Interstellar SPOILERS ALLOWED Discussion thread

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Meaning it was perfectly possible to grasp in the theater.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Didn't you read the script in advance though?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

So everyone who didn't get every plot aspect after their first viewing is an idiot?

[crocodile 8,017]

So everyone who didn't get every plot aspect after their first viewing is an idiot?

Don't be so hard on yourself!

Karol

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

I did read the script. The Spielberg script. Which has little to do with the film we saw. So what's your point?

And yes Stefan - including myself, by the way. How many fucking times are you going to ask me to clarify that? NOTHING in this film eludes a little attention, thinking, and imagination. "It was complicated" is not a legitimate, intelligent complaint to make. And that's just how it is.

[crocodile 8,017]

I read the beginning of the Spielberg script. The whole opening is a bit hokey - with the discovery of wormhole and scientist and operations being top secret and stuff. I'm glad this isn't in the film.

Karol

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

"It was complicated" is not a legitimate, intelligent complaint to make. And that's just how it is.

If it's for the wrong purpose then it is a legitimate complaint. I get the feeling that Nolan's films are complex for the sake of being complex. Like an elaborate maze leading to nothing.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Nah.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Inception was!

[crocodile 8,017]

Yeah, but that was the whole point of Inception. That's what the film was about and it was never anything else.

Karol

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Yeah, but that was the whole point of Inception. That's what the film was about and it was never anything else.

Karol

Preach.

And that's fine, by the way. Seriously, people whine and whine about how dumb films are "these days" and then they whine and whine when one isn't. Mother of god.

[KK 3,307]

Nah. It worked for Inception too.

The difference is, the layering of the plot suits Inception's style. With Interstellar, not as much, but it's not very intrusive aside from the talky ending.

Edit: Doh ninja'ed by the croc

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Yeah, but that was the whole point of Inception. That's what the film was about and it was never anything else.

Karol

Preach.

And that's fine, by the way. Seriously, people whine and whine about how dumb films are "these days" and then they whine and whine when one isn't. Mother of god.

That doesn't make it infallible.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

You are wrong! interstellar is immaculate! Its you who are stupid and ignorant...etc etc

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Yeah, but that was the whole point of Inception. That's what the film was about and it was never anything else.

Karol

Preach.

And that's fine, by the way. Seriously, people whine and whine about how dumb films are "these days" and then they whine and whine when one isn't. Mother of god.

That doesn't make it infallible.

No one said it does. But in this case, it's not the movie's fault that you didn't get it.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Yeah, but that was the whole point of Inception. That's what the film was about and it was never anything else.

Karol

Preach.

And that's fine, by the way. Seriously, people whine and whine about how dumb films are "these days" and then they whine and whine when one isn't. Mother of god.

That doesn't make it infallible.

No one said it does. But in this case, it's not the movie's fault that you didn't get it.

Technically it is. It's usually the movie's job to adequately explain or show what's happening in the plot. This isn't necessarily true for all movies but it's needed for something like Interstellar. The main driving force of the plot is that humanity has to leave Earth and the lack of explanation makes the happy ending feel like a cop-out.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Then what's with the presumably millions of people who had zero trouble grasping it?

And are you prepared to be quoted down through the millennia saying that a film needs to make things clear to the audience? I think there are a lot of people who would take issue with that. Oh I see you edited that statement. Good thinking.

There's no lack of explanation.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

"It was complicated" is not a legitimate, intelligent complaint to make. And that's just how it is.

If it's for the wrong purpose then it is a legitimate complaint. I get the feeling that Nolan's films are complex for the sake of being complex. Like an elaborate maze leading to nothing.

As others said, that's more true for MEMENTO and INCEPTION. INTERSTELLAR suffers from similar problems to TKDR - nihilistic sentimentality and the fact that it's an mishmash of pilfered, secondhand ideas and tropes/plot devices, all done better elsewhere, whether it's REDS, MISSION TO MARS, MAN OF STEEL, CONTACT or 2001:ASO.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

And are you prepared to be quoted down through the millennia saying that a film needs to make things clear to the audience? I think there are a lot of people who would take issue with that.

Not all films should be but with something like Interstellar, the little bit of information on the Saturn Station was the solution to the entire conflict of the movie.

[KK 3,307]

Nihilistic, your permanent title for Nolan? Not so much.

The second half the argument has some merit to it, though much less harsh than you put it, and almost entirely unfounded by the inclusion of MoS on your list of examples.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Then what's with the presumably millions of people who had zero trouble grasping it?

And are you prepared to be quoted down through the millennia saying that a film needs to make things clear to the audience? I think there are a lot of people who would take issue with that. Oh I see you edited that statement. Good thinking.

There's no lack of explanation.

Dude Dr. Brand explains it completely in the first half hour of the movie. We built these stations, etc. But how to get them off the ground, etc. Problem of gravity, etc. It is all there. Right there. That's Plan A.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

They probably did explain it but for me, it got lost among the sea of the other important exposition. A little more emphasis would have helped.

[crocodile 8,017]

Yeah, they mention that in the first act. "Do you see anything strange about this facility?" moment.

Karol

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

They probably did explain it but for me, it got lost among the sea of the other important exposition.

Not probably did. Did. And what other exposition? I thought it needed more exposition.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

They probably did explain it but for me, it got lost among the sea of the other important exposition.

And what other exposition?

Black hole exposition, exposition for the science of the planets, exposition for the character's feelings etc.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

So it didn't need more exposition?

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Not more or less necessarily. Just properly emphasized.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Oh, well that's not what you said before.

And if it wasn't properly emphasized, how did so many other people presumably get it? Just curious what your theory is.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The film needed a bit more clarity, a bit less exposition

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

"For you."

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Of course.

No one here can speak for other people Grey.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

And yet many try!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

You first of all!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

No, actually. If someone said that a film were complex from their perspective and they had a hard time following it, that's one thing. But when someone says that a film is too complex, and claims that as a flaw with the film itself, that has a certain universal implication to it, as though everyone should be having those same problems understanding it. That's not true though - that's actually speaking for others, semantically, and is all I've been arguing against.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Wrong. If I talk about a filn i only talk about what I feel of it.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Ideally. That's exactly what I'm saying. Didn't you read what I wrote? Are you an idiot?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

You are being quite the presumptuous little cunt tonight!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Why, because I called you an idiot? Just fulfilling your caricature of me. Sorry you're wrong, dude. It bites.

[Jay 37,369]

Alright guys be nice.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

But he started it!!!

[Jay 37,369]

He's been an ultra fanboy about everything Interstellar related for months. Are you surprised?

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Fanboy is the wrong word, Jay. If you've read the threads, you'll see I'm just challenging people who say things that are challengeable - things that seem to lack foundation. This could be done for most posts on most subjects on this board, or any board, to the same degree of annoyance to people who say challengeable things. A fanboy, to me, would be completely unreasonable in their conduct and discourse, attacking anything and everything that doesn't align with their own subjective views on things. That's not what I've been doing at all. But of course it's easier to just write it off as that, I understand.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Nolan fanboy!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

What? Where? Get him!

[Jay 37,369]

Christopher Nolan Pens 'Interstellar' Comic to Fill in Movie's Backstory

[mstrox 6,651]

My spouse and I didn't know anything about Interstellar except what was in the trailers, and we followed the whole thing. There were two plans: plan A, plan B. McConaughey was sent off with Plan B, and the higher-ups knew that there was no hope for plan A but after McConaughey found this out, he reached out to his daughter with the necessary information to help solve Plan A - leading to the survival of the human race.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

That's a huge simplification of the films plot, but essentially accurate.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Saw it for the second time and have some questions, observations.

Not a nit, just an observation. Coop and his father and law are seen drinking beer on the porch. But since grains has died out, and only corn is growing, it must be a different brew then what we think of as beer right?

Murph solve the problem of gravity, enabling people to leave earth and live on space stations, right? But the movie never actually addresses how they are going to feed those people. Getting away from the dust is one thing. But the blight was killing most types of eatable vegetation. I suppose samples that were not infected were preserved for possible future us, so it's not a plot error. Just interesting that the film doesnt mention this.

While the film claims scientific accuracy, it does take a lot of apparent liberties when it comes to either distances, or the time it takes to traverse distances. The Endurance crew spend 2 years in hibernation on their way to Saturn, which is fine. But after they passed the wormhole there is no mention of them ever going into hibernation again, apart from Rom occasionally, when he wait onboard Endurance for 23 years while the rest are on Miller's planet. Remember, space is big, really big. They have to travel from the location of the wormhole, to Miller's planet and then to Mann's planet on a craft with no FTL capability. The shortest distance from Earth to Mars is 100 days, and those planets are really close together. The problem of distance or the time it takes to travel isnt really addressed that much once they pass the worm hole. So either the distances were much smaller than in our solar system, or long periods are omitted from the film, with the crew in hibernation even though that wasn't shown or mentioned.

That's not really so bad, but it does get a problem near the end of the film.

Mann blows the airlock of Endurance, sending it into a spin and it's caught by the gravitational pull of Mann's world. Fine. Cooper manages to dock his ship and pull Endurance away from the planet's pull. However one of the robots tell Coop pretty much while they are still flying away from Mann's world that Endurance is being caught by the gravitational pull of Gargantua. So Endurance goes from being pulled one way to being pulled another in seemingly no time or distance at all.

This begs the question. How far away are the planet and Gargantua? Now Gargantua is described as a large black hole. And it's powerfull enough to suck in all matter, even light. For Mann's worlds, or Miller's world to be in a stable orbit of Gargantua, they would have to be quite some distance from it. Yet Endurance are pulled in by its gravity and Cooper reached it's even horizon in what seems like a very short time in the film. Hours maybe.

Interstellar's scientific accuracy just doesnt seem to hold true when it comes to traversed distances. and travel times.

Once the tesseract closes future humans send Cooper back through the wormhole where he encounters Endurance from earlier in the film and touched Brand. How does this work? Does this mean the future humans are able to send people back through time? If so, why does Cooper return near Saturn 124 years after he was born? Does time not exist in the wormhole and are all the events taking place at the same instance? If so then why didnt we see any of the 12 Lazarus mission ships that also passed though?

Early in the film a drone gets caught off course and end up near Coops land. Some combine harvesters are thrown off course for some reason. This points to possible alien or ghost influences early on in the movie. But it's never made clear what it is. Possible a side effect from Coopers meddling with gravity? We see that in the tesseract he only has access to Murphs bedroom, so it's not something that he was doing on purpose.

KK and TGP talked about how it was possible for Cooper to get to the event horizon because of the large, slow spinning nature of Gargantua. But his ship is actually torn to shreds to its force while he ejects and survives unscathed. No way a space suit can take the punishment a spacecraft can. So it would have had to have been the future humans.

[Jay 37,369]

Not a nit, just an observation. Coop and his father and law are seen drinking beer on the porch. But since grains has died out, and only corn is growing, it must be a different brew then what we think of as beer right?

Heh, good point!

Mann blows the airlock of Endurance, sending it into a spin and it's caught by the gravitational pull of Mann's world. Fine. Cooper manages to dock his ship and pull Endurance away from the planet's pull. However one of the robots tell Coop pretty much while they are still flying away from Mann's world that Endurance is being caught by the gravitational pull of Gargantua. So Endurance goes from being pulled one way to being pulled another in seemingly no time or distance at all.

This begs the question. How far away are the planet and Gargantua? Now Gargantua is described as a large black hole. And it's powerfull enough to suck in all matter, even light. For Mann's worlds, or Miller's world to be in a stable orbit of Gargantua, they would have to be quite some distance from it. Yet Endurance are pulled in by its gravity and Cooper reached it's even horizon in what seems like a very short time in the film. Hours maybe.

Yea, if I could change one thing about the film, this would be it: Instead of immediately going from the Docking sequence right into the next big action scene, I would have preferred if the film slowed down here. Maybe have Coop and Hathaway spend time together discussing options, eventually making a hard decision to traverse Gargantua. A nice break betweens acts 2 and 3.

Once the tesseract closes future humans send Cooper back through the wormhole where he encounters Endurance from earlier in the film and touched Brand. How does this work? Does this mean the future humans are able to send people back through time? If so, why does Cooper return near Saturn 124 years after he was born? Does time not exist in the wormhole and are all the events taking place at the same instance? If so then why didnt we see any of the 12 Lazarus mission ships that also passed though?

Yea I have no idea why they had the Coop/Hathaway "hand shake" stuff, it doesn't seem to really accomplish much.

Early in the film a drone gets caught off course and end up near Coops land. Some combine harvesters are thrown off course for some reason. This points to possible alien or ghost influences early on in the movie. But it's never made clear what it is. Possible a side effect from Coopers meddling with gravity? We see that in the tesseract he only has access to Murphs bedroom, so it's not something that he was doing on purpose.

Yea, I really don't get the point of the drone stuff at all, really. The movie would have been the same if that entire element was dropped. I would have preferred it if the drone was how they found the coordinates of NASA, like in the original script, instead of it being another one of Future Coop's gravity manipulations. I would have preferred it if all he did there was the original bumping of stuff off the shelves, the STAY floor dust, and then the watch gravity solution.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It would have been nice if either Coop or Brand had any emotional response after Rom and Mann die.

Also, what triggered the explosion in Manns shelter? Did he boobytrap his robot?