Interstellar SPOILERS ALLOWED Discussion thread

[karelm 2,914]

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 ****

Hmm...Interesting...this thread seems to be stuck in a time loop tesseract. It is my opinion (and just an opinion) that this thread was created by our future selves to make sure we are as unproductive in our professional lives as possible. We should find a way to communicate with our past selves and tell ourselves NOT to enter this thread...or maybe we should tell our past selves we should enter to allow our current selves to end the time loop!?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

hey guys LOL whyd jason bourne go crazy so unrealistic hahahaha and bad science im a scientician and i know lel branes and tides and shit such deeply flawed movie

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Dear god... TGP in fanboy mode again!

[Uni 306]

hey guys LOL whyd jason bourne go crazy so unrealistic hahahaha and bad science im a scientician and i know lel branes and tides and shit such deeply flawed movie

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

No not you, you didn't read this thread and couldn't possibly have realized the mind-bending repetition that's gone on here.

[Uni 306]

Would that not be suggestive of many people observing the same things. . . ?

I need to catch up on this thread. Coffee first, then reading. . . .

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It was rather an issue of TheGreyPilgrim refusing to address certain issues that the film has. But I'm sure he will see it differently.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Classic Stef!

Many people observing the same things is fine. But many people continuing to bring them up after they had been discussed and in most cases resolved is not.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Steef....STEEF!

[Wojo 2,453]

Tin Tin.

Nope, no autocorrect yet.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

TinTin. tinTin. tin tin

Nope

[Uni 306]

Okay . . . finally got it done. 19 pages. Wow. Interesting thread, and not only because of some of its more inflammatory interchanges. One more reason to love this film, and others like it: they always provoke great discussion.

Some other fine points (and some a little less than fine) came up along the way. Not to pile on, but I knew I was forgetting an issue I wanted to bring up when I was writing my novella about the movie. It was nightscape94 who brought it back to mind, and I can't help but repeat it here to get it on the record (sorry, Grey):

• When they got out of the ship on Miller's world, I was giddy with the idea of it. I thought, They're on a different planet, in a different solar system, in a different galaxy. Amazing. Unfortunately, you couldn't tell that they were thinking anything like the same thing. I don't care how focused someone needs to be on the task at hand; the first astronaut to step out of a spacecraft onto the surface of Mars would take a moment to shake his head at the historic weight of it. Being one of the first humans to see the surface of a planet on the other side of the universe (to survive the landing, anyway) calls for at least an inkling of awe and appreciation. It was a disappointment that they didn't recognize this.

But back to the thread. I had to laugh at Grey's earliest posts, before he'd seen the movie (he'll never make money as a prophet!):

I'm not. Looks boring.

Nope. I'll post one reaction and that's it. Unless there's a good discussion going.

Though I guess that "unless" sorta gets him off the hook.

What I hate about seeing provocative movies so late in the game (it's only been a couple of months, but still) is that I miss getting in on the wrestling match while the mud's still wet. I guess, though, that Grey's semi-mocking "blah-blah-blah" post gives me a ticket into things, though, so I'll use that as my excuse.

Grey, even you have to admit you got a little . . . aggressive in your defense of the movie (though others certainly got a little overaggressive in their responses, too). What's really interesting is that it didn't start like that. Everyone was fine for the first few pages. People were giving their opinions, agreeing, disagreeing, no problem. Even you steered clear of conflict early on:

It was originally twice as long, opening with a very preachy admonition against pessimism, negative expectations, cynicism, and nit-picking... but fuck that.

And that's all there is to it. This is no longer about "quality". I can see no more need to defend the man and his films against criticisms. After this, it's obvious that he has truly arrived. This is no longer a promising director who is finding his footing, albeit in a very impressive way. This is a man who has mastered his craft and who knows how to use it for his ends, and who knows fully what those ends are.

Didn't last, but at least your intentions were noble. It was destined to go south, though, what with the lofty prose you were heaping on Nolan here. "Mastered his craft?" I dunno about that, but once you got it stuck in your head, you started having big problems with words like "flawed" applied to any element of the movie. Yet it was flawed, as many people pointed out in myriad ways—even you, if you'll remember:

As I suspected, all questions and qualms I had evaporated the second time around. Well, except one, and this is something I think warrants more thought and analysis... maybe.

All of those other gravitational anomalies mentioned during the NASA meeting, including the one that crashed Cooper's test flight... what exactly is their nature, if the ones in the house were communication between father and daughter, and the one in the wormhole was Cooper? I feel like there's something to that, and the crash, that I'm missing.

See? That's a gap. It's a flaw. It happened. They didn't make clear the source and reason for those extraneous anomalies. If the bedroom one was Cooper influencing events, who caused his crash? Why? We can speculate, but this is something the filmmakers should've made more clear. That was their job. It's not a straw to break the camel's back, but it's certainly a pickable nit. There's nothing wrong with pointing it out, even if you're just thinking aloud.

And conversely there's nothing wrong with responding to nitpicks that are themselves flawed. I particularly agreed with how you handled the question of using a booster rocket to get the Ranger into space from earth. Of course they could've gotten up to the station without a rocket. Hell, the Apollo command modules could've done the same, with a little modification. But they would've expended all of their fuel in doing so, leaving them none for making adjustments on the way to the moon and back. Same with the Ranger. There was no telling how much fuel they'd need to get the job done, and there were presumably no gas stations on the other side of the wormhole.

So some are answerable, and others less so. I assume that when you asked, "Do I dare?" after I posted my thesis, you were on the fence about taking shots at a few (or perhaps all) of my points. But why not? I wish you would dare! Debating these kinds of nitpicks is what makes a discussion like this so much fun. That's the whole point. And as I've already admitted, any number of my critiques could be off base. Knock 'em down. I won't take it personally (as too many do, sometimes).

Unless, of course, you make it personal, instead of simply a conversation about a good movie. And unfortunately, that's the line you crossed along the way:

I have to come to terms with the huge fault that is seeing uninformed opinions and feeling the overwhelming need to inform them. I can't keep up the missionary of non-stupidity thing. People think what they think and I can't make it my job to tell them why they're wrong any more than I already have.

First off, a minor observation: when it comes to critiquing and artistic medium, there is no such thing as an "uninformed opinion." If I say Anne Hathaway didn't give a great performance, that's my opinion. It was informed by the film itself. I don't need any other input. It doesn't make me right or wrong. It's my viewpoint, that's all.

But you got personal when you declared yourself a "missionary of non-stupidity." Meaning, by default, that everyone you disagree with and feel compelled to correct isn't just wrong. They're not just misinformed. They're stupid. And since you "can't make it your job to tell them why they're wrong," they'll just have to settle for being stupid. There's no help for it. It's as hopeless as the Blight.

Lest anyone think I misread you there, you subsequently drove the point home:

If these threads have given me a chance to show off just how overbearing and obnoxious I can be on a single subject, it's also given several others the chance to demonstrate a severe mental deficiency.

So you actually understated your earlier diagnosis. These people aren't just stupid; they have a severe mental deficiency. Because they (I guess I should say "we," shouldn't I?) don't see eye-to-eye with you, because we won't cop to Nolan having "mastered his craft," because we felt compelled on our own account to publicly process some of this movie's shortcomings . . . we're mentally challenged. Drooling retards. I see.

And lest you say I'm reading too much into that, you went on to stand your ground:

I'm not wrong to see it as "mentally deficient" (as crass as the phrase is) when people keep proposing or overstating the same things as flaws when they demonstrably are not - the things that aren't dependent on just taste.

Even the way you presented that "blah-blah-blah" post I mentioned backs it up:

hey guys LOL whyd jason bourne go crazy so unrealistic hahahaha and bad science im a scientician and i know lel branes and tides and shit such deeply flawed movie

See? You're making fun of the special kids by mimicking them.

Now, I'm not saying I'm personally offended by this. I've seen it too many times before to be much bothered by it. I just don't truck much with elitism in artistic criticism, the viewpoint that looks down its nose at detractors and says, "If you don't appreciate it, it's because you can't comprehend it, like we smarter folk can." Trouble is, that doesn't help make your point. It actually undermines it, since Interstellar is a perfectly comprehendable movie, as everyone who's commented so far has demonstrated. When you attempt elitism in response to thoughtful comments, it just makes it look like you can't come up with a better answer, so you throw out "You're dumb" to cover yourself. And you also can't much blame people for getting prickly in return.

There was one other thing you said, not at all insulting, but a debatable point nonetheless:

But recognize that that isn't a problem with the film. It's simply not aligned with what you wanted it to be. And that is just not the sort of issue that I've been talking about at all.

(I certainly hope you recognize this one is, unlike what I'm saying in this thread, but rather like your own complaints, quite colored by judgements based on taste and what the author wanted or didn't want from the film). By all means, keep bringing up the same objectively refutable complaints.

But . . . isn't this exactly what every negative review ever expressed does (even your own)? We don't go to theaters because we want to see bad movies. We go in every time hoping to see something good. When it sucks, it obviously hasn't aligned with what we wanted it to be. That's why we didn't like it. Let me use a more extreme example: I desperately wanted Battlefield Earth to be a good movie, because I loved the novel. Instead, Roger Christian took a dump on the screen. I—along with the rest of the world—was only behaving sensibly by being revolted. We wanted better, and had a right to expect it (we are, after all, paying money for the experience). It didn't align with what anybody wanted it to be, and was therefore universally panned.

Of course, I'm not comparing Interstellar to Christian's cinematic bowel movement. But the concept is the same. The issues that everyone's been repeating and that you've been lamenting—Mann's pointless insanity, Tom's disappearance, the unanswered questions at the end—are problems with the film. You might see it differently, and that's fine, but this notion that you're proceeding from some higher, objective plane is just nonsense. The movie may have aligned with what you wanted it to be, but that doesn't hold the filmmakers blameless for falling short where the rest of us are concerned. Nor does it make you right and the rest of us wrong.

Look, I'm not trying to dog you with this little (or not-so-little) speech. There's no hard feelings here. I'm just hoping to make you aware of how you come across when you take a my-word-is-law approach to the conversation. Ironically, it serves to make you look less objective than the rest of us.

With that solidly in mind . . . I'd like you to dare. Sincerely. You said I made a lot of points redundant to the rest of the thread, but there were some things no one else had mentioned yet and so you haven't answered yet. You referred to them as misunderstandings/misinterpretations. I'd love to know which ones, and hash them out with you. Like I said, that's the purpose of these kinds of discussions, what makes them fun. So let loose! Take your shots! I'm ready! (Don't leave this stupid retard wallowing in ignorance! )

[BloodBoal 7,538]

The Interstellar thread got interesting again! Thank you, Uni!

[Uni 306]

The honor is to serve.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Who will you be putting your money on Alvar?

Uni will be hard to beat, but TGP has the passion!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

While it's always amusing when someone tries to do a character analysis on me, I think you should read most of those quotes in a sardonic tone rather than the earnest one you seem to have chosen. That's really all I care to say on it.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Well, that was anticlimatic...

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

ClimaCtic, you idiot.

[Uni 306]

Well, that was sardonic.

Seriously, though: I wasn't doing a character analysis. I don't know you well enough for that. I was analyzing what you said, nothing more. And it was in earnest throughout—the passion Steef just mentioned was the biggest indicator on that count. It was also pretty sardonic, which was equally easy to see and which wasn't an improvement ("characterized by bitter or scornful derision; mocking; cynical; sneering"). To quote Inigo, "I do not think that word means what you think it means."

If you meant sarcastic, nothing in any of your posts (save the blah-blah one, perhaps) conveyed anything like sarcasm. You said everything with a perfectly straight face. Detailed interpretation can be pretty tricky on an internet message board, of course, but did anyone else read the posts I quoted with a wink-wink nudge-nudge effect I somehow missed? And even if you were shooting from that angle, you can't always count on people to think you're joking when you call them stupid and mentally deficient in the midst of a serious discussion.

Look, I made it clear that I wasn't put off by any of it. I was just trying to get you to see the problem others were having with your particular method of communicating yourself. Everything I've seen from you on this board tells me you're not like that.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

ClimaCtic, you idiot.

No, I meant what I said.

There was a hot topic, but you decided not to keep talking about it. You decided to chill out. That was anticlimatic.

[Jay 37,369]

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Please don't tell me what my intentions were. Any time I called someone's intelligence into question, there was zero earnestness present. Steef caricatured me as doing that and so I rolled with it, again, jokingly.

And sardonic was exactly the word I meant to use. You assume the "mocking" in the definition was of others: it was of myself. Again, playing into Steef's caricature.

[Jay 37,369]

OMG, did you just totally miss BloodBoal's hot / cold / climate joke and think he was being serious?

LOL!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

I was responding to Uni, Jay. Jesus Christ.

[Jay 37,369]

Ah.

[Uni 306]

Ah . . . self-sardonics at play. I see now. I didn't see then. I'm not sure anyone else did, either. But if you say so, that's fine. My mistake. I withdraw my comments.

But just so you know—that's what I was doing too! I was being sardonic toward myself toward you—or . . . uh . . . toward you being myself . . . or whatever—the whole time! Pity you couldn't see that!!!

ClimaCtic, you idiot.

No, I meant what I said.

There was a hot topic, but you decided not to keep talking about it. You decided to chill out. That was anticlimatic.

And this was simply brilliant.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

What's strange to me is that "not sure anyone else did, either" part. You said it yourself: nothing else on here would make you think I communicate like that. So why, then, did it seem like I was suddenly dead-serious? Because it was nestled in with commentary on a subject that I actually was serious about? I guess.

I certainly did get testy with certain people, but is that so strange? Consider: you felt that in this thread, I acted as though I had a privileged viewpoint which provided me with a more legitimate opinion than others. From my perspective, it was the complete opposite. Why? You said the thread started off well... yes, because everyone abided by the notion that everyone could think whatever they wanted. People griped, I said why it didn't or maybe shouldn't matter, and that was it. Everyone gave their perspective. Then, the repetition started. The same issues being drummed up... so, ok, I figured what the hell, I'll repeat myself too, no harm in that, though it is a bit frustrating. Maybe people just didn't see what I had said, and maybe they'll care to now. But that wasn't ok, apparently. That was being an inane "fanboy" according to certain people. It was only when it became unacceptable for my opinion to be stated that I got testy. It was only when I was classified as being a "fanboy" that I got "passionate." Your analysis of the thread ignores the fact that for most of it, my opinions were the ones being shouted down or dismissed as something not very nice. It was the collective of JWFan who held that their opinions were more legitimate, that they had the right to post their thoughts about the film without being contested or presented with opposing views. When you remove the (understandable) misunderstanding about whether or not I was calling people stupid and meaning it, I don't think there's a whole lot of nastiness on my end of it, is there? There's just a lot of people who didn't like that I was explaining why their gripes didn't really sit well with me, on the off-chance that it might allow them to appreciate the film more.

Sorry, I'm just not content to say, "oh yeah, I was a jerk here."

[Uni 306]

So why, then, did it seem like I was suddenly dead-serious? Because it was nestled in with commentary on a subject that I actually was serious about? I guess.

Pretty much. Honestly, that's why I interpreted it that way. You switched between sardonic and serious so fluidly I couldn't tell the difference.

When you remove the (understandable) misunderstanding about whether or not I was calling people stupid and meaning it, I don't think there's a whole lot of nastiness on my end of it, is there?

Absolutely not. That was the crux of it. And that's all I was saying. Even if you were kidding, it doesn't come across well. But there was nothing nasty in anything else you said. You were just expressing your viewpoint. You did tilt toward arrogance a bit when you said yours was the only objective one, but that could hardly be called "nasty."

Do note, however, I also emphasized that rebutting criticisms the way you did was perfectly acceptable, and even used an example to drive the point home (your fine argument about the booster rocket). You'll also see I didn't use the word "fanboy" myself, a term I'm growing to detest with a similar level of passion. And I will say—and probably should've said to start with—that during my read-through I noticed you weren't the first to get testy during those early pages. You were challenged first, and you answered back.

Here's my mistake, Grey: Somehow I got stuck on dealing with your posts and didn't share the love around. You were by no means the only one throwing darts, and I should've done a better job of explaining that. I apologize.

[KK 3,307]

ClimaCtic, you idiot.

No, I meant what I said.

There was a hot topic, but you decided not to keep talking about it. You decided to chill out. That was anticlimatic.

Highlight of this thread.

Smooth save Alvar, smooth save.

[Uni 306]

The Interstellar thread got interesting again! Thank you, Uni!

And just as quickly it got boring again, thanks to Uni! (I can do both with equal proficiency. )

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Only a true MB master can be both interesting and boring!

I should know

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Why are people still talking about this mess?

[Uni 306]

Assuming you're referring to the movie . . . why wouldn't we be?

[Jay 37,369]

Obvious troll is obvious

[Uni 306]

Obviously.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Why are people still talking about this mess?

Because its a classic?

[JoeinAR 1,949]

I'm a troll

of course you are Jason with a side of aspergers.

Uni, you're too smart to think Interstellar is a great film. or maybe not.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

You fucking coward.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

You fucking coward.

don't talk about yo momma that way.

Why are people still talking about this mess?

Because its a classic?

Classic....hahahahahaha maybe to a vegan.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Ofcourse! There is nothing left but corn, remember!

[JoeinAR 1,949]

well I could survive on Corn, it is a wonderful food.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

You could not survive without bacon, Joe.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

I could but I wouldn't be happy about it.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

We still had corn, acres of corn. But, uh, mostly we had dust.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

We still had corn, acres of corn. But, uh, mostly we had dust.

more than enough to cover the works of HZ and MG and the occasional less than great JW efforts

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

We still had corn, acres of corn. But, uh, mostly we had dust.

more than enough to cover the works of HZ and MG and the occasional less than great JW efforts

Get out. And don't come back.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Joe was here decades before you and will remain here decades after your membership has been forgotten!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

All his posts are just... drifting out there in the darkness.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

The grey about to play Munich.