What did you need to be shown? We SAW Cooper blocking the sand, knocking the books off, moving the watch hand, etc.
I don't get it. What else is there that could have been done to make what was happening clear?
INTERSTELLAR - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Agent Richard07
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What did you need to be shown? We SAW Cooper blocking the sand, knocking the books off, moving the watch hand, etc.
I don't get it. What else is there that could have been done to make what was happening clear?
I think that TARS actually said he had changed the procedure so that it wasn't automatic and Mann wouldn't know that. That's why Coop was trying to warn him to stop.<<On a different note, was I the only one who found it odd that a man who was described as 'the very best of us', where the 'us' signifies literally the smartest and most well trained scientific minds left alive somehow didn't know that opening an imperfectly sealed airlock would cause a massive explosion that would kill him and doom the entire human race? I mean, aren't airlock procedures like NASA 101?>>
Apparently we're not allowed to question anything Mann says or does or thinks because he was irrational
I took it more that TARS had just put a typical security lock-out on the airlock, not necessarily changed the procedure.
Mann may have figured the "seal" he got was good enough for it to work and took a shot. And, again, he was hardly in a rational mind.
Mann may have figured the "seal" he got was good enough for it to work and took a shot. And, again, he was hardly in a rational mind.
When I found out he was going to be in the movie, I assumed he was the voice when I first heard it.
Ok, here's something I have trouble grasping and maybe some can help me understand it.
First of all, a tesseract is a four (spatial) dimensional "cube." But here we're told that it's in the fifth dimension. And the idea of the fifth dimension is not something I am totally grasping.
Hell, I have hard enough time grasping a fourth spatial dimension.
We as human beings live in three dimensions (length, height, depth.) We exist in a fourth-dimension (time) but we are not fourth-dimensional since we cannot freely travel through time as we see fit we're bound by it and can only exist in the "now."
A four-dimensional being can travel through time the same way we travel through space. For a four-dimensional being "now" is all points in time.
This seems to be more-or-less represented in the tesseract as Coop is able to freely move through the fourth dimension as if it were a spatial one. He's not literally "everywhen" at once but he can move back and forth in time as he sees fit.
.... Where's the fifth dimension come into play and what exactly is it?
Is the movie using time as the true fourth-dimension and the fitfth-dimension as the "fourth spatial" one? This would, seem to, jive with how the tesseract looks.
Or is there something more to the fifth dimension? Coop could move through time and space as if it were a dimension that'd make him "four dimensional" but for him to be in the FIFTH dimension there has to be some fifth thing he has access to.
Was it gravity? In what way is gravity a "dimension" that can be experienced and manipulated? The three spatial dimensions it's easy to grasp being bound by one, two or three of them. Even time it's fairly easy to see how we're bound to "now" and perceive what it might be like to be "fourth dimensional" and see every point in time as being "now." But with gravity.... How does one "experience" gravity enough to "exist in it" and to be able to manipulate it or see it as we do three dimensions and four-dimensional beings would time?
First of all, a tesseract is a four (spatial) dimensional "cube." But here we're told that it's in the fifth dimension. And the idea of the fifth dimension is not something I am totally grasping.
Hell, I have hard enough time grasping a fourth spatial dimension.
We as human beings live in three dimensions (length, height, depth.) We exist in a fourth-dimension (time) but we are not fourth-dimensional since we cannot freely travel through time as we see fit we're bound by it and can only exist in the "now."
A four-dimensional being can travel through time the same way we travel through space. For a four-dimensional being "now" is all points in time.
This seems to be more-or-less represented in the tesseract as Coop is able to freely move through the fourth dimension as if it were a spatial one. He's not literally "everywhen" at once but he can move back and forth in time as he sees fit.
.... Where's the fifth dimension come into play and what exactly is it?
Is the movie using time as the true fourth-dimension and the fitfth-dimension as the "fourth spatial" one? This would, seem to, jive with how the tesseract looks.
Or is there something more to the fifth dimension? Coop could move through time and space as if it were a dimension that'd make him "four dimensional" but for him to be in the FIFTH dimension there has to be some fifth thing he has access to.
Was it gravity? In what way is gravity a "dimension" that can be experienced and manipulated? The three spatial dimensions it's easy to grasp being bound by one, two or three of them. Even time it's fairly easy to see how we're bound to "now" and perceive what it might be like to be "fourth dimensional" and see every point in time as being "now." But with gravity.... How does one "experience" gravity enough to "exist in it" and to be able to manipulate it or see it as we do three dimensions and four-dimensional beings would time?
Loved it! There are so many things that are so well done about this movie. It's a tour-de-force in storytelling. And personally, I think it may be one of the more significant sci-fi movies in recent years, if not decades.
From a technical standpoint, I think the audio was both very good and not so good at times. For example, the ride in the truck when they're encountering the dust storm, I don't know if it was meant for us to hear them speaking, because they might as well not have said anything as it was completely unintelligible. The rocket launch on the other hand was very well done in terms of sound. For a dialogue heavy movie though, it sure tended more towards the soundtrack rather than the dialogue when both were competing. Something to do with the mix, I'm sure. Also, this isn't a knock on McConaughey, but I'm wondering if anyone had trouble hearing his dialogue. He seems to be a rather soft speaker. His performance was very good though. Overall, a very good movie worth seeing.
Funny thing is, maybe because I was so immersed in the story, but it didn't really feel like Nolan to me. It felt more straightforward.
Saw it with my parents in an AVX theatre, which I feel didn't really need it as it's mostly a dialogue-ridden movie, but it was the only showing that we were able to go to in terms of showtime.
From a technical standpoint, I think the audio was both very good and not so good at times. For example, the ride in the truck when they're encountering the dust storm, I don't know if it was meant for us to hear them speaking, because they might as well not have said anything as it was completely unintelligible. The rocket launch on the other hand was very well done in terms of sound. For a dialogue heavy movie though, it sure tended more towards the soundtrack rather than the dialogue when both were competing. Something to do with the mix, I'm sure. Also, this isn't a knock on McConaughey, but I'm wondering if anyone had trouble hearing his dialogue. He seems to be a rather soft speaker. His performance was very good though. Overall, a very good movie worth seeing.
Funny thing is, maybe because I was so immersed in the story, but it didn't really feel like Nolan to me. It felt more straightforward.
Saw it with my parents in an AVX theatre, which I feel didn't really need it as it's mostly a dialogue-ridden movie, but it was the only showing that we were able to go to in terms of showtime.
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Supposedly - though I can't say I was paying enough attention to notice - his truck has a Colorado license plate.
<<On a different note, was I the only one who found it odd that a man who was described as 'the very best of us', where the 'us' signifies literally the smartest and most well trained scientific minds left alive somehow didn't know that opening an imperfectly sealed airlock would cause a massive explosion that would kill him and doom the entire human race? I mean, aren't airlock procedures like NASA 101?>>
Apparently we're not allowed to question anything Mann says or does or thinks because he was irrational
Oh, I get the irrationality and for most of what he does that makes perfect sense. But when he's standing there in that airlock, I don't get the sense of 'I'm going to do this and it's going to work even though I know it shouldn't', I get the sense of 'I'm already docked so nothing can possibly go wrong now'. It doesn't feel like he's being irrational so much as just honestly completely ignorant of the possible problems he could cause. Especially in comparison to the previous scene - as he tries to dock the ship without the benefit of the autodocking sequence, you can see on his face that he doesn't know what he's doing and he's well aware of the possible consequences, but he's going to do it anyway. Once he climbs in the airlock, though, that seems to go away.
I think that TARS actually said he had changed the procedure so that it wasn't automatic and Mann wouldn't know that. That's why Coop was trying to warn him to stop.Apparently we're not allowed to question anything Mann says or does or thinks because he was irrational
The way I recall it was that there was an 'autodock' system on the ship which would help achieve a good seal, even if you aren't a skilled pilot. TARS locked out the autodocking procedure so that anyone who tried to dock would have to do it all on their own, which would be no problem for Cooper, the genius pilot, but Mann didn't have the necessary skill set.
The thing for me is just that when he's docking he seems well aware of the danger, but after that - even with repeated warnings from the other astronauts and from the onboard computer - he acts like all the danger is past and nothing could possibly go wrong, like he honestly doesn't know what could happen if you open the airlock on a bad seal. Come to think of it, even Cooper had to ask what would happen if he opened the door - which was almost certainly for the audience's benefit, but how on earth do you ever get out of NASA training without knowing something that basic/important?
Maybe the auto-docking procedure has enough redundancies in it that a manual one just isn't ever performed and it's just not too common knowledge what would happen if it isn't done properly?
I dunno. But, again, as has been stated Mann was not thinking rationally had a severe case of tunnel vision.
I dunno. But, again, as has been stated Mann was not thinking rationally had a severe case of tunnel vision.
Not only was his thinking impaired, but Brand and Cooper knew he was guilty of murder and attempted murder. Everything had fallen apart on him and he was in fully irrational fight or flight mode at that point. In his mind, the risk or even likelihood of dying opening that airlock might have seemed better than facing up to the reality of his actions in front of Brand and Cooper.
Went and saw it again yesterday, I noted when Dr. Mann is attempting the manual docking, after he lines it up but the clamps don't connect, while he's frantically pushing buttons inside the Ranger, there is a computer screen that says something like "AIRLOCK OK" - so he may have thought he was docked properly. It's possible the Ranger's computer thinks everything is OK, but CASE is being relayed information from Endurance's computer which is aware something's amiss.
Something else I noticed, which address a complaint about the first rocket launch (i.e. why they needed a rocket at all since the Rangers are single-stage-to-orbit craft): it's only barely visible in maybe two shots, but it appears that there is something large attached to the underside of the Ranger. I think it might have been one of the Landers, or perhaps some additional supplies in cargo pods. They'd have to bring up the population bomb as part of that launch, so it could have been something carrying that (the population bomb may have been stowed in the Ranger's airlock, as I think I saw something resembling it in there, but it was a quick shot - and I don't think there'd be enough room).
Something else I noticed, which address a complaint about the first rocket launch (i.e. why they needed a rocket at all since the Rangers are single-stage-to-orbit craft): it's only barely visible in maybe two shots, but it appears that there is something large attached to the underside of the Ranger. I think it might have been one of the Landers, or perhaps some additional supplies in cargo pods. They'd have to bring up the population bomb as part of that launch, so it could have been something carrying that (the population bomb may have been stowed in the Ranger's airlock, as I think I saw something resembling it in there, but it was a quick shot - and I don't think there'd be enough room).
It felt like what you'd get if Michael Bay directed 2001, lots of visual splendor but the more you think about it the stupider and stupider the film seems.
The ending was the main weakness, it was as if 2001 ended with Hal and Dave explaining what was going on during the Star Child sequence. Very slowly. Some ambiguity would have gone a long way, actually spelling it out just made me realise how silly a lot of it was.
Other annoyances:
OK, the film did nicely deal with why they didn't just send robots to the 12 worlds (the ones they have are old and running out, hence the main one having to pull guard and interrogation duties as well as being on the mission), but Dr. Mann having one with him kind of undid that as that's at least one mission they didn't need to waste a human on (I know that, in keeping with the Dark Knight Rises, thematically it's about the power of the human spirit overcoming everything but it still felt a bit odd, especially as that argument is made by the mad Mann and the self obsessed with his own kids Cooper).
Anne Hathaway's character being made to feel guilty about the water world even though Cooper is just as responsible as his need to rush things prevented them taking a more considered approach. Indeed, Cooper is the most annoying sort of parent who thinks that having made a kid gives them the right to do anything and it's OK because it's for their kids, he doesn't seem to give that much of a ¤¤¤¤ about anyone else. Throw in him going to extreme lengths to ¤¤¤¤ block Hathaway's existing boyfriend (and if he hadn't, they'd have avoided the whole Mann mess as well) and he comes over as fully deserving of being sucked into a black hole.
OK, I get the need to explain things for audiences not familiar with space travel and multi dimensional theories, and you don't want to do the infodumps all in one go . But the exposition is handled very poorly with it seeming that ex-NASA staff member Cooper apparently knows nothing about space travel beyond how to fly the ship and no one has bothered to explain any of the things vital to the mission to him in even the most basic way before they left (and even with there being a rush on, it's not as if the explanations take that long to deliver).
Also, it seems the American government is fully behind NASA's plan here- to the point of keeping it going for decades after the last time they hear from the mission and presumably throwing a lot of money at it. So with all hopes on this long term plan that will require new and younger people to come in and replace those who die and retire to keep it going... they create an education system that goes out of its way to remove any interest in space or anything beyond farming from young minds. How is that not counter-productive?
The worst thing for me (and strangely considering the British talent behind the film), was how annoyingly American the whole thing was. Mentions of other nations tend to be in the past tense, and Michael Caine seems to be the only non-Yank involved in the whole process (and with him you can never tell, that might well have been supposed to be an American accent). More worryingly, there's no real feeling that anyone except Americans were saved at the end either.
Just compare that to our old friend Independence Day, where despite it's much derided "America saves the day" attitude it still goes to the effort of showing that the whole world is involved and playing a vital part even if the American lead actors are the ones who've come up with the plan and will be carrying out the most dangerous part of it. As entertainingly silly as the Tally ho RAF officer is, that movie is trying in a way this isn't.
Which is especially silly when in the present day real world Americans can't send men into space without working with the Russians.
And how the hell old was Caine supposed to be when he died anyway?
That all makes the film sound less entertaining than it is (though it is the sort of annoying dumb movie that thinks it has something profound to say, see also Star Trek the Motion Picture), but just make sure you're brain is switched off, watch the pretty effects and entertaining silly robots (which more than anything suggest that Nolan deep down in his heart would rather be making a film like The Black Hole and don't under any circumstances think about it afterwards.
It was also perhaps slightly undone by Gravity being so recent and pre-empting the effort to give good old fashioned pulp SF some verisimilitude by getting the basic facts right. Indeed, from the amount of times people say "GRAVITY" in this in the sort of tone of voice used in Bond films when they do a title drop it almost feels like that was the original title.
The ending was the main weakness, it was as if 2001 ended with Hal and Dave explaining what was going on during the Star Child sequence. Very slowly. Some ambiguity would have gone a long way, actually spelling it out just made me realise how silly a lot of it was.
Other annoyances:
OK, the film did nicely deal with why they didn't just send robots to the 12 worlds (the ones they have are old and running out, hence the main one having to pull guard and interrogation duties as well as being on the mission), but Dr. Mann having one with him kind of undid that as that's at least one mission they didn't need to waste a human on (I know that, in keeping with the Dark Knight Rises, thematically it's about the power of the human spirit overcoming everything but it still felt a bit odd, especially as that argument is made by the mad Mann and the self obsessed with his own kids Cooper).
Anne Hathaway's character being made to feel guilty about the water world even though Cooper is just as responsible as his need to rush things prevented them taking a more considered approach. Indeed, Cooper is the most annoying sort of parent who thinks that having made a kid gives them the right to do anything and it's OK because it's for their kids, he doesn't seem to give that much of a ¤¤¤¤ about anyone else. Throw in him going to extreme lengths to ¤¤¤¤ block Hathaway's existing boyfriend (and if he hadn't, they'd have avoided the whole Mann mess as well) and he comes over as fully deserving of being sucked into a black hole.
OK, I get the need to explain things for audiences not familiar with space travel and multi dimensional theories, and you don't want to do the infodumps all in one go . But the exposition is handled very poorly with it seeming that ex-NASA staff member Cooper apparently knows nothing about space travel beyond how to fly the ship and no one has bothered to explain any of the things vital to the mission to him in even the most basic way before they left (and even with there being a rush on, it's not as if the explanations take that long to deliver).
Also, it seems the American government is fully behind NASA's plan here- to the point of keeping it going for decades after the last time they hear from the mission and presumably throwing a lot of money at it. So with all hopes on this long term plan that will require new and younger people to come in and replace those who die and retire to keep it going... they create an education system that goes out of its way to remove any interest in space or anything beyond farming from young minds. How is that not counter-productive?
The worst thing for me (and strangely considering the British talent behind the film), was how annoyingly American the whole thing was. Mentions of other nations tend to be in the past tense, and Michael Caine seems to be the only non-Yank involved in the whole process (and with him you can never tell, that might well have been supposed to be an American accent). More worryingly, there's no real feeling that anyone except Americans were saved at the end either.
Just compare that to our old friend Independence Day, where despite it's much derided "America saves the day" attitude it still goes to the effort of showing that the whole world is involved and playing a vital part even if the American lead actors are the ones who've come up with the plan and will be carrying out the most dangerous part of it. As entertainingly silly as the Tally ho RAF officer is, that movie is trying in a way this isn't.
Which is especially silly when in the present day real world Americans can't send men into space without working with the Russians.
And how the hell old was Caine supposed to be when he died anyway?
That all makes the film sound less entertaining than it is (though it is the sort of annoying dumb movie that thinks it has something profound to say, see also Star Trek the Motion Picture), but just make sure you're brain is switched off, watch the pretty effects and entertaining silly robots (which more than anything suggest that Nolan deep down in his heart would rather be making a film like The Black Hole and don't under any circumstances think about it afterwards.
It was also perhaps slightly undone by Gravity being so recent and pre-empting the effort to give good old fashioned pulp SF some verisimilitude by getting the basic facts right. Indeed, from the amount of times people say "GRAVITY" in this in the sort of tone of voice used in Bond films when they do a title drop it almost feels like that was the original title.
Did the wormhole get closed before the end of the film? I read someone's comments on another page saying that the wormhole is no longer working...
In an interview Jonathan Nolan said it was closed*, but the movie doesn't say one way or another. I interpret that Cooper stealing a Ranger strongly implies that it is still there, otherwise there's no way to ever join Brand. That would be "beyond futile" in Coop's own words.
* = however, that quote could be interpreted as referring to an "idea in earlier drafts of the script" and not necessarily to the final version.
* = however, that quote could be interpreted as referring to an "idea in earlier drafts of the script" and not necessarily to the final version.
Hey Trekker, you still wondering about the fifth dimension? Now that I've had time to let it sink in, I've been thinking it might refer to the spirit dimension. When Coop enters the tesseract, he's being communicated and told he needs to enter the 5th dimension. If it's indeed the spirit dimension, it would fit with everything we've gotten from the early parts of the movie. Essentially he's told to become the "ghost" and find a way to communicate with her. Which is kind of weird given that everything has been scientific up to this point, but hey...
Also, did not get a love angle at all from Coop and Brand. I got more of a colleague vibe from it, especially when they get their first real conversation together. In fact, she was cold towards him throughout the whole movie. The fact that he goes out to join her after he learns she might still be alive feels like he's doing it more as a necessity to help rebuild humanity, which to me feels even more relevant after he gets his reunion with Murph.
Also, did not get a love angle at all from Coop and Brand. I got more of a colleague vibe from it, especially when they get their first real conversation together. In fact, she was cold towards him throughout the whole movie. The fact that he goes out to join her after he learns she might still be alive feels like he's doing it more as a necessity to help rebuild humanity, which to me feels even more relevant after he gets his reunion with Murph.
I had some more thoughts today regarding this movie, actually thoughts I've had since the first time I saw and reflected on it some, that I was reminded of on second viewing and now just came back to me.
I really like Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker and I think it's become something of "a vogue" to rag on him a bit. Maybe he earned some of it with "The Dark Knight Returns" but he's still responsible for the best Batman movie ever (The Dark Knight) ane of my favorite movies (Inception.) And in the long run I think Interstellar will rank up there.
But, well, I think sometimes he tends to rely a bit much on The MacGuffin. Basic some plot element that drives the character but doesn't really makes sense nor is truly the overall plot.
At least two MacGuffins exist in this movie that don't make sense but they're not really part of the plot they're just excuses to throw our characters into drama and while that drama comes from the MacGuffins it's really not "the plot."
So, the first one:
"The Blight:"
We're not given a whole lot of information on what is happening on Earth, why it is happening or why it has caused so much life to die off or for so many crops to be non-viable. To Nolan's credit he doesn't try and make the movie too preachy in making Earth's turmoils due to global-warming/climate change but I think that almost would have been preferable to what we are given.
We're told that because our atmosphere is nearly 80% Nitrogen a Nitrogen-breathing organism is thriving on the planet.... causing dust storms and crop failures. Which... huh?
The dust-bowl conditions suggests a severe drought but we see two large lakes passed by Cooper in the movie (one when he recovers the drone, another on his drive to NORAD/NASA.) So it can't be too severe of a drought.
The death of so many crops also suggests a drought and something causing the soil to not be very hearty or viable, none of which are exactly ideal conditions for corn growing. In fact if I'm not mistaken corn can be pretty rough on soil, but it is a crop that needs a lot of Nitrogen so depending on how aggressive the Nitrogen-consuming "blight" organism are I wonder how well corn would really thrive in these conditions?
Anyway, the reasons for the problems on Earth just seems to be lip-service in order to make Earth seem irrecoverably inhospitable to life. But is there another way? Something that could've been the problem to cause the harsh conditions on Earth and also make Mars a less optimal destination?
Why not make the sun going into a period of hostile, increased, solar activity that our magnetosphere and ozone layer cannot entirely defend us from. Scientific forecasts suggests the sun is "just getting started" in this increased solar activity so things are only going to get worse and no body in solar system will be safe due to the increased radiation from the sun?
This route would make a bit more sense and not be so thin. We could still have the dust-bowl conditions on the planet with humanity falling apart as the increased solar-activity has jacked with our climate severely and people in certain regions of Earth get dangerous levels of solar radiation, though some people happen to be naturally immune. Never-the-less, humanity needs to leave or die. Another Great Dying is coming.
The second one:
Plan B. The Population Bomb on the destination planet.
Would this really work? Let's give it the best chance of working and say that all of our astronauts made it to Edmunds' World and that he was there, alive and well. The planet is perfectly suited for human population.
This is when the "bomb" is dropped that the gravity-equation is unworkable and that humanity back on Earth is simply doomed and they have to go with the population-bomb idea to repopulate.
We're told there's enough viable embryos on the ship to have a sufficient gene pool, the first batch (of dozens or hundreds, as I recall) will be grown inside the machinery and from there on breeding will occur naturally. Either the old-fashioned way or surrogacy with the embryos.
:Raises hand:
How does this work?
Best-case scenario we'd have Cooper, Amelia, Edmumds, and our two red-shirt astronauts. Is it really intended for this group of people to raise dozens of babies from infancy to a child-bearing age? While ALSO building a society? They have to start their own crop-planting and food production, build shelters, build a means of getting drinking water and essentially start everything humanity has built in the last 50,000 years or so from scratch.
They have to do all of this AND raise dozens of babies? As we all know human babies aren't like most animals where they're born and after a couple stumbles they're on their feet and more-or-less ready to go. They need the better part of a couple years of development before they're even slightly self-sufficient. More realistically the better part of a decade.
And at that it'd be that decade or better before they're at a point where they can provide any meaningful help around the farms and everything.
So then we reach a point where everyone is now 16, or adult characters are now in their 50s or 60s and depending on how the other generations are staggered there's children of all ages and if we throw all present-day social order out the window the girls are reaching child-bearing years.
Who's going to be educating these children all of this time?
Seems like there is a LOT that needs to happen and that Plan B is just as futile as Plan A.
The idea almost works "on paper" but when you think about it it's wildly unrealistic. If the "Population Bomb" was truly the only route to go it would have made a lot more sense to send out a few dozen if not a couple hundred people in their 20s or early 30s who're all experts in various important fields (not the least of which engineering, medicine and farming) in order to have a larger foundation to rebuild society physically and to just have more people around to raise and educate a few dozen children at a time.
I really like Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker and I think it's become something of "a vogue" to rag on him a bit. Maybe he earned some of it with "The Dark Knight Returns" but he's still responsible for the best Batman movie ever (The Dark Knight) ane of my favorite movies (Inception.) And in the long run I think Interstellar will rank up there.
But, well, I think sometimes he tends to rely a bit much on The MacGuffin. Basic some plot element that drives the character but doesn't really makes sense nor is truly the overall plot.
At least two MacGuffins exist in this movie that don't make sense but they're not really part of the plot they're just excuses to throw our characters into drama and while that drama comes from the MacGuffins it's really not "the plot."
So, the first one:
"The Blight:"
We're not given a whole lot of information on what is happening on Earth, why it is happening or why it has caused so much life to die off or for so many crops to be non-viable. To Nolan's credit he doesn't try and make the movie too preachy in making Earth's turmoils due to global-warming/climate change but I think that almost would have been preferable to what we are given.
We're told that because our atmosphere is nearly 80% Nitrogen a Nitrogen-breathing organism is thriving on the planet.... causing dust storms and crop failures. Which... huh?
The dust-bowl conditions suggests a severe drought but we see two large lakes passed by Cooper in the movie (one when he recovers the drone, another on his drive to NORAD/NASA.) So it can't be too severe of a drought.
The death of so many crops also suggests a drought and something causing the soil to not be very hearty or viable, none of which are exactly ideal conditions for corn growing. In fact if I'm not mistaken corn can be pretty rough on soil, but it is a crop that needs a lot of Nitrogen so depending on how aggressive the Nitrogen-consuming "blight" organism are I wonder how well corn would really thrive in these conditions?
Anyway, the reasons for the problems on Earth just seems to be lip-service in order to make Earth seem irrecoverably inhospitable to life. But is there another way? Something that could've been the problem to cause the harsh conditions on Earth and also make Mars a less optimal destination?
Why not make the sun going into a period of hostile, increased, solar activity that our magnetosphere and ozone layer cannot entirely defend us from. Scientific forecasts suggests the sun is "just getting started" in this increased solar activity so things are only going to get worse and no body in solar system will be safe due to the increased radiation from the sun?
This route would make a bit more sense and not be so thin. We could still have the dust-bowl conditions on the planet with humanity falling apart as the increased solar-activity has jacked with our climate severely and people in certain regions of Earth get dangerous levels of solar radiation, though some people happen to be naturally immune. Never-the-less, humanity needs to leave or die. Another Great Dying is coming.
The second one:
Plan B. The Population Bomb on the destination planet.
Would this really work? Let's give it the best chance of working and say that all of our astronauts made it to Edmunds' World and that he was there, alive and well. The planet is perfectly suited for human population.
This is when the "bomb" is dropped that the gravity-equation is unworkable and that humanity back on Earth is simply doomed and they have to go with the population-bomb idea to repopulate.
We're told there's enough viable embryos on the ship to have a sufficient gene pool, the first batch (of dozens or hundreds, as I recall) will be grown inside the machinery and from there on breeding will occur naturally. Either the old-fashioned way or surrogacy with the embryos.
:Raises hand:
How does this work?
Best-case scenario we'd have Cooper, Amelia, Edmumds, and our two red-shirt astronauts. Is it really intended for this group of people to raise dozens of babies from infancy to a child-bearing age? While ALSO building a society? They have to start their own crop-planting and food production, build shelters, build a means of getting drinking water and essentially start everything humanity has built in the last 50,000 years or so from scratch.
They have to do all of this AND raise dozens of babies? As we all know human babies aren't like most animals where they're born and after a couple stumbles they're on their feet and more-or-less ready to go. They need the better part of a couple years of development before they're even slightly self-sufficient. More realistically the better part of a decade.
And at that it'd be that decade or better before they're at a point where they can provide any meaningful help around the farms and everything.
So then we reach a point where everyone is now 16, or adult characters are now in their 50s or 60s and depending on how the other generations are staggered there's children of all ages and if we throw all present-day social order out the window the girls are reaching child-bearing years.
Who's going to be educating these children all of this time?
Seems like there is a LOT that needs to happen and that Plan B is just as futile as Plan A.
The idea almost works "on paper" but when you think about it it's wildly unrealistic. If the "Population Bomb" was truly the only route to go it would have made a lot more sense to send out a few dozen if not a couple hundred people in their 20s or early 30s who're all experts in various important fields (not the least of which engineering, medicine and farming) in order to have a larger foundation to rebuild society physically and to just have more people around to raise and educate a few dozen children at a time.
Oh, I think the relative futility and the ultimately unrealistic nature of "Plan B" is quite intentional. It's not a genuinely realistic means of survival, it's just the barest minimum of a thread that's left if "Plan A" doesn't work. That's why it's so important to the plot to find a way to rescue some significant portion of humanity to carry out "Plan A."
As for "the Blight," yes, definitely more than a bit of a handwave and I don't know that it's meant to stand up in detail. It's just thematically important that it be an extension of man-made environmental disaster to make the exploration vs. survival themes of the movie resonate. It's crafted more for thematic and dramatic purposes than it is for strict consistency. The movie isn't interested in the specific mechanics of how "the Blight" works, it's an extended metaphor for environmental failure and for the invasive flourishing of things that would never have existed in a more "normal" environment.
As for "the Blight," yes, definitely more than a bit of a handwave and I don't know that it's meant to stand up in detail. It's just thematically important that it be an extension of man-made environmental disaster to make the exploration vs. survival themes of the movie resonate. It's crafted more for thematic and dramatic purposes than it is for strict consistency. The movie isn't interested in the specific mechanics of how "the Blight" works, it's an extended metaphor for environmental failure and for the invasive flourishing of things that would never have existed in a more "normal" environment.