Reviews for Christopher Nolan’s historical drama “Oppenheimer” have been incredibly positive so far, but some viewers couldn’t help but point out what they’re calling a historical discrepancy in the film.
The 3-hour movie details the life of nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called “father of the atomic bomb.” Set designers took care to recreate the look and feel of the early 1940s, which is when most of the action takes place, but some observant viewers couldn’t help but notice one small error.
During one scene when Oppenheimer, played by Irish actor Cillian Murphy, stands in front of a cheering crowd, observers noticed that the American flags the people were waving have fifty stars like they do today. This appears to be an error because Hawaii and Alaska were not added as states until 1959.
A post from fan Andy Craig about the alleged mistake quickly went viral on social media. He said that while he appreciated the movie overall, it was hard to ignore this error.
“It was good and all, but I’ll be that guy and complain they used 50-star flags in a scene set in 1945,” the tweet said.
It was good and all, but I’ll be that guy and complain they used 50-star flags in a scene set in 1945. pic.twitter.com/nvcwpGFkzh
— Andy Craig (@AndrewRCraig) July 21, 2023
Other fans were a little harsher with their criticism.
“Totally ruined the film for me,” one person chimed in.
Another person agreed, “That’s an amazing ‘catch.’ Now I’ll never ‘not’ see it.”
Another made a joke about the director’s nationality, placing the blame on Nolan being from the U.K. originally. “Yeah, but that’s not Nolan … so he had to have just missed it. He is ‘mostly’ British, after all,” that reviewer shared.
Some fans came to Nolan’s defense, saying the addition of the fifty-star flag may have been intentional. They noted how the historically accurate flag is present in a different scene from the same time period.
“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,” one person insisted.