Oppenheimer fans call out historical error in movie
Topics: Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Film and TV, Oppenheimer
Anish Vij
Featured Image Credit: Universal Pictures
Topics: Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Film and TV, Oppenheimer
Director and perfectionist Christopher Nolan might start kicking himself once he finds out that fans discovered a 'historical error' in Oppenheimer.
After the film made its debut earlier this week, cinemagoers are finally able to witness Peaky Blinders' Cillian Murphy take centre stage as he plays the role of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in devising the world's first atomic bomb during WWII.
The three-hour film will be the director's first ever biographical drama, featuring the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.
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Oppenheimer has promised to be a nuclear hit from the get-go as Nolan’s movie is set to amass $75 million in the opening weekend, which has way surpassed projections of $50 million.
It also made an impressive debut on Rotten Tomatoes with a whopping score of 96 percent. The film now stands at 94 percent.
Critics have been raving about the movie, writing comments such as: “The acting is uniformly brilliant.”
While others have said it’s 'visually stunning’, ‘gorgeously photographed’ and ‘masterfully edited’.
Another fan wrote: “The film maker's technique generally counterpoints any caveats and script imperfections.”
However, it seems that eagle-eyed viewers have somehow spotted a minute error in one specific scene.
Taking to Twitter, fan Andy Craig, took a screenshot of the scene showing Murphy's character surrounded by an applauding audience as they wave the great American flag high and proud.
Now, as pointed out by Andy, if you take a close look at the US flag, it has 50 stars.
Since the film was set in 1945, there should have actually been less stars on the flag.
During the Truman Administration (1945-1953), the flag that flew over the US had 48 stars.
The 48-state flag is what soldiers and sailors fought for during World War II.
"It was good and all, but I’ll be that guy and complain they used 50-star flags in a scene set in 1945," Andy tweeted.
The 50-star flag was later established in 1959.
On the flip-side, someone else argued that the flag-arrangement was done 'intentionally as the colored scenes were from Oppenheimer's perspective, while the black and white scenes were from another'.
"This would be a memory of Oppenheimer from his present day memory which does have 50 states on the flag," they added, while referencing how the film switches from color to black-and-white.
Nolan explained the process to Total Film: "I wrote the script in the first person, which I'd never done before.
"I don't know if anyone has ever done that, or if that's a thing people do or not.
"The film is objective and subjective."
The director said that 'the color scenes are subjective' and 'the black-and-white scenes are objective'.
He added: "I wrote the color scenes from the first person.
"So for an actor reading that, in some ways, I think it'd be quite daunting."
Oppenheimer is in cinemas now.