How Would YOU Write This Movie

I recently read the review posted at this movie's listing and quite honestly, it raises a few questions.

How would YOU write a movie about the development of the Atomic Bomb? Considering that this movie was written with vast resources available concerning the actual Manhattan Project, Los Alamos and Trinity, there had to be precaustions taken.

First of all, there are enough crazy people out there that would actually watch this movie and take notes. Take MacGyver for instance. Those shows showed the audience how to make stuff from ordinary things, but always left out one key ingredient, so those afore mentioned crazies, do blow themselves up.

Second, the reviewer mentions weak dialogue, and bad writting. Well, considering that pretty much everyone involved in this project is dead, the information used was taken from diaries, reports and possibly top secret information created at the time.

My personal opinion is that this movie was very well done considering the obstacles that had to be overcome, more specifically, how much "real" information to include. Dwight Schultz's portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer was spot on. His acting abilities were perfect for the role as the good Doctor who was involuntarily placed in the middle of the greatest moral dillemmas in the scientific world. Here he is, pretty much a genius in his field, as by the military to develop a bomb that could create mass genocide in a matter of seconds. With the assistance of other top minds, he completes the task, but then realizes that what has been created would change the history of the world forever.

I applaud the writers for giving the audience the different perspectives needed to understand the dillemma that was forming. We have the military's view, the medical view, the civilian view, and lastly, but most importantly, the scientific view. To those scientists, creating the bomb was easy, but for their conscience, dropping it was another issue. For the military, dropping it was easy, they already knew this would be the end all for the war with Japan. To quote Gen. Leslie Groves: "What, do they think we're shooting squirrels over there?" I would have to say though that the character of General Groves, played by Paul Newman, coveyed an almost fanatical personality. He was borderline obsessed with building, testing and eventually dropping the two bombs on Japan. Unfortunately for the miltary, they aren't allowed to have a conscience. Even with undeniable proof of the effects of the bombs destruction, the military's goal was to end the war, at any cost.

I guess you could say that I hold a very curious interest in this part of world history. We as humans of this great planet have evolved to the point of creating our own armageddon. Hopefully, we will never see another day like the one on August 6, 1945.

I own this movie and I love it. The performances of all involved was perfect. I suppose someone else could have been cast for the role of Dr. Oppenheimer, but the choice they made was a good one. I think Dwight Schultz should get more into dramatic roles for which he is good at. I think it is unfortunate though, that he seems to be type cast as either H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock of the A-Team or Reginald Barclay from STNG fame. Although I think he was good at those roles too, sometimes you have to break out of that proverbial mold and move on.