Review Detail

I was itching to see an Oppenheimer edit. When I saw KmartKid made one, I had to jump on it after watching the masterful editing work done on the Alexander movie that made it go from a "turd sandwich" to an excellent movie. Suffice to say, this edit absolutely met my expectations.

I lack editing expertise, but the visual and audio editing were clearly flawless here. In particular, when revamping the musical score of a movie, there is a considerable margin for error. I could not detect any issues. Some of the newly inserted score enhanced the narrative. More importantly, the removal of music from portions of the movie meant I can actually hear what the actors are saying. You would think that is critical when watching a movie. Great job here.

Another nice aspect of the edit was the color correction throughout the movie. That work along with the removal of the various flash cuts helped make this movie more friendly for my eyes.

The strongest improvement came in the narrative. This edit stuck with the "meat" of the story - primarily the events leading up to and the testing of the atomic bomb. Thankfully, the editor provides the titles of the time and place we are in along with the movie's timeline in chronological order until that point. The theatrical version bounced around Oppenheimer's life a bit much in a convoluted manner.

Another thing I was grateful for was the removal of the sex/nudity. This edit still made it clear that Oppenheimer was a womanizer without resorting to pornography. I can comfortably share this edit with younger viewers if I like. This may be a minor issue to some, but removal of the poison Apple was another bonus. I 100% agreed with the editor's logic on the removal. It was historically dubious and also creates unecessary tension. Do we really need to establish fake drama when we have a movie about nuclear weapons that can lead to the extermination of all humanity?

I do believe there was about another half hour of solid content, but ending with the nuclear test undoubtedly gives us the strongest possible ending. This was a necessary sacrifice for a stronger overall movie.

I want to thank the editor for sharing this edit with me. This is now a solid and educational movie safe for people of most age groups that I strongly recommend this to.