--- title: "Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ recreated the first nuclear explosion without CGI" description: "The director has a history of practical effects, but it's improbable that he detonated a nuclear bomb for his film." date: "2022-12-19" modified: "2022-12-19" authors: - name: "Nicholas Slayton" job_title: "Contributing Editor" link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/nicholas-slayton/" url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/culture/christopher-nolan-oppenheimer-cgi/" categories: - "Culture" - "Entertainment" --- # Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ recreated the first nuclear explosion without CGI ![trinity test nuclear bomb oppenheimer white sands]() *On July 16, 1945, in a top secret test code named "Trinity," the world's first atomic bomb was detonated approximately 60 miles north of White Sands National Monument. (U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range).* Christopher Nolan is not in possession of a nuclear bomb. However, the filmmaker caught peoples’ attention this past week when he revealed that his upcoming film *Oppenheimer*, a biopic of the man known as “the father of the atomic bomb,” features a recreation of the U.S. Army’s Trinity test at Los Alamos, New Mexico on July 16, 1945 — a recreation that doesn’t use CGI. The film (adapted from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s biography *American Prometheus*) follows Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) leading up to the Trinity explosion and the aftermath of World War II. The trailer premiered online Sunday — the same weekend the Biden administration said the U.S. wrongly revoked his security clearance in 1954, following the scientist’s criticism of nuclear proliferation. A separate, different preview aired ahead of screenings of *Avatar: The Way of Water* this weekend, but has not yet gone online (with all recordings being quickly taken down). Both hint at and give glimpses of what has become the centerpiece of the film, but they don’t show the explosion outright. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK6ldnjE3Y0 "I think recreating the Trinity test \[the first nuclear weapon detonation, in New Mexico\] without the use of computer graphics, was a huge challenge to take on," Nolan [told Total Film]() ahead of the trailer’s release. "Andrew Jackson — my visual effects supervisor, I got him on board early on — was looking at how we could do a lot of the visual elements of the film practically, from representing quantum dynamics and quantum physics to the Trinity test itself, to recreating, with my team, Los Alamos up on a mesa in New Mexico in extraordinary weather, a lot of which was needed for the film, in terms of the very harsh conditions out there – there were huge practical challenges." What does that mean? Well, it is highly unlikely that Nolan and his visual effects team at [DNEG]() got ahold of uranium or anything like that, despite the many, many jokes about his dedication to recreating the Trinity test. He also probably didn’t gain access to a massively powerful non-nuclear military bomb, like the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (also known as the “Mother of All Bombs”) that was used for the first time in April 2017 in Afghanistan. For comparison, one of the biggest depictions of a nuclear explosion — the Trinity test specifically — was in the television show *Twin Peaks: The Return* in 2017. That sequence, showing the detonation before zooming into the mushroom cloud, was an 11-minute [computer creation]() from effects company BUF. Nolan’s movies have a heavy emphasis on practical effects. From flipping a semi-truck for real in *The Dark Knight* to spinning a hallway for real in *Inception* for the right effect, he favors tactile effects over anything computer-generated. For his previous film *Tenet,* he transformed an abandoned mining town near Joshua Tree into the ruins of a [Soviet-closed city]() for a massive army versus army showdown. DNEG is the same effects company behind those productions, so it’s likely *Oppenheimer* will have similarly impressive undertakings. The largest practical explosion in cinema was created for the 2015 James Bond film *Spectre*. That utilized 72 pounds of explosives and thousands of gallons of fuel, setting a Guinness World Record (Michael Bay [claims]() [*Pearl Harbor*]() has a bigger explosion). [That was equivalent to 68.47 tons of TNT](). For comparison, the Mother of All Bombs, detonated in Afghanistan, is equal to 11 tons. The real Trinity test was the equivalent of 25 kilotons of TNT. The challenge in these cases, as with *Spectre*, is that there is usually only one chance to get the effect right. It’s unlikely that Nolan and DNEG have crafted something on the scale of the actual Trinity explosion. Until they reveal their exact method, it remains a mystery. However given their track record, it is likely a part of New Mexico saw a very large explosion. *Oppenheimer* will be released on July 21, 2023. ## The latest on Task & Purpose - **Army investigating soldiers who** [**posed in dog bondage masks**]() - **Air Force says** [**KC-135 broadcast inappropriate**]() **call sign** - **Green Berets are testing a new** [**highly mobile 120mm mortar system**]() - [**How airmen stopped a mid-air assault**]() **on a C-17 cockpit during the Afghan airlift** - **B-2 Spirit makes** [**emergency landing, catches fire**]()**, following malfunction** ## Author Nicholas Slayton is a contributing editor for Task & Purpose, covering conflict for over 12 years, from the Arab Spring to the war in Ukraine. His previous reporting can be found on the non-profit Aslan Media, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, The New Republic, The American Prospect, Architectural Digest, The Daily Beast, and the Los Angeles Downtown News. You can reach him at nicholas@taskandpurpose.com or find him on Twitter @NSlayton and Bluesky at @nslayton.bsky.social. ### Author social links [Twitter]()