my take on Oppenheimer (the character) is that he is motivated in turns by personal ambition, duty to the US, and duty to all humanity. an acquaintance suggested that superposition is a tidy metaphor for oppenheimers motivations: he is motivated by all of them, until someone pins him down and demands he explain himself. but when they look somewhere else, his motives are once again unknown
i can't speak for the actual guy, but i thought the character's motives where insanely clear--"we, as 'good' people, have to take control of this before the bad people can,"
@@quinnmarchese6313perhaps at first, but theres the whole scene where the scientists at los alamos meet and are like, "hitler killed himself, the war is over. we should stop this train before we risk destroying the world" and robert is like "we keep going"
@@flowerheit4512 And yet it's the same calculus. The villain of the week might be gone, but new villains are assured to arise. Now the world in general knows this is possible, you *have to* keep going because who knows who else will develop it and try to gain leverage over you if you don't? Nothing changed with Hitler's death, on this front.
The way I understand Robert's motivation, initially he was naively idealistic enough to take seriously the idea of a "war to end all war". He thought that the bomb would not only bring an end to World war II but make all further war unthinkable. Despite his scientific genius, he was unable to think two moves ahead and foresee that the Soviet Union would build its own bomb resulting in an arms race. At the end, he was brutally disillusioned.
I'm so excited this is finally on RU-vid! I watched it on Nebula already and immediately wanted to share it with my dad. He *loves* your video essay on Interstellar, and I know he's going to adore this.
@@cainiddrie1482i miss when bait comments used to be good. like people actually put effort and thought into them. now its just bots pretending to be the dumbest people alive to farm interactions
I saw the film last weekend, and while I found it perfect in the visual, sound, acting and cast departments I was not sure how to take it on its themes, characters and history, and I thought that I should read the history of it and about Oppie boi. I still want to do this, but your video surely does recontextualize a lot of things. So thank you for this great video! Keep up the great work and take care!
3/4s of Movies With Mikey videos are me struggling to understand what he’s trying to convey because the inferences and non-sequiturs fly by too fast for my ADHD brain to latch onto them properly. The other 1/4 is me smiling at the jokes and appreciating the title cards. Do I have post-COVID brain fog? Has it always been this way? I feel like there are sentences between the sentences he says that I don’t get to hear and those sentences would really help.
I'm kinda the same but sometimes I pick em up on rewatches, other times I'm just along for the ride cuz I love how Mikey writes even if I don't catch everything his throwing at me
Mikey, your passion for all movies just shines through in every video. Love that you respect the art of filmmaking from the bottom to the writers, directors and stars. You show such respect and it is appreciated even if I’m not interested in the movie you’re talking about. I always learn something new from you. Thank you!
I don’t normally see movies twice in the cinema because I can’t afford to most times, but I saw Oppenheimer twice due to my brother wanting to see it after I did first. I was transfixed by the film a second time, and wasn’t bored by the length at all. Oppenheimer holds up.
I’ve seen three times now in different formats (Standard 2D, IMAX, and Blu Ray) and you are absolutely right. To me it’s no doubt the best film of 2023.
24:00 thats amazing cause as a #GenX I was 4 in 1980 but in PA and "the bomb" never came up, wounder if it's due to the space between and how slow info & culture moved in the 80s.
ngl there's a whole ass video essay waiting to be made on JUST on the thematic resonance created with Sunshine by casting Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer
I like how this movie is circular, as one characters story begins another ends so the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning for our characters. I also love how little action is in the movie but the breakneck speed of the scenes transitioning results in the illusion of action, only Nolan could've pulled this off LOL :P
I was getting the worst case of dejavu watching this and it took me several minutes to remember I've already watched it like 2 months ago on Nebula lol
I've been a cinephile since age 12, and have learned to compartmentalize films and not carry them into the real world with me. So, I'll get the themes, but moreso, appreciate the craft and only when video essays explain the themes do I take a second and go "oh shit, that's deep, that, that hits hard." Which is funny also because everyone in my family takes films SO seriously, like my dad couldn't sit through Nebraska because instead of seeing one of my favourite films of all time, he thought I was comparing him to Woody Grant and took serious offense to the comparison.
You had nuclear drills in school? Im five years younger than you and grew up in CA, I must have just missed them or we we're doing them there or something. I did not realize they were happening that late as it was something my boomer parents told me they did when they were in school.
i usually watch RU-vid video essays at 2x speed. i knew i was going to watch this 1 at normal speed when i saw it on my feed. Thanks for creating content that makes me want to slow down my thought process. 🤙🏿
Hey man, I'm assuming you're under 20 years old. Please stop watching content sped up. You are quite literally destroying your ability to take in information if you are treating it as protein and not sustenance.
Wow, Lindsey Ellis and Jessie Gender mentioned one after the other. Well, that's fun. I'd love to support a platform that Lindsey Ellis feels safe on, and that you post to, however the very next individual mentioned is exactly the sort of person that cause Lindsey to shut down her socials. So unfortunately it's plebe tier youtube ad rev support from me and no more. I had something to say about the vid, but I'm kinda mad now.
I came away from this movie wanting the movie about I.I. Rabi. Oppenheimer was one of those rare people who asks the right person the right question at the right moment.
I love that you're pushing back against "ending explained" videos and the like, as the ending of something is not necessarily the part that was most important or moving about the thing. Movies and media in general are much better to be taken in as their whole, and sometimes as their individual parts, but rarely as a simple ending explanation.
To quote Nolan’s own Tenet, “Don’t understand it, feel it.” Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, if you need the ending to a film like this explained to you, you’ll never get it.
I wish Mikey unpacked that a little more besides just flashing that Vanity Fair headline and moving on. It serves the story of Oppenheimer (and by extension Mikey's video essay) but it shouldn't be treated as literally true since that incident is based off fluff and hearsay. Read the actual Vanity Fair article that contradicts its own headline, consult the Cambridge archives to find there was absolutely no record of fallout or repercussions for this *attempted murder*, interrogate the story yourself and realize it doesn't make logical sense. Again, it serves the story of this biopic, but there's no reason to believe that its literally true.
I know it will probably go against your own point, but I would very much enjoy, to have one casa, where an essay talks about clues, choices etc, ( in this case, what made him a bad man, how he distorted reality for him to be good. How others see it and how you see it, etc), and actually say them elaborates them and makes a list. Talk to us as if were dumb. Most easays that do that, are not very good and only talk about the surface. I was always curios to have one case, so I know if I was in the right ball park
He didn't talk about modern nuclear weapons... I think Mickey missed this one or was pro American nuclear policy..... I know Oppenheimer was a good film but Mikey? He should have at least said he was or wasn't pro the bomb that could end us all.
I was just blown away by how clear the structure of Oppenheimer was. Act 1: Hi, I’m Oppie. Just like you, I think Science is AMAZING. Welcome to the inside of my head. Act 2: Did you love that bit in Apollo 13? Well, here’s that, but it’s the hardest engineering and physics problem anyone has ever faced, and if we don’t solve it in the next year, everyone you’ve ever known will die in WWII. Act III: We did it! You (since you’re in my head now) did it! Congratulations. Here is your prize. Your prize is Death. All the death, in a big pile, all at once. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. And for the rest of your life. CONGRATULATIONS.
for what its worth, i dont think the film or the biography its based on is military propaganda. both paint the military as a machine using scientific discovery for its own ends.
That's an outstandingly vapid way of handling media. Do you put 100% faith in every accusation that a film is problematic in some vague yet unforgivable way? It sounds like you don't really care if it's true, just if it's socially convenient.
Love (/s) when people assume a movie is about something and then say because of said assumption they won't confirm or deny their assumption by actually watching the movie and LEARNING something. #sad
@@clarkbarrett6274 Isn't that just voting with your wallet, though? And I don't assume out of thin air, but heard it from people who did watch it and whose analysis I trust.
@@arturo182 Your friends' analysis is wildly off the mark. If anything it's a very clear anti-war story. And anti-nuke. (And I spent 28 yrs in the military, 33 really) You voted (with your feet/wallet) with poor/low information; that's a common ailment these days.
The over simplification and terrible takes in this are too deep to bother typing out. You should listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, Super Nova in the East series., ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oErYYBNCHh4.html Everything in history is far more complex than your, professor's driven pre-established hot takes. If you can't understand the first layer of complexity, how can i trust your take on a directors observation of that same complexity, given you already missed the plot.
