How Christopher Nolan (Possibly) Snuck a ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ Easter Egg Into ‘Oppenheimer’

We've split open some atoms to analyze this one particle-by-particle

Published 01/13/24 09:00 AM ET

Jordan Hoffman

It is well established that Christopher Nolan's movies are like puzzles. We've been cranking out the charts and graphs since we first watched Memento on VHS, getting up every 15 minutes to rewind a scene in a failed attempt to stay ahead of the narrative. Google "Tenet flowchart" and you'll find at least 12 different versions of that movie's perplexing story kinda-sorta explained.

Nolan has also gone on record to express what seeing Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as a kid meant to him. Heck, he's done more than just talk about it — he took action, urging Warner Bros. to release an "unrestored" version on 70mm in theaters for the movie's 50th anniversary. (He also held a master class at the Cannes Film Festival that year, where he basically rhapsodized about the movie for 90 straight minutes.)

Now that Oppenheimer is available to stream at home (it is a $6 rental on platforms like Amazon, Apple and Vudu), it's time to go atom by atom. Ever since the press screening in July, I've had a theory. But before you read what I have to say, you may want to put on some protective goggles and skin cream, for the sheer magnitude of this revelation is radioactive.

Only this image of Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, witnessing the might of a nuclear blast, accurately represents how revelatory the forthcoming presentation will be.Universal Pictures

At the end of Oppenheimer (but it is in the middle of the timeline — classic Nolan!), Cillian Murphy's J. Robert Oppenheimer has a quick conversation with Tom Conti's Albert Einstein on the campus of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. (Which, it's always fun to remind people, has nothing to do with Princeton University.) During that conversation, the film flashes forward to the future, in which Oppenheimer sees himself as an old man. (It's an event that actually happened, so cinematically, it is up to you to determine whose point of view this is.)

Behold, here is Old Man Oppie.

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer at the end of his life ... or is it something more?Universal Pictures

When I first saw this, after nearly three hours of exhilaration, I was thunderstruck: Nolan has made Cillian Murphy up to look like Keir Dullea at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, when inter-dimensional strangeness time-warps him through the stages of his life. Here, take a look.

Keir Dullea as David Bowman in the hotel (or whatever the hell it was) at the end of "2001: A Space Odyssey"Warner Bros. Pictures

Are you feeling it, or am I nuts? The Messenger's Movies Editor Mike "Molecule" Miller looks at the above and says, "Yeah, that's, uh, two guys in old age makeup, sure," but I think it is Nolan paying Kubrick an homage from beyond the infinite. Here are the two gents side-by-side.

Oppie and Bowman must turn away from one another: if they acknowledge the other's existence, the fabric of spacetime will ignite and cause a chain reaction to kill us all.Universal Pictures; Warner Bros.

All right, maybe this is all a stretch. But you gotta think about something during the final scenes of Oppenheimer. Contemplating how mankind's bellicose nature is ill-equipped to handle the technology it can create and will most likely destroy itself can leave you feeling like this.

"Ruh-roh!"Universal Pictures

Or this.

Where did I put my keys?Warner Bros.