INTERSTELLAR - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Agent Richard07
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I'm not surprised, since anyone of moderate celebrity seems to attract a coterie of "fans" that rabid. But certainly it's quite sad, yes. Nolan seems to elicit particularly strong reactions pro and con for reasons I really can't fathom.
Those go back a ways (and most of them are just jokes, not genuine nitpicks). He also has a bunch of tweets and at least one video up using the movie to talk about astrophysics principles.
From the dominion of bizarre, awful choices of nitpick: I joked a couple of pages back about how someone would have probably complained about the wormhole being a "plot hole" absent the exposition around it. Well, it turns out that Scientific American actually did this.
From the dominion of bizarre, awful choices of nitpick: I joked a couple of pages back about how someone would have probably complained about the wormhole being a "plot hole" absent the exposition around it. Well, it turns out that Scientific American actually did this.
With regard to Tyson's Mars comment, which was toungue-in-cheek, Amelia says in the movie something about finding a planet where humanity could just catch it's breath. So with that in mind, as long as the planet is reasonably habitable, it will do, the idea isn't that they're looking for a permanant home. Even if Edmund's planet is around a star that may ultimately plunge into Gargantua, it is reasonable to assume that is something that wouldn't happen for thousands of years. More than enough time to find a different home, or perhaps the blight will have burned itself out and it might be possble to recolonize Earth.
The problem, also, with Mars is that it's not habitable. Everything you need you need to bring with you and it's hardly an ideal palce to build structures and stuff and, IIRC, it has a weak magnetosphere which wouldn't entirely protect people living on it from solar radiation. You could keep a few people alive there with simple structures with a room with radiation shielding for days with peak output but without constant resources from Earth Mars is no long-term solution for the bulk of humanity (going with the Plan A theory.) Moving to another much more Earth-like planet that has a breathable atmosphere you can be in without space suits presents a lot more options and ease when it comes to rebuilding civilization. Also the planet likely has better/more resources from which to construct buildings and such. There's no trees on Mars so you'd need to bring all of your own wood!
But, this is also why I think the threat on Earth needed to be high-levels of solar activity that was throwing Earth's biosphere out of whack, maybe over-coming our shielding and the increased activity made Mars that much less viable of an option. (Being more susceptible to the increased radiation and the climate change on the planet being that much more dramatic.)
But, this is also why I think the threat on Earth needed to be high-levels of solar activity that was throwing Earth's biosphere out of whack, maybe over-coming our shielding and the increased activity made Mars that much less viable of an option. (Being more susceptible to the increased radiation and the climate change on the planet being that much more dramatic.)
Really the one that's the issue is Miller's planet (since the principal data for Mann's planet was faked, so you can't fault the Endurance crew for that), instead of making it seven years per hour, it should have probably been more like five years per day, and making the round trip 5-6 days there and back, but I understand the drama of seven years per hour to magnify the slightest mistake. That planet looks more reasonable if farther away from Gargantua.
Really, you'd think they'd look at Mann's planet from orbit for a long-distance viewing they'd say, "Huh.... That looks to be covered in rock and snow. Are we sure we can trust Mann's data to totally go there and make a new world for ourselves?"
That was my main problem with the film. They should be able to tell even in close proximity to the whole system which planets were habitable.
Also, the water planet: why did Anne Hathaway go after a data module.. they could tell that the planet wouldn't be able to house a colony
Also, the water planet: why did Anne Hathaway go after a data module.. they could tell that the planet wouldn't be able to house a colony
I had been waiting for this film easily since last June, or basically when Nolan first announced it.
I knew it was going to be better than most of the dribble that's in theaters now. But also knowing Nolan made TDKR, I was worried that the movie would fizzle out the same way.
So I finally saw it last week. Lots of comments here.
I didn't think it was amazing, but I basically got what I expected. I wish it would have been more, but I was happy with what we got (considering this could have easily been another TDKR, or even MOS)
Reading the Neil DeGrasse Tyson nitpicks, come on man? Mars is a better environment? The planets they were exploring had breathable atmospheres. That right there negates that comment.
But my own nitpicks of the movie were as follows:
1. Not enough was shown of Earth to give us that sense of urgency that humanity was dying out. The movie mostly stuck to Cooper's house, and cornfields. There's no sense of anyone starving, or this blight that's talked about often but never shown. So basically the movie tells us humanity is dying, but doesn't show it. A couple of dust storms does not = humanity close to extinction.
2. No reason for Cooper to be the pilot. I kind of get the movie was telling us that the 5th dimension beings chose Cooper to pilot the mission, but it was basically a throwaway line. I get that Cooper wants to sacrifice his time with his daughter to try to save her existence, but that was also just a couple of throwaway lines.
3. I understand the whole Tesseract idea is that it was an artificial construct made by the 5th dimensional beings. But making it look like a huge library? That really pushed the limits of suspension of belief.
4. I was hoping at the very least, Cooper would get to see his daughter again with ample time for them to be reconciled, so maybe seeing her again in her 40's-50's? As it was in the movie, she was abandoned, and accepted it, so her dad's return when she's basically about to die was anti-climatic.
That's basically it, and they are minor nitpicks (except maybe the 4th one, that's the one that brought the movie down from an A to a B for me.
Do I care whether the wormhole could have appeared near Earth instead of Saturn? no. I mean we can basically say anything. Why didn't it appear 50 years before when humanity was in better conditions? Why did it have to connect them to another galaxy? Aren't there enough planets in the Milky Way for one of the to have the conditions of the planets in the movie? So really that complain can be moved all over the place.
And the black hole used as a wormhole. My understanding of a black hole is also that the nearer you get to the event horizon, the more you'd be spaghettified. But I understand that's just a theory and that no one even knows for sure if black holes exist the way we imagine them, let alone how they act. The whole concept is like warp drive, and I'm willing to give the movie the benefit of the doubt on that one.
The point about data from inside the event horizon needed to complete the gravity formula? Hokey, but again, like warp drive, I'm willing to ignore it for the sake of the film.
The robots were hockey as fuck, but they reminded me of the Monolith from 2001, which I'm sure was the point of shaping them like that. I thought I would hate them when first introduced, but they grew on me. I'm glad they didn't go the route of "the rogue machine goes haywire and fucks up the plans", but rather stuck to "the faithful human creations that help man as much as they can"
The planets orbiting a black hole? That could have easily been fixed by having the black hole be an object orbiting a larger star, and the first planet be a moon orbiting the black hole. But that would have confused people even more. I can suspend my disbelief as shown in the movie.
I did absolutely love the planet scenes! They were the best part of the movie. I love the idea of a waterworld planet when the entire world is covered in shallow enough water to waddle on. When I saw the tsunami, I was blown away. That's the moment it truly felt they were on an alien world and way over their heads. Ice world wasn't as impressive, but still decent enough.
I have no issue with Hathaway's character wanting to get the black box. She's a scientist and wants to get as much knowledge as she can, and at the moment, she was torn by seeing another fellow scientist's mission literally being torn apart (by the waves). I think out of respect for her deceased colleague, she wanted to get the black box so that her colleague's death wasn't in vain. I could understand that, even if it was wrong.
I didn't recognize Matt Damon at first, but I did love his character. I totally believe he could have gone nutso like he did. I was hoping he wouldn't, but I can see in terms of the movie, they wanted a tangible antagonist so the whole movie wasn't just boring exploration.
That's pretty much my take. I feel it earned the 74% rotten tomato score. Good movie to watch, but not spectacular.
I knew it was going to be better than most of the dribble that's in theaters now. But also knowing Nolan made TDKR, I was worried that the movie would fizzle out the same way.
So I finally saw it last week. Lots of comments here.
I didn't think it was amazing, but I basically got what I expected. I wish it would have been more, but I was happy with what we got (considering this could have easily been another TDKR, or even MOS)
Reading the Neil DeGrasse Tyson nitpicks, come on man? Mars is a better environment? The planets they were exploring had breathable atmospheres. That right there negates that comment.
But my own nitpicks of the movie were as follows:
1. Not enough was shown of Earth to give us that sense of urgency that humanity was dying out. The movie mostly stuck to Cooper's house, and cornfields. There's no sense of anyone starving, or this blight that's talked about often but never shown. So basically the movie tells us humanity is dying, but doesn't show it. A couple of dust storms does not = humanity close to extinction.
2. No reason for Cooper to be the pilot. I kind of get the movie was telling us that the 5th dimension beings chose Cooper to pilot the mission, but it was basically a throwaway line. I get that Cooper wants to sacrifice his time with his daughter to try to save her existence, but that was also just a couple of throwaway lines.
3. I understand the whole Tesseract idea is that it was an artificial construct made by the 5th dimensional beings. But making it look like a huge library? That really pushed the limits of suspension of belief.
4. I was hoping at the very least, Cooper would get to see his daughter again with ample time for them to be reconciled, so maybe seeing her again in her 40's-50's? As it was in the movie, she was abandoned, and accepted it, so her dad's return when she's basically about to die was anti-climatic.
That's basically it, and they are minor nitpicks (except maybe the 4th one, that's the one that brought the movie down from an A to a B for me.
Do I care whether the wormhole could have appeared near Earth instead of Saturn? no. I mean we can basically say anything. Why didn't it appear 50 years before when humanity was in better conditions? Why did it have to connect them to another galaxy? Aren't there enough planets in the Milky Way for one of the to have the conditions of the planets in the movie? So really that complain can be moved all over the place.
And the black hole used as a wormhole. My understanding of a black hole is also that the nearer you get to the event horizon, the more you'd be spaghettified. But I understand that's just a theory and that no one even knows for sure if black holes exist the way we imagine them, let alone how they act. The whole concept is like warp drive, and I'm willing to give the movie the benefit of the doubt on that one.
The point about data from inside the event horizon needed to complete the gravity formula? Hokey, but again, like warp drive, I'm willing to ignore it for the sake of the film.
The robots were hockey as fuck, but they reminded me of the Monolith from 2001, which I'm sure was the point of shaping them like that. I thought I would hate them when first introduced, but they grew on me. I'm glad they didn't go the route of "the rogue machine goes haywire and fucks up the plans", but rather stuck to "the faithful human creations that help man as much as they can"
The planets orbiting a black hole? That could have easily been fixed by having the black hole be an object orbiting a larger star, and the first planet be a moon orbiting the black hole. But that would have confused people even more. I can suspend my disbelief as shown in the movie.
I did absolutely love the planet scenes! They were the best part of the movie. I love the idea of a waterworld planet when the entire world is covered in shallow enough water to waddle on. When I saw the tsunami, I was blown away. That's the moment it truly felt they were on an alien world and way over their heads. Ice world wasn't as impressive, but still decent enough.
I have no issue with Hathaway's character wanting to get the black box. She's a scientist and wants to get as much knowledge as she can, and at the moment, she was torn by seeing another fellow scientist's mission literally being torn apart (by the waves). I think out of respect for her deceased colleague, she wanted to get the black box so that her colleague's death wasn't in vain. I could understand that, even if it was wrong.
I didn't recognize Matt Damon at first, but I did love his character. I totally believe he could have gone nutso like he did. I was hoping he wouldn't, but I can see in terms of the movie, they wanted a tangible antagonist so the whole movie wasn't just boring exploration.
That's pretty much my take. I feel it earned the 74% rotten tomato score. Good movie to watch, but not spectacular.
The way I viewed it: All of those sort of observations had been done by robot probes, which had identified some which were "good enough". The Lazarus expeditions were then sent to make the final confirmation or rejection. So there's an element of trust by Endurance's crew that the "thumb's up" signals received were real and that the landings were justified.
With regard to:
Number 3. It's not a library, it's just access to every moment in Murph's room. It's as if the bulk beings knew the correct person who needed to be given the information, but not when or how to communicate the data.
The other end of the wormhole: I believe some theorists believe that it might require the presence of a super massive black hole to help create a wormhole, but the one at the center of our galaxy is much more active than Gargantua. So Gargantua has to be elsewhere.
Spagettification: this is a tidal effect, oddly enough, for a supermassive blackhole, the tidal effect is less because the gravity field is more uniform even close to the event horizon (which is as big around as the Earth's orbit for a black hole of Gargantua's stated mass), somewhere within the event horizon, closer to the singularity, those tidal effects will eventually become severe enough for spagettification.
I wonder why the iconic shot from the trailers of Murphy watching the rocket launch from home, wasn't actually in the film?
The same thing happened with Anna Gunn during Breaking Bad to the point that she wrote a New York Times article addressing the situation.
I saw that article the other day and I'm very amused how Cracked of all websites pointed how utterly ridiculous people about nitpicking Interstellar.
At the end of the day you either liked the film or you didn't and there is no such thing as an objective opinion about anything, - least of all a movie.
I get it - several people posting in this thread really liked this movie - obviously to the point where they thought it was a cinematic masterpiece of something.
I personally was underwhelmed, thought it ran long, and for an average movie goer - not a scientist and as a lay person who even has a passing understanding of the theory of relativity - was unnecessarily complex and sometimes convoluted and confusing.
The one redeeming point for this film to me, was that it was visually stunning.
Related to the nitpicks of this film - I find it disturbing that some people posted death threats to critics of this film. That says a lot for me about some of the rabid enthusiasts of this movie and their mental instability.
God help us all when Wars VII comes out and some people are unhappy or even happy about that too and what some individuals reactions will be.
Yeah, easy there, tiger. There's no need to get bitter about it. As for this:
You already said it. Nobody disagreed with you. Repeating it mechanically kind of makes it sound like you're desperately trying to tar anyone who disagrees with you or like the film with this brush -- which I hope isn't what you're doing. Right? Because that "mental instability" stuff can cut a whole lot of ways.
We get it. You don't like that some people find the nitpicks (and your apparent obsession with finding as many of them as you can to somehow justify your own opinions) hilariously absurd. Too bad. Move on.
A fifth dimensional space existing inside of a black-hole, where gravity is so strong is stretches all of your molecules apart due to the strength of gravity:
This fifth-dimensional space constructed to look like a library (actually the library at Coopers home from the view behind its walls (and floor and ceiling):
I viewed the black hole/tesseract scene differently. Cooper fell into the black hole and moved outside space-time. His perception of being able to move freely in all dimensions was represented by the library as his life stretched out all around him. So the robot 'saw' something different than Cooper while they were both inside the black hole, transiting between Gargantua's mouth and Saturn.
I really need to see this movie again.
I really need to see this movie again.
That was pretty much my take also. I didn't think the movie was spectacular or ourstanding, but it was good enough to be enjoyable, and that was mostly due to the stunning visuals, and the great acting by key characters.
A fifth dimensional space existing inside of a black-hole, where gravity is so strong is stretches all of your molecules apart due to the strength of gravity:
This fifth-dimensional space constructed to look like a library (actually the library at Coopers home from the view behind its walls (and floor and ceiling):
If I remember correctly, Cooper wasn't inside the Black Hole, but rather, entering the event horizon of it allowed the 5th dimensional characters to be able to "grab" him and transport him to a 3 dimensional artificial construct created within 5th dimensional space.
So ignoring the fact that Cooper should have been torn apart way before even crossing the event horizon, once inside, the artificial construct was made to look like "The place behind his bookshelf ad infinitum?
That should have probably gone thru a rewrite at the very least.