Moviegoers have noticed an error in Christopher Nolan’s latest film, “Oppenheimer,” which has achieved great success at the box office and become a cultural sensation, sweeping up glowing reviews along the way.
While the movie has received praise from audiences, eagle-eyed fans spotted a mistake in a scene set in 1945, where Cillian Murphy’s character, J. Robert Oppenheimer, is seen among a crowd waving American flags with an incorrect number of stars.
Twitter user Andy Craig pointed out on Friday, “It was good and all, but I’ll be that guy and complain they used 50-star flags in a scene set in 1945.” In reality, the American flag during that time should have had 48 stars, as Alaska and Hawaii were not yet part of the United States. The 50-star flag was first flown on July 4, 1960.
Interestingly, there is another scene in the same year where the correct American flag is displayed behind Oppenheimer. One Twitter user speculated that this discrepancy might have been intentional, suggesting, “I can argue that this is done intentionally as the colored scenes were from Oppenheimer’s perspective, while the black and white scenes were from another. This would be a memory of Oppenheimer from his present-day memory, which does have 50 states on the flag.”
The film “Oppenheimer” portrays various aspects of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life, shifting between his student days in the 1920s, his role in overseeing the development of the nuclear bomb during World War II, and the US Atomic Energy Commission committee hearings in 1954, during the McCarthy era when he faced repercussions due to his connections with the Communist Party.
