Film about ‘father of the atomic bomb’ finally opens in Japan after being delayed by outrage at ‘Barbenheimer’ memes
Archived version: https://archive.ph/8vjF7
That’s probably why the movie was titled Oppenheimer and not Hiroshima & Nagasaki, because the movie was focused on the man and his work and the regrets that came from that work, while nations celebrated the end of a second World War.
This movie was the type of movie that was always going to upset someone, and while it sucks that Japanese citizens were killed, their Emperor’s military might was a brutally murderous raping scourge set loose on that section of the world, while also working with some of the other worst regimes of the world. Overall Japan fucked around and attacked first, did a lot of horrible shit to many different peoples, made some truly horrible friends, and then found out in one of the most devastating ways possible, I feel bad for the innocent civilians, but it was always ever going to end the way it did, if not a lot worse.
I’m just glad Japan grew to be what it is now and that it chose better ways to engage with the world than more attempts at domination, even though Anime, Manga, video games, and more have dominated the world’s hearts.
NPR played an interview with a survivor.
He said that he hoped people in Japan would watch Oppenheimer and see the excitement when the nuclear bomb testing succeeded. He felt that it showed the American point of view and that a bomb was their ticket out of a terrible war with Japan.
He also said we should discuss these things now because by the time the century anniversary comes there will be none of “us” left.
I heard there was a plot to stop the emperor from surrendering, despite the massive devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It would’ve taken 10x as many losses from air raids and ground battles for them to concede.
Few people know about the barbaric shit the Japanese did during WW2. Some really… Really fucked up shit.
Bruh, Unit 731 is a meme at this point.
Lions lead by donkeys podcast has an episode about that, it and a few other episodes has the following trigger warning:
“Everything”
Which is apt.
Unit 731 - It is worse than you think, and keeps getting worse.
Switched strats to focus on a culture victory.
Yeah.
And the whole horror of the bombs devastation wasn’t truly realised until much later, and acknowledged, in the US? Quite a lot later, probably.
We’re watching it from Oppenheimer’s pov essentially, it’s not a documentary.
Article is a bit click-baity. Many of the survivors who saw the film were okay with its depiction and understood why the film presented the atomic bombings the way that it did. The film is ultimately about J. Robert Oppenheimer, and showing the physical outcome of the bombings would have itself been a potentially crass and shocking inclusion in a relatively subdued character study of a complex and tortured individual. Everyone knows that the physical outcome of the bombings on Hiroshima are shocking and terrible and left a lasting scar on the nation, coming to define the national identity of the Japanese, and especially Hiroshima natives that survived the blast, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. But it’s sort of like The Wind Rises. Oppenheimer was a physicist, and a very talented one. That his work contributed to the horrors of war is part of the tragedy of the individual and their story, just like it was for Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of the Zero.
The movie was going to be difficult to get everyone to enjoy honestly. But I do think that last scene where he’s infront of all the people really is done well.
Did the journalist need to submit an article before the end of the week and dug this up from their rough draft folder?
Something is most keenly felt in its absence
Twice as many Japanese would have died had we invaded.
Actually, the Japanese were already trying to find a way to surrender at the time. The Soviet Union invading would’ve been the last straw, the US was trying to get in a bomb first because they didn’t want the Soviet Union to have a victory. And to them, that was worth hundreds of thousands of lives.
