Channel Awesome
Doug’s take on the latest sci-fi movie, Interstellar.
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First of all, look up the Dust Bowl on Wikipedia, especially Black Sunday. In short, those kind of dust storms happened back in the 30’s, and those clips of old people talking at the beginning were actual people who lived through it.
On the science side of things, while it certainly wasn’t the most accurate movie ever, the original inspiration for the movie and technical adviser, physicist Kip Thorn, held Nolan to a strict line of “scientific laws must be upheld,” limiting the more fantastical possibilities seen in, e.g. Star Wars. Also, in looking for habitable worlds, you need them to be earth-like. Water will always be water, rock will always be rock, etc, so they won’t necessarily be visually different.
Personally, I quite enjoyed the movie, both on an emotional level, and on a more intellectual level. I recognize that the story itself is simple and the dialogue can certainly be stilted in some places, but I found the pacing to be almost perfect, only feeling rushed right at the end. I felt the acting was solid, and the cinematography was beautiful. I have been a long-time, if rather casual, fan of speculative and science fiction, enough to recognize and enjoy many of the influences and direct shout-outs. I also have the advantage of knowing a decent amount of both the history and the science being alluded to, enough to follow it without much difficulty. I love the poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” and found its use as arc words very effective. Nolan has always struck me as much more of a conceptual and thematic artist, and I think that shows through. It’s not for everyone, but I certainly enjoyed it, as did the friends I saw it with. I’ll have to watch it a few more times to solidify or re-assess my views, but for now, that’s my first watching reply.
Cheers
P.S. The Sassy Robot is a time honored Sci-Fi standard 😉
I don’t always agree with Doug, but I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed so strongly before. I thought this movie was really good. It was very moving and powerful.
The bit about not landing on the moon wasn’t meant to say that we didn’t do it. It was showing censorship and propaganda in the school system.
I didn’t find it at all hard to follow. I’m no scientist, but I understood pretty much everything they explained and it all made sense to me. From what I’ve heard the science is very theoretical, but all plausible. The part in which he was docking with the spinning ship was, I believe, based on a real-life incident in which Neil Armstrong’s ship spun out of control.
As far as the three planets go, they initially sent missions to twelve planets. They sent this mission to the system that had three possibilities instead of just one in order to maximize their chances for success. And they were looking for something similar enough to Earth to be hospitable, which meant they needed water and dirt. Bizarre alien worlds would have defeated their purpose.
I also found the characters to be very relatable and sympathetic. The acting was really good, and there were complex relationships and motivations. Doug complained about Matthew McConaughey talking too much instead of just being human, but what about the scenes of him watching transmissions from his family? What about the action scenes when it showed all his skill as a pilot and a leader without ever talking about it?
I can see that this movie might not be for everyone, but I will definitely be buying the DVD when it comes out.
Those were frozen clouds, not snowy mountains. xD
Man i loved this movie! It was filled with human emotions so im not exactly sure what your talking about with mathews character, this movie had great actors, great scenery, and an incredible story to tell. Its a 10/10 movie dude, i think you are being to hard on it because you feel like you have to be.. You should probably give this movie another chance man!
I just didn’t like this movie. I was hopeful. I was anticipating this movie for years. Even before Christopher Nolan was attached to direct. This is because I knew this movie was based on ideas by Kip Thorne. The characters were staid, I didn’t care for any of them. I loved TARS. TARS was awesome. He’s the only reason I was vested in the mission aside from a promise of excitement that space exploration would assure. I loved the 3D depiction of the wormhole (which you’d expect to see thanks to calculations Thorne worked out and related to the CG artists.)
But I just don’t think anyone with half a brain would visit the Miller planet first. Not just because of the time dilation (or time slippage as they called it.) That planet’s gotta be receiving too much radiation from Gargantua to be habitable. I understand they visited it to save on fuel, but really? You’re gonna chance passing humanity by with a planet that close to a black hole so you can take a peek at the planet’s viability? I know the idea of time dilation is just too exotic an aspect of general relativity to pass up and its a great story mechanic, but it just seemed sloppy to me they just go head long into it as soon as they arrive at the other side of the wormhole.
Then the idea that gravity waves can propagate backwards in time? That felt contrived. It was of course, but I just raised an eyebrow when I heard Amelia mention that the only thing that can traverse back and forth through time is gravity. And this idea is just there so Copper can manipulate gravitational waves (thanks to the bulk being’s Tesseract) so he can communicate the missing quantum gravity data to his daughter in the second hand of the watch he gave to her, and I just felt that was a weak way to get around Kip’s rigid rules so Christopher Nolan can have his ghost in the beginning. The sad thing is I read Jonathan Nolan’s script after I saw this and I thought it was quite good. But there’s also some time travel (baxckwards in time) involved but it also had primitive lifeforms. I felt the script took chances.
I’m really not saying this just to be contrarian or start an argument for argument’s sake. I really wanted to love this movie, but in the end I just felt incredibly let down.
If you cut out everything that happens with Matt Damon in this movie, it would have been way better. It wouldn’t have been as long, there would have been much less confusingly philosophical pretentious dialogue, and there would be more time to focus on the relationship between Cooper and Murph, which is the best part of the whole movie. Also I totally saw that twist coming. I’m not sure how they would have been able to make it less predictable but whatever. Also I liked the water planet. It was desolate, cold, threatening, and just gave off a sense of loneliness and urgency what with the time lapse and the mountain sized tidal waves. Snow planet and desert planet were lame though. Black hole was awesome.
…I sincerely dislike how nowadays all the reviewers feel the need to bow down and explain how their opinion is just an opinion and how it’s all for fun and hot it’s geeks being geeky… yadda. If your opinion is based on fact, it’s a valid opinion dude and you’re entitled to it-
I honestly have to say Doug’s work and work of a few other critics changed the way I observe movies, what I look at, etc. Some of these critics very brutally and insultingly raped some of my favorite movies – but it’s all been a very enlightening experience, seeing how something I thought was brilliant was actually completely stupid and/or poorly executed. I still love those movies, but it’s a matter of one’s… I’d almost say education, to recognize their love for say “The Signs” as a guilty pleasure rather than attachment to a really good movie.
A lot of people somehow manage to mix up the “I love this movie” with “this is objectively good, quality filmmaking”. Love is fine and nobody is trying to take that away from you, but recognizing a thing for what it is should be possible even in spite of your “love” for it. It’s when you love your McWhatever, but STILL know and acknowledge it’s junk food. Nobody should apologize for telling you something like “it’s GMO artificial bullshit”.
You don’t believe the science in this movie is accurate, huh?
These professional scientists beg to differ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Hh4cMQbGE
He said that the film was ok! Why does everybody blame him? Fuck Christopher Nolan…
I personnally enjoyed it except when they explained instead of let the public find an interpretation for themselves. Don’t try to put logic in stuff that’s supposed to be magic or fantastic Nolan! And that’s a shame, because the visuals as well as the music are fantastic and at times very atmospheric.
And they said that they couldn’t find McConaughey that used to fly for NASA until an incident occured. And as this is the shitty future, the communications don’t seem to be that good.
So… You didn’t liked this Nolan movie… Why am I not surprised?
It’s not the Christopher Nolan movie we need, it’s the Christopher Nolan movie we deserve.
Lego maniacs There was another one named Mack as well. And I saw an advertisment comic in which Mack and Zack worked together.