I Really Liked Oppenheimer. I Know It's Not For Everyone, But As Someone Who Is Interested In STEM And

I really liked Oppenheimer. I know it's not for everyone, but as someone who is interested in STEM and STEM history, especially pertaining to physics, this movie pushed all of the right buttons for me. I think it did a good job at showing just how flawed and utterly human many of these mythologized historical figures were in real life, and how the Manhattan Project was riddled with internal and external political factors from even before its conception.

I also appreciated just how utterly fucking powerful and eldritch they made the bomb. Obviously a significant portion of the movie is dedicated to the creation of the bomb, but it's often sort of a looming figure in the background. It's the increasing number of marbles in the jar, it's the steady theoretical and experimental progress, it's the dropping of dates for those who know the historical timeline of events. And when it's finally revealed, it's Fucking Terrifying. You pretty much never see the full mushroom cloud in frame; it's always a small portion of it or the flash of light shining on our characters. And the sinking feeling you get when the screen is lit up and you just know, you're anticipating that deafening blast from the shockwave because sound travels slower than light. And you feel guilty in a way because you have the privilege of knowing what's coming, while in your mind you know the victims of such devices had no idea before they were either vaporized on the spot or severly traumatized. It conveys so well the perspective of the scientists on the project, that you've challenged god and, although maybe not surpassing it, made something equally as terrifying.

Character-wise, I don't really have much to say. I do like that the latter third of the movie slowed down a lot to focus on the accusations made against Oppenheimer, which helped to flesh out a range of characters who were sort of just set pieces to Oppenheimer himself before the interviews. And despite my previous statement about breaking down the idolization of historical figures, I was indeed excited like a Marvel fan whenever one of my physics blorbos showed up on screen. "Holy shit it's Niels Bohr!!" "omg Edward Lorentz my scrunkly wunkly!!!" "ITS BONGO GUY OMG BONGO GUY I KNOW HIM" like yeah a lot of them turned out to be Not Great People in their personal lives but I can acknowledge that while also geeking out at their recognition in mainstream media.

All in all, very good movie. I intend to watch it with my mom when I get the chance.