h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The two movies are said to be very different from each other, so I don't see why they should be compared. In Japan, "Barbie" should be popular, but because it is being linked to "Oppenheimer," which is about the development of nuclear bombs, even "Barbie" may fail. "Oppenheimer" probably won't even be shown in that country, and I can't blame them for not wanting to see it.

Since the takeover, Warner Bros. Discovery have made numerous questionable decisions, so on the one hand it is good to see that they have remembered that they are actually a media corporation and have actually made something, rather than cancelling it or choosing not to release it in order to claim the tax back.
Releasing two quite different films on the same day, presumably intending to get different audiences during the summer holiday, has proved quite an effective strategy that has had consequences they could not have predicted. But as you say, the memes linking Barbie to Oppenheimer have not gone down well in Japan, where the old joke is that the Second World War is taught 'once upon a time the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on us for absolutely no reason'.

'Barbie' has also offended people throughout East Asia by pointlessly showing the controversial Nine Dash Line, which is the Lebensraum throughout the South Chine Sea that China has laid claim to, despite it ignoring the UN-recognised territory of various other nations. Yet China is the world's largest cinema market, and showing the Nine Dash Line and endorsing China's imperial expansionist ambitions makes Warner Bros billions.

<BB<

To paraphrase HL Mencken, I believe it was, nobody ever went broke underestimating the moral fiber of Hollywood studio executives.

I think it was an astute move on somebody's part to push both films at the same time. Because of the hype, people who normally want to be entertained by light fare would go and sit through 'Oppenheimer' - a movie that said nothing new at great length. Mind you, it's fine that it does - apparently, there has to be a new movie every 20 years or so, or people forget why all that happened.

We need to be reminded of the struggles that mid-century people went through to repel fascism. Having harnessed the atom, mobilized our manufacturing capacity for warfare, and helped rebuild wartorn Europe, the U.S.A. was on top of the world....and then the Soviets started building H bombs with stolen technology, pushing our society into near-fascism. I'm glad that "Oppenheimer" showed some of the anti-Communist paranoia. It's relevant to some of what's happening now in MAGAland.

The bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 (I saw "Oppenheimer" on August 8). Timing of the movie's release was pretty accurate.

It's refreshing to hear people talking about seeing movies on IMAX screens. Nearly every performance in "Oppenheimer is being dissected. To some extent, this means that some people will be seeing the movie multiple times. Hopefully, when the Oscar nominations are made next year, many of the people who will decide whom to give nominations to will have seen this movie. It's fun to speculate who's going to be nominated. We don't have to wait until November and December to start the guessing game.