ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
So, question:
I was a bit hazy on the relative geography of all these planets. The ones they visited were all in the same star system? And all of them happened to be in the habitable zone, and there was no actual main sequence star, just the black hole? Which was apparently like twenty times more massive than the supermassive black holes you find at the center of standard galaxies, yet still had planets orbiting it because movie?
None of this is a deal breaker, or anything, I'm just trying to get a handle on what was actually going on so I can more accurately discuss the actual science in the movie. I'm fine if there were weirdly convenient implausibilities going on, since these were apparently the most perfectly suited planets in the whole universe or whatever.
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I'd temper a guess that the future-humans created the black hole + wormhole and probably helped set up the system in some way. Also I thought there was a star.
I was a bit hazy on the relative geography of all these planets. The ones they visited were all in the same star system? And all of them happened to be in the habitable zone, and there was no actual main sequence star, just the black hole? Which was apparently like twenty times more massive than the supermassive black holes you find at the center of standard galaxies, yet still had planets orbiting it because movie?
None of this is a deal breaker, or anything, I'm just trying to get a handle on what was actually going on so I can more accurately discuss the actual science in the movie. I'm fine if there were weirdly convenient implausibilities going on, since these were apparently the most perfectly suited planets in the whole universe or whatever.
Anything can orbit a black hole just the same as if it was any other kind of mass. It's only really a problem once you get too close to it.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I was a bit hazy on the relative geography of all these planets. The ones they visited were all in the same star system? And all of them happened to be in the habitable zone, and there was no actual main sequence star, just the black hole? Which was apparently like twenty times more massive than the supermassive black holes you find at the center of standard galaxies, yet still had planets orbiting it because movie?
None of this is a deal breaker, or anything, I'm just trying to get a handle on what was actually going on so I can more accurately discuss the actual science in the movie. I'm fine if there were weirdly convenient implausibilities going on, since these were apparently the most perfectly suited planets in the whole universe or whatever.
There is a sun. It's the big glowing disk around the black hole. That disk is about the radius of the Mars' orbit around the sun and because of that the planets orbiting the black hole all get relatively similar amount of light. The slow-mo planet got far more, the ice world was far out of the Goldilocks zone and the one Brand ended up on was more or less getting the same amount of light as earth.
The main difference would be that their years are massively longer and the temperature variation not as high as earth's.
And yes, there's no problem with planets and suns revolving around a black hole, that dance goes on for billions of years.
I didn't like this movie. It is actually the first Nolan movie I haven't like. Well, except for Dark Knight Rises but I do my best to forget that one.
The robot designs were just awkward - they didn't match the rest of the film's design. They just didn't fit, even if I did like their personalities, and keep taking me out of the movie. The planets were cool.
Some of the story beats way miss the mark. The sililoquies on philosophy felt just completely out of place. You were clearly supposed to be empathizing with Brand's viewpoint but it just feels silly. When the airlock blew and it was supposed to be the moment Dr Mann getting his come-uppance. As he says "This is the moment..." and the airlock is blown away, the audience should have been horrified. It was at this point that the film lost me. That moment shouldn't have been funny. It was supposed to be an example of the price of hubris and selfishness. Instead they just laughed. It utterly failed in its goal.
The rest of the movie just felt completely sacchrine, artificial, easy and predictable. And sometimes it even felt lazy. Really, Nolan? You're re-using the same trick you used in Inception, with the impossible horizon? Ugh.
So yeah, I didn't like it but I hope that Nolan can get back on track. He clearly has become a master of visual effects and his films are really pretty. Interstellar is no exception on that front. I just wish it had more to offer than that.
I think the problem with this film is that people wanted it to be something different.
I see it in a few of the negative reviews on this thread.
I guess when I see a film I usually go in with no expectations. I just sit back and let it tell it's story. I don't analyze, I don't predict, I just enter this sort of zen like state and live in the film.
Melkster on
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
Well yeah, I know that past a certain distance a black hole is indistinguishable from any other mass. The question of why there was an accretion disk when apparently nothing was actively falling into the black hole was a good one. Also, why the accretion disk was not a bazillion degrees. And how this planet got to be there to begin with, when the 100 million solar mass black hole would've either been preceded by a crazy-ass supernova that probably would have wiped out the star system, or, if it captured the planets after the fact, doesn't sound like a very stable place to stage Humanity: ver. 2.
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I thought the robot designs were really cool and utilitarian. Like they were shown to able to navigate virtually any type of terrain and for travel fold themselves up into a tiny space. Screw robots that look like metal people there's no point to such a design.
Some of the story beats way miss the mark. The sililoquies on philosophy felt just completely out of place. You were clearly supposed to be empathizing with Brand's viewpoint but it just feels silly. When the airlock blew and it was supposed to be the moment Dr Mann getting his come-uppance. As he says "This is the moment..." and the airlock is blown away, the audience should have been horrified. It was at this point that the film lost me. That moment shouldn't have been funny. It was supposed to be an example of the price of hubris and selfishness. Instead they just laughed. It utterly failed in its goal.
But that moment wasn't funny?
Sometimes a bad theater can ruin a movie for you. Sorry that happened to you. I had Cabin in the Woods ruined for me.
Well yeah, I know that past a certain distance a black hole is indistinguishable from any other mass. The question of why there was an accretion disk when apparently nothing was actively falling into the black hole was a good one. Also, why the accretion disk was not a bazillion degrees. And how this planet got to be there to begin with, when the 100 million solar mass black hole would've either been preceded by a crazy-ass supernova that probably would have wiped out the star system, or, if it captured the planets after the fact, doesn't sound like a very stable place to stage Humanity: ver. 2.
But this wasn't meant to be humanity homestead 2.0.
It was meant to be a refugee camp at best where they had to figure out their next steps. The best they could find with what limited options they had available. I think there was even a line to the effect of using this as a springboard to find their real home in the stars.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
More I think about it more I think the length is really the films biggest problem for me. The philosophizing wasn't bad persay it just got grating because every line of it got repeated at least three times. All the montage scene went on way way too long. The movie felt like it could've ended 15 minutes earlier.
This movie was like, 6 great movie ideas squished into one. Each idea doesn't get the proper attention it deserves and ends up a bit stunted and awkward, creating a sort of beautiful disaster of intermingled subplots that don't quite work but deserve credit for trying.
I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think I'll ever sit through the whole thing again. I will definitely watch certain moments again, though.
Well yeah, I know that past a certain distance a black hole is indistinguishable from any other mass. The question of why there was an accretion disk when apparently nothing was actively falling into the black hole was a good one. Also, why the accretion disk was not a bazillion degrees. And how this planet got to be there to begin with, when the 100 million solar mass black hole would've either been preceded by a crazy-ass supernova that probably would have wiped out the star system, or, if it captured the planets after the fact, doesn't sound like a very stable place to stage Humanity: ver. 2.
stuff is actively falling in to a black hole, and that may be an issue for the planets in a few million years.
The first planet also was closer to the black hole than they previously thought. Dr. Brand mentions this briefly during their approach to the planet, and is the reason why they haven't necessarily fully digested the idea that the signals they were getting from the surface were only minutes old in local time. They were so busy adjusting their plans so they spent as little time as possible there that they failed to account for the fact that the signals they had been getting for years were really just minutes old.
To me, this was an amazing moment in the movie. I've never seen anything quite like it. It felt like an incredibly human mistake to make and it made Dr. Brand's break down afterward all that much more devastating. This was something she could have caught... should have caught, but she didn't; because she's human. And I don't hate her for it. It doesn't feel like it was a contrived thing to miss to me at all. How could there be giant waves devastating the planet? We've been getting constant thumbs up! It's good to go! We're saving Humanity! Plan A!
I guess on the first planet we learn that Humanity is not as clever as we think.
On the second planet we learn that Humanity is not as brave as we think.
Everywhere else we learn that robots are fucking sweet.
Great movie A+++
Psn:wazukki
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
I guess that is where the movie stumbled for me. Whether or not there was technically a coherent explanation for how Tsunamiworld went down, it felt wrong in the heat of the moment, and then felt wrong for different reasons after a little thought. I think the movie demanded too much intellectual heavy lifting to make the most basic aspects of its plot work.
Contrast this with something like Primer, where it takes a ton of thought to figure out what's going on, but none of that ever comes into conflict with basic character motivations or the superficial plausibility of the sequence of events. On the other hand, compare with Jurassic Park, where tons of shit doesn't make sense, but feels right in the moment.
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Was just thinking about whe whole ai probe thing, maybe with all thats going on in the world there just isn't much electronics manufacturing going, and so humans are a lot more disposable than AI and robots which are irreplacable relics.
Absolutely loved the fact that there was no sound when a vacuum was present. Nice little touches like that helped me get over some nitpicks with the story.
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TincheNo dog food for Victor tonight.Registered Userregular
I actually felt uncomfortable chewing my popcorn in those few moments of absolute silence.
We're marooned on a small island, in an endless sea,
Confined to a tiny spit of sand, unable to escape,
But tonight, it's heavy stuff.
Caught the movie in IMAX. My gut reaction is: I would wholeheartedly recommend this movie to anybody who likes movies. More nuanced reactions below.
-I think people are going into this movie with too many preconceptions. I walked in expecting a hardcore sci-fi flick. This is not it, and I was a bit let down. However, I think it did a very good job at exploring the human element of space exploration.
-Yes, the whole spiel about love from both Anne Hathaway (total affirmation) and Matt Damon (total rejection?) were bit unnecessary, but... well, I shed a manly tear when Murph said at the end "Because my daddy promised." The Nolans might have been a bit heavy handed, yes, but today's audience tend to not do well with subtle messages.
-On that note, Matt Damon's character was rather unnecessary. He had a bit too much screen time for what that character needed to do. The minute he appeared I pegged him as the Mad Scientist type who had a goal in mind, screw all others.
-The whole scene with the rotating docking maneuver while entering the atmosphere? That was entirely IMAX worthy. I wanted it to go on longer.
-Everything post black hole. Okay, it dragged on, and it was a bit of a stretch how Murph reached the whole "It was you!" conclusion. I would have rather the entire stretch focus on Cooper. Then again, I'm a nerd and thought how the visualization of the tasseract was cool. (BTW, did anybody else think of Gordo Cooper at the mention of this name? Astronaut who crashes and fails, but ultimately redeems himself?)
-I think Chris Nolan is under marching orders: "Never pull an Inception ending again, or else...".
-TARS. And yes, I totally expected the AI to act against mankind. It was actually surprising and refreshing that they didn't.
-The soundtrack. Only Hans Zimmer could use an organ and a piano like that.
-Time travel. For all the hocus pocus about 5+ dimensions, this is a time travel loop story. After all, time is space, and they are traveling across... anyway, Cooper sees dust, Cooper goes to NASA, Cooper goes into space, Cooper goes into black hole, Cooper creates dust so that Cooper can see dust... It's a time travel loop. I simply could not suspend my disbelief enough and kept on asking myself "So who wrote the first message?! Somebody who was not Cooper had to have done it!"
-Still, this is a Good Movie, and more entertaining and thought provoking than a lot of the stuff out there.
I'll go back and read everything after I've put my thoughts down, so I don't contaminate what I think with what I read.
I did get the 2001 vibe Nolan apparently wanted to project, but I also got a 12 Monkeys vibe towards the end. I don't know if the latter was intentional or not.
I think when you start dealing with 5th Dimensional Beings we also have to dispense with Time-as-a-Linear-Concept
From the 5th Dimensional perspective it could be that those events all seemed to happen simultaneously, or one not necessarily before the other.
Psn:wazukki
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
The more I think about it, the more I think the movie would've been stronger had it stayed with Cooper the whole time. It would've reinforced his alienation from his children and made the fact that all he could get were little blips stretched across decades more more poignant.
It would've been a different film, in both tone and scope, but I think it would've worked better.
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Am I the only one who's perfectly happy with time loops?
It seems like that's the only way to tell a time travel story while staying consistent and also not descending into a Primer-style madness of alternate timelines.
Single immutable timeline is my favorite type of time travel story. It seems weird to get hung up on self-causing loops. Once you have time travel causality as we know it is completely out the window no matter what you're doing.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I've said the robots are the best thing in the movie, but what I haven't said and feel compelled to, is that the representation of the wormhole opening as a sphere (and explanation of it) comes in a very respectable second place.
As for expectations, I went into this film with none. It's far better than Inception, IMO, but not a new sci-fi classic.
"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." - Bertolt Brecht
I want to know how much they debated keeping the true awesomeness of the robots secret for the first chunk of the movie.
Up until Tsunami World you're thinking that R2D2 and C3PO could both outperform these things at anything besides sarcasm.
One scene later it's like "R2-who?"
I've never changed my opinion about a mechanical design so abruptly, I loved it.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
I mean that's what struck me about seeing it and then reading about it afterward. They spend so much time establishing with expository dialogue science that does not make sense or work or hand-waves a very important thing and then behind the scenes it's oh Gargantua is rotating at near c and etc and so forth and then I think oh neat! Wait, why did they go to that perfectly plausible world? First it feels off one way, then later it feels off in a different way.
I feel like it would work better with significantly less dialogue.
Edit: And speaking of the science being accurate
Psychology is a science. There are actual experimental studies that have established facts about how our brains work. The thing that most jerked me out of the film was when astrophysicists suddenly stopped bothering to argue about physics and started spewing uncomfortably banal bullshit about love and survival and what makes people human. I appreciate the effort that went into developing a physically real world, but it was kind of wasted when a lot of the decision-making came after argumentation that would make a high-school social studies class blush.
The thing that most jerked me out of the film was when astrophysicists suddenly stopped bothering to argue about physics and started spewing uncomfortably banal bullshit about love and survival and what makes people human
The only scene that didn't seem to make much emotional sense to me was the one where Brand tried to convince the group to go to planet with her secret lover. Not sure what other scene you might be talking about...
the only part that didn't make sense was when they launched the space craft with a multi-stage rocket when later we learn that it can quite easily take off on it's own power.
the only part that didn't make sense was when they launched the space craft with a multi-stage rocket when later we learn that it can quite easily take off on it's own power.
my guess was they used the pseudo saturn v launcher to put the ranger in orbit to rendezvous with the endurance was so it could save its own fuel reserves for the mission, or something.
the only part that didn't make sense was when they launched the space craft with a multi-stage rocket when later we learn that it can quite easily take off on it's own power.
They probably used a multi-stage ascent rocket to conserve the fuel of that craft for future missions. Fuel is scarce, there aren't refueling depots scattered around the solar system or systems, so whatever you have when you get there is what you have to use. So if the ranger had all it's fuel at lift-off, you need a big ass rocket to haul up not just the craft, but the fuel it's taking along as well, then the fuel to lift off, then account for the people and whatever supplies they're bringing to their dock point and beyond. It starts adding up, and you need a big ass rocket to put that into orbit.
Which is an argument about hindsight. Think about it: they sent 11 humanprobes through the wormhole. They could've left a few fuel tanks/docking points around saturn/at the other end of the wormhole for future exploration; but then you don't have the suspense and drama about conserving fuel resources.
I want to know how much they debated keeping the true awesomeness of the robots secret for the first chunk of the movie.
Up until Tsunami World you're thinking that R2D2 and C3PO could both outperform these things at anything besides sarcasm.
One scene later it's like "R2-who?"
I've never changed my opinion about a mechanical design so abruptly, I loved it.
And then they relayed that one message to the crew instead of deleting it! They were actually loyal!
Robots being loyal to people instead of the mission is refreshing.
the only part that didn't make sense was when they launched the space craft with a multi-stage rocket when later we learn that it can quite easily take off on it's own power.
They probably used a multi-stage ascent rocket to conserve the fuel of that craft for future missions. Fuel is scarce, there aren't refueling depots scattered around the solar system or systems, so whatever you have when you get there is what you have to use. So if the ranger had all it's fuel at lift-off, you need a big ass rocket to haul up not just the craft, but the fuel it's taking along as well, then the fuel to lift off, then account for the people and whatever supplies they're bringing to their dock point and beyond. It starts adding up, and you need a big ass rocket to put that into orbit.
Which is an argument about hindsight. Think about it: they sent 11 humanprobes through the wormhole. They could've left a few fuel tanks/docking points around saturn/at the other end of the wormhole for future exploration; but then you don't have the suspense and drama about conserving fuel resources.
I'm guessing from prior missions the station was prepacked with the extra fuel for the actual mission.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
the only part that didn't make sense was when they launched the space craft with a multi-stage rocket when later we learn that it can quite easily take off on it's own power.
They probably used a multi-stage ascent rocket to conserve the fuel of that craft for future missions. Fuel is scarce, there aren't refueling depots scattered around the solar system or systems, so whatever you have when you get there is what you have to use. So if the ranger had all it's fuel at lift-off, you need a big ass rocket to haul up not just the craft, but the fuel it's taking along as well, then the fuel to lift off, then account for the people and whatever supplies they're bringing to their dock point and beyond. It starts adding up, and you need a big ass rocket to put that into orbit.
Which is an argument about hindsight. Think about it: they sent 11 humanprobes through the wormhole. They could've left a few fuel tanks/docking points around saturn/at the other end of the wormhole for future exploration; but then you don't have the suspense and drama about conserving fuel resources.
I'm guessing from prior missions the station was prepacked with the extra fuel for the actual mission.
But why they didn't launch a handful of unmanned missions to put fuel depots around saturn that they could drop into the wormhole and confirm their arrival on the other side... It may have been a budget/time issue, but I feel like they also should have built two more of those ship rings and placed them near or inside the wormhole with AI support.
But everything they were doing seemed desperate and they probably did not have the time they needed to do all of that while remaining under the budgetary radar.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
the only part that didn't make sense was when they launched the space craft with a multi-stage rocket when later we learn that it can quite easily take off on it's own power.
They probably used a multi-stage ascent rocket to conserve the fuel of that craft for future missions. Fuel is scarce, there aren't refueling depots scattered around the solar system or systems, so whatever you have when you get there is what you have to use. So if the ranger had all it's fuel at lift-off, you need a big ass rocket to haul up not just the craft, but the fuel it's taking along as well, then the fuel to lift off, then account for the people and whatever supplies they're bringing to their dock point and beyond. It starts adding up, and you need a big ass rocket to put that into orbit.
Which is an argument about hindsight. Think about it: they sent 11 humanprobes through the wormhole. They could've left a few fuel tanks/docking points around saturn/at the other end of the wormhole for future exploration; but then you don't have the suspense and drama about conserving fuel resources.
I'm guessing from prior missions the station was prepacked with the extra fuel for the actual mission.
But why they didn't launch a handful of unmanned missions to put fuel depots around saturn that they could drop into the wormhole and confirm their arrival on the other side... It may have been a budget/time issue, but I feel like they also should have built two more of those ship rings and placed them near or inside the wormhole with AI support.
But everything they were doing seemed desperate and they probably did not have the time they needed to do all of that while remaining under the budgetary radar.
I assumed the fact that this was the last mission to leave was because of a: a lack of time (explicitly stated) and b: lack of resources (implied) by Michael Caine.
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the only part that didn't make sense was when they launched the space craft with a multi-stage rocket when later we learn that it can quite easily take off on it's own power.
They probably used a multi-stage ascent rocket to conserve the fuel of that craft for future missions. Fuel is scarce, there aren't refueling depots scattered around the solar system or systems, so whatever you have when you get there is what you have to use. So if the ranger had all it's fuel at lift-off, you need a big ass rocket to haul up not just the craft, but the fuel it's taking along as well, then the fuel to lift off, then account for the people and whatever supplies they're bringing to their dock point and beyond. It starts adding up, and you need a big ass rocket to put that into orbit.
Which is an argument about hindsight. Think about it: they sent 11 humanprobes through the wormhole. They could've left a few fuel tanks/docking points around saturn/at the other end of the wormhole for future exploration; but then you don't have the suspense and drama about conserving fuel resources.
I'm guessing from prior missions the station was prepacked with the extra fuel for the actual mission.
But why they didn't launch a handful of unmanned missions to put fuel depots around saturn that they could drop into the wormhole and confirm their arrival on the other side... It may have been a budget/time issue, but I feel like they also should have built two more of those ship rings and placed them near or inside the wormhole with AI support.
But everything they were doing seemed desperate and they probably did not have the time they needed to do all of that while remaining under the budgetary radar.
I assumed the fact that this was the last mission to leave was because of a: a lack of time (explicitly stated) and b: lack of resources (implied) by Michael Caine.
Not to mention that we don't know their flight path from Earth to Saturn, who knows how long their launch window was and what planets had to be in what positions and how often such conditions are even met.
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I was a bit hazy on the relative geography of all these planets. The ones they visited were all in the same star system? And all of them happened to be in the habitable zone, and there was no actual main sequence star, just the black hole? Which was apparently like twenty times more massive than the supermassive black holes you find at the center of standard galaxies, yet still had planets orbiting it because movie?
None of this is a deal breaker, or anything, I'm just trying to get a handle on what was actually going on so I can more accurately discuss the actual science in the movie. I'm fine if there were weirdly convenient implausibilities going on, since these were apparently the most perfectly suited planets in the whole universe or whatever.
Anything can orbit a black hole just the same as if it was any other kind of mass. It's only really a problem once you get too close to it.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
There is a sun. It's the big glowing disk around the black hole. That disk is about the radius of the Mars' orbit around the sun and because of that the planets orbiting the black hole all get relatively similar amount of light. The slow-mo planet got far more, the ice world was far out of the Goldilocks zone and the one Brand ended up on was more or less getting the same amount of light as earth.
The main difference would be that their years are massively longer and the temperature variation not as high as earth's.
And yes, there's no problem with planets and suns revolving around a black hole, that dance goes on for billions of years.
The robot designs were just awkward - they didn't match the rest of the film's design. They just didn't fit, even if I did like their personalities, and keep taking me out of the movie. The planets were cool.
Some of the story beats way miss the mark. The sililoquies on philosophy felt just completely out of place. You were clearly supposed to be empathizing with Brand's viewpoint but it just feels silly. When the airlock blew and it was supposed to be the moment Dr Mann getting his come-uppance. As he says "This is the moment..." and the airlock is blown away, the audience should have been horrified. It was at this point that the film lost me. That moment shouldn't have been funny. It was supposed to be an example of the price of hubris and selfishness. Instead they just laughed. It utterly failed in its goal.
The rest of the movie just felt completely sacchrine, artificial, easy and predictable. And sometimes it even felt lazy. Really, Nolan? You're re-using the same trick you used in Inception, with the impossible horizon? Ugh.
So yeah, I didn't like it but I hope that Nolan can get back on track. He clearly has become a master of visual effects and his films are really pretty. Interstellar is no exception on that front. I just wish it had more to offer than that.
I see it in a few of the negative reviews on this thread.
I guess when I see a film I usually go in with no expectations. I just sit back and let it tell it's story. I don't analyze, I don't predict, I just enter this sort of zen like state and live in the film.
But that moment wasn't funny?
Sometimes a bad theater can ruin a movie for you. Sorry that happened to you. I had Cabin in the Woods ruined for me.
But this wasn't meant to be humanity homestead 2.0.
It was meant to be a refugee camp at best where they had to figure out their next steps. The best they could find with what limited options they had available. I think there was even a line to the effect of using this as a springboard to find their real home in the stars.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Yeah it needed better pacing and editing.
I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think I'll ever sit through the whole thing again. I will definitely watch certain moments again, though.
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stuff is actively falling in to a black hole, and that may be an issue for the planets in a few million years.
To me, this was an amazing moment in the movie. I've never seen anything quite like it. It felt like an incredibly human mistake to make and it made Dr. Brand's break down afterward all that much more devastating. This was something she could have caught... should have caught, but she didn't; because she's human. And I don't hate her for it. It doesn't feel like it was a contrived thing to miss to me at all. How could there be giant waves devastating the planet? We've been getting constant thumbs up! It's good to go! We're saving Humanity! Plan A!
I guess on the first planet we learn that Humanity is not as clever as we think.
On the second planet we learn that Humanity is not as brave as we think.
Everywhere else we learn that robots are fucking sweet.
Great movie A+++
Contrast this with something like Primer, where it takes a ton of thought to figure out what's going on, but none of that ever comes into conflict with basic character motivations or the superficial plausibility of the sequence of events. On the other hand, compare with Jurassic Park, where tons of shit doesn't make sense, but feels right in the moment.
Confined to a tiny spit of sand, unable to escape,
But tonight, it's heavy stuff.
-I think people are going into this movie with too many preconceptions. I walked in expecting a hardcore sci-fi flick. This is not it, and I was a bit let down. However, I think it did a very good job at exploring the human element of space exploration.
-Yes, the whole spiel about love from both Anne Hathaway (total affirmation) and Matt Damon (total rejection?) were bit unnecessary, but... well, I shed a manly tear when Murph said at the end "Because my daddy promised." The Nolans might have been a bit heavy handed, yes, but today's audience tend to not do well with subtle messages.
-On that note, Matt Damon's character was rather unnecessary. He had a bit too much screen time for what that character needed to do. The minute he appeared I pegged him as the Mad Scientist type who had a goal in mind, screw all others.
-The whole scene with the rotating docking maneuver while entering the atmosphere? That was entirely IMAX worthy. I wanted it to go on longer.
-Everything post black hole. Okay, it dragged on, and it was a bit of a stretch how Murph reached the whole "It was you!" conclusion. I would have rather the entire stretch focus on Cooper. Then again, I'm a nerd and thought how the visualization of the tasseract was cool. (BTW, did anybody else think of Gordo Cooper at the mention of this name? Astronaut who crashes and fails, but ultimately redeems himself?)
-I think Chris Nolan is under marching orders: "Never pull an Inception ending again, or else...".
-TARS. And yes, I totally expected the AI to act against mankind. It was actually surprising and refreshing that they didn't.
-The soundtrack. Only Hans Zimmer could use an organ and a piano like that.
-Time travel. For all the hocus pocus about 5+ dimensions, this is a time travel loop story. After all, time is space, and they are traveling across... anyway, Cooper sees dust, Cooper goes to NASA, Cooper goes into space, Cooper goes into black hole, Cooper creates dust so that Cooper can see dust... It's a time travel loop. I simply could not suspend my disbelief enough and kept on asking myself "So who wrote the first message?! Somebody who was not Cooper had to have done it!"
-Still, this is a Good Movie, and more entertaining and thought provoking than a lot of the stuff out there.
I think when you start dealing with 5th Dimensional Beings we also have to dispense with Time-as-a-Linear-Concept
From the 5th Dimensional perspective it could be that those events all seemed to happen simultaneously, or one not necessarily before the other.
It would've been a different film, in both tone and scope, but I think it would've worked better.
It seems like that's the only way to tell a time travel story while staying consistent and also not descending into a Primer-style madness of alternate timelines.
Single immutable timeline is my favorite type of time travel story. It seems weird to get hung up on self-causing loops. Once you have time travel causality as we know it is completely out the window no matter what you're doing.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
As for expectations, I went into this film with none. It's far better than Inception, IMO, but not a new sci-fi classic.
Up until Tsunami World you're thinking that R2D2 and C3PO could both outperform these things at anything besides sarcasm.
One scene later it's like "R2-who?"
I've never changed my opinion about a mechanical design so abruptly, I loved it.
http://www.businessinsider.com/interstellar-black-hole-physics-discovery-2014-11
Accurate enough for Kip Thorne to be writing up scientific papers on new discoveries they made while making the movie.
I feel like it would work better with significantly less dialogue.
Edit: And speaking of the science being accurate
Psychology is a science. There are actual experimental studies that have established facts about how our brains work. The thing that most jerked me out of the film was when astrophysicists suddenly stopped bothering to argue about physics and started spewing uncomfortably banal bullshit about love and survival and what makes people human. I appreciate the effort that went into developing a physically real world, but it was kind of wasted when a lot of the decision-making came after argumentation that would make a high-school social studies class blush.
The only scene that didn't seem to make much emotional sense to me was the one where Brand tried to convince the group to go to planet with her secret lover. Not sure what other scene you might be talking about...
my guess was they used the pseudo saturn v launcher to put the ranger in orbit to rendezvous with the endurance was so it could save its own fuel reserves for the mission, or something.
or because it looked cool.
They probably used a multi-stage ascent rocket to conserve the fuel of that craft for future missions. Fuel is scarce, there aren't refueling depots scattered around the solar system or systems, so whatever you have when you get there is what you have to use. So if the ranger had all it's fuel at lift-off, you need a big ass rocket to haul up not just the craft, but the fuel it's taking along as well, then the fuel to lift off, then account for the people and whatever supplies they're bringing to their dock point and beyond. It starts adding up, and you need a big ass rocket to put that into orbit.
Which is an argument about hindsight. Think about it: they sent 11 humanprobes through the wormhole. They could've left a few fuel tanks/docking points around saturn/at the other end of the wormhole for future exploration; but then you don't have the suspense and drama about conserving fuel resources.
And then they relayed that one message to the crew instead of deleting it! They were actually loyal!
Robots being loyal to people instead of the mission is refreshing.
I'm guessing from prior missions the station was prepacked with the extra fuel for the actual mission.
But why they didn't launch a handful of unmanned missions to put fuel depots around saturn that they could drop into the wormhole and confirm their arrival on the other side... It may have been a budget/time issue, but I feel like they also should have built two more of those ship rings and placed them near or inside the wormhole with AI support.
But everything they were doing seemed desperate and they probably did not have the time they needed to do all of that while remaining under the budgetary radar.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Frankly right now we don't have that many long range crafts. We can launch a probe or two but good luck launching anything big that can reach Saturn.
I assumed the fact that this was the last mission to leave was because of a: a lack of time (explicitly stated) and b: lack of resources (implied) by Michael Caine.
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Not to mention that we don't know their flight path from Earth to Saturn, who knows how long their launch window was and what planets had to be in what positions and how often such conditions are even met.