For a long time now I have sustained that Star Wars is not science fiction – and indeed it isn’t. Based on the same criteria, neither is Oppenheimer a movie about science – at least, not explicitly.
Science Fiction
Science Fiction is a specific genre. Although it lacks an exact definition, it usually involved the exploration of Mankind’s “future”, based on scientific concepts. Space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrials… and so on.
Star Wars is not about that. Star Wars has more in common with fantasy stories than with science fiction. In fact, one could argue that Star Wars is even unscientific, although there are scientists in it.
“Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology”
Isaac Asimov
I believe that’s the best definition. There are other that use the future to define the genre, like Robert Heinlein (author of Starship Troopers), but the issue with that is the abundance of counter-examples, like Battlestar Galactica – reason why I put “future” in quotes up there.
Nevertheless, Star Wars is not about the impact of Science and Technology on society (human or otherwise). It’s an adventure story, fantasy, mystery, “it’s a morality tale” as Mark Hamill called it. It’s the Hero’s Journey from Campbell. In other words, it’s a “space opera”. George Lucas himself referred to it by saying “it’s like poetry, it rhymes”, when talking about perceived patterns in the saga.
But this post is not about Star Wars! So why did I begin writing about it? That’s gonna be clearer further ahead.
Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer is the latest release from director Christopher Nolan (responsible among other things for Bale’s Batman trilogy and Interstellar). And indeed, there is a lot of science in the movie.
Nolan is known for having a quite… “extreme” approach when it comes to his movies, because – as it’s the case with Interstellar and now with Oppenheimer – he made a point of keeping everything as scientifically accurate as possible.
Interstellar had, in fact, the participation of none less than famous Caltech physicist Kip Thorne, a very important researcher in the field of gravitation, and Nobel Prize Winner of 2017 for his participation in the detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO experiment.
At least in that aspect, Christopher Nolan is really an outlier. I don’t know about any other director who shoes such commitment with scientific verisimilitude of what is featured in his movies (well, maybe Kubrick).
The science of Oppenheimer
The scientific consultants for his movies say that, commenting that Nolan “makes their job easy“. Corrections are always needed, but with him that’s rare.
Because of that, from the scientific standpoint, there are almost no errors in Oppenheimer. Maybe, from the perspective of someone who directly works with Nuclear Physics, that might not be true. But the information that is presented in the movie is trustworthy enough. They don’t contain any factually wrong data – which is very hard to accomplish.
I’m not myself an expert in Nuclear Physics. I took a couple of electives in my undergrad days, but it has been long since then and I forgot quite a bit about it. But, to me – and to the nuclear physicists I asked – everything is really okay.
Even what was wrong is actually right, by the way. For example, the concern that the bomb might ignite the atmosphere was real at the time. Today it’s known that that was unfounded. It would require a an explosion of gargantuan proportions, and a much higher deuterium concentration than actually exists for that to have a chance of happening. But, back then, nuclear fusion was not well understood. The first ideas about how stars generate energy are from 1929. Hans Bethe – the guy from the movie – would describe the first fusion chain reaction ten years later, through beta decay. But the necessary conditions for a sustainable fusion reaction had not yet been clarified.
Near miss – but still a score
In other words, the science of the movie is not only correct from the technical point of view, but also from the historical one. The only exception is when, at some point early in the movie, someone is talking about Einstein. They mention how relativity “revealed” quantum physics. There is no real reason that one lead to the other – they appeared more or less at the same time, actually. The Theory of Relativity has no direct role in the discovery of Quantum Mechanics, much less Nuclear Physics. There is a mass-energy equivalence, since mass is not conserved in a nuclear reaction. But it’s a mistake to imply that one led to the other.
Honorable supporting cast
The point here is another, though – yes, science is central to the movie. But, at the same time, it’s marginal. It informs the story, but doesn’t control it. In other words, the script does not revolve around it. And, let’s face it, that would be unbearable for most viewers. Instead, it’s part of the story, just like any other type of information. For example, it’s like the Quarterpounder argument from Pulp Fiction. That conversation could have been about anything else, because the subject is not in focus. But it does provide context, because they are talking about Vincent’s trip to Europe. Physics plays the same role here, offering context for the movie’s plot. Which talks about the politics of this new type of technology. Physics is the honorable supporting cast.
Furthermore: Oppenheimer is not a war movie, but a movie about the politics of war. It talks about the dichotomy between the work of an enormous group of people and their lack of capacity to control the usage of the outcome of their efforts. Any enterprise, as well intentioned as it may be, has consequences that aren’t always foreseen or completely understood.
The impossible choice forced to those with the power of decision is clear. Either the USA built the bomb, or the Nazis would. Not doing it, especially before D-Day, was not an option.
The Politics of the Bomb
Instead of Science, the focus of the movie is not only the Bomb itself, but the politics involved in it. Not just the decision of building such a terrifying artifact, but also the decision of actually using it. To me, at least, one of the most disturbing scenes of the movie is when they decide which cities will be hit.
The occurrence of so many civilian deaths doesn’t seem to worry the politicians – the ones responsible for the decision. And the choice is made casually – like someone picking pizza flavors.
To this day it’s argued whether the decision to use the bomb was the right one; and in reality I don’t think a final answer for that question might ever be reached. The bigger question is if that decision was really necessary, since it’s not clear how much the USA officials knew about Japanese determination.
At any rate, the decision to use that gadget against a civilian population is, at the very least, morally questionable.
Oppenheimer versus Strauss
In the end, even though it’s based on a biography of the physicist, the movie should actually be called “Oppenheimer versus Strauss”; although the focus is centered mainly on the scientist, it’s clear that Lewis Strauss plays a central role in the narrative – which is told from two points of view.
Nolan used a quite convoluted timeline, and the story is played out based om a series of flashbacks, both Oppenheimer’s (colored scenes) and Strauss’ (black and white scenes). If I had to decide at which history moment the movie actually takes place, that would be Strauss’ confirmation hearing for Eisenhower’s Cabinet. All the rest works as contextualization for that moment when karma hits back at the man responsible for Oppenheimer’s downfall.
Conclusion
As with any other Christopher Nolan movie, it’s worth watching. The movie does cause quite an impact, is able to properly weigh its different elements and is accessible. It’s capable of pleasing from the most lay public to those deeply familiar with nuclear physics and the Manhattan Project. The language is full of nuances and, at the same time, being a cinema expert is not required to catch on to it. The people celebrating the Trinity test, for example, filled me with sadness, even though, when out of context, it’s a scene apparently full of happiness.
Not depicting the actual attack was a cowardly move by Nolan, though – not showing the Bomb’s explosion and the human suffering caused by it on the Japanese people, the movie is left with a gaping hole – a sad empathy deficit. Being a movie about the interaction between Science and Politics, it’s possible to glimpse the reasoning behind the decision not to include those scenes in the movie. But morally speaking, it would have been a way of taking some responsibility of the suffering caused to the victims. Not personally by Nolan, but by the USA as a country. Let’s make it clear: Fat Man and Little Boy were war crimes. Period.
The human endeavor of Science, like any other, is inherently political. To deny that is to deny the very nature of scientific activity. In fact, it does not exist in a vacuum. Every scientific discovery, once released to the world, in a genie out of the bottle, whose consequences are not always desirable or even predictable. As scientists, we have a moral duty of taking responsibility for the knowledge we generate. The advances from the Atomic Age are countless, and helped improve the quality of human life in general. But at what cost?
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