Just Feel Like I Didnt Get As Much Out Of It As I Could Have - Tumblr Posts
Have you seen Oppenheimer, and if so, should I see it? I, knowing nothing about the movie, just sorta assumed it was either history-related or historical fiction and never learned anything about it or mustered up the give-a-damn to give it a shot (I am not a history buff).
You know...
I saw it...and I generally liked it...but I honestly think that it was kind of messy.
Like here's the thing about historical fiction...most people are not atomic bomb/Oppenheimer experts.
So they don't know most of this stuff by heart.
They remember shit like the Manhatten project and they know jfk and they know truman. They know America dropped atomic bombs on Japan.
But oppenheimer the movie like...throws so much shit at you, without even bothering to give you the context?
Like I say this as someone who has a decent knowledge of American history...there were some parts that were so obscure historically and politically that I honestly didn't know why the fuck I should care.
They would shout out names nonstop, referring to real life people, but these names have no context. Then they'd continue to expound upon the politics of these names...but why would we know who Patton George Lucas and Terry Yasolfis Mayweather and Gary Frederick Friedman are, especially if they were not presidents, senators, or governors?
Like these are random ass administrative assholes and forgotten military figures and obscure political jackals, who weren't well known because they never achieved high offices...
And they were from fifty fucking years ago?
Why would the average film watcher know them unless they fucking studied up?
See I like historical fiction, but it has to make me care!! Give me context!!! Tell me who these people are and show me through drama!!! That's why we're watching a MOVIE and not a documentary or reading a Wikipedia article.
And the main problem is that the movie is 3 hours long and absolutely NOWHERE in it does it EVER give us a fucking year, a location, or even a damn university.
It just throws you at Oppenheimer and says this asshole is sad and he has a lot of sex and he's inventing a bomb.
And it's like...I did enjoy it, when I understood it...but it doesn't let you breathe much.
Like the parts that are great are the parts where you can figure out what's happening.
Oh look they're blowing shit up in the desert.
Or the endless cheating subplots. Or the politics of the classroom and the socialist tendencies right at the height of the McCarthy era.
That stuff was fun.
But the parts that are bad are like...Cillian Murphy talking very quickly about a military prick that he hates while the board that's reviewing his security clearance is talking about people that we never see on screen, who are literally just floating names to memorize.
It was like a pop quiz movie sometimes, and I found that off-putting.
It also flashes between time periods quickly and without easy transitions, just hard cuts, which can be really confusing and odd.
So I would recommend you not see it in theaters if you're not a history buff. Or specifically, a fan of world war 2 and Oppenheimer and know everything about atomic bombs.
Watch it at home so you can Google who Heisenberg is.