Nope’s Gordy segments (and that weird shoe) are packed with meaning

polygon.com:

It all comes back to the shoe. Before we even know what we’re looking at when Jordan Peele’s sci-fi horror movie Nopeopens — or before we know what we’re listening to, though the eventual chorus of screams give us some ideas — we’re staring at a blue Ked, perfectly balanced on its heel.

To put it mildly, the few shots we get of this shoe in Nope are important. If you feel a need for clear-cut explanations for Nope and its endless enigmas, the opening sequence and its carefully balanced shoe is what solidifies the film’s ideas behind Gordy’s fate, and what it means for both Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun) and OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) on their parallel journeys.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Nope.]

We arrive in the film in the wake of the attack: The chimpanzee Gordy (played through motion-capture by Terry Notary) assaulted his human co-stars in the middle of filming a scene for the 1990s sitcom Gordy’s Home, and at least one body lies nearby. As Gordy rests against the end of the set’s colorful couch, blood coating his hands and face, the shoe is standing upright just behind him.

Writer-director Jordan Peele returns to this moment two more times, though he’s economic about how and when. First, we briefly see Ricky (played in his younger incarnation by Jacob Kim), hiding under a table, catching his breath while he looks on in fear. When we come back, the two memories finally merge into one: The opening shot of the film was from Ricky’s perspective, as he keyed in on the shoe before focusing on the bloodied chimpanzee, taking a breather after mauling Ricky’s co-stars.

Based on how grown-up Ricky talks about the incident, he at least pretends he’s found a way to make peace with an event that would, as he