Line #34 Film/FatManAndLittleBoy


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3	->'''Oppenheimer:''' If you want to ask what's happening, ask this: Will it be big enough? Big enough to scare all of us and make us stop and think? Big enough to stop all war forever?\
4	'''Schoenfield:''' Look, I've seen Oak Ridge, alright? That place wasn't built to make one or two bombs. It was built to make thousands of them. Thousands. And pretty soon everybody's gonna have a bomb! They will! What are they gonna do with them? Sit around and wait 'til they go off, until ''boom''? And then we got ourselves one world full of Michael Merrimans' dying from the inside out. Is that what you're looking for? Because that's the future you've made for us! Hey Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer! You oughta stop playing God, 'cause you are ''not'' good at it, and the position is taken!
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6	''Fat Man and Little Boy'' is a 1989 [[HistoricalFiction historical drama]] film directed by Roland Joffé (''Film/TheKillingFields'').
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8	In the early days of American involvement in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, General Leslie Groves (Creator/PaulNewman), a U.S. Army engineer, finishes his assignment to build the Pentagon and hopes to go fight in the Pacific theater against the Japanese. Instead, he is given a project he doesn't want: spearheading the development of [[UsefulNotes/NuclearWeapons the atomic bomb]]. To wrangle the scientists, Groves hires UsefulNotes/RobertOppenheimer (Creator/DwightSchultz), a brilliant physicist and administrator who leans [[RedScare more than a little to the left]]. Groves and Oppenheimer set up a laboratory outside the remote town of Los Alamos, New Mexico and recruit physicists and engineers from all over the U.S. to work on their secret project. One such recruit is Michael Merriman (Creator/JohnCusack), an idealistic young physics student who narrates much of the film through unsent letters to his father.
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10	See also ''Film/{{Oppenheimer}}''.
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12	!!Tropes:
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14	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The movie is fairly accurate for the most part, but it has its issues:
15	** Groves and Oppenheimer [[ContemplateOurNavels wax philosophical]] while standing in front of the bombs' casings on V-E Day, about a month before the Little Boy casing was completed.
16	** The incidents that inspired Merriman's accident with the so-called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core Demon Core]] both happened ''after'' the UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki.
17	* BeingWatched: Why Merriman doesn't mail his letters to his father. Many of the physicists object to this, with Enrico Fermi pointing out to Groves that it was why he left Italy. TruthInTelevision.
18	* BodyHorror: Merriman after the accident with the Demon Core.
19	* ButtMonkey: Dr. Schoenfield (John C. [=McGinley=]) just can't catch a break.
20	* CompositeCharacter: Michael Merriman is a composite of two Los Alamos physicists, Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin. Both died because of massive accidental radiation exposure during experiments with the Demon Core, as Merriman does in the movie.
21	* {{Foil}}: General Groves is a gruff, staunchly conservative SelfMadeMan, while Oppenheimer is an amiable [[TheProfessor physics professor]] who occasionally hangs out with [[RedScare card-carrying Communists]]. They find that they need each other to make the atomic bomb project work.
22	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Merriman doesn't hesitate to run into danger during an explosives accident early in the movie, prefiguring his accident with the Demon Core.
23	* HellIsThatNoise: The Geiger counters ticking away in the background during the "tickling the dragon's tail" experiment and the experiment with the Demon Core.
24	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Lots, with Groves and Oppenheimer being the most obvious examples. Several historical physicists such as Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller show up as background characters.
25	* HospitalHottie: Kathleen Robinson, courtesy of being played by Creator/LauraDern.
26	* MarketBasedTitle: Released as ''Shadow Makers'' in several territories outside the US.
27	* ManipulativeBastard: Both Groves and Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer opines early on that he'll have Groves eating out of his hand within a week, but if anything, Groves manipulates Oppenheimer more successfully than vice versa.
28	* TheMistress: Jean Tatlock (Creator/NatashaRichardson) for Oppenheimer. [[DrivenToSuicide It doesn't end well.]]
29	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The "Demon Core". It lives up to its name when an accident leads to Merriman touching it for a single second and becoming fatally irradiated.
30	* NukeEm: Groves and much of the military establishment take this position, even after V-E Day.
31	* OhCrap: Merriman's reaction when he realizes he looked away at the worst moment possible during the Demon Core experiment.
32	* TheProudElite: Oppenheimer has shades of this, especially early on; however, the military men seem to expect it from the physicists much more than the physicists actually act this way. See TallPoppySyndrome below.
33	* RedScare: Much of the conflict between Groves and Oppenheimer derives from suspicions about Oppenheimer's past associations with American Communist sympathizers. In RealLife, this eventually resulted in Oppenheimer losing his security clearance and position, as noted in the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue.
34	* SoundtrackDissonance: The fateful Trinity test was prologued by music from the ''"Nutcracker"'' by Tchaikovsky as a result of a ground station broadcast from elsewhere beyond the testing site. The cheery tunes from the 'Toy Flutes' piece contrasted the otherwise grim and serious atmosphere of the test, up until it was abruptly cut off by the detonation of the Trinity device.
35	* SpeedDemon: In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, while the scientists are tooling about in a convertible, it's Oppenhemier's ''wife'' who feels the need for speed.
36	-->'''Male Scientist:''' Robert, must we go so fast?
37	-->'''Kitty Oppenheimer''': Yes! ''YES!''
38	* TallPoppySyndrome: Groves' aide opines that Oppenheimer "has more brains than are decent".
39	* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: The movie ends with one of these after the success of the Trinity test.
40	* YouAreAlreadyDead: Merriman says this almost verbatim about himself after the accident with the Demon Core.
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Context Film / FatManAndLittleBoy