Christopher Nolan reveals how the Trinity Atom Bomb was recreated for Oppenheimer: ‘Gasoline, aluminum powder and…’

In a new video posted by Variety, Christopher Nolan and team give a low-down on how the film’s big Trinity Test moment was recreated without depending on computer graphics.

“With a real-life event like Trinity test, which is so well-documented and the footages are available, the computer graphics would never give you the sense of threat that you see in the real life footage,” Nolan said in the video.

Special effects supervisor Scott Fisher said that it was obvious that one will not be doing the explosion “they did”, so the task was to figure out a way to get “something big, something you can repeat from different angles and get it right”.

“Because people will take a closer look at the movie, especially for its accuracy,” Fisher added. The team did experiments and came with different analog methods to achieve the “shockwaves” created by a nuclear bomb explosion.

Part of the method to recreate the Trinity test explosion was to detonate different substances for the desired result. On the top, there was 60 gallons of gasoline laced with high explosives which were detonated, two seconds later the detonation of aluminum powder happened to create a bright flash and almost half a second later the team detonated the motor at the bottom, which was gasoline, diesel and black powder which pushed up and created a mushroom cloud.

Oppenheimer starred Cillian Murphy as the titular theoretical physicist, regarded as one of the fathers of the atom bomb. The movie also starred Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr and Florence Pugh among others.

Oppenheimer was a major box office blockbuster and released with Barbie, which was also a big global money spinner.