the way light acts (not the right word, but it’ll have to do) simply by observing it.

Then I had all these crazy epiphanies. I remember saying to myself “the question isn’t ‘if a tree falls in the woods and there’s nobody there to hear it, does it really make a sound?’ The question is if there’s nobody there to hear/observe it, is there really even a tree? Or woods?”

I convinced myself that my living room through the door didn’t exist until I walked into it. To “observe it.” Went down a huge rabbit hole and got to the the philosophical/theological train of thought that some people used “The Observer” as proof of God. If the universe exists, there has to be something outside of it to be able to observe it (i.e. God).

And God as Creator is a theme of Oppenheimer that I haven’t heard anybody discuss. They don’t mention it in the film, but it’s clearly in the subtext. Oppenheimer as God, his weapon giving him absolute power over life and death. Or at least death. And that burden is obviously alluded when he quotes the God Vishnu in the Bhagadav Gita, saying “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Which he’s almost as famous for as building the bomb itself. He realized his profound responsibility as the creator of bomb making him in a way the creator of death itself. The potential death of all mankind. Heavy shite.

But there’s also the theme of Oppenheimer as God when he’s compared to the Greek God Prometheus. It’s on the title card before the film starts, in a kinda too-on-the-nose dialogue exchange, and of course, the film is based on the book American Prometheus . Prometheus giving fire to Man could be see as creating the new, modern man, who could use that fire to evolve by being able to cook their meat, but could also use it as a weapon to destroy his fellow Man. Like Oppenheimer, what responsibility did Prometheus have to make sure his his newly “created,” modern man would wield that powerful tool correctly?

And I can’t believe I’m the 1st to make this connection, but speaking of Prometheus, Creators and their creations, and modern man, has nobody picked up on the allusion to Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein? Whose actual title is Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus? That book is all about having power over life and death and the profound responsibility that the Creator has to its Creation. Not just to nurture and protect it for itself, but to protect others/mankind from being killed/destroyed by IT.

Sorry for rambling. But there are some pretty profound themes this film is dealing with slightly under the surface. It’s not just an interesting biopic. There’s some heavy shite going on here.

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Link? I’d like to see this.

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The thread or the YouTube video? I’m sure I could find the video, but the thread was somewhere around ‘06-‘08, so that might be tricky. I’ll look, though.

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I haven't watched it but don't plan on it either (and I'm a Nolan Homer). Nothing about the movie or story interests me.

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it was a solid movie, great acting across the board and the story was interesting enough but it’s not some movie that will go down as one of the best ever as some in this thread paint it out to be. Worth it to see it once but I don’t see how anyone could go back for more than one viewing. Genius intellect struggles with being a piece of shite in his personal life. Not like we haven’t seen that before.

Yeah, you can get rightly fricked. Do you think I actually believe(d) that? It was just me finally coming to the understanding of the concept. The theory. But I left it there.

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Your just being a jackass

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And even if I did believe all that was actual reality, what about that could possibly paint me as jackass? Ridiculously aggressive—and embarrassingly stupid—reply to that post, you dumb fricking, tiny dick cocksucker.