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?

Let's all make our minds up and form our opinions on no reading or understanding and think everything is black or white. Lets decide what a film is like without seeing it.

Now a film about Atilla the Hun I would watch!

What could go wrong…oh wait

You need to actually watch the film before you can offer a considered opinion. YABU, it does not glorify him at all. As a PP said, war is a deeply unpleasant business, and no one comes out of the film well.

The problem is you posted this in AIBU, you said yourself you don’t know anything about the film but made a judgement on it without even seeing it or having vague context. So people will reply ‘YABU for these reasons…’. If you didn’t want people to offer an alternative view or provide further context im not sure what you wanted from this discussion

https://www.amazon.co.uk/American-Prometheus-Triumph-Tragedy-Oppenheimer/dp/B0096FDQ1A/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=23JYUUK0CB7UJ&keywords=american+prometheus+oppenheimer&qid=1689962329&sprefix=american+p%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-1

The film is based on this Pulitzer winning book. Christopher Nolan is a great film maker. I haven't seen it yet but I'm pretty sure it won't be a simple story celebrating Oppenheimer as an American Hero.

“Never” needed or “didn’t “ need?
The war in Japan was far from over and the Japanese had vowed to continue.

I haven’t seen the film but I think it’s unlikely that it’s a simplistic 2 dimensional portrayal of an extremely complicated situation involving many varied personalities.

Life is rarely simple.

’Umm wtf completely ignoring the difference between killing adult troops who choose to fight and be killed and the sudden mass killing of thousands of civilians, including children, with the creation of a weapon so horrific it led to the world living forever under threat of destruction?’

Civilians were considered fair targets at that time. It wasn’t until later that there was international agreement not to deliberately target civilians. Not that it’s universally accepted now, for example Russia bombing civilians in Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Geneva_Convention

During WWII and afterwards, reciprocity was the guiding principle. The Blitz (German bombing of London and other major cities) killed 43,000 civilians in 8 months. We responded by killing around 40,000 civilians in a week in the firebombing of Hamburg.

I’m intrigued what people think the problem with Barbie is

And I quote...

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.

OP I really don't understand why you started this thread. If you had actually read anything about Oppenheimer and about the film then you'd know it's not about him being a hero.
The atomic bomb is a weapon of the most unbelievable terror. Don't you think it's worth knowing what that did to the person who felt responsible for the horror that was to become?

There is no problem with Barbie. I got Astronaut Barbie and Vet Barbie for my children when they were little. They are at university studying science based subjects now and neither of them show much interest in wearing all pink or acting like airheads. I imagine the film is very silly and I plan on seeing it because I like silly stuff.

Sorry but I think you are being deliberately goady. The whole Japanese state was evil at the time. Refused to apply the Geneva convention. Thousands of allied troops starved and it beaten to death to build the Burma railway. Mass rape. Internment in concentration camps for women and children.

For a toned down view of just have dreadful they were watch the BBC drama Tenko and the British film bridge over the river kwai.

You come across as an apologist for them. They would never have surrendered...just look at Guam and Guadalcanal...despite clearly losing the Japanese fought to the death

Really, how come you feel uncomfortable about Barbie?

I'd also love to know why you'll "definitely not be going to see Barbie!" as well. What is wrong with that particular film?

Am I the only one who remembered he regretted the bomb making and only built it because Germany I think had the formula of a similar type of bomb? Could you imagine what the nazis would have done if they got to making it first...

Yeah, this. It looks like a very depressing film. Why do you think it portrays him as a hero??

I don't think either Oppenheimer or Barbie are what you think they are. Apparently, both are brilliantly subversive.

If you look at it another way, nuclear weapons achievement a stalemate (mutually assured destruction) which prevented another world war. Around 75 million people died during WW2. We’ve had lots of wars by other names since but nothing on that scale.

This and to the previous poster who said it was unnecessary because the war was all but over, with due respect, this was not the case and I suggest you read up on the facts. It's arguable that the dropping of the bomb ended the war and saved thousands more deaths

The trailer is a good 7 minutes of people looking horrified including the man himself. I have Odeon Limitless. I have seen it many, many times.

Interesting article in the guardian about him..he acted to prevent Hitler using the technology to expand facism; regretted the impact and was later outspoken about Cold War leading to him being investigated for non American activities during 1950s; this led him to move his family to Virgin Islands for the most part to escape attention- locals speculate that this was due to it being possibly the last place to be affected in the event of nuclear attacks on US.

As someone whose father was fighting the Japanese in the Pacific I see it as ending the war. For people who were prisoners of the Japanese I don't suppose they cared as long as the torture and starvation stopped.

Those working on the Manhattan Project were focused on preventing Hitler from taking over the world.
Nagasaki had the largest population of Christians in Asia and was the secondary target that day, the primary being saved due to cloud cover.
Judging the actions of those scientists based on 20/20 hindsight, nearly 80 years later is foolish. Prisoners of War held by the Japanese might share a very different perspective.

There is a brilliant drama about the equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials. I grew up hearing about the war, born not long after and the things I heard in that drama were truly horrific.

I'll see if I can find the name of it.