To be uncomfortable with the film Oppenheimer?

[LKM23]

I haven't seen the film, I'm sure it's a brilliant thriller and will be a Blockbuster hit. I don't think I'll watch it though, it makes my feel really uncomfortable.

It feels like a man who at the end of the day killed thousands of people and damaged millions is being celebrated and turned into a hero.

I lived in Japan for 10 years in my twenties. I visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki and spent a lot of time with people both directly and indirectly affected by the dropping of the bombs. Those scars are real and still there and will be for a very very long time. It changed Japan and the people who live there forever and at the end of the day I think he was an awful person.

AIBU?

Anyone seen threads? Now that Is a terrifying film of what will happen if a nuclear bomb goes off

You know there are generations of kids that grew up on these films, right?

On of the early films with nukes and computers was wargames

That one was disneyfied. I’m talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After.

and On the Beach

that doesn’t even cover the ones they showed in school

@Zippeedidodah I wasn’t familiar with threads, but it looks like the same time. So yeah ignore my comment and mea culpa

It's grim and realistic, the build up, the big bang and the aftermath of ptsd and desperation. I've seen the day after it's tame in comparison, threads is something else though.

Yeah it really "chastened" those women and children .... Who must have had a key role in torturing prisoners of war and raping women in China.

I'm curious at to whether people here think that if Irak or Afghanistan had had the resources and had dropped atomic bombs on civilians in the UK or US in retaliation for the invasions, torture etc., and to stop the UK or US military from continuing or expanding their activities.... Whether the posters in this thread would see it as justified and talk about the civilians like they're part of some homogeneous entity "The UK" or "The US", acceoting that the civilians were responsible, or at the very least, fair game or sacrificial fodder.

And those are democracies, might I add, which Japan was most definitely not during WW2.

I'm wondering what part of the Japanese civilians' subjugation, powerlessness, ignorance, lack of vote etc. made them responsible, and acceptable sacrifices to stop their unelected leadership and miltary's actions?

Well even though I've never seen Harry Potter I'm concerned he might suck off Ron and promote homosexuality and satanism.

That's how nonsensical you sound. You're trying to give an opinion (I use that term loosely) on something you literally haven't seen or read about. Baffling.

It's actually an insult that you're visited those places and still don't know the history of the event very well at all.

No he's not made out to be a hero.

Paul Ham's Hiroshima Nagasaki is an excellent, utterly gripping and extensively-researched 500+words exploration of the lead up to the atomic bombing, the events and aftermaths. It uses contemporary testimonies and very moving accounts of the bombings.

In a nutshell the, US earlier bombings of Japanese cities were targeted against civilians. The atomic bombings were on cities where no advantage could be gained by obliterating them and, by modern standards, were a war crime.

Personally I want to see this film as I think it will help open up a realistic debate around nuclear warfare which is a long time coming.

The brutality of these weapons is terrifying.

The casualties from the two blasts were just the beginning of a horrific legacy that has gone on to impact our world both environmentally and also continues to impact servicemen and their descendants.

There have been in the region of 3000 nuclear / atomic weapons tests since WW2, both above and below ground. Weapons available now massively supersede the two original bombs in size and scope.

One must ask just how necessary this continued development of such weapons has been in order to maintain “world peace”.

I have skin on this game. My father is a nuclear test veteran who was in the navy and served 2 years in Maralinga. He developed splenic lymphoma and was part of the class action to try and get answers and possibly compensation for damage done to veterans and their descendants due to the effects of exposure contamination from the tests. The MOD has deliberately withheld evidence that might improve health outcomes for veterans and their descendants, have gas-lit and obfuscated and smeared them, suggesting that their issues are purely psychological because despite research and evidence garnered that shows exposure to radiation can caused genetic alterations to DNA, they claim that servicemen were never subsequently used as Guinea pigs.

Oppenheimer and his colleagues opened a can of worms so vast and devastating that the effects extend far beyond the horrors of the initial blasts.

The populous needs educating about this, and if this film opens people’s eyes to the true scale of potential catastrophe of these weapons, and the lengths that have been gone to to obscure the facts by governments and the military, I’m glad.

The true scale of the ongoing impact of these weapons should be exposed, and if this film opens up debate and further research then I’m glad.

It’s damn well about time that peoples eyes were opened up to the hypocrisy and lies and lengths that states will go to not just against perceived enemies, but also their own people.

Understanding the catalysts and processes is a start, and the rationalisation of the people who set this hellish ball rolling.

I am happy to be considered an enemy of the state on this particular subject.

Historians have spent 80 years arguing if dropping the bombs was necessary or not. They still haven't settled the question, and no one here will either. The bomb was going to be developed, Oppenheimer or not. To assign him such massive responsibility for what happened is to miss the bigger picture. And of course, Oppenheimer felt that responsibility really keenly after the fact. His original motivation was based on thinking the bombs would be used against the Nazis. Oppenheimer was of German Jewish descent and sponsored relatives to leave Nazi Germany.

I have read the book the film is based on. It's an exceptional biography. Oppenheimer was a fascinating man. Worth pointing out that much of the film is about what happens after 1945 and how the US government blackballed him. I haven't seen the film yet, but it's a picture about an extraordinarily complex man, and I would absolutely not call the source material some gung-ho America version. (not to mention, British director, Irish star, other British cast... this is not some patriotic production)

They didn't save allied personnel.

Japan was already at the point of surrender, they wanted to keep their emperor, that was the only condition they asked for.

The allies wanted unconditional surrender, and then they let the Japanese keep their emperor anyway.

The USA dropped two bombs, one uranium the other plutonium. Yes I'm a cynic and I find the fact that they used two different types of bombs makes me think they wanted to drop two bombs.

They then sent in a group of doctors and scientists to examine the effects the bombs had had on the victims, they didn't offer treatment, they just studied the people.

Those people, are known as hibakusha are discriminated against to this day, as are their children and even their grandchildren.

Imagine your nearest large city outside London, imagine that flattened in an instant killing 40% of the population. The survivors have no hospitals, medical centres, even fire stations.

@JudyEdithPerry the uk did not consider the women and children of the cities they carpet bombed either.
@sashh the bombing of Nagasaki saved the life of my grandfather. Who was a pow. Along with the rest of the pows who had managed to survive that long. they were about to be executed so the evidence could be destroyed. The bomb went off and the Japanese fled. And the US army rescued them. To quote a phrase that I hate “educate yourself”

I think, like many times, history has been rewritten and scrubbed to make the truth be different from what it was.

Japan was asked many times to surrender, including after the first bomb. They refused, over and over and kept committing heinous crimes, each one as bad as the last.

The US was not willing to lose another 1M men by invading Japan, so they took the way of the least casualties for both sides. It may not have been pretty, but it was something that needed to be done. More lives were saved by dropping the bombs than if they had not. Truth may hurt but the facts matter.

Yes. A very "inconvenient truth" for some, but yet, indeed a truth.

So, you only want to have rainbows and unicorns instead of the truth about Japan's atrocities in the war. Got it. 🙄

And I KNEW a lot of people that were affected by Japan's "work".

Thank you! Or the missionaries, teachers and children that were put into POW camps, tortured, raped, murdered whenever the camp commander wanted a thrill.

They tortured our POWs because, according to them, a soldier dies fighting or kills themselves but never, ever surrenders. Of course, that changed when they decided to finally surrender. The US did not make many of the Japanese military personnel pay for their war crimes, which bothered and hurt many of the POWs and their families.

So, you are saying that no civilians or children would have died in the two-three years it would have taken if Japan had been invaded? Those would be some pretty intelligent bombs. Many of those "children" would have been conscripted into the Japanese army after a couple of years.

How many children, babies and civilians were killed by Japanese troops in China? The Philippines? The rest of the countries they invaded?

I have read "The Rape of Nanking".

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not bombed as some vengeance by the USA.

I take it the similar way as the person who 'invented' the gun they may have invented the mechanics but they didn't kill millions with it

My sister got my Barbies when I outgrew them. She tore the head off a couple and she didn't become a serial killer.

At least I don't think she ever did.....

Perhaps a cereal killer, she loved her Rice Krispies!

Barbie was cool from the time of her black and white swimsuit to her bubble hairdo to now. Obviously very smart, being a teacher, a vet, an astronaut, a doctor. And she looks so good for her age!

I'll see myself out now. 🤐😉