INTERSTELLAR - Grading & Discussion

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

My favorite scene after all that was the simple scene where they are in the truck going after the drone. The music from the first trailer is playing. The whole sequence felt the way movies used to feel in the 80's .. like you didn't always know where the moment would lead...

 

[Rush Limborg]

My thoughts:

This was, as far as I'm concerned, the BEST movie of the year, thus far. (And that's saying a lot, I know...but there ya go.)

It hit all the right points for me...and it moved me to tears...at least three times, most memorably when Cooper gets the message from his all-grown-up daughter. (I was blinking back moisture a lot, beyond that...like when they find Capt. Mann...and you can just FEEL what he's going through, as he realizes that at long last he's no longer alone.)

I laughed quite a bit, too. TARS was delightful, as was his more "straight-faced" (as it were) fellow bot (whose name escapes me, sadly...).

Now...a lot of comparisons have been made to 2001. Well...there certainly are valid parallels (love of awesome "space spectacle", no SFX when cutting to outside the ship, etc.)...but there's a major difference, I feel:

2001, as is so often the case with Kubrick, is pretty cold, emotionally. The characters may be vivid at times (HAL, of course)...but there's little to no emotional involvement. Everything's with the "head"--aside from "wonder"/"awe" at the spectacle, there's no feeling. I always admire Kubrick's technique...but it calls attention to itself too much for me to get too involved in the story or with the characters. I can't "feel for" anyone...not really.

Interstellar doesn't do that. Where 2001 goes for the head (interesting theories on space and alien life and our place in the universe), Interstellar, while definitely intelligent, nonetheless goes first and foremost for the heart (the implications of the theories, of a personal nature: the consequences of relativity--the fact that Cooper has to face that his daughter has aged quicker than he has; etc.).

There is an intense pathos in Interstellar where none existed in 2001. Make of that what you will...I personally prefer Interstellar, though I know darn well Nolan's film wouldn't have existed without Kubrick's.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

2001 was supposed to be cold.. it was looking at humanity the way we look at fish in a fishbowl. You can tell this is obvious when Floyd calls his little daughter on the phone. She is a cute little girl, but nothing about the scene gets us to care about her except superficially, and it was filmed that way on purpose.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Why did they need a three-stage rocket to leave Earth's atmosphere but could leave planets with atmospheres that had even higher gravity using the Galileo from Star Trek?

 

[Scout101]

To save its fuel for the mission? Could have just flown up, but that's that much less fuel you get to bring with you. This way, you use an 'extra' tank and start off with the ranger full...

 

[Trekker4747]

But the rocket that sent it up seemed to be a standard three-stage rocket. If the ranger had enough fuel and power to achieve orbit, and break it, on it's own then must have very powerful, very efficient, engines. So why not use that engine design for the vehicles to initially launch it into space?

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

But the rocket that sent it up seemed to be a standard three-stage rocket. If the ranger had enough fuel and power to achieve orbit, and break it, on it's own then must have very powerful, very efficient, engines. So why not use that engine design for the vehicles to initially launch it into space?

Theory: The Rangers were in fact older, but more advanced vessels who had been mothballed when NASA was "shut down" (went underground). The rocket built for the launch on the other hand was newly constructed with the tech and ressources which were available at the time.

It was mentioned earlier in the film that hospitals weren't even equipped with MRIs anymore in the movie's "present-day". Also note that TARS and CASE were described as older robots left over from the time when a military was still maintained. And if you looked closely, the space suits used by Cooper, Amelia etc. during their mission didn't look brand new either, but a bit shaggy and worn-out.

The Endurance mission probably operated with tech which was decades old, but still more advanced than the "new stuff" that was available at the time of the launch. They scratched together whatever they could in a collapsing society.

 

[KGator]

4) WAVE PLANET

I thought the time dilation effects of the first planet was very thought provoking, I loved it. However, I am pretty sure if you are close enough to a black hole to experience something like that you would be crushed to dust. Even if you got to the planet, you couldn't get off (the black hole's gravity). Plus fellas . . . that planet is probably very close to getting sucked into a black hole!!!

Time dilation due to gravity and is a very real thing that happens all of the time our GPS satellite network has to continually make time adjustments to account for not only their speed but for how from Earth's surface they are. Now, there, we're talking about fractions of a second but it needs to be done to keep the GPS network working correctly.

Orbiting a black-hole is one theoretical way to time-travel to the future as seconds on a ship may translate to days, months, or years on Earth. The ratio depends on the size of the black-hole and it certainly wouldn't be one hour=7 years, for it ti be that they'd need to be well past the event horizon.

On that, don't let crummy J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies confuse you. Black-holes don't "suck" things innto them anymore than Earth's gravity is "sucking" you to the surface. That's all a black-hole has is gravity. Stick your arm out, feel that tug? That's gravity, it's weak. But, if you were on Jupiter your arm would be (IIRC) 16 times heavier, taking more energy to lift it, further away from Jupiter you get, easier it us to lift your arm. Somewhere there's a point where your arm us 16x heavier in one side and 15.999...x hwavier on the otherside and for this example we'll say 16x is too much for you to lift. This is the event horizon fir our example.

When we're talking about black-holes everything from our example is increased by orders of ridiculous magnitude. Somewhere there is a point you can go 99.99999......% of the speed of light and still escape, go past that point and you are trapped, because nothing can go as fast ad, let alone fasrer than light other than light (and a smattering of metaphysical particles without mass.)

As long as you don't cross that line you're safe and a planet would orbit it as any planetary body would orbit any other stellar body.)

It should be noted that your head is pulled slightly less than your feet (further your head is older than your feet) since it's closer to a gravitational source. In a black-hole this effect is magnified by orders of magnitude. This would stretch you body out into long strings and ribbons of charged energy.

Black-holes may not suck, but being in one does

The point I was making was that if you or your ship/planet/etc were close enough to the black hole to experience those kinds of massive time distortions . . . you are probably too close to ever tell anyone about it (i.e. you won't be coming back).

 

[JRoss]

Did anyone else notice Hans Zimmer blatantly ripping off Philip Glass? I checked online and the only other person who noticed called in an "homage". Zimmer didn't get away with it in Gladiator, so why give the man the benefit of the doubt now, considering that he's got a record of plagiarism and it was just so obvious in this case.

He should take a cue from John Williams and only rip off what's in the public domain.

 

[DarthTom]

Interestingly enough, Neil deGrasse Tyson loved Interstellar. Some of his comments compiled by Huffington:

Full list of quotes here

In #Interstellar: They reprise the matched-rotation docking maneuver from "2001: A Space Odyssey," but they spin 100x faster.

In #Interstellar: The producers knew exactly how, why, & when you’d achieve zero-G in space.

In #Interstellar: Experience Einstein's Curvature of Space as no other feature film has shown.

In #Interstellar: Experience Einstein’s Relativity of Time as no other feature film has shown.

In #Interstellar: All leading characters, including McConaughey, Hathaway, Chastain, & Caine play a scientist or engineer.

 

[davejames]

2001, as is so often the case with Kubrick, is pretty cold, emotionally. The characters may be vivid at times (HAL, of course)...but there's little to no emotional involvement. Everything's with the "head"--aside from "wonder"/"awe" at the spectacle, there's no feeling. I always admire Kubrick's technique...but it calls attention to itself too much for me to get too involved in the story or with the characters. I can't "feel for" anyone...not really.

Yeah Interstellar does try to be much more emotionally involving, but for my money in too much of a sappy, ham-fisted way for it to ever be considered a true masterpiece on the level as 2001.

I mean heck, it seems like nearly every word out of McConaughey's mouth is a hokey platitude about man's place in the universe or our need to explore or how far off course we've gone, etc etc. And Caine's character does way too much of that as well, even quoting the same tired poem more than once. And having the entire future of the human race rest on the love between a father and daughter seems like just a tad bit much as well.

And in any case, I don't think a movie being more "emotional" automatically makes it better. 2001 may be a bit more cold, but it's so completely mesmerizing and wonderfully eerie to watch, and has such a great idea at the heart of it, that I don't think it really needs anything else to work.

 

[KGator]

I realize its just a movie and its about propelling the story rather than following logic but they KNEW there was a time differential on the wave planet (one hour on the planet = 7 years off it) but they chose to go to a planet where the signal started years or decades after all the other missions (since even if she landed and after 15 minutes of planet time started sending back messages like "Eureka, I found paradise! Send more astronauts!" years would have passed for the rest of the galaxy. Then it turns out their calculations were wrong (they were shocked that 23 years passed) to make it even worse . . . there should never have been a signal from that planet.

Not to mention, that based on their original calculations, if she was down there for 20 years between the initial mission and the second mission she would have had time to accumulate what . . . . 2-3 hours of planetary data . . . tops? That's like saying, "I need you to explore this planet and tell me if its capable of supporting human life and saving our species. You've got 45 . . . no . . . make that 30 minutes. Now get to it!"

How did they not realize all this before choosing that planet to land on? And the robots too? They couldn't do the math? Before we make this decision lets adjust robot retard setting to 100%!!!!

 

[JRoss]

Interestingly enough, Neil deGrasse Tyson loved Interstellar. Some of his comments compiled by Huffington:

Full list of quotes here

In #Interstellar: They reprise the matched-rotation docking maneuver from "2001: A Space Odyssey," but they spin 100x faster.

In #Interstellar: The producers knew exactly how, why, & when you’d achieve zero-G in space.

In #Interstellar: Experience Einstein’s Relativity of Time as no other feature film has shown.

In #Interstellar: All leading characters, including McConaughey, Hathaway, Chastain, & Caine play a scientist or engineer.

Maybe he learned not to be a jerk to earnest movie efforts after he was so mean to Gravity.

 

[The Wormhole]

To be honest, I was underwhelmed by the movie. I went in with no real spoilers, just what was in the trailers, which let's be honest weren't all that revealing. And I had the entire thing predicted thirty minutes into the movie. By the last hour I was basically just watching happen everything I knew would happen.

On a technical level, it's a very well constructed movie. And while some of the character moments do genuinely pull some emotional strings, the movie as a whole is rather run of the mill sci-fi tropes. It's all been seen and done before, and really this movie doesn't do anything not already covered in a dozen other movies or novels.

Okay, I did like the robot sidekick. That was really cool and at times amusing.

 

[davejames]

Maybe he learned not to be a jerk to earnest movie efforts after he was so mean to Gravity.

Actually today he sent out a bunch of slightly more critical tweets about the movie.

Although I think it's a bit silly to look at this as him being mean or a jerk. He's made it quite clear that he still enjoys the movies anyway, and that he doesn't expect them to get everything right.

 

[Trekker4747]

Interestingly enough, Neil deGrasse Tyson loved Interstellar. Some of his comments compiled by Huffington:

Full list of quotes here

In #Interstellar: They reprise the matched-rotation docking maneuver from "2001: A Space Odyssey," but they spin 100x faster.

In #Interstellar: All leading characters, including McConaughey, Hathaway, Chastain, & Caine play a scientist or engineer.

Maybe he learned not to be a jerk to earnest movie efforts after he was so mean to Gravity.

He was just being critical on gravity's realism in terms of space and such, he had sent out a Tweet at then end of it all saying he enjoyed the movie in spite of its flaws.

 

[Mojochi]

I'm confused on 1 thing. Is Anne Hathaway the female lead? or at least the 2nd lead after McConaughey? That's sort of how the character came off, but at the same time, her performance got completely eclipsed by Jessica Chastain. So much so, that by the end, not only did the hero completely forget about her, such that he had to be reminded, but... so did I

I liked it quite a bit. I didn't delve too deep into the science of it. I took it on its merit as just a movie, & it delivers on that level, though it takes its sweet ass time to get you there

McConaughey, Chastain, & Burstyn were very good, & the little girl too. Lithgow, Caine, & Affleck had little to work with, but were quite competent in their parts. To me it felt like Anne Hathaway seemed to get swallowed up. The right performance from someone really could have established a formidable presence in that role, that I felt was missing, or at least overshadowed by the formidable presence of Chastain & McConaughey

The other astronauts were less than impressive as well. They ultimately got overshadowed by the voice of Bill Irwin as the funny robot, & I wasn't all that impressed with Matt Damon either. The character was good, but the performance came off as uninspired or sparkless

Collectively, it's an enjoyable view, & one of the most stunningly beautiful sci-fi movies ever made, but it certainly falls short of being a masterpiece. This movie seems like Nolan's attempt at a tearjerker, but I'm not sure he has that in him. Nothing he's ever done has choked me up, & I've been choked up plenty of times at movies.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Nolan can't elicit the kind of emotion in his actors performances that is needed. The only time he gets a great performance is when the actor brings it to the table 100% themselves. McConaughey & Chastain did that for this film. The rest of them varied

 

[Trekker4747]

McConaughey really brought his A-game for this, the scene of him watching the video of his now grown children was gut-wrenching, particularly when Murph came on.

I'm confused on 1 thing. Is Anne Hathaway the female lead? or at least the 2nd lead after McConaughey? That's sort of how the character came off, but at the same time, her performance got completely eclipsed by Jessica Chastain. So much so, that by the end, not only did the hero completely forget about her, such that he had to be reminded, but... so did I

Anne Hathaway is the female lead, if not from just her name but because she was probably on screen more than the other actress (Older Murph) even though she was more central to the plot.

I didn't fully "buy" the romantic angle between McConaughey and Hathaway, it's an additional love angle the movie didn't seem to need. In fact I'm not sure I totally "buy" he was in love with her beyond, "Hey, we're pretty much the last two humans out here.... Wanna?"

Maybe I missed a nuance in there but I just didn't get a romantic angle between the two so not sure I feel the "power" of the ending with him going back through the wormhole in order to meet-up with her on the destination planet. (And I still don't quite get if the wormhole was there or if he was going to make a shitty-long trip to get there, as well as the rest of humanity on the "arks."

If the wormhole was still there why get the in the small personal craft to go through? Why not just wait until the arcs get through which they were close to doing anyway since they were at Saturn.

I'm going to have to make plans to see this movie again in the next week or so, probably in IMAX to get that experience.

But, yeah, loved Funny-Bot, particularly at the end there when McC is fixing it, the humor setting, and the chilling with a beer on his porch with it.

 

[Mojochi]

I have to say, I'm just not sold on Anne Hathaway as an A-list leading female. Nothing she does on screen makes me give a crap. Jessica Chastain is only on screen half as long & grabs you by the face, & sucks you into a character she shares with 2 other actresses. She's damn near half of the acting that makes this film

McConaughey may be old & creepy looking now, with that same old silly accent, but he turns the goods on pretty damn often lately. Dallas Buyers, his stretch on True Detective, & now this. He knows how to put up a solid performance, & he's in a streak right now

 

[Trekker4747]

Well, I don't find McConaughey strictly "creepy" looking (well, maybe that smirky-look he has on the front of some celebrity magazine right now.) But I sort-of agree on Hathaway. She does a good job, generally, in the roles I've seen her in but there's just not a whole lot here for her to work with. Whether that's a fault with her, the script or the direction is unknown but Older Murph Actress did a fat better job than Hathaway did.