Oppenheimer, the Bomb, and the Ethics of War

Send us a text

It's the long-awaited Oppenheimer episode! We explore the man, the myth, the movie: J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb." Our esteemed guests are Drs. Todd Timberlake (physics), Kirsten Taylor (international relations, and Clint Peters (literature and film). This episode offers an engaging blend of history, science, and ethics as we scrutinize Oppenheimer's moral dilemmas and understand his legacy as portrayed in the recent film.

We play the game "Oppenheimer or Stoppenheimer?" We explore the ethics of the atomic bomb and modern warfare. We discuss the United Methodist theological position on warfare. And in our "Leftovers" segment, we allow Clint to take a deep dive into his insights on Christopher Nolan's production of the Oppenheimer film.

It is a fun and insightful episode, so please join us at the table, come and get it, and dig in!

The views expressed on Church Potluck are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I felt like I was in jail today.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Save it for the podcast.
Save it for the podcast,alright, so tell that story,
clint.
So what have you been doingthis afternoon?

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Well, hey, everybody, yeah, I went to jail today.
Oh yeah, juvenile DetentionCenter, so I'm taking some of
the creative ideas.
You're no juvenile, no I know,just in my heart, I'm taking a
writing and community class tothe Juvenile Detention Center,
which is not called theDetention Center.
I'm so sorry.
It's called the Rome YouthDevelopment Center, just to be

(00:34):
like progressive, I think,although most people call it the
Bob because it's named afterBob Richards, so you can just
call it the Bob.
So I took the kids to the Bobtoday, the kids being college
students, but I talked creativewriting and I also hear that you
were held up.
Well, I mean there's just I meanthere's so many locks and doors
and like it's like such aSecuritis route to go through
the complex to get to thelibrary We've retalked classes

(00:56):
and then to get out of that,blah, blah, blah.
You need to make sure all thepencils were counted.
You know, one time I was thereand they were about to do a
strip search of everyone becausethey couldn't find a pencil.
Some joker had it but he gaveit up.
So it was good yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Can you all beat that for what you've been doing this
afternoon?

Speaker 1 (01:11):
I felt like I was in jail today.
Alright, I got another one.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Alright, welcome everyone to Church Potluck,
where we are serving up asmorgasbord of Christian
curiosity.
I'm your host, dale McConkey,sociology professor and United
Methodist pastor, and you knowthere are two keys to a good
Church Potluck Plenty of varietyand engaging conversation.
And this is exactly what we aretrying to do here on Church

(01:39):
Potluck.
We're sitting down with friendsand we're sharing our ideas on
a variety of topics from avariety of academic disciplines
and a variety of Christiantraditions.
So let's set the table today.
What are we going to be talkingabout?

(01:59):
Everybody's worried about theatomic bomb, but nobody's
worried about the day my lordwill come, when he'll hit great
gold and money like an atom bomb.
When he comes, it's theOppenheimer episode, and, I
might add, the long-awaitedOppenheimer episode, jay Robert

(02:23):
Oppenheimer, father of theatomic bomb, more recently the
topic of a fantastic movie.
So what about the atomic bombin Christian faith?
Why was the first atomic bombcalled Trinity?
Was creating and dropping theatomic bomb a morally sound
choice?
And what does it mean for ushumans to be living in the
nuclear age?

(02:43):
What should Christians thinkabout war in general and nuclear
war in particular?
Let's chew on these and manyother questions.
You might be asking yourselves,dale, who are the Church
Potluck guests that you haveassembled to chat today, and we
have a star studded group ofguests here to talk to us.

(03:06):
First of all, we have Dr ToddTimberlake.
Todd, you are no stranger toChurch Potluck and we are very
glad to have you here again.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself.

Speaker 4 (03:18):
Yeah, I think this is my third time on the podcast.
I am a physics and astronomyprofessor at Berry College and I
guess I'm here becauseOppenheimer was actually a
physicist, so I'm representingthe physics contingent.
Yes, you are.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
In fact, we are having this podcast at the
absolutely perfect time and Isay that with huge sarcasm,
because it is not in too manytheaters at the moment and you
can't stream it till December.
So it's not the wrong time tobe having the op-ed, but it is
the perfect time because youwere not around later in the
late summer to do this andeverybody said we must have Todd

(03:53):
.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
Timberlake and I hadn't seen the film either.
I actually just saw it thispast weekend.
The timing works great for me.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
I will say for anyone who wants their Oppenheimer fix
Dale, you're it right untilDecember.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah, I wonder how many peopleare out there with an
Oppenheimer.
Is it Oppenheimer?

Speaker 4 (04:08):
or Oppenheimer?
That's a good question.
I've always heard itOppenheimer, but we'll just go
with whatever comes out of ourmouth.
I think they refer to him asOppie Oppie rather than.
Opie, I just don't feel thatclose to him, because OPie is
somebody totally different.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
I like it, Todd.
Again, thank you very much.
And our next guest is a firsttimer.
We have Dr Kirsten Taylor.
Dr Taylor, tell us aboutyourself.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
I am a professor of political science and
international affairs at BerryCollege, which makes perfect
sense for what we're talkingabout today.
It does, and I also teach anhonors class on the atomic era.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Awesome.
We are very glad to have youboth as a first timer and as a
guest for this particularepisode and, of course, you get
a second applause for beingfirst timer, thank you, and we
might give this guy a secondapplause too, but we have Dr
Clint Peters.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Hello, good to see you guys.
I'm a professor of creativewriting, particularly creative
nonfiction, also film lover.
I read a bunch of essays aboutmovies.
I have a burgeoning, obsessivefilm collection.
I think this is my third timeon the podcast.
I did one with Todd and then wedid horror.
Right, yeah, I'm on here justto let you talk about it.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
I'm glad they're so memorable for you.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
They were very memorable.
I like that.
No, it's my memory, it's shot.
But yeah, I'm going to justtalk about the film and the
production, stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Fantastic, let's go ahead and happen.
In the game show mood lately,let's do another game show.
All right, today's game showOppenheimer or Stoppenheimer, of
course.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Already Stoppenheimer , that's right.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
The title of the game show Oppenheimer or
Stoppenheimer, stoppenheimer.
All right, here we go.
So just some questions for youand you tell us whether you are
pro or against with these twotitles here.
The movie Oppenheimer was verygood.
Oppenheimer or Stoppenheimer,dr Todd Timberlake Oppenheimer,
all the way.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
All the way.
Oh yeah, like major OPOpenheimer.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, so, like Academy Award winner, that was a
very easy one.
Good job, everybody.
They're going to get a littlemore difficult as we go along.
Here, though, we should thinkof J Robert Oppenheimer as a
hero.
Oppenheimer, or Stoppenheimer,you're all thinking for this.
Someone just jumped in.
How about that?
I don't like either of those.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
You just remember the discomfort you're feeling right
now when your students arehaving to take multiple choice.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
I would say he's more closely aligned to an antihero
in like modern, contemporaryunderstandings of the term
antihero, like someone whoseactions were following, whose
goals are understandable butwhose actions also precipitate
disasters and other things.
Unintended consequences, right,and it's almost a tragic figure
.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
So y'all are nodding your head in agreement with that
.
So does that mean you're notgoing to?
You're not going to.
I'm not going to be able toforce you into this binary here.

Speaker 4 (06:57):
Nope Oppenheimer or something.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Oh, dale, you're going to Dale, just call me baby
, because you're not putting mein that corner.
All right, there you go.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Well done, baby, all right.
Third question Given thecontext of World War II,
building the bomb was a goodthing to do.
Oppenheimer or Stoppenheimer?

Speaker 1 (07:18):
That's another corner that I don't want to go into.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
Yeah, I have no expertise on which to judge that
.
Can you define good?

Speaker 2 (07:25):
This was for you to decide, and then?

Speaker 4 (07:26):
we were going to discuss the nuance.
So what I will say is I thinkit's an understandable choice at
the time.
I understand people who madethe decision to both build it
and use it.
I understand that choice Inhindsight, knowing more
information than maybe they knewat the time, whether it was at
the right choice.
I don't want to answer.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, how about knowing that the Nazis were also
working on this technology?

Speaker 4 (07:48):
But they actually weren't very.
They had some major stumblingblocks and they found out about
that, it seems.
But that was late in theprocess that we found out that
the Nazis actually were notdoing a very good job of
developing the bomb.
Until that point it made a lotof sense.
Was Japan also?

Speaker 3 (08:02):
working on it.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
Not that I know Okay.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
One thing I'll say is I definitely agree with Todd.
I can understand Hiroshima.
I definitely second guessNagasaki.
Did they need to drop it twice?
You end on your goal.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
I know you have jumped ahead Because I try to be
precise in saying building thebomb was a good thing to do.
The next one, given the contextof World War II, using the bomb
was a good I'll even soften itwas an understandable thing to
do Oppenheimer or Stoppenheimer.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
With what we need today.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Stoppenheimer Hindsight, you'd say
Stoppenheimer, I would.
We'll get more into that forsure.
Any others?

Speaker 3 (08:37):
I would say Nagasaki Stoppenheimer.
I don't know about Hiroshimaenough.

Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yeah, I mean the film touches on the issue of the
original goal was to beat theNazis, to make the bomb, and by
the time we use the bomb, theNazis had already surrendered.
So yeah, it's questionable.
On the other hand, the invasionof Japan how many lives would
that have cost?
That seems to be the debatethat people provide, and I don't
know enough about that too.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
I think there's a lot of other reasons to think that
Japan might have surrenderedanyway, given the chance.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
And the film touches on that.
I know very briefly but yeah,with I will defer to Kirsten's
knowledge and say Stoppenheimer.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
But yeah, we all are quite wishy-washy but, I'm still
going to give you the game showcorrect sound and thank you for
playing Oppenheimer orStoppenheimer.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
Even Alex Trebek doesn't give questions that hard
.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
That's only going to get easier the rest of the day.
Right, we are talking about adifficult subject, but let's
start off with a fairly easyquestion.
Ty, we're going to toss it overto you Just watching the movie.
And, by the way, folks, we'regoing to just not worry about
spoilers or anything, becausethey developed the bomb and they
do use it.
Spoilers as a physicist watchingthis movie, how well do they
get?

(09:55):
The closer you are to something, you see the mistakes and you
see the flaws.
But in terms of physicistsdoing their work together,
theoretical and applied, whatdid you think about the way a
physicist's job was portrayed?

Speaker 4 (10:06):
I mean it's interesting because you don't
really see them doing muchphysics right.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
You see all the numbers on the board that number
sorry letters, all the lettersand all the symbols.
It's all symbols.

Speaker 4 (10:16):
And I will want to watch the film again in part to
study the blackboards a littlemore closely and see if they're
the right things.
But I mean, I feel like theportrayal of the physicist was
accurate.
But mostly what you're seeingis the kind of administrative
side of all of that and thenegotiations and power struggles
.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Well, as an administrator being chair of
your department.
How well was the portrayal?

Speaker 4 (10:39):
Yeah, exactly like the way my department functions.
I mean, I think one of thethings I found really
interesting was the scenes ofthe visions in Oppenheimer's
head, as he's thinking aboutquantum mechanics and the sound
effects that went along withthat, and I thought I wouldn't
claim that's an accurate way ofportraying what it's like to

(11:00):
think about quantum mechanics,but I think it caught some
essence of that Trying tocapture visually what's going on
in the mind.
And so I think it wouldn't haveplayed as well had they actually
just worked through all themathematics on screen Right.
So that was a good choice.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Or just saw Oppenheimer just sitting there
staring at his face, thinkingthat that probably needs a
little bit of visual activitythere.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
Yeah, and one of the things that I, as I understand
it is true about Oppenheimer thephysicist is that he was more
intuitive and less a rigorousmathematician than some
physicist, and so that that sortof visualization as opposed to
just watching him write a bunchof things on paper that may

(11:41):
really capture Some of how hethought.
So, yeah, I thought that wasvery well done.
I don't have complaint there.
There was one statement wherethey said something about
Einstein's special relativityleading to quantum mechanics.
that I was like yeah, not reallyyeah, but other than that, I
was pretty happy with the waythe physics was portrayed.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
I'm just I wanted to read a quote to you guys.
This is from the editor of thefilm.
Jennifer I mean, I guess it'sher name is pronounced a lame
instead of lame, jennifer Lame.
She wrote that when she decidedto work on it she got excited.
Quote I got excited by how cancinema help you understand
something not intellectuallyright, but emotionally right,
and it's an impossible tovisualize that in other ways.

(12:20):
And I do have a quick questionfor you guys who do you think
Nolan talked to first about thismovie?
You guys want to take a stab atthat.
Of all the people involved inthe film, the answer is Andrew
Jackson.
Yes, the president of theUnited States.
No, just kidding, he is thevisual effects supervisor who

(12:41):
has that unfortunate namebecause Nolan wanted to talk to
him about.
How could we make these likevery intellectual things,
emotional for viewers, right,let's face it, like in my I
would admit this like I'm notgonna be able to Intellectually
analyze the things going on, butI want to feel the headspace of
what openheimer and his fellowsare like going through.
What is that?
What does that feel like?
So early on, the specialeffects supervisor would make

(13:03):
these footages of likemetallurgy, like metals, like
dripping into water and likewaveform plasma stuff.
And the second person he talkedto was his composer.
He would show the composerthese images and the composer
would start thinking about themusic because I think this movie
is such a sonic experience.
It was just one of the reasonsI'm a little.
I Do you guys feel this.

(13:24):
I feel like there's gonna bethis anti openheimer wave coming
once it hits streaming, becausepeople are gonna watch it on
their phones and be like, oh,this is boring, how did y'all
see it.
I saw in the theater.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
I mean, but which, like I saw 70 millimeter I wish
I could have, but you know.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
I was looking for an IMAX theater and couldn't find
it, so I just saw it on aregular theater in Acworth.
However, I was the only personin the theater, saved one other
person and ha it was a smallcrowd, it was a small crowd in
it and just the the sound was.
It was intentionally loud, andlots obviously, but it was, but
it was very loud for for oneperson in an empty theater.

(13:58):
Let's get into the morality ofthe issues and Todd.
One of the things that you saidis is there certain knowledge
that should be forbidden?
And I'm just thinking what'sgoing through your mind when you
ask that kind of a question.
It seems like that this is avery difficult thing to achieve,
the idea of forbidding certainknowledge.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
So from a physicist's perspective.
We tend to view the universe assomething that is out there to
be discovered, right, and thereare no limits to what we might
discover.
There is no knowledge that'sforbidden, and I think
physicists tend to think thatmore knowledge is always better,
because, I mean, that's that'swhat we, that's what we're there
for is to try and accumulatethat knowledge.

(14:36):
But you could certainly arguethat there is some knowledge
that can certainly be used indangerous and harmful ways, and
it does raise the question ofour would we actually be better
off not knowing those things,not ever knowing those things,
somehow being forbidden fromknowing those things?

Speaker 2 (14:56):
this actually gets down to the root no pun intended
of the tree of knowledge ofgood people.

Speaker 4 (15:02):
Right, it brings that story to mind.
Right there, what are wecasting ourselves out of the
garden by meddling with thisknowledge that really we ought
not to meddle with and I willfreely admit that I don't lean
that way.
I tend to be on the side oflike it's better to know than to
not know.
But it does raise that questionof, I guess, in my mind Are we

(15:25):
capable of dealing with theknowledge that we find?
And that that's really how Iguess.
How I would spin it is theknowledge in itself is neither
good nor bad, but are we matureenough, are we wise enough to
use that knowledge in anappropriate way, or are we gonna
kill ourselves?

Speaker 2 (15:44):
with it.
This is a theme that has comeup in several of our episodes,
whether we're talking about theinternet or our Artificial
intelligence, and now nuclearwar.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
Oh yeah, AI is like very much the same thing.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, that we have this, these powerful tools.
I think that's what I thinkthese as tools that can be used
for tremendous good, but alsothis knowledge can be used for
tremendous evil.
And so your question goes tocan we restrain ourselves from
the evil side Right of thesetools in order to use them for
the good?

Speaker 4 (16:12):
and your answer is I hope that the answer is yes.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
I'm optimistic, so as a physicist saying you have
faith and the answer is yes, Ihave well, I say, faith in
humanity.

Speaker 4 (16:26):
There are certainly things that rock that faith on a
regular basis.
But yeah, I guess I hope thatwe are wise enough to not
utterly destroy ourselves.
But that doesn't mean there'snot gonna be a lot of pain and
suffering along the way.
So Christian.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Do you have a input on that?

Speaker 1 (16:44):
Oh, I want to also have that faith in humanity.
I think we know the costs ofusing these weapons that we have
, but I think sometimes, even asmuch as we may want some things
, we are prone to behaviors thatkind of lead to the worst
outcomes.
So I think it's not just amatter what we want really is

(17:05):
what I'm getting at that.
It's also a matter of ourperceptions, our likelihood of
misinterpreting things.
And we've got these weapons,and not only do we have them,
but we've got them on the readyto use, and so I'm not maybe so
optimistic.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
I'm worried because I think that no matter how many
Well-intentioned, good peopleare out there, that there is
always someone trying to figureout a way to game the system or
to get In advantage, and whetheryou're talking about new
software technology or theartificial intelligence that
we're talking about, butespecially when you get up to

(17:41):
the level of nuclear weapons,that just it just takes Just a
handful of people, or not even ahandful of people, to want it
for ill purposes to reallycreate literally destruction.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
And I mean we have a lot of controls for these things
, but also different countrieshave different levels of
controls too.
So I mean that that is a realconcern.
I think very good.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Todd, what else do we need to know from a physicist's
perspective on these issues?

Speaker 4 (18:05):
Oh gosh, I have to confess that nuclear physics is
not my area of expertise.
So on the technical side I Iknow the theory of how you build
a nuclear weapon and thankfullyit turns out that Knowing that
theory is not really the hardpart of building a new it's
actually getting your hands onthe materials that you need to

(18:26):
do.
It is the really hard part and Ido like how they touched on
that issue in the film ofactually the Development of the
weapons grade uranium andplutonium that you don't see
happening at Los Alamos right,but they have the glass bowls
with it.
That puts the marbles in therubber.
Going back to Clint's pointcoming up, the visual way to

(18:47):
Portray what was happening andthey don't have to take you to
Oak Ridge to look at the gaseousdiffusion plant.
But but that in In some sensethat was really the hard part of
building the weapon.
Right, there was the difficulttheory part of just
understanding what, was it evenpossible to do this?
But then once you realize thatokay, yeah, the physics checks

(19:10):
out and you actually can do that, you can produce this runaway
chain reaction of nuclearfission, then the hard part is
actually stuff that happenedelsewhere.
But yeah, beyond that, I don'treally know a lot of the details
of the nuclear physics, so Idon't know that I have any
special wisdom.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
You have any particular insight, any of you,
into Oppenheimer himself.
Was he really that level ofstruggling that the movie
portrayed over these issues?
I guess later on he definitelywould.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
I mean, he's an interesting figure from what I
know and I don't know a lot, buthe had a very successful career
before he got involved in theManhattan Project and was
primarily doing stellarastrophysics, something you
could speak to.
Well, a little bit, yeah, buthe was involved in kind of
understanding what happens whenyou have stars that are really

(20:00):
massive and the formation ofthings like neutron stars and
black holes.
He contributed a lot to ourunderstanding of that.
Those are things that are verytheoretical.
I mean neutron stars and blackholes we think are real things
out there in the universe, butthey're not things that impinge
on our lives in any practicalway.
And so I think in some sensethis shift to working on an

(20:23):
atomic weapon was a radicallydifferent type of work for him
and it involved a set of moralchoices.
You don't have to worry muchabout morality when you're doing
the theory of stellar structure.
You do when you're developingan atomic bomb.
So yeah, I think I have thesense that his science led him

(20:44):
in a certain direction thatended up sort of the human side
of it was very different fromanything he'd ever experienced
before, and I think in a lot ofways he probably was not ready
for that.
Not surprising.
I don't know who would havebeen, but yeah, he does come,
this tragic figure, as we weresaying before, that, I think,
was trying to do the rightthings but was caught up in

(21:06):
dealing with questions that hewasn't prepared for.
Because it seems to bequestions about physics at some
point and became questions aboutbehavior and choices that we as
human beings make, andphysicists are not.
They are perhaps less expert atthose than the ordinary,
everyday citizen, which iscertainly not more expert.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Perfect segue into.
Maybe some other folks such asexperts in international
relations might be.
Yeah, and Kirsten, I want tohear a little bit about this
whole project from yourperspective in international
relations.
But also, you and I are bothUnited Methodist members and
you've got some context in termsof the Christian position on
warfare that you can talk aboutas well, Just from the

(21:48):
international relationsperspective, the idea of nuclear
weapons.
What are the issues?
What are some of the majorthemes that you address with
your class Maybe it's a goodplace to start that are relevant
to what we're talking abouthere?

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, I mean we do address a lot of the things, not
specifically about Oppenheimer,but about the morality behind
the bomb, about why we pursuedit in the first place, should it
have been dropped, and in theclass I teach I mean we do deal
with it a little bithistorically and we eventually
get into the IR side of things.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
But I would say, ir being international relations.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yes, I mean, there's just this is a huge area of
research in internationalrelations.
So there's so much we could talkabout In terms of some of the
questions we have already openedup on the floor here today.
I mean, there is the question ofshould we have pursued the bomb
, and I think we did touch uponthe fact that at the point in
time when the US was starting upthe Manhattan Project,

(22:38):
aggressively working toward thebomb, we really did think that
Germany was also working in thesame direction, and so from a
national security perspective,it did make sense.
If our adversary is buildingpotentially this big, massive
weapon and not just an adversary, but someone we're actively at
war with then of course we wantsuch a weapon too, so that we

(22:59):
either can preempt their use orotherwise dissuade them from
using it.
So there is that issue.
But then there's a questionabout, like, as Todd mentioned,
once the war had ended withGermany, why did we need to use
the bomb?
And so there's a lot to thinkabout here, and it's not just a

(23:20):
question of whether or not Japanwas going to surrender.
I mean, the conventional wisdomis we needed to use the bomb
because it would save lives onthe American side, and maybe
even also on the Japanese side.
It would prevent us from havingto engage in another deadly
invasion.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
And the thinking here was that Japan was so committed
to not surrendering that theywould just.
This would be a war ofattrition and lives would be
lost over many months, maybeeven more years, and the bomb
would put a very rapid end tothings.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
And so that has been for decades.
Right, the conventional wisdom.
But I think there's a lot ofresearch to suggest that the war
probably wasn't going to dragon that long.
And there were.
The Soviets had just enteredthe war and we were already
bombing all of their othercities conventionally.
I mean, hiroshima was pickedbecause it was one of.
I mean, it was set asideactually for this purpose, to be

(24:13):
a demonstration for the bomb,but, like almost every other
city had already been bombedconventionally there was no
place left to bomb.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
I love the scene in the film where it's the
secretary of wars don't bombKyoto, because I did my
honeymoon there, and that's true, it is.

Speaker 4 (24:27):
Yeah, it is a beautiful city.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
I'm glad they didn't.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
And so there are so many moral issues to think about
.
So the question, then, is okay,so if we didn't need to use the
bomb to end the war, why did weuse it?
And so there's a lot of reasonto believe was geopolitics that
we are allies with Russia butnot friends with Russia, and so
using the bomb would send amessage for the post war era, or
of a demonstration for othercountries rather than for the

(24:52):
people, exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
And the movie definitely alludes to this
multiple times.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
It does, and I think it's important to recognize that
was not just really backgroundconsideration, but it probably
was a significant factorcontributing to that decision.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Well, what would you say to the folks who would say
this is so much second guessing70 years after the fact that
when you're in the throes of war, do we really have good enough
insight into what was happeningthen and there that we can
second guess the decisions thatwere made then?
What would you say to that?

Speaker 1 (25:22):
I think that's a good question, but I think we can
second guess.
I think that there is logicallysome reason to doubt the
likelihood that the war was justgoing to grind on and on.
I think the US had, prior todropping the bomb, as I
understand it, had a very firmoffer out there to Japan that
are really a demand that theysurrender unconditionally.

(25:44):
That could have been loosenedup and Japan could have been
given more room to maybe tosurrender in a way that was more
amenable to them or they wouldbe more amenable to, and there's
just so many different pathsthat could have been taken.
I guess it's the best answer Ihave that there's so many paths

(26:05):
that could have been taken thatthere's no reason to think that
we only had that one option toend the war.
We cannot know for sure, ofcourse, how they would have
turned out had we taken thoseother paths.

Speaker 4 (26:15):
I'd like to ask a question about, because you
mentioned, the conventionalbombing of other cities.
One thing that I've wonderedabout is obviously the dropping
of the atomic bomb tremendousdestruction, tremendous loss of
life.
Was it really, in that sensethat, much worse than some of
the conventional bombing?

Speaker 3 (26:33):
Yeah, like the Tokyo firebombing was crazy, or like
Dresden in Germany.

Speaker 4 (26:37):
I mean there are other examples where I think you
could say that was just as bad.
So then, what is it about theuse of the atomic bomb that
somehow sets that apart from allthese really awful things that
had already been done by thatpoint in the war?

Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, I mean those other bombings that you
mentioned Tokyo, dresden.
They killed, I think, far morepeople, but over months or years
, whereas the atomic bomb waslike 70,000 people in the
initial blast of Hiroshima andthen, over the course of months,
35 or something.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
I thought it was interesting that the movie also
makes it clear that the hydrogenbomb would have been, was it 10
or 100 times more destructivethan those bombs, more than that
yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
So I mean, I think the difference in the atomic
bomb is that it is truly aweapon of mass destruction that
it does.
A single bomb can actuallycause so much death and
destruction.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
So getting into the church part of church potluck.
Now you said there were manypaths that could have been taken
.
What were some of the moreChristian options, or was there
a Christian option?
How should Christians look atwarfare and international
relations?
What are some of the optionsand perspectives out there?

Speaker 1 (27:47):
I don't know that there is a Christian option to
ending World War II necessarily.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
I meant war in general, because I don't think
that there was a unified voiceout there among Christendom
saying here's how we end it.
But I guess here let me put itthis way In my Christian ethics
class, when I was training to bea minister, the professor
basically said there are twooptions within Christianity
there's just war and there'spacifism, and there's really not

(28:15):
a whole lot.
Right, maybe there was holy warback in the day, but that is
not an option among Christianstoday.
It's either just war theory orthis is obviously not an act of
pacifism.
What was or wasn't doneaccording to just war?
I don't mean to put you on thespot.
No, you're not.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
I mean just war theory fundamentally says that
there are limits to when it isright or moral to initiate a war
.
There are also limits to howwar should be fought, and so, to
be just, wars really need to befought solely for defensive
purposes.
They should be limited in scopeso that you have limited

(28:52):
objectives and you use theweapons that are appropriate for
accomplishing those limitedobjectives and no more.
So limited objective might begaining territory or gaining
control of the population.
Wars should not be unlimitedwithout objective.
You just pummel the adversaryfor the sake of killing them.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
And it sounds like another phrase from your initial
nor should they be preemptive.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
That you have, although that gets really tricky
.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
It gets really muddy in terms of what is preemptive
and what isn't.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah because there are all sorts of theories that
you can deter, sorry, you canuse preemption defensively by
some accounts, but anyway.
And so nuclear weapons, bytheir very definition, are tools
of unlimited war.
They do not discriminatebetween soldiers and civilians,
or combatants and noncombatants.
Their destruction is massive.

(29:43):
There's no way to use at leastthe nuclear weapons we currently
have in our arsenal in alimited way, I think, tactical
nuclear weapons may be raiseddifferent questions, but that's
not what Oppenheimer wasbuilding.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
So you would suggest that, from just war theory
perspective, nuclear weapons offthe table then, because they
breach the protocol of just wartheory.

Speaker 4 (30:05):
Is it a matter of degree, because conventional
large explosives also don'tdiscriminate between combatants
and noncombatants.
But obviously the nuclearweapons are doing that on a much
, much larger scale and, likeyou say, all at once, rather
than the cumulative effect overtime.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, I mean we have other weapons that we use
regularly that also do notdiscriminate cluster munitions
that are being used by Ukraineright now from the US.
We have all sorts ofconventional weapons that do
cross the line if you're using ajust war justification.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
We're trying to make clear.
I'm not sure that that's USpolicy.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
It is not, it is not.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
It's a Christian theological position of when war
would be appropriate, and manyChristians disagree with that.
Even just war theory and say nopacifism is the one and only
alternative that we can have.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
But even just going back to something that Todd had
said, there's also the questionyou ask about degrees.
So what if your country isabout to be defeated in such a
way that it's very survival isat stake?
Right, not just the governmentmight fall, it might be defeated
, but your people may, a largenumber of people may be killed,

(31:21):
large portions of territorydestroyed right, that's
unlimited war.
If you are under threat ofunlimited war, like a nuclear
attack, then does it becomejustified, through just war
theory, to use a nuclear bomb?

Speaker 2 (31:35):
No gray areas, we want black and white.
Just give us the answer here.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
So my, my, my standard line and all my classes
to all my students is the worldis not black and white, it is
gray, it is so gray.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
You guys probably know more about this, but
there's that scene at the nearthe end of the film where he
goes and meets Truman rightplayed awesomely by Gary Orton
and his Winston Churchill makeupagain and he calls openheimer,
behind closed doors, a crybaby,and I read that was real.
He did do that.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
I believe so.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
He really did want these getting openheimer to come
here not to like, bond with himand be like, oh my God, we had
to do this, but they basicallyto be like, ok, this is great,
what's next?
He seemed very interested andvery keen on promoting nuclear
warfare and didn't seem, atleast in the film's portrayal,
to be very bent out of shapeabout using the atom bomb.
And he says this thing to openhymry is you didn't push the

(32:26):
button, I did that.
He wants ownership of that,which I think is evidenced to
this.
Isn't?
This wasn't just to stop thewar that you mentioned earlier?

Speaker 1 (32:35):
I think that's partly it.
I think also we forget, so manydecades away from the event,
that even American leadersAmerican society for sure, but
even leaders were quite racistat the time, and so there was
really no sympathy for thepeople that had been killed.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
What's that book?
War Without Mercy, is it JohnDow?
Ok yeah, it's about the racistrhetoric in World War two.
Yeah, gotcha.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
So what would you say to the folks that would look at
what has happened over the past70 years since World War two,
that we built up all thisarsenal of nuclear weapons.
Russia built up a massivearsenal.
We now have all other countriesat our nuclear states and we
have this mutually assureddestruction out there and we

(33:21):
haven't dropped any more nuclearbombs.
That it seems to be working.
What would you say to this?

Speaker 1 (33:26):
So I would say so soon as we realized how
massively destructive nuclearweapons were, suddenly we, kind
of a policy leader, decidedthey're not for use anymore
except to prevent others fromattacking us, namely the Soviet
Union.
Nuclear weapons today prettymuch exist for deterrence, to
deter other nuclear powers fromattacking us, and we have put a

(33:49):
lot of trust and even indeedfaith in deterrence.
There are a lot of people whoargued at the end of the Cold
War deterrence worked.
We didn't fire single nuclearbomb at each other.
Deterrence worked.
But the problem is it's reallyhard to prove that it didn't
work.
You can demonstrate when itdoes work, which fortunately
we've not had to observe yetafter World War two, but you

(34:09):
can't prove that the existenceof nuclear weapons prevented
nuclear war.
And I think that over thedecades we've come to put a lot
of faith in that theory andpolicy.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Oh really.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, I think that a lot of people just assume that
because we have great bignuclear weapons and now many
thermonuclear weapons that arein fact, so much more powerful
than the bomb that was droppedover Hiroshima, that was just a
baby bomb in comparison to someof what we have today, which is
frightening.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
It is very frightening, yeah, and as I
understand it, there are timeswe came pretty close.
We did, yeah, so that arguesagainst the deterrence idea.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
And that goes back to a point I was making at the
very start, which is, as much aswe might not want war, mistakes
happen.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
Yeah, there's just three layers right, so mistakes
happen and so even if you'recompletely well-intentioned, we
could have some problems right.
It also assumes that we'rerational actors, that we are
acting in our own self-interestand we're not always rational
actors in the way, and alsoassumes some level of innate
goodness, and I think I like thephrase that original sin is the

(35:16):
only, or the doctrine of sin.
Not original sin necessarily,but the doctrine of sin is the
only theological doctrine that'sbeen proven over thousands and
thousands of human history thatwe often act in very Poor ways.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
And I mean even going back to the rational actor
assumption that is assumed.
I mean, deterrence is builtupon the assumption that our
leaders are all rational.
They are not going to engage inthe amount of harm that a
nuclear weapon produces, knowingthat especially if we're
thinking about the Soviet Unionor China they could fight back.
We're not gonna take out theirwhole arsenal in one shot.

(35:51):
But so that whole approachassumes that we all have the
same goal, that we care aboutsurviving more than winning.
So there are people who wouldargue that we do in fact care
about surviving more thanwinning.
But there's also reason tothink that maybe, even if not
today, maybe someday, there willbe leaders who think
differently.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
And it raises that issue of are we mature enough as
a species to handle thisknowledge that we found?
And I think one of the thingsthat is problematic with that is
, when you talk about a species,you're talking about billions
of individuals, and it's the lowend of the maturity spectrum
that we have to worry about.

(36:31):
Right, it's not our most matureand saintly individuals who are
gonna determine this questionof are we mature enough as a
species?
It's the worst case scenarios.
Right, it's the extremist, it'sthose who are not behaving as
rational actors that, if theyhave the power to use these

(36:51):
weapons, are gonna make thatdecision for the species as a
whole right, you just made apoint that I tried to make
earlier, but you made it so muchmore eloquently, so thank you,
that's what I'm here for, dave.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
Here's a.
In his interview with the NewYork Times about his film, Nolan
says that Oppenheimer is themost important person who ever
lived.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
That comes out in the movie too at that point.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
And this interviewer pushes back and it's a little
bit of a hype and he's if myworst fears are true, he'll be
the man who destroyed the world.
What's more important than thatright?
He says?
He's also the most importantbut hopelessly naive right,
Because he had so many ideasabout, like, how we can end the
war with this thing.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Well, that was the interesting thing and that I
agree that does come out in themovie.
The movie comes out that hethinks that this will end the
war and war altogether.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, end war.
Yeah, I'm sorry as a thing,capital W and the other which
does seem incredibly naive given.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
isn't that exactly what Alfred Noble thought of
dynamite?

Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yes, yeah that's a good connection and dynamite
it's incredibly destructiveforce.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
It's made bigger bombs.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, both times.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
So for Oppenheimer to think that this development of
destruction is somehow going tobe the one that saves us, when
we have a clear example withdynamite?
That did not happen, eventhough people thought this was
somehow going to be preventative.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
I have another Nolan quote Because he so that.
Just let me give the back storyreal quick, right.
So Nolan grew up in the UKduring the height of nuclear
anxiety, right and anti-nukedemonstrations and he remembers
the little kid hearing the Stingsong Russians, right when
there's that line, how can Isave my little boy from
Oppenheimer's deadly toy?
And as a kid that name stuckwith him right.

(38:30):
And then he reads later RobertPattinson, the actor, gave him
Oppenheimer's speeches on theset of Tenet as a rap gift.
Hey, filming's done, here you go.
And he started reading that andhe says that you were not
necessarily as he was reading.
When you read the words ofpeople speaking at that time,
you see them wrestling with theimplications and the
consequences of what's happenedand what they've done and he

(38:51):
found that just reallyfascinating.
And then he says you are notnecessarily confronted with the
strongest or worst elements ofyour action in the moment.
And he thought that I thinkthat move that comes out really
clear for me.
Do you remember the scene wherethey're in the auditorium after
the bomb test is gone and he'slike raw America, I think Mary
depends, surrendered.
And then there's that.
Really it's awful, but it'sthat moment where the audio

(39:13):
stops and for a moment you hearjust a child screaming and then
there's this look on his faceBecause so much of this movie is
Silly and Murphy's face, hisface, and violence.
The composer, ludwig Gorsen,said that he had to speak for
Oppenheimer, who I guess in thefilm is not I don't know how he
was in real life, but in thefilm he's very reserved and
doesn't talk a lot Becausethere's always violence playing.

(39:36):
When you see them close up ofhis face and they can be like
joyful, but they can also bevery melancholic and horrific.
And that moment with the scream, just that really got me,
because you also see his facecontorting.
It's just now dawned on himwhat could happen, and it hadn't
been in his naivete right, thathadn't been something.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
Do you want to know when?
He said this quote?
And there's an explosionafterwards.
But here's the quote.

Speaker 4 (39:57):
Now I am become death the destroyer of worlds.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
That's the quote.
That's a good mic drop.
Thank you, I edited thosetogether.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
I'm glad you enjoyed that, but that's actually from
the Bhagavad Gita right.
This is not Christian.
This is a statement of I havenow the power of destruction,
and so at some level, he didunderstand what he had wrought
on the world.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
Was that after Trinity?

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yes, which was another question I wanted to ask
.
Do any of you have any sense onwhy that first bomb was called
Trinity?
I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
I've read something somewhere about a reference to
Trinity and God and I didn'tunderstand.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
was that because it has this kind of God like power
at our hands?
I heard it was a reference to aJohn Dunne poem, but both
Google and ChatGPT just failedme on this one.
I never got a very clear,definitive answer on this.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
Why New Mexico is portrayed in the film accurately
.
As I understand right, it'sjust he used to go camping there
when he was a kid with hisbrother.
He just liked it.
He said let's do New Mexico,let's drop a bomb.
And they wanted a remotelocation.
It was remote, yeah, in orderto keep everything to be remote.

Speaker 4 (41:10):
I mean it's interesting that the Soviets,
when they started developingtheir nuclear program, located
them in Nova Subirsk, which isalso very much in the middle of
nowhere.
I've actually attended aconference there, oh wow.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
And Harrison, I mentioned earlier that you and I
, both United Methodists andUnited Methodists, often put out
these statements.
It's called the socialprinciples, and they certainly
have one about warfare.
What does United MethodistChurch say about warfare, as an
example of a theological body orreligious body making a
statement?

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Essentially that war is incompatible with the
teachings of Christ and that weshould do everything in our
power to obtain peace, toprevent wars from erupting.
It encourages the use, thesocial principles, encourage the
use of alliances, treaties,international law, all the sorts
of things that governments useto try and overcome their
differences and work toward morepeaceful relations.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
So it doesn't go so far as to say pacifism, but it
says every step possible ofdiplomacy before engaging in
warfare.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
It does, but it also does say I believe that war is
incompatible with the teachingsof Christ.
And so it does take it doesn'tsay pacifism, I don't think, but
it does take a pretty strongstand that war is not a good
thing.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
And, in your expert opinion, summarize all your
research of the past.
How many ever years?
How has diplomacy worked?
Where are we in the world rightnow in terms of warfare and
where are we throughout nuclearwar or just destroying ourselves
at all?
Yeah, we're doing great, we'redoing great.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
So I think we're low point, we're not at a great
point, because many reasons.
I could think about one most ofthe countries that have nuclear
weapons and there are not a lotof them, but some of us have
lots of nuclear weapons and Ithink almost every, maybe every
country that has nuclear weaponsin their arsenal is trying to
build more and better ones.
Right now, Arms control is atan all time low and actually the

(43:10):
United Methodist socialprinciples would say engage in
arms control, try to limit thearms that you have.
And we've let a lot ofagreements either expire or
we've abrogated them, we'veexited them, and it looks like
the only big nuclear weaponsagreement that is still in place
is probably going to expirewithout being replaced.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
And with these expirations, have we immediately
changed our behavior, or is itjust that we had the possibility
of changing our behavior nowwith those expiring?

Speaker 1 (43:41):
I would say we have not immediately changed our
behavior, but some of those havebeen broken because behavior
had already begun to shift, andso I think you're not going to
see an abrupt change when thelast agreement falls, but yet
you're going to see, leading upto that, more and more
transgressions and slowlychanging behavior, creating

(44:01):
greater insecurity.
And so everybody's afraid thento negotiate a new agreement to
limit arms buildups, because wedon't trust each other.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
And on that cheery note, what hasn't been said that
needs to be said?

Speaker 4 (44:15):
I guess my parting thought would be if we look at
Oppenheimer in particular in theManhattan Project, if the
atomic bomb had not beendeveloped then was it inevitable
that it was going to bedeveloped at some point later on
?
I mean, the knowledge inphysics was progressing in a
direction that was going to makeit possible and if it didn't
happen, then I think you couldmake a case that it was going to

(44:37):
happen at some point later on.
And at some point we've justgot to live up to the knowledge
that we're producing.
We've got it Make ourselvesmature enough to be able to deal
with the things that we know.
That's a very big ask.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
I agree.
Yeah, I would agree with whatTodd just said.
I think we are very smartcreatures.
We are also security seekingcreatures, and so I think that
knowledge was bound to bediscovered at some point by
someone.
Oppenheimer was just the firstto get there.
I do want to say too I knowI've sounded like super
pessimistic through this whole.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Discussion and actually I would say you sounded
very Reasonable in yourassessment and it came over as I
mean I didn't think you werelike a doomsdayer, Just but a
very good assessment ofrealistic, Realistic, yeah and
yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
I was just gonna close by saying that, while I do
have some concerns and itdoesn't help that, like
nationalism is growingeverywhere too but I also think
they're really smart peopletrying to do good and trying to
prevent bad things fromhappening.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
We're gonna stop right there while we have an
optimistic moment so.
Todd, I'm gonna nail you downright now.
I want you to come back on.
I want to talk about this JWST.
I want to talk about okay thethings that, the things that
we're learning with the spacetelescope.
That sounds great.
I'm just flabbergasted, and itjust seems like we are I guess
that'll be much more fun Happier, happier conversation.

Speaker 4 (45:59):
That's right fun, but we'll be happier conversation,
and I do.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
I think I'll be Kirsten for your first time.
How did it?

Speaker 1 (46:06):
feel yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
No, I want more detail than that During the
assessment.
Yeah so, and, clint, I knowduring the liftover section
you're gonna have more for us.
So just about the movie.
Yeah, sir, techniques and thiswas fun yeah.
I had a good time as well.
Yeah Well, I want to thank ouraudience out there for for

(46:29):
sitting around the table with us, and I hope that we have
provided you with some food forthought and something to chew on
.
But we aren't done yet.
Like I said, after we finishWe'll always have some leftovers
for you to enjoy, someadditional thoughts we share
with one another after we wrapup.
So feel free to continuelistening.
You know, I ask, I appreciateyour support, and then I always
ask you to support us withSubscribing, rating, reviewing.

(46:51):
Really haven't been doing that,so don't do that.
I'm gonna use reversepsychology.
Yeah, don't subscribe, don'trate us, don't review us, don't
do any of that.
Just sit and watch churchpotluck and that will be good
enough.
It's just just think ofyourself as coming to church
potluck without anything in yourhand.
That's all you.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
And we're all staring at you.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
That's right so Until we gather around the table next
time.
This has been church potluck.
Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Bye, bye.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
All right, so we're done with recording.
Take off this your headphones,if you want, but we can keep on
just chatting amongst ourselves,sweet.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Can I talk about production?

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Thank you so much and especially, it was good.
That was my assessment of yourjob.
No, actually, for being firsttime, I thought that was awesome
at that.
Not even not even being firsttime, I just thought that I
really enjoyed your perspective.
I knew Todd stuff a little bit,but but that was all new to me
so I really enjoyed.
I really enjoyed that a lot.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Thank you, yeah, yeah so.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
So what did we say, what?
What didn't we say about theproduction?
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
So I I love this movie so much.
I just want to tell you guysthat, like when I saw it in the
theater, my friend Morgan waswith me as a sous chef at
Blossom Hill.
When we left I was like yellingin the car.
Cinema is back, baby.
I mean, nolan gets it, he getsa Cinematic experience right,

(48:22):
and that is different from, say,home movies or, you know,
watching it on your phone, and Iwatch movies on my phone.
I'm not like a snob.
Like there are some movies thatI don't know how much of a
difference it makes where yousee it and how, how you see it.
Right, this one does make adifference.
I think this one makes one itthis I don't know if any other
movie has made a biggerdifference on me personally
right, seen it in the theater,feeling the noises again, that

(48:46):
sonic atmosphere.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
Right, hearing the violence Dunkirk.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
Dunkirk yeah, I've heard a lot of, I've heard a lot
of people say that aboutDunkirk.
Yeah, and it's, you know, nolan, it's he really, he really gets
it right.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
And I know that's like a cheesy sort of like film
bro, anything it was so goodit's an that it actually pulled
me out of the movie once.
Oh, that's a good.
I wonder if they're gonna getan Academy Award for sound,
because the scene you weretalking about when they were in
the theater, yeah, and just that, the just way too loud cheering
, I mean too loud in a onpurposeful purposefully too loud

(49:20):
, settling yeah and then it goessilent and then you know it's
coming back though right andthen boom, you know, and it's
just so much use of just theextremes of sound and silence.

Speaker 4 (49:33):
Just I thought were were very effective visuals were
so great too, like, yeah, Ilove the fact that there's a
basketball goal.
Yeah, up in the background,yeah is it makes it feel so real
?
Like yeah, this is a space thatlike like yeah, this is, this
was their recreation spacemultiple use.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
I know it's a two at the basketball, but it was a
fire, little fire.
This is their multi-use space.
This is the community center.
They had to build a community.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
They did all that and that really brought it, and
it's in that spot where thisthis Ranch yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
Yeah, I wanted to point out Nolan was an English
major.
Just throwing that out there.
So that was pretty cool.
City University liberal artsyeah, in London, and I was
listening to you.
If you ever get a chance, theblank check podcast is really
excellent.
So it's just a bunch of guysright up there with church
potluck?

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Yes, that's right, no , no.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
It's like almost blank check.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
And then what's the Roman Mars podcast?
Right there there, there's theTrinity.
So they're just a bunch of guysthat talk about like authors
who have this success, and thenstudios will be like, well,
here's just a bunch of money andNolan is probably the blank
checkiest director alive rightnow.
Like, really, only Nolanprobably could have made
openheimer right, because it's athree-hour movie that's rated R

(50:48):
.
That's just a very slow.
About the R-rated drama right,and it's, it's an R.
It's definitely his most Rrated I never even thought about
that.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
A three-hour movie rated R and.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
I remember when the he started and I was like, oh
Chris, wow, this is new for you,buddy.
Like he's never done nudity.
I've seen all of his films.
I don't recall any nudity.
He, I mean he just doesn'treally go there, right, but he
went there In this film and,yeah, three hours you can't even
play it that often hundredmillion dollars.
Like I don't know anyone elsethat could have done that right.
So, and also, who else couldhave done that?

(51:21):
After he Basically dunked onWarner Brothers for sending all
their movies to HBO Max, like hewas very publicly angry at them
during the pandemic that theydid that and he had broke a very
long-standing and veryprofitable, successful
relationship with them andNormally people can't come back
from that.
Right, if you bite the handthat feeds you, you get, you get

(51:43):
sunk right.
Just drank.
Who directed the awfulIncredibles movie, but before
that did Chronicle.
He had a lot of trouble afterhe tweeted something that he
then deleted about the producers.
What do you want?

Speaker 2 (51:54):
to say that's power when, when, when you can bite
the hand and it'll still.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
He didn't just bite it, he like tore the hand off,
like he went after him, butluckily he met up with somebody
from Universal and I love this,the person from Universal.
Let's see your mother try tofind their name.
They had the same vision thatNolan did, which is to bring
cinemas back.
They were like we want moviesto go back to the cinema.
We feel it that's like a placethat is different from the home

(52:19):
or from the car, from whereverpeople are watching films, where
it's like it's almost kind oflike going to church, like, as
you know, there's, like you cansee it, you're going there and
you know the transcendentexperience.
Transen experience.
Thank you, you know, rolandBarth describes it as a dream
state, right Like you're goingthere.

Speaker 4 (52:34):
Yeah, it's a communal experience.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Well, I didn't talk with the one other guy.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
You have your popcorn instead of your wafers.
Right Drinking your cokeinstead of your wine.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
It is really communal this time with what
barbenheimer right.
Yeah, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Oh my god, that made me so happy, I was so happy that
that was a fun phenomenon thatI wanted to take part of, but I,
but, I, but I didn't, but Ithink, I think that that is so.
That is so cool, had mychildren been within.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Closer I would have, I would have tried to do that.
Sorry, go for it I just said weneed to have another podcast to
on Barbie and Chinesegeopolitics, because the whole,
you know, vietnam's not showingthe movie because the nine dash
line is depicted in the mapbehind Barbie.
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
Yeah, there's great stuff here.
Yeah, I saw barbys, I sawBarbie with my other guy friend
who's also in his like like 30s,and we were just in a theater
filled with 14 to 15 girls, andthey all kind of give us looks
and we're like, hey, we want towatch this too.
Like why do I know?

Speaker 2 (53:38):
exactly that's right.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
And they also really seem to love Barbie, like it,
like I, like that they werelaughing back apparently, yeah,
they were liking the rightscenes, um, but so yeah, again.
So the backstory you know hegrew up during the nuclear
anxiety, nolan, that is the Nkanew demonstrations.
You know the openheimer wordfrom the sting song stayed in
his brain.

(54:00):
And then, if you guys saw atenet which I will say is my
least favorite of his, of hisfilms, it seems to be the case.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Yeah, it people just too, too convoluted to follow.

Speaker 3 (54:10):
I think it's kind of a mess right.
And you know, one of the thingsI love about Nolan is that he
is very temporally Experimentiveand I think that's awesome.
Yeah yeah, and Dunkirk.
Oh, my god right, you got thelike what is it?
Three days, one day, one houror something structure like, and
just that he weaves back andforth and that is a viewer I
never feel lost, and that theyall sync up at one point like

(54:32):
it's.
It's really genius and takes alot of foresight.
My son was very excited to showme a memento with a memento is
Mentos very fun If you ever seefollowing his first film it
really feels like a dry run formemento, like it's like a cool
idea.
There's some temporalexploration you know exploration
, but memento feels like he likeperfected it.
It's like the net, the lastdraft of that idea.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Yeah, so you've mentioned tenant twice and in my
mind, tenant was very recent2020 so he had the idea for this
in 2020 and it's in thetheaters in 2023.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
So no, it's amazing.
So Nolan is a one film at a guy, one film at a time guy, that's
it.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
He also.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
Chris Nolan does not have email, he does not have a
smartphone, so he takes all ofthose distractions which a part
of me like really wishes, Icould do that.
And he knew.
Again, robert Pattinson gavehim the collected speeches of
Oppenheimer and it was basicallyfrom that moment.
So basically the rap of Tenetwas when this movie started.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
So he had to get permission to do Oppenheimer
before Tenet came out.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
Well, because, of the he might have yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
I mean, I was-.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Well, he might have.
I don't know, I'm 100% teasing,but the point that Tenet was
not gonna be well received.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
Oh yeah, he definitely did get.
I haven't read the book.
If you guys read theOppenheimer American Prometheus
book one that pulled surprise Ihear it's amazing he didn't read
that.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
No, let me interrupt there too, cause I meant to
mention that in the first partof the podcast that I think that
is the perfect title.
Yeah, and I understand why itwasn't called that for the movie
.
Yeah, it is such a title, butjust the image of Prometheus
stealing the fire, and then whathas been wrought on humanity
because of that and his and alsonot understanding the

(56:21):
consequences and I don'tunderstand the consequences and
his punishment the anguish thatOppenheimer felt the tragic hurt
.
He wrote I thought that that wasjust a wonderful analogy.
It is.

Speaker 3 (56:31):
It's such a good image, right, so he does buy, he
gets.
Actually, the rights werealready optioned.
That book was optioned likealmost immediately, right Cause
it was a big hit when thePulitzer, sam Mendes, who
directed like American Beautyand Jarhead he had optioned it
way back when it came out 2005.
But it just sat in developmenthell until Nolan was like I

(56:52):
wanna make an Oppenheimer movie,oh, sorry, oppenheimer.
And then so he has this bookand he loves the book and he's
actually staring at this bookand I think in the front cover
there's a picture of Oppenheimer, right, it's like his face, and
he just sees Sillien Murphy.
He's like, well, that's, that's, that's, I got my guy.
So almost immediately he knewSillien Murphy was gonna be this

(57:13):
guy and he flew to Ireland toask him.
One fun story I love is is thathe made Robert Downey Jr fly to
him to like sort of audition infront of him and then he offered
him the part and Downey waslike yeah, and then later in the
never you.
Downey was like yeah, it'sreally weird, Cause usually for
me it need I need like 38 phonecalls before I'll read it
something, but it was to it'sdifferent Nolan.
Oh, my God.
A better story, though.

(57:33):
A better story.
It involves marriage counselingMatt Damon, and he's very
public about this.
This isn't like a secret.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
I've heard this story .
Have you heard this story?
I have too.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
Yeah, he was having marriage trouble and him and his
wife were in counseling and soto like work through things,
cause he was working a lot, hepromised he would not work for I
don't remember a year or twoyears or something, because you
know his wife wanted to have himat home right.
But he's like, okay, unlessit's Christopher Nolan, and the
phone rang.
And then the phone rang andhe's like, well, he was in the

(58:04):
back, I think it was in writingand he was like, yeah, well.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
Football coaches do that too that I am your coach
and you have to buy me out,unless often it's Notre Dame.
Unless Notre Dame or my almamater calls, and then I'm out of
here, and so it's the samething.
So, unless, unless Nolan callson, I'm yours.
But so.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
So he got those guys pretty early on and then he
really wanted all the faces tobe very distinct, which is why
we have such an amazing cast,right.
Like oh my God, like how manybig players are here and he
wanted people that were verydistinct, right.
So you know, like Remy Malek isonly in it for like three
minutes, but he's like a verydistinct looking person, right.
I think Casey Affleck, too,like like his role as like this

(58:50):
menacing figure, I think waslike really on point and very
memorable.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
But it's another time when I was pulled out of.
That's another time when I waspulled out of the movie thinking
, wow, these are big names withkind of cameos almost, and so
this is, this is.
And then it just shows you howbig of a movie it was and they
just kept coming and they justkept coming and people will be
part of it.

Speaker 3 (59:08):
So Nolan is one of those directors, kind of like
Clint Eastwood he allows hisactors to have the way in terms
of how they approach theircharacters.
Silly Murphy said I think thequote I have here is quote I
don't have the intellectualcapacity for the quantum physics
, so I focused on the humanity,right.
So he didn't learn anythingabout quantum physics.
He's just like I'm just gonnago with the character right
Benny Sadfie, who's a directorin his own right.

(59:29):
He co-directed Uncut Gyms withhis brother.
If you ever saw that he playsEdward Teller, he actually had
studied nuclear physics andundergrad and he went back to
his notes and he talked to oneof his old professors to prepare
for this role, right.
So learning learning more aboutthe math and the science behind
it as a way of understandinghis character, right.
So two completely differentapproaches, but Nolan does a

(59:52):
great job of sort of allowingthem to do that right.
And reading about how Nolandirects, I saw a lot of writers
compare him to Oppenheimer inthe sense that, like you know,
todd, you were saying earlier,like what made him so special?
Right, and they were sayingthings like he was able to
wrangle all of thesepersonalities right and all of
their different ideas and sortof like congel them right and

(01:00:14):
sort of resummarize things thateveryone was saying in a cogent
way for everybody, that he wasjust like extremely good at that
right and doing it quickly,right.
So, yeah, this film cametogether extremely fast.
Everyone was really impressed.
You know, they were filming bylet's see here, I think January,
february of 2022, they werealready filming, right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Yeah Well, even then, they're filming in January of
2022 and it's out in theatersnow that is still A year later.
Yeah, I mean, I don't knowanything about movie making, but
that just seems like from idea.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
It seems incredible.
It's really incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
It's an idea to screen that just seems amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Yeah, and like Kirsten mentioned, they had to
build a town Like they built,because you know well, no one's
all about the practical effects.
They rebuilt this town.
They couldn't use Los Alamos.
Now, right, there's a bignational lab there now.

Speaker 4 (01:01:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Yeah, like start with this, Except I thought it was
interesting.
You know that it was so barren,but now it is-.

Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
Yeah, there's a town that just built up around the
national labs, right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
Yeah, some more fun facts.
Filming locations includedEinstein's actual office as well
as Oppenheimer's actualchildhood home.
They actually shot scenes there.
It was the first film to useIMAX in black and white, which
is interesting, and also anotherlike playful thing he does,

(01:01:35):
where Robert Downey Jr sort ofsighed is always in the black
and white.
Yeah Right, I thought that waseffective for- Right for time,
yeah, and it was very good work.
Yes, it was very good.
Avoid confusion yeah, it wasreally helpful.
But also like thematically, yes.

Speaker 4 (01:01:49):
And it's kind of interesting that the black and
white part is actually the mostrecent part.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
Yes, oh, right, right , in terms of the filming, oh,
chronologically, yes, yeah,that's true, that makes sense.
Let's see here.

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
Happens latest in time.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
Some of the reasons that filming went a bit quicker
is Nolan lets again, lets hisactors sort of play around.
He doesn't put marks on thefloor, he doesn't do that.
Also, everything was verystripped down comparatively.
There's a quote I havesomewhere.
Robert Downey Jr was on set andhe was looking around for his

(01:02:22):
chair and he realized therewasn't one.
Like it wasn't a set wherepeople had their own chairs with
their names on it, like they'rejust what?
Can I use this word?
Is that okay?
Yes, you Nolan doesn't havetime for that bullshit.
Like we need to make this andgo and then let's move on, which
is another sort of ClintEastwood thing.
Famously, clint Eastwood willjust say we're going to rehearse

(01:02:44):
and then he'll just film it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
I am seeing a theme though.
Robert Downey Jr, you come tome for the audition.
Yeah, I know no chair for you,but the guy might get an.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
Oscar out of it, so I think it went.

Speaker 4 (01:02:55):
Iron man is Iron man.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
Yeah, I think it went totally fine.
His inspiration he notedTarkovsky, the famous Russian
director, his movie Mirror,which is also very nonlinear and
is also meditation on war.
Oh yeah, yeah, sorry, here'sRobert Downey Jr quote.
There was no chair with yourname on it.
It was focused in Spartan,almost a monastic approach.
Right, here's Robert Downey Jrquote.

(01:03:18):
Other notes dude, it grossed$891 million, which a movie
that's three hours long about ascientist.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
That is shocking.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
Freakin' awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Freakin' awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
You know what I'm gonna do.
What are you gonna?

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
do From all of this that you need your own podcast,
yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
No, thank you for letting me nerd out about this
film.
I sincerely love this film, sothank you for doing this.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
I need to see it.
If only you had let that showin your voice, right.
Thank y'all so much.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Thank you thank you, that was dope.
That was a lot of fun, for sure.