Interstellar SPOILERS ALLOWED Discussion thread

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Bullshit! It was asked for by E.T. and Elliot!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Full postcount power! Damn you!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Post count is irrelevant

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Yeah it's all about post-to-like ratio. Check it bitches!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Post count is irrelevant

OK...

Look at my postcount! Look at the things i've done!

Just shows ill do anything to boost my postcount!

My postcount deserves....demands worship!

And I saved the best for last:

It's all about the postcount.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I've been here since 2000. Please dont use the post from my youth against me!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Your youth? 2013?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Haven't I made remarkable progress lately?

[KK 3,307]

This post is from yesterday!

Look at my postcount! Look at the things i've done!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

That was ironic hyperbole!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Having seen Skyfall just now for the 9th time, and immediately after that a 10th time with the commentary by director Sam Mendes, I realize I probably do owe TheGreyPilgrim something of an apology in the way I hounded him over his deep affection for Interstellar.

There are many who utterly dismissed Skyfall because of what they perceive as fatal shortcomings while I see those at most as minor issues, just as you do with Interstellar. I understand the deep affection one can feel for a film and was wrong to dismiss that in the way I sometimes did.

My apologies.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Well that's a lovely gesture, but certainly not necessary.

I don't think that "plot holes" really exist as most people think of them. Actual plot contradictions do exist, but they're very rare (at least outside of amateur filmmaking). No, as I've said before, I believe what people classify as plot holes are either: 1) unexplained story elements that do not cripple the story by their absence but do require independent thought if an "explanation" is desired (connecting the dots, "how does Bruce get back to Gotham?"), or 2) conveniences of plot that seem implausible (I believe this in particular is what people took issue with in Skyfall). This second one is particularly strange to me, as I'm willing to be told a story that operates by any sort of internal logic/frequency of coincidence that the storyteller cares to concoct. I don't mind a hyper-realistic story, nor do I mind one where extreme coincidence allows events to unfold as they do. Such things wouldn't be impossible in the "real" world, only exceptional. And why complain if you go to the theater and are told a story about an exceptional sequence of events? Is that so awful? The remarkable effectiveness of Silva's plan despite so many variables makes for a compelling yarn, no? I don't get it. Would we prefer to see a film where the villain doesn't manage to pull anything off and there's no trouble whatsoever, and Bond sips a martini and fucks broads for two hours?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Having seen Skyfall just now for the 9th time, and immediately after that a 10th time with the commentary by director Sam Mendes, I realize I probably do owe TheGreyPilgrim something of an apology in the way I hounded him over his deep affection for Interstellar.

There are many who utterly dismissed Skyfall because of what they perceive as fatal shortcomings while I see those at most as minor issues, just as you do with Interstellar. I understand the deep affection one can feel for a film and was wrong to dismiss that in the way I sometimes did.

My apologies.

lol

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Agreed!

[crocodile 8,017]

Now, if only I can hear Stefan apologising about Watchmen...

Karol

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

No way!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Stiff should apologize to every member of this forum he has hounded over the years.

[RedBard 71]

Now, if only I can hear Stefan apologising about Watchmen...

The only apology for Watchmen I wanna see is Zack Snyder apologizing to Alan Moore.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Alan Moore should get of his high horse! He's never ever seen the film.

[crocodile 8,017]

Alan Moore apparently hates his own work for all the misery caused by studios and people bothering him about the movie and comic prequels. Things he doesn't get any money for and has no rights to (his name is not even on the film). Which is, of course, what he wanted. But they wouldn't leave him alone anyway.

Karol

[RedBard 71]

Alan Moore should get of his high horse! He's never ever seen the film.

Yeah, you're right. He's the P.L. Travers of DC Comics.

[crocodile 8,017]

I wouldn't even put his name and DC Comics in one sentence. They bummed him and artists over Watchmen and V for Vendetta rights with mid-eighties. It was supposed to revert back to the creators after initial run. Which never happened. So he stopped working for DC. And then DC bought a company he was doing some work for in the late 90's (called ABC Comics). So he had to get out of that as well. And then WB (who owns DC) was pestering him over screen adaptations. He was even summoned to court over some stuff in League of Extrordinary Gentlemen film (which bears virtually no similarity to his work, apart from few characters). So he was trying to stay away from all those corporations but they would still want to put his name on their products. So he got pissed off and demanded that his name will not be associated with anything coming from either DC or WB. Or Marvel. And now he owns rights to everything he writes and it's probably much healthier.

So no, it's not about him being ignorant. It's about him not wanting his work to be adapted without his consent and/or permission. Makes sense to me.

So no, I wouldn't bother watching Watchmen if I were him.

Karol

[RedBard 71]

Okay. Let me rephrase that:

Alan Moore the P.L. Travers of the comic book world, but at least she learned her lesson the first time around.

[crocodile 8,017]

I admit that reference was lost on me... Who is that?

Karol

[RedBard 71]

P.L. Travers was the author of the Mary Poppins series.

[crocodile 8,017]

I never watched or read any of that (seriosly) so it might be completely unfamiliar...

But now I've checked on Wikipedia and yeah, it might like a similar story. Except.. Alan Moore never agreed to have his work adapted. He never wanted anyone to confuse films with his work. So that's a slightly different thing.

Karol

[RedBard 71]

I never watched or read any of that (seriosly) so it might be completely unfamiliar...

But now I've checked on Wikipedia and yeah, it might like a similar story. Except.. Alan Moore never agreed to have his work adapted. He never wanted anyone to confuse films with his work. So that's a slightly different thing.

But that's what puzzles me: I don't know where he got the idea of isolating his work like that.

I would've leaped at the chance at having my work adapted for film and thereby reaching a much wider audience than just to those who read comic books (and vicariously Moore's works). I would only require three stipulations: screenwriting credit, script approval, and creative consultant.

From what I can see of his career, his bitterness was always there, but now with film adaptations of his work, he has a justifiable platform to convey it off of.

[crocodile 8,017]

Well, read this.

As for the adaptation itself, I think it's basically an issue of creativity. He thinks strongly that the only reason for adaptation is to make someone, usually not a creator, a great deal of money off some "known and established" property. And that there are no creative reasons to "adapt" things (by which he means particular stories), other than financial ones. Which is a fair point.

Besides, again, there is the problem with corporations and they operate and treat someone's work.

Some people just want to own their work and what they seem fit. A lot of writers in industry medium just accept that as a fact. But that doesn't make it true. Take Hollywood screenplays. A lot of writers, who submit ideas, don't get credit. Take Frank Darabont and the fourth Indiana Jones film. If you read his draft, it's perfectly clear a lot of elements originate from his take. But no credit. But film writers are used to be treated like shit so it's ok in their trade (there's an excellet documentary on this, aptly titled Tales from the Script).

I don't see a problem with someone speaking their mind on the subject. Not sure why they should be treated as bitter and crazy. It seems like an honest thing to do. Would smiling to cameras through greeted teeth and do PR bullshit be the proper thing to do? Most people do and that's the problem.

Karol

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

So....when is Interstellar coming out on blu?

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Towards the end of March.

[crocodile 8,017]

I hijacked another thread. Really sorry about that, just passionate about some things.

No idea, there's nothing on Amazon yet. I kind of want to have it on Blu.

Karol

[Koray Savas 2,251]

The details have been released. Lots of goodies.

[Uni 306]

So . . . now it’s my turn. I didn’t read much on this film before seeing it, and I haven’t read much since, so this is a fairly blind assessment (meaning I will no doubt bring up something someone else has mentioned somewhere in the last 19 pages, which I will try to read at some point). It’s also a fairly lengthy assessment, but I’ve wanted to get this out of my system for a couple of days now, and you’re the closest schmucks in range. You’ve been warned.

I got out over the weekend and saw two movies. The first was Interstellar (finally!). As I said, I’ve managed to steer clear of most of the talk concerning this film, so I honestly knew very little about it when I sat down in the theater—only that the Earth was dying and mankind was in need of relocation in a hurry. I went in as a sci-fi lover who grew up going to late-night movies alone with the ardent desire of being blown away unexpectedly by a great story told really well. (And it used to happen, too. A lot. These days, not so much.)

And y’know what? I started out impressed. The early goings played very strong, even when they seemed like they shouldn’t have worked. And once it actually got interstellar, I was indeed blown away. This is the kind of movie I adore: scientifically sound science fiction. There just aren’t enough films like this these days. There were moments where I could connect to what it was like sitting in a theater in 1968 watching 2oo1: A Space Odyssey. This was great cinema, with great characters playing out a great dramatic premise over great scenery. It was headed with confident assuredness toward top-ten status for me.

And then . . . and then.

My brain has tried to wrap a solid analysis of this movie around the format of a standard review, but I can’t get the structure to coalesce. There’s just too much here. This movie seems better suited toward a list of pros and cons (or at least that’s what I feel more comfortable doing here). And since I don’t mind listing as many of them as I can think of right now, proceed at your own risk and settle in for the long haul here, if you have a mind to know mine. Here we go. . . .

On the good—even great—side:

• I would put good money on the table that critics of this film are complaining about the amount of exposition. I get that to some degree, but a movie built on a foundation of so much information will have to explain a few things. The approach Nolan takes here is brilliant. He doesn’t try to take stock of the whole world. Too many directors succumb to the temptation to go global with global disasters. It would seem the obvious thing to do, but ultimately it just wastes time. We don’t need to see what things are like in the big cities. We need to get to know the characters, and if you can communicate the big picture through their perspective, you’ve nailed it. And that’s what happens here. We learn an enormous information about the effects of the Blight (both logistically and socially) and the Cooper family through the simple device of a parent-teacher conference. One line from Cooper’s father-in-law—“Six billion people, can you imagine it?”—elegantly lays out the changes in population without using the usual ancient canards, like replays of old newscasts.
• Similarly, the scientific explanations are presented in ways easy for the layman to understand, allowing the consequences of the character’s actions to be just as easily followed.
• As for the story itself, most movies attempting something like this can’t quite strike the right balance between the epic nature of the story and the human element that should be driving it. Either the characters are overwhelmed in the action or their feelings and perspectives take up so much space that the story itself becomes an afterthought, which only serves to undermine its credibility. Neither is the case here. The story certainly never takes a back seat, and yet the emotional undercurrent hits the mark—which is a little baffling, really, because at its heart it’s a cliché that’s been hammered out many times before (which so much less success). I think maybe the scope of the story—the end of the Earth, exploring other galaxies for a solution—works to elevate something that normally would fall flat on its face. I don’t know. I’ll have to think on that one a little more. Whatever the case, though, it works here.
• I also loved the size of the story, its length, its patience in getting to where it needed to go. That’s not to say I thought every sequence was necessary (more on that later), but in the same way I like settling into a really hefty novel from time to time I think it’s a shame we don’t have more 3- and 4- hour movies these days. As long as there’s quality there (and there was here), then by all means give me the uncut version of Dances With Wormholes.
• I’ve been cultivating a healthy distaste for CGI for some time now, mainly because of its overuse as a lazy way to replace good storytelling. I don’t know how much of this movie was done on a computer, but it doesn’t matter: the results are breathtaking. I’ve always been a fan of Star Trek and Star Wars and the like, but we all know that’s not what wormholes and black holes and such would really look like, right? I loved how this movie presented outer space. The wormhole effect was great, precisely because it wasn’t flashy or decorative. Although we don’t know for certain, it’s easy to believe that’s what the bending of space would look like. And that makes it so much more real than any high-budget sparklies ever do.
• Same thing with the sound FX—or lack of them, where necessary. How rare has it become to see a movie that remembers there actually is no sound in space? (Even Gravity couldn’t get that one right.)
• This movie didn’t lock itself down into genre-specific parameters, either. It had something of everything: Heartbreak. Wonder. Fear. Humor. Gripping intensity. Wild settings. Science. Philosophy. Beauty. Everything.
• And it had Matthew McConaughey, playing Cooper to the hilt. Let’s face it, this guy is pretty much the same character in every movie he performs, but in some it works better than in others. And it was just the right fit for this part. Most of the rest of the cast I could give or take, but he had to be the fulcrum for this story, and he pulled it off.
• On a side note (neither good nor bad): if any of you have ever wondered what I look like in real life (it isn’t Bilbo at his desk, I promise)—or at least what I looked like at one point—take a look at Casey Affleck. He resembles my younger self so much that it’s always been a strange sensation watching him in movies. I also had a full beard for several years when I was younger, so seeing him on that video screen with facial hair for the first time gave me a little fifth-dimensional experience of my own. (I wanted to start pushing books off the shelf and yelling, “DON’T BECOME SUCH A DICKHEAD!”)
• Science fiction movies are often made or broken by how they present their artificial intelligence. This movie had some of the best presentations of robotic companions I’ve seen. Part of it was in the voices, which somehow managed to sound both programmed and spontaneous at the same time. Great balance. And it was also in their locomotive properties, both basic and wonderfully creative at once. When TARS took off to save Brand, I nearly cheered aloud.
• I wondered early on why they were panning down the portrait line of the Lazarus astronauts, then didn’t show Mann’s picture clearly, even though he was their leader. Of course, no one would ever cast Matt Damon for a one-off pic if his character’s already dead, so giving us a clear shot at that point would’ve given away that we’d be seeing him, which would’ve made the entire debate about whether to go to his planet or Edmond’s pointless. It was a nice fake-out, because I didn’t know Damon was part of this thing.
• This movie straddled the line between solid and speculative science very well (for the most part), especially in that it made things look and sound so right but wasn’t afraid to be imaginative. On that point in particular, the planets were great, even if they crossed the line once or twice in terms of acceptable realism. (For instance, how did they know the water was only a couple of feet deep on the first planet? And if it was, how the hell could it create waves a thousand feet high? There would be no water on the backside of such a wave after it passed. They would’ve landed on the ground.) But when it comes to this kind of thing, I can appreciate the same level of imagination that we used when my friends and would spend entire afternoons landing on different “planets” in our backyards. The science wasn’t our focus. It was cool.
• On that note: Landing on frozen clouds, layers above each other, hanging above the planet’s surface? Awesome planet is awesome!
• It was great, no matter how they approached it, to see a cinematic interpretation of Rama at last. I’ve always wondered what that would look like on the big screen. . . .
• Finally . . . the score. Zimmer doesn’t do much here that he hasn’t done before (particularly with Inception), and under different circumstances I might’ve had a problem with its redundancy. But here it works perfectly. Deep space, after all, gets a little redundant in its own way. And creating lyrical and melodic themes for the mind-staggering vistas might have suggested that the situations and visuals couldn’t work on their own and needed their own musical “sparklies” to get the point across. They didn’t, so Hans didn’t. He just sat his ass on the organ at the right times, and it hit the spot. (Not that he did that constantly. I’ve always loved the music that goes with docking sequences—as in Apollo 13—and this one was great as well.)

I’m sure I could think of other positives, but all of those were central to the film and were what made it work.

Now for the other side of the coin, more or less in chronological order:

• Let’s start with the worst item: This movie has perhaps the worst sound mix I’ve ever encountered. As much as I liked McConaughey, he’s still mumbling like he’s driving a Lincoln around and rubbing his fingers together. Everyone whispers or intones on a low frequency at one point or another, and between the SFX and music, at times they’re drowned out entirely. People whisper in other movies, and I can always hear them just fine. It’s an annoyance when you think you might be missing a major plot point hiding under someone’s breath (especially when one of the characters is giving a deathbed confession).
• Minor nitpick, but by gearing up with people doing documentary interviews (though I did think it was a pretty good way to communicate information) in which they speak of conditions on Earth in the past tense, you’ve started out the story by telling us people are going to survive beyond the disaster.
• I said I like long stories, and this was no exception, but that doesn’t mean everything served a good purpose. The drone sequence was one such example. I mean, I get it; it shows us that he’s cannibalizing tech stuff for his farm equipment. But it goes on a little too long, and is a little fishy on its face. (He kept emphasizing it was an Indian drone. I have to think he didn’t mean Native American. So it’s flown over from friggin’ south Asia? He also said it had been in the air ten years. How did he know? And without need for fuel or a maintenance check, in all that time and after crossing the Pacific? Huh?)
• Why do the talking docu-heads refer to that duststorm as if it were special? They recall the exact date and the time it started. But they had all seen storms like that before, and surely after. What happened that made that one different? Never explained.
• I know things are probably pretty tight underground, where space would undoubtedly be at a premium. But you really have a conference room (with a sliding wall!) located right next to the butt end of a launch tube containing a rocket? C’mon.
• I said I liked the water planet. And I did. But they shouldn’t have. Even if it had the makings of a life-supporting biosphere, the proximity to Gargantua makes it extremely problematic. The astronauts themselves were dicey about spending a couple of hours on the surface because of the time shift. Seven years per hour means that, once the Lazarus stations do get there and begin descending to the surface, the first landing parties would shoot off down the timeline while the others (even from the same station) waited their turn. Let’s just say, for instance, that to bring everyone down from orbit takes ten trips over a period of 12 hours. (It would probably take much longer than that.) That means the first people who leave the station will likely be dead by the time the last ones arrive 84 years later. What about other stations arriving months after that? Add the effects of entropy outside the time bubble and (again) the proximity to a black hole, and this just isn’t a good candidate for colonization. Not when the universe is rolling on at 67,320 years for every one of yours.
• How did Cooper come to the conclusion that Brand was in love with Edmonds? Nothing was ever mentioned of this (that I heard—maybe someone mumbled it) prior to their conversation where he brings it to the table. What clues did he have? If anything, Brand expressed more admiration toward Mann (“He was the best of us”). This came out of the blue, and felt entirely forced.
• I liked most of the cast, but Anne Hathaway was useless in this role. She’s a charming actress who brings nothing of what makes her great in other films to this project. Anyone could’ve played this part.
• Ditto Matt Damon, whose surprise appearance (when he wakes up and mistakes Cooper for Robin Williams) comes to nothing in the end. It’s kinda pitiful when an actor’s appearance in a major film feels like some sort of buddy-casting tack-on, like Kevin Smith got him in with Nolan somehow.
• And while we’re on Damon’s exploits . . . would it be possible, at some point along the road, to bring us a deep-space movie that doesn’t feature either a computer or a crew member going buggo and killing people? There was a time when that kind of thing was interesting, even compelling, but at this point it literally has me shaking my head. Things were going so well to that point. And his insanity didn’t even serve a purpose. He lied about the viability of the surface conditions, programmed his robot to self-destruct, and tried to kill Cooper . . . why? Because he wanted off the planet. Umm . . . what? Would it not have been ten times more efficient, the moment they woke him up, to simply say, “Nope. Planet sucks. When do we leave?” And I don’t care how many balls he’s tripping up there, you couldn’t find a first year NASA cadet who would ever, ever attempt to open an airlock in space he’s not absolutely, completely sure is secure.
• Whatever other problems the Blight has caused, it hasn’t stopped the advance of air compression technology. These people seem to spend hours and hours and hours in a spacesuit without worrying about their oxygen supply.
• So let’s get to the sequence we all know I’m going to deal with, yes? Because I’m a good guy and I’m willing to suspend some disbelief for the sake of a science fiction movie, I’m going to allow for the notion of someone taking a spacecraft into a black hole, then ejecting from said spacecraft, and still surviving. I went along with it at the time because I thought all this was still being directed by another intelligence that was perhaps “living” in the center of the singularity. Whatever. Anyway, we get to the train station and learn what we knew already: that Cooper was the one trying to communicate with Murph in the bedroom. Okay. Fair enough. This leads, however, to an interminably long sequence which justifies neither its length nor its conclusions, because it handles the whole thing so ham-handedly. These points need further indentation:
  • So this is all about gravity, right? And love, too. Can’t forget that. The love allows Cooper to connect with the room, and the gravity allows him to communicate. No problems so far. But now he sees the need to “transmit” the coordinates for NORAD in a way that he knows his former self will understand. Binary. Fine. So he does this . . . how? It was a little hard to tell, but it looked like he was “cutting” lines into the dust that was falling to the floor. Really? How in the world are you going to create a series of discernable lines in dust that’s floating down from 8 feet or so above the floor with only two hands? Even if you could trust the dust to float straight down, once you move one hand, the dust is gonna fill in that space again. This literally made no sense at all. And even if you could make that work, how is gravity affecting these lines to the point where bouncing a quarter off the floor is going to land on one of them? And what does any of that have to do with the combines going crazy outside? And you’re telling me a surveillance drone on the other side of the world was able to detect all this?
  • I didn’t follow at all where Murph was getting the word “STAY” from. Did the lines on the floor mean both complex coordinates and a simple word in Morse?
  • If Cooper so desperately wanted his own dumb ass to STAY home, why the hell did he give himself the coordinates in the first place? Mixed messages to his doppleganger, there. (Of course, I know he had to send the coordinates, so he could wind up on the other side of the galaxy to get all this done. So once he understands this, why yell at himself for being a moron when he’s doing what he’s supposed to do next?)
  • All of this is intercut with THE MOST POINTLESS business in the movie, where older Murph sets a fire in the cornfields to distract her brother Tom while she checks out the room again. WHY?!? If it added to the story, if there were an outcome that explained it, there would be no problem. But there’s no reason for it whatsoever, other than to attempt to add conflict and some sort of “ticking clock” pressure where none is needed. (Communicating with dad across the universe isn’t interesting enough?) It would’ve been so much easier—and lent to an infinitely shorter and less distracting scene—if the family had already moved out, and Murph simply went back to confirm her theory on her own. Turning Tom into a dickhead (he didn’t get my gravity message, dammit!) added up to nothing . . . especially considering what eventually came of his character (more on that to come). Instead, we got a long, annoying, loud, and falsely “intense” scene that was somehow instantly resolved when Murph showed Tom a watch.
  • A watch that, incidentally, Cooper used to communicate quantum equations to solve a massively complex gravity problem through Morse code. (And where did he get this information, anyway? How was he able to suddenly solve the problem?)
  • And then he goes and shakes Brand’s hand on the ship. But again . . . why? How did he get there? He was powerfully tied to the bedroom through his love for Murph. What love did he have for Brand while they were in the wormhole? What feelings were strong enough to pull him back to that point in space-time? And why would he feel it necessary to touch her hand at that moment? What was it supposed to mean? This makes less sense than anything in the previous scene—especially considering the explanations that scene gave us.
  • All of it adds up to a sequence that was ultimately some two or three times longer than it had to be, and threatened to derail what had been a great movie up to that point. And that wasted time could’ve been put to much better use, in offering better explanations for the final elements of the movie, to wit:
• So how the hell did he wind up back on the other side of the wormhole? Did he send himself there? Was there another intelligence involved in all this (which they never make clear)? This needed more, too.
• As did the mission of the station(s). Were they going to the other side of the wormhole to look for more feasible planets, even head for Edmond’s world? I assume so. (If not, why head for Saturn? Why not just stay in Earth’s orbit? That way, if they ever figured out a solution for the Blight, they could just head back home.) It would’ve been nice for someone to drop a short sentence saying that’s what they were doing. Just to be clear.
• This movie should be renamed What About Tom? After becoming the dickhead—though he perhaps came to a moment of self-realization and repentance when he sees the watch in Murph’s hand (we don’t know, do we?)—the movie forgets about Cooper’s son. Completely. For no reason. As much as it sounds like I had major issues with the black hole business, this is unquestionably the most unforgivable sin in this movie. Cooper would want to know as much about him as Murph. He never even asks.
• So Cooper wants to head out to try to find Brand on Edmond’s planet. I’m cool with that. She deserves to know he survived, and that the rest of humanity’s on its way ‘n’ all. But his methodology is a little questionable. He climbs into a two-person flyer with TARS, wearing a space suit (those tanks do last forever, though, don’t they?). No provisions for a long flight. Nothing else brought along. Yet . . . they stated earlier that the problem with going to Edmond’s planet was that it was much further away than the others, forcing them to choose between Mann and Edmonds. (I don’t remember the exact time and distance they talked about, but wasn’t it weeks or months away?) Isn’t this a little like jumping into a VW Bug and driving to the moon without even stopping at the gas station first for snacks?

These are the issues that lingered with me, and which caused a bit of lingering disappointment. But I’m not just nitpicking to no purpose here—though I will say I’m allowed, and it’s perfectly justified. When you create a story designed to get people thinking, you lose the right to lament that people are overthinking it. This movie expanded my perspective, even staggered me in some ways. You can’t ask me to switch my brain off when it becomes a hindrance to wrapping things up neatly at the end.

But there is a point to all this. When you add up every one of the problems I had with this film, those I listed above and those I might not be remembering, what does it come to?

Half a star.

That’s what I'm forced, reluctantly, to knock off its rating. I struggled with docking it by that much, but it mainly comes down to the Tom problems—his mood swing, the burning scene, his sudden disappearance. They're just too much to ignore. Things got a little sloppy toward the end, and I can’t bring myself to dismiss that altogether. But the bottom line is, in spite of all the issues and nitpicks, I loved this film. Its greatness overwhelms its silly misses enough to be patient with them. I even love that it engaged me enough to take the time to pick it apart like this. It still has me thinking about it, wrestling in particular with the whole bit about love and its implications. I’m still ambivalent about that part, but I’ll be seeing it once more this weekend, and I’ll give it more attention then. Can’t wait to watch the rest again along the way.

***1/2 out of ****

[Jay 37,369]

Good point about colonizing the water planet, I hadn't thought of that before.

I too hope they filmed more and a longer cut comes out someday

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Bloody hell. Do I want to do this?

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

You can choose...

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Amazing review Scott, and one I by a large agree with. Interstellar is a good film, at some points even a great one.

I didn't connect with the outer space stuff to the degree I was hoping for, but the scenes on Earth more then make up for it. And while some suspension of disbelief if required....it's sci-fi. Thats part of what the genre is about.

I saw the film twice and had no issues understanding dialogue, though I'm guessing the subtitles helped with that.

TheGreyPilgrim will now respond to each critical point you raised step-by-step.

Bloody hell. Do I want to do this?

It it unavoidable....it is your destiny...

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Well it's just that there are a few misinterpretations/misunderstandings in there that would be resolved by a second viewing... I'll simply suggest that rather than falling back into hold habits.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

You've changed!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

I feel... thin.

[Uni 306]

Bloody hell. Do I want to do this?

Do away. I don't consider my points iron-clad. And I may well have missed some details (muttered by someone in the movie, no doubt) that would undo more than one. But again, I didn't post all of that because I wanted to shred the movie. I did it--well, in part because I wanted to get it off my chest, put those little niggles down for posterity's sake. But mostly I did it to point out in a stark way that the film as a whole outshone its deficiencies. It was good enough to allow me to suspend my disbelief over some rather noticeable disbelievables, much more so than most films with similar shortcomings ever could.

I do intend to take up each of my points upon the second viewing, and will make a specific effort to resolve as many of my nitpicks as I possibly can. (And I'll post those resolutions publicly, with no shame.)

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Yes!

In its heart the flm works, that's what's most important.

My position on its scientific accuracy is that thats an issue that should become largely irrelevant.

Even if the film was 100% accurate in its depiction of Interstellar travel, gravity, physics etc, in five or ten years tine it wont be.

In medical science its held that 50% of all that is taught to medical students today will be shown to have been incorrect a decade from now. While this percentage might be lower when it comes to physics, the idea still holds true.

Interstellar will however still be a good film even if science has moved on.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I'm surprised at myself for only seeing this once in theaters. I was completely riveted. Though, Inception had the same effect on me as well and I don't have any real desire or love towards it now. Wonder if that'll happen here.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Its better then Inception though, which at its core was a truly empty film.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

It wasn't empty at all, it was simply an action thriller. Interstellar has much more of a personal dramatic through line. I'm considering buying the blu on day one, which I haven't done in several years.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Inception is a film I can appreciate for what it is, which is exactly what Nolan intended - no more, fanboys, and no less, rabid haters. But yeah there isn't much to return to in a spiritual sense. It's entertaining. Masterfully crafted. I think there is just enough of an emotional core and I will say that in the right mood it can draw a tear or two from me. Zimmer's score is utterly ingenious.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Perhaps you were right. It was touted as being a "meaningful" film at the time though.

Its an enjoyable if overly expositional mindfuck.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

So . . . now it’s my turn. I didn’t read much on this film before seeing it, and I haven’t read much since, so this is a fairly blind assessment (meaning I will no doubt bring up something someone else has mentioned somewhere in the last 19 pages, which I will try to read at some point). It’s also a fairly lengthy assessment, but I’ve wanted to get this out of my system for a couple of days now, and you’re the closest schmucks in range. You’ve been warned.

 

I got out over the weekend and saw two movies. The first was Interstellar (finally!). As I said, I’ve managed to steer clear of most of the talk concerning this film, so I honestly knew very little about it when I sat down in the theater—only that the Earth was dying and mankind was in need of relocation in a hurry. I went in as a sci-fi lover who grew up going to late-night movies alone with the ardent desire of being blown away unexpectedly by a great story told really well. (And it used to happen, too. A lot. These days, not so much.)

 

And y’know what? I started out impressed. The early goings played very strong, even when they seemed like they shouldn’t have worked. And once it actually got interstellar, I was indeed blown away. This is the kind of movie I adore: scientifically sound science fiction. There just aren’t enough films like this these days. There were moments where I could connect to what it was like sitting in a theater in 1968 watching 2oo1: A Space Odyssey. This was great cinema, with great characters playing out a great dramatic premise over great scenery. It was headed with confident assuredness toward top-ten status for me.

 

And then . . . and then.

 

My brain has tried to wrap a solid analysis of this movie around the format of a standard review, but I can’t get the structure to coalesce. There’s just too much here. This movie seems better suited toward a list of pros and cons (or at least that’s what I feel more comfortable doing here). And since I don’t mind listing as many of them as I can think of right now, proceed at your own risk and settle in for the long haul here, if you have a mind to know mine. Here we go. . . .

 

On the good—even great—side:

 

• I would put good money on the table that critics of this film are complaining about the amount of exposition. I get that to some degree, but a movie built on a foundation of so much information will have to explain a few things. The approach Nolan takes here is brilliant. He doesn’t try to take stock of the whole world. Too many directors succumb to the temptation to go global with global disasters. It would seem the obvious thing to do, but ultimately it just wastes time. We don’t need to see what things are like in the big cities. We need to get to know the characters, and if you can communicate the big picture through their perspective, you’ve nailed it. And that’s what happens here. We learn an enormous information about the effects of the Blight (both logistically and socially) and the Cooper family through the simple device of a parent-teacher conference. One line from Cooper’s father-in-law—“Six billion people, can you imagine it?”—elegantly lays out the changes in population without using the usual ancient canards, like replays of old newscasts.
• Similarly, the scientific explanations are presented in ways easy for the layman to understand, allowing the consequences of the character’s actions to be just as easily followed.
• As for the story itself, most movies attempting something like this can’t quite strike the right balance between the epic nature of the story and the human element that should be driving it. Either the characters are overwhelmed in the action or their feelings and perspectives take up so much space that the story itself becomes an afterthought, which only serves to undermine its credibility. Neither is the case here. The story certainly never takes a back seat, and yet the emotional undercurrent hits the mark—which is a little baffling, really, because at its heart it’s a cliché that’s been hammered out many times before (which so much less success). I think maybe the scope of the story—the end of the Earth, exploring other galaxies for a solution—works to elevate something that normally would fall flat on its face. I don’t know. I’ll have to think on that one a little more. Whatever the case, though, it works here.
• I also loved the size of the story, its length, its patience in getting to where it needed to go. That’s not to say I thought every sequence was necessary (more on that later), but in the same way I like settling into a really hefty novel from time to time I think it’s a shame we don’t have more 3- and 4- hour movies these days. As long as there’s quality there (and there was here), then by all means give me the uncut version of Dances With Wormholes.
• I’ve been cultivating a healthy distaste for CGI for some time now, mainly because of its overuse as a lazy way to replace good storytelling. I don’t know how much of this movie was done on a computer, but it doesn’t matter: the results are breathtaking. I’ve always been a fan of Star Trek and Star Wars and the like, but we all know that’s not what wormholes and black holes and such would really look like, right? I loved how this movie presented outer space. The wormhole effect was great, precisely because it wasn’t flashy or decorative. Although we don’t know for certain, it’s easy to believe that’s what the bending of space would look like. And that makes it so much more real than any high-budget sparklies ever do.
• Same thing with the sound FX—or lack of them, where necessary. How rare has it become to see a movie that remembers there actually is no sound in space? (Even Gravity couldn’t get that one right.)
• This movie didn’t lock itself down into genre-specific parameters, either. It had something of everything: Heartbreak. Wonder. Fear. Humor. Gripping intensity. Wild settings. Science. Philosophy. Beauty. Everything.
• And it had Matthew McConaughey, playing Cooper to the hilt. Let’s face it, this guy is pretty much the same character in every movie he performs, but in some it works better than in others. And it was just the right fit for this part. Most of the rest of the cast I could give or take, but he had to be the fulcrum for this story, and he pulled it off.
• On a side note (neither good nor bad): if any of you have ever wondered what I look like in real life (it isn’t Bilbo at his desk, I promise)—or at least what I looked like at one point—take a look at Casey Affleck. He resembles my younger self so much that it’s always been a strange sensation watching him in movies. I also had a full beard for several years when I was younger, so seeing him on that video screen with facial hair for the first time gave me a little fifth-dimensional experience of my own. (I wanted to start pushing books off the shelf and yelling, “DON’T BECOME SUCH A DICKHEAD!”)
• Science fiction movies are often made or broken by how they present their artificial intelligence. This movie had some of the best presentations of robotic companions I’ve seen. Part of it was in the voices, which somehow managed to sound both programmed and spontaneous at the same time. Great balance. And it was also in their locomotive properties, both basic and wonderfully creative at once. When TARS took off to save Brand, I nearly cheered aloud.
• I wondered early on why they were panning down the portrait line of the Lazarus astronauts, then didn’t show Mann’s picture clearly, even though he was their leader. Of course, no one would ever cast Matt Damon for a one-off pic if his character’s already dead, so giving us a clear shot at that point would’ve given away that we’d be seeing him, which would’ve made the entire debate about whether to go to his planet or Edmond’s pointless. It was a nice fake-out, because I didn’t know Damon was part of this thing.
• This movie straddled the line between solid and speculative science very well (for the most part), especially in that it made things look and sound so right but wasn’t afraid to be imaginative. On that point in particular, the planets were great, even if they crossed the line once or twice in terms of acceptable realism. (For instance, how did they know the water was only a couple of feet deep on the first planet? And if it was, how the hell could it create waves a thousand feet high? There would be no water on the backside of such a wave after it passed. They would’ve landed on the ground.) But when it comes to this kind of thing, I can appreciate the same level of imagination that we used when my friends and would spend entire afternoons landing on different “planets” in our backyards. The science wasn’t our focus. It was cool.
• On that note: Landing on frozen clouds, layers above each other, hanging above the planet’s surface? Awesome planet is awesome!
• It was great, no matter how they approached it, to see a cinematic interpretation of Rama at last. I’ve always wondered what that would look like on the big screen. . . .
• Finally . . . the score. Zimmer doesn’t do much here that he hasn’t done before (particularly with Inception), and under different circumstances I might’ve had a problem with its redundancy. But here it works perfectly. Deep space, after all, gets a little redundant in its own way. And creating lyrical and melodic themes for the mind-staggering vistas might have suggested that the situations and visuals couldn’t work on their own and needed their own musical “sparklies” to get the point across. They didn’t, so Hans didn’t. He just sat his ass on the organ at the right times, and it hit the spot. (Not that he did that constantly. I’ve always loved the music that goes with docking sequences—as in Apollo 13—and this one was great as well.)

 

I’m sure I could think of other positives, but all of those were central to the film and were what made it work.

 

Now for the other side of the coin, more or less in chronological order:

 

• Let’s start with the worst item: This movie has perhaps the worst sound mix I’ve ever encountered. As much as I liked McConaughey, he’s still mumbling like he’s driving a Lincoln around and rubbing his fingers together. Everyone whispers or intones on a low frequency at one point or another, and between the SFX and music, at times they’re drowned out entirely. People whisper in other movies, and I can always hear them just fine. It’s an annoyance when you think you might be missing a major plot point hiding under someone’s breath (especially when one of the characters is giving a deathbed confession).
• Minor nitpick, but by gearing up with people doing documentary interviews (though I did think it was a pretty good way to communicate information) in which they speak of conditions on Earth in the past tense, you’ve started out the story by telling us people are going to survive beyond the disaster.
• I said I like long stories, and this was no exception, but that doesn’t mean everything served a good purpose. The drone sequence was one such example. I mean, I get it; it shows us that he’s cannibalizing tech stuff for his farm equipment. But it goes on a little too long, and is a little fishy on its face. (He kept emphasizing it was an Indian drone. I have to think he didn’t mean Native American. So it’s flown over from friggin’ south Asia? He also said it had been in the air ten years. How did he know? And without need for fuel or a maintenance check, in all that time and after crossing the Pacific? Huh?)
• Why do the talking docu-heads refer to that duststorm as if it were special? They recall the exact date and the time it started. But they had all seen storms like that before, and surely after. What happened that made that one different? Never explained.
• I know things are probably pretty tight underground, where space would undoubtedly be at a premium. But you really have a conference room (with a sliding wall!) located right next to the butt end of a launch tube containing a rocket? C’mon.
• I said I liked the water planet. And I did. But they shouldn’t have. Even if it had the makings of a life-supporting biosphere, the proximity to Gargantua makes it extremely problematic. The astronauts themselves were dicey about spending a couple of hours on the surface because of the time shift. Seven years per hour means that, once the Lazarus stations do get there and begin descending to the surface, the first landing parties would shoot off down the timeline while the others (even from the same station) waited their turn. Let’s just say, for instance, that to bring everyone down from orbit takes ten trips over a period of 12 hours. (It would probably take much longer than that.) That means the first people who leave the station will likely be dead by the time the last ones arrive 84 years later. What about other stations arriving months after that? Add the effects of entropy outside the time bubble and (again) the proximity to a black hole, and this just isn’t a good candidate for colonization. Not when the universe is rolling on at 67,320 years for every one of yours.
• How did Cooper come to the conclusion that Brand was in love with Edmonds? Nothing was ever mentioned of this (that I heard—maybe someone mumbled it) prior to their conversation where he brings it to the table. What clues did he have? If anything, Brand expressed more admiration toward Mann (“He was the best of us”). This came out of the blue, and felt entirely forced.
• I liked most of the cast, but Anne Hathaway was useless in this role. She’s a charming actress who brings nothing of what makes her great in other films to this project. Anyone could’ve played this part.
• Ditto Matt Damon, whose surprise appearance (when he wakes up and mistakes Cooper for Robin Williams) comes to nothing in the end. It’s kinda pitiful when an actor’s appearance in a major film feels like some sort of buddy-casting tack-on, like Kevin Smith got him in with Nolan somehow.
• And while we’re on Damon’s exploits . . . would it be possible, at some point along the road, to bring us a deep-space movie that doesn’t feature either a computer or a crew member going buggo and killing people? There was a time when that kind of thing was interesting, even compelling, but at this point it literally has me shaking my head. Things were going so well to that point. And his insanity didn’t even serve a purpose. He lied about the viability of the surface conditions, programmed his robot to self-destruct, and tried to kill Cooper . . . why? Because he wanted off the planet. Umm . . . what? Would it not have been ten times more efficient, the moment they woke him up, to simply say, “Nope. Planet sucks. When do we leave?” And I don’t care how many balls he’s tripping up there, you couldn’t find a first year NASA cadet who would ever, ever attempt to open an airlock in space he’s not absolutely, completely sure is secure.
• Whatever other problems the Blight has caused, it hasn’t stopped the advance of air compression technology. These people seem to spend hours and hours and hours in a spacesuit without worrying about their oxygen supply.
• So let’s get to the sequence we all know I’m going to deal with, yes? Because I’m a good guy and I’m willing to suspend some disbelief for the sake of a science fiction movie, I’m going to allow for the notion of someone taking a spacecraft into a black hole, then ejecting from said spacecraft, and still surviving. I went along with it at the time because I thought all this was still being directed by another intelligence that was perhaps “living” in the center of the singularity. Whatever. Anyway, we get to the train station and learn what we knew already: that Cooper was the one trying to communicate with Murph in the bedroom. Okay. Fair enough. This leads, however, to an interminably long sequence which justifies neither its length nor its conclusions, because it handles the whole thing so ham-handedly. These points need further indentation:
  • So this is all about gravity, right? And love, too. Can’t forget that. The love allows Cooper to connect with the room, and the gravity allows him to communicate. No problems so far. But now he sees the need to “transmit” the coordinates for NORAD in a way that he knows his former self will understand. Binary. Fine. So he does this . . . how? It was a little hard to tell, but it looked like he was “cutting” lines into the dust that was falling to the floor. Really? How in the world are you going to create a series of discernable lines in dust that’s floating down from 8 feet or so above the floor with only two hands? Even if you could trust the dust to float straight down, once you move one hand, the dust is gonna fill in that space again. This literally made no sense at all. And even if you could make that work, how is gravity affecting these lines to the point where bouncing a quarter off the floor is going to land on one of them? And what does any of that have to do with the combines going crazy outside? And you’re telling me a surveillance drone on the other side of the world was able to detect all this?
  • I didn’t follow at all where Murph was getting the word “STAY” from. Did the lines on the floor mean both complex coordinates and a simple word in Morse?
  • If Cooper so desperately wanted his own dumb ass to STAY home, why the hell did he give himself the coordinates in the first place? Mixed messages to his doppleganger, there. (Of course, I know he had to send the coordinates, so he could wind up on the other side of the galaxy to get all this done. So once he understands this, why yell at himself for being a moron when he’s doing what he’s supposed to do next?)
  • All of this is intercut with THE MOST POINTLESS business in the movie, where older Murph sets a fire in the cornfields to distract her brother Tom while she checks out the room again. WHY?!? If it added to the story, if there were an outcome that explained it, there would be no problem. But there’s no reason for it whatsoever, other than to attempt to add conflict and some sort of “ticking clock” pressure where none is needed. (Communicating with dad across the universe isn’t interesting enough?) It would’ve been so much easier—and lent to an infinitely shorter and less distracting scene—if the family had already moved out, and Murph simply went back to confirm her theory on her own. Turning Tom into a dickhead (he didn’t get my gravity message, dammit!) added up to nothing . . . especially considering what eventually came of his character (more on that to come). Instead, we got a long, annoying, loud, and falsely “intense” scene that was somehow instantly resolved when Murph showed Tom a watch.
  • A watch that, incidentally, Cooper used to communicate quantum equations to solve a massively complex gravity problem through Morse code. (And where did he get this information, anyway? How was he able to suddenly solve the problem?)
  • And then he goes and shakes Brand’s hand on the ship. But again . . . why? How did he get there? He was powerfully tied to the bedroom through his love for Murph. What love did he have for Brand while they were in the wormhole? What feelings were strong enough to pull him back to that point in space-time? And why would he feel it necessary to touch her hand at that moment? What was it supposed to mean? This makes less sense than anything in the previous scene—especially considering the explanations that scene gave us.
  • All of it adds up to a sequence that was ultimately some two or three times longer than it had to be, and threatened to derail what had been a great movie up to that point. And that wasted time could’ve been put to much better use, in offering better explanations for the final elements of the movie, to wit:
• So how the hell did he wind up back on the other side of the wormhole? Did he send himself there? Was there another intelligence involved in all this (which they never make clear)? This needed more, too.
• As did the mission of the station(s). Were they going to the other side of the wormhole to look for more feasible planets, even head for Edmond’s world? I assume so. (If not, why head for Saturn? Why not just stay in Earth’s orbit? That way, if they ever figured out a solution for the Blight, they could just head back home.) It would’ve been nice for someone to drop a short sentence saying that’s what they were doing. Just to be clear.
• This movie should be renamed What About Tom? After becoming the dickhead—though he perhaps came to a moment of self-realization and repentance when he sees the watch in Murph’s hand (we don’t know, do we?)—the movie forgets about Cooper’s son. Completely. For no reason. As much as it sounds like I had major issues with the black hole business, this is unquestionably the most unforgivable sin in this movie. Cooper would want to know as much about him as Murph. He never even asks.
• So Cooper wants to head out to try to find Brand on Edmond’s planet. I’m cool with that. She deserves to know he survived, and that the rest of humanity’s on its way ‘n’ all. But his methodology is a little questionable. He climbs into a two-person flyer with TARS, wearing a space suit (those tanks do last forever, though, don’t they?). No provisions for a long flight. Nothing else brought along. Yet . . . they stated earlier that the problem with going to Edmond’s planet was that it was much further away than the others, forcing them to choose between Mann and Edmonds. (I don’t remember the exact time and distance they talked about, but wasn’t it weeks or months away?) Isn’t this a little like jumping into a VW Bug and driving to the moon without even stopping at the gas station first for snacks?

 

These are the issues that lingered with me, and which caused a bit of lingering disappointment. But I’m not just nitpicking to no purpose here—though I will say I’m allowed, and it’s perfectly justified. When you create a story designed to get people thinking, you lose the right to lament that people are overthinking it. This movie expanded my perspective, even staggered me in some ways. You can’t ask me to switch my brain off when it becomes a hindrance to wrapping things up neatly at the end.

 

But there is a point to all this. When you add up every one of the problems I had with this film, those I listed above and those I might not be remembering, what does it come to?

 

Half a star.

 

That’s what I'm forced, reluctantly, to knock off its rating. I struggled with docking it by that much, but it mainly comes down to the Tom problems—his mood swing, the burning scene, his sudden disappearance. They're just too much to ignore. Things got a little sloppy toward the end, and I can’t bring myself to dismiss that altogether. But the bottom line is, in spite of all the issues and nitpicks, I loved this film. Its greatness overwhelms its silly misses enough to be patient with them. I even love that it engaged me enough to take the time to pick it apart like this. It still has me thinking about it, wrestling in particular with the whole bit about love and its implications. I’m still ambivalent about that part, but I’ll be seeing it once more this weekend, and I’ll give it more attention then. Can’t wait to watch the rest again along the way.

 

 

***1/2 out of ****