Audio problem: When Oppenheimer confronts Nichols in his office after finding out Lomanitz got drafted, there is a shot focusing on Nichols where Oppenheimer says, "Don't be an asshole, Nichols," where his mouth doesn't move along with the line. (01:13:08)
Audio problem: When Roger Robb is asking Oppenheimer if he referred to microfilm during his interview with Boris Pash, in a shot focusing on Oppenheimer, Lloyd Garrison says "I'm sorry," but his mouth doesn't move. (02:25:25)
Audio problem: When Oppenheimer is breaking up with Jean, he says, "We both know I'm not what you want, Jean." When the shot is focusing on Jean while saying the line, Oppenheimer's mouth isn't moving. (00:35:10)
Audio problem: When Frank is telling Robert about his engagement, there is a shot of Frank saying "I won't live my life afraid to make a mistake", which cuts to focus on Robert midway through the line. When the shot is on Robert, Frank's mouth cannot be seen moving during the line. (00:26:15)
Audio problem: Whilst Lewis is waiting to testify before the Senate for the first time, he says, "Are they really going to ask about it? That was years ago," to the Senate aide. Whilst saying, "It was years ago," the shot cuts to the Senate aide, where Lewis can be seen in the corner of the frame, and his mouth isn't moving. (00:02:15)
Suggested correction: While this is correct, an argument can be made that since the colour scenes are meant to be subjective and the black and white scenes are meant to be objective, Oppenheimer could have been unintentionally mapping the modern US flag onto this scene.
THGhost
That's a ridiculous stretch with zero evidence, not least as 48 star flags are seen in colour in other scenes. Sometimes a mistake is simply a mistake.
There is evidence, though. Nolan said so himself. Look it up. As for the mistake itself, I'm merely repeating what I've read on Twitter, and this correction was merely a suggestion. Seeing the 48 star flags in other colour scenes still doesn't disprove this theory. It is just a theory though, so no need to shoot it down so hard.
THGhost
He's said subjective in terms of the colour scenes being "first person", and maybe not strictly factual in terms of creating moments between characters and conveying emotion, but nowhere does that stretch to "one random scene happens to feature 50 star flags because Oppenheimer is mapping the modern flag onto it, when nothing like that happens anywhere else in the film."
Meh, take it up with Twitter. I just thought it was interesting, so I posted it here for a different point of view/perspective for others to read. It is most likely bull**** though.
THGhost
The fact that a director realized they had made a mistake and retroactively made up a deus ex machina explanation for it in no way invalidates the mistake. Nice try, Mr. Nolan but this posting is absolutely valid.
While Christopher Nolan's talked about the subjective/objective colour/black and white thing, which is entirely fair and no doubt exactly his intention, I don't think he's actually tried to "excuse" this by using that explanation, that's just other people trying to connect the two things. I'm not sure Nolan has commented on the flag issue in interviews at all.
Precisely, and I was in no way trying to invalidate the original mistake. I just found the whole theory interesting and posted it here. It is rather hilarious that a director with such attention to detail like Nolan would have missed something like this. We shall see if he gets it fixed for the streaming/physical release.
THGhost
It's not fixed in the home video version. However, the behind-the-scenes materials provide a reason for the mistake, in that putting a crowd in the scene was apparently a spur-of-the-moment decision. It's like that in their haste to bring in the crowd, the set decorators bought some modern miniature flags and put them into the scene without anyone realizing the 48/50 discrepancy.
Vader47000