The first trailer for the Nolan’s Oppenheimer is gaining a lot of attention and we’re here for the thrill.
Murphy plays the titular scientist in the adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin which explores the conflict and politics surrounding the creation of the nuclear bomb and the complicated man at the center of it all.
The tone is epic and serious as we see a montage of the bomb being devised and prepared at the Manhattan Project site in New Mexico, while Cillian Murphy, as Oppenheimer, looks on, aghast at his creation.
The trailer starts off by introducing Oppenheimer as a troubled man, whose flaws are ignored in favor of his brilliance. Reluctantly asked to help end the Second World War, he points to one hope – a nuclear weapon developed in secret in the desert with the destructive power to dissuade anyone from continuing to fight.
The only pushback he gets from higher-ups is that the detonation has a non-zero chance of not just destroying the U.S.’s enemies, but also the world itself by ruining the atmosphere. Nolan denies us his grand non-CGI bomb detonation for now, though, as the countdown hits zero, the trailer teases us with the line, “We all know what happened there.”
The trailer continues to show a rendering of the first successful test of an atomic bomb, codenamed “Trinity,” which occurred in the New Mexican desert as part of the U.S. government’s Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project, led by Oppenheimer, who is often called “the father of the atomic bomb,” was a secret program during World War II that aimed to build an atomic bomb before the Nazis, who had their own nuclear program at the time.
Many of Nolan’s preoccupations are present and correct: science, explosions, awe at the mysteries of the universe, fear of the cost of progress. Notably not present in the trailer is most of the incredibly starry supporting cast Nolan has assembled for the film, which includes Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh, as well as a reported one-scene cameo from Gary Oldman.
Oppenheimer is set for a release on July 21, 2023.
Watch the trailer below:
