Just went to see Oppenheimer, another collaboration between Christopher Nolan and Kip Thorne; a bit like Interstellar. However, Oppenheimer has more Nolan and less Thorne in it and thereby doesn't have the emotional intensity of Interstellar, despite the far more intense topic. Surprisingly, Feynman and Wheeler are both nearly absent from the movie, despite the major role they played in the Manhattan Project. Alongside the reduced emotional intensity, I would credit the absence of Wheeler and Feynmann to the lower impact of Thorne. In Interstellar, Kip Thorne was an executive producer, whereas in Oppenheimer he was only given a Thank You note at the end.
Here are the things I would have done differently.
The atomic bomb explosions could have been showed in more glory and gory. Trinity made the metal tower that hosted the bomb evaporate and turned the desert sand into glass. This glass is called Trnite, after Trinity.
The scientist in attendance including Feynman and Oppenheimer had to write 3 press releases, corresponding to the scenarios that would not see the whole world destroyed. These scenarios were
(1) failure. An apology for the 2 billion dollars spent and some hopeful thoughts for having another go and more money.
(2) success as predicted. This is what happened, and what went to print. It was important for things to get printed fast, so good to write beforehand.
(3) The bomb would be stronger than expected, but not destroy the whole world. This scenario included the obituaries of the scientists in attendance, including Oppenheimer. This could have made a strong psychological point in the movie.
The explosion had an impact in plant and animal life that could have been showed more graphically. Maybe a mountain lion with cubs in a burrow evaporating from the radiation, dying animals some time after, etc. The prevailing winds took the fallout in the direction of Los Angeles, which should have also been mentioned.
Hiroshima was not shown at all. Here, again, the gory deserved glory. Oppenheimer knew what he did, and there were good reasons for it. Nonetheless, maybe a breastfeeding woman evaporating alongside her baby near ground zero would have made a good shot. Or people making love and being burned into the walls in action. It did happen. And there was a man who survived Hiroshima to take a train to Nagasaki and survive that as well. So while the destruction was horrible, it's not all dark. Some survived. Life did prevail. This is a point worth mentioning.
Last but not least, I found that Oppenheimer's trial played too much of a role in the movie. The trial was wrong, terrible and underserved, but not unexpected. Many scientists of the past had a similar problem. Just thing of Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno or Charles Darwin and their conflicts with the Church, which was the equivalent of what we call state now.
People who change the world should expect to be burned alive, crucified of tortured. Happens in modern days, before our eyes to Julien Assange, Jamal Khashoggi, Osama Bin Laden (one man's terrorist is another man's hero. Bin Laden was a hero of the American cause, like Volodymyr Zelenskyy today when he fought against he USSR with American arms and money), Saddam Hussein, Alexey Navalny, Qasem Soleimani or Nicolae Ceausescu (horrible dictator, who killed many people, but also added a few million people to the population of Romania through his inhumane ban on birth control in all its forms. Most modern Western governments battle the same problem, and none had Ceausescu's success).
And let's not forget Alan Turing who developed the first computers and used them to save the crown of England. It is said he committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple after choosing chemical castration and continued prosecution by the crown of England over jail time for homosexuality; that the crown owned him its existence, did not matter. They did officially pardon him in 2013, and now the 50 pound note carries a picture of his face in a too little, too late show off to "make up" for the injustice. As such, Oppenheimer's fate was neither extreme nor unusual. Many of his Soviet colleagues were killed without much hesitation and for no good reason.
The film mentions a Soviet Nuclear test before Trinity. This never happened. It might have been part of the misinformation at the time, but is presented much like a fact that is not true.
On a funny note, Oppenheimer died of throat cancer. Many years later, David Baltimore, also from Caltech was awarded the Nobel Prize for the relationship between viruses and cancer. HPVs -- Human Papilloma Viruses, that cause usually cervical cancer in women, but, sometimes, throat cancer in men. Thus, a scene where Oppenheimer gives oral sex to a woman would have been nice to see. True that smoking is linked to cancer, although normally lung. Radiation causes cancer too, but the throat cancer Oppenheimer had could have been caused by HPVs, with help from radiation and smoking. But, perhaps, such a scene could have been too controversial -- we don't know exactly what caused the cancer. We do know Oppenheimer was exposed to large doses of radiation, was a heavy smoker, and liked women. These three aspects were all included in the movie minus the connection between HPV and throat cancer.
In conclusion, a good movie. Reasonably accurate. Highly recommended.
