Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie

Excellent documentary narrated by actor William Shatner about the dawn of the Nuclear Age with the detonation of the first Atomic Bomb in the New Mexican Desert in he early morning hours of July 16, 1945. With the Atomic bomb in US hands it wasn't long before it was dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing as much as 130,000 people and thus ending the Second World War.

It was after the war that the US started to test the atomic bomb in a number of islands and atolls in the vast Pacific Ocean which proved just how dangerous and destructive it was by vaporing both islands and ships, surplus destroyers battleships and even aircraft carriers, that the bomb was targeted at. It wasn't until late August 1949 that the US lost it's monopoly on the Atomic Bomb with the Soviet Unions detonation of its own in Eastern Siberia. With a major enemy the USSR now having the bomb which secrets was stolen from the US, by the likes of pro communists Klaus Fuchs and US Army Sergent David Greenglass and the Rosnebergs Julius & Ethel, from right under its nose the US was now determined to start testing bigger and far more destructive atomic or nuclear bombs. That in order to keep the Russians for gaining the upper hand over it in the race with the USA on the dead end road for achieving mutual destruction" or a Thermo Nuclear war which no side could possibly win.

The film documents the tests conducted by the US and USSR of nuclear weapons that by 1963 at the signing by the two nations of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty well over 330 atmospheric nuclear bombs were tested by the US Governemnt alone! If you add up all the other US nuclear tests,underwater and underground,they amount to some 1,000! That's not counting those conducted by the USSR and other nations with nuclear capacity, Britian and France, the number of nuclear tests reach almost 2,000 in just under 20 years after the first atomic bomb was exploded! It's a wonder that the world was still around by then since there was enough nuclear bombs exploded, one a monstrous 57 megaton blast by the Soviet Union, to have destroyed the Earth a couple of times over!

With all the nations with nuclear weapons coming to their senses in how dangerous they are and trying to stop making and testing them Communist China suddenly and unexpectedly joined the nuclear club on October 16, 1964 with an Hiroshima type blast in the Gobi Desert making whatever gains in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons a mute point! With Communist China's leadership not willing to stop making and testing their new discovered toy or WMD: Weapon of Mass Destruction.

One of if not the best documentary ever made about the both Atomic & Hydrogen Bomb with first time never before shown rare US and USSR as well as Communist China government footage that brings out just how destructive these devices are. Even in peace time nuclear tests have destroyed and polluted, with nuclear radiation, thousands of square miles of sea and land making it both uninhabitable and void of any signs of life. You can just imagine what a real nuclear war could do if a world leader of a country that has the bomb is crazy enough to start one.

This is an incredible film documenting the American nuclear weapons development program, from its first stages to the end of atmospheric testing in the early 1960's. The music is haunting, and the film of the nuclear explosions will leave you spellbound. You reach the end of the film haunted by the power of the nuclear devices, yet you want to see more. This movie is a "must-see". Everyone in the whole world should watch it at least once, and understand the power we have unlocked in the nucleus of the atom. Fortunately this film doesn't attempt to put a political spin on the use or development of nuclear weapons, but seems to document them very objectively. The viewer is left to determine whether or not the nuclear arms race was worth it.

This film would have been nothing were it not for the outstanding scoring by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. The music amplifies the horror, the bizarre and grotesque beauty, the grandiose irony of this film and its subject. Shatner's fact-like voice is like monochrome, and never distracts from the subject with character. It is a purposefully amoral film to good effect. Without stretching far beyond the immediate implications of a nuclear blast, and by staying devoid of ideology, we are left with the terrible phenomenon itself - the atomic blast.

To me, this was a real horror movie... sitting paralyzed, bug eyed, shocked, mouth agape and all that, complete with surround sound and weighty, ponderous Russian orchestrations in grotesque minor keys. You pray to God they make presidents watch films like these.

I also thought the ending "However..." sequence was perfect. To say that weapons find rest in the hands of fools becomes a truly shocking understatement when you see the sheer unhinged lunacy of the final scene.

A superbly written and well-produced documentary on the history of American nuclear weapons. Impressive for the quality of archival color footage, William Shatner's competent narration, and the film's haunting musical score. Chronicles nearly every U.S. nuclear test program, from Trinity to the end of atmospheric testing in the late 50s. Also includes footage of the Soviet's 50-megaton "super bomb".

Trinity and Beyond carefully avoids overwhelming you with meaningless dialogue. Instead, Shatner introduces each chapter sparingly, then allows you to sit back and absorb the spectacle of the explosions while listening to the score. The result is a perfect blend of sight, sound, and historical background. Overall, a terrific documentary and a definite must-buy for the history buff in your family.

From its first sequence of workers stacking cartons of TNT for a rehearsal blast at Trinity Site, to its last image of Chinese cavalry galloping into a mushroom cloud (the horses wearing gas masks), TRINITY AND BEYOND is a visually arresting film.

The picture documents the full scope of American nuclear testing from 1945 to 1963. Sand is fused into glass in New Mexico; islands are literally blown off the map in the South Pacific; a test in space blacks out Honolulu radio. In one nightmarish highlight, a bomb-laden Thor rocket catches fire and explodes on the launch pad. The warhead goes shooting off like a roman candle.

The film makes an interesting bookend to THE ATOMIC CAFE (1982), covering parallel ground, but apolitically, in contrast to the earlier picture's deadpan subversiveness. A key element is the carefully noncommittal narration by William Shatner. It's impossible to know what Shatner thinks about the events he's describing. (Though his direction of STAR TREK V demonstrates that Shatner is something of an expert on bombs.)

On the debit side, the movie feels a few minutes too long, and its Wrath of God musical score, while formidable in small doses, palls a bit as it goes on.

In its wedding of immaculate, surreal visuals with portentious music, TRINITY AND BEYOND oddly reminded me of the New Age films of Ron Fricke - it's like a KOYAANISQATSI for hawks. Sometimes, especially during a few brief shots of domestic animals being locked into cages close to Ground Zero, it makes you want to take a mental bath, at the mixture of intellect and human destructiveness on display. Nonetheless, it's a powerful, intelligent movie that lingers in the memory, and turns a valuable lens on 50's America and the Cold War.