Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar

[Talulah, really!]

Saw it on an Imax and was totally, totally blown away by it.

Can imagine quite a lot of people won't like it because actually it is a straightforward and emotionally sincere (or sentimental) story that should make you cry in exactly the same way something like Black Beauty or Lassie does, only told on the most broad and epic of canvasses.

Don't won't to say too much for reasons of spoilers but a few hopefully harmless pointers and points of interests.

It is a very "American Film", in that it harks back to the widescreen epics and westerns of the 1950 and 1960s as much as it does 2001 a Space Odyssey and other SF stopping off points. The story starts on a literal Little house on the Prairie, that is menaced by dust storms and failing crops, and even though the film is set in the near future, the vehicle we see the family in, is that old familiar staple, the pickup truck.

Furthermore in the names of the two main characters "Cooper" and "Murphy", it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to suggest that there is an allusive nod to Gary Cooper and Audie Murphy, two cinematic cowboy icons, the first part of the film is the old western adage "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

If you wish to consider the film at a more complex level than the basic narrative provides then it is perhaps viewable as using the SF concept of interstellar space travel and the effect of relativity as a metaphorical correlative for how we as humans move through time and psychological perception of time. Thus young Murphy, Cooper and old Murphy might be seen as representations of the way we perceive time passing differently according to what age we are. Certain scenes in the film representing that sudden lurch you sometimes get when "one day you find that ten years have got behind you" or a decade of being in school that seemed indeterminable is now only recallable as a few brief seconds of memories and that wherever the sign was, it was opposite a hippopotamus and for some reason you can recall eating a Diarylee triangle.[nb]The Proustalgia of the poor.[/nb]

The film narrative mimics this effect by at times slowing down to a glacial pace then at others moving at overwhelming speed, shots flashing by in a furious blur, similarly point of view moves from tight close up to huge vast landscapes where the mere human is shown in all its vulnerable insignificance.

One last point for those that have seen it, 2001 has the much famed match cut where the spinning bone soars skywards and then cue spaceship.

Spoiler alert

Perhaps Nolan trying for the audio equivalent as the car drove away from the house .

[close]

So, yeah, thought it was great.

   

[mobias]

Quite tempted to see this. I've really not been much of a fan of Christopher Nolan's films up until now so I was going to give it a miss. If its much, much better than Inception then I'll go and see it.

[Harpo Speaks]

I really enjoyed it in parts, but at one point I really felt it was shaping up to be one of the best films of the year - then it stumbled, right around the time

Spoiler alert

that Damon made his appearance. Miscast in my opinion

[close]

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Way too much over-explanation as the film drew to a close as well, dialogue spelling out things that we can literally see on screen, or at least may pick up upon on rewatching the film.

McConaughey was great though, he really sold the emotional scenes. Some gorgeous visuals at times too. But too long and unrestrained, and it's to the film's detriment.

[non capisco]

I have strong reservations about the final act but the bits that worked for me really worked. I found myself a blubbering wreck in my cinema seat when he was watching the message from his suddenly adult son and breaking down at all the life with him he'd missed out on. It was good old fashioned Hollywood emotional manipulation done really well. Blotted its copybook somewhat in the latter stages of the film but I certainly wasn't expecting that much emotional heft from a Chris Nolan joint. It's a curates egg for sure but the highs were better than I was anticipating. I'd half expected its biggest crime was that it was going to be boring which it definitely isn't.

[Hank Venture]

Bit pompous, especially the score.

And the

Spoiler alert

bookshelf dimension was just a bit crap, wasn't it. Once he entered it I just rolled my eyes and waited for him to cotton on to what anyone in the theatre had already figured out.

And the fact an astronaut needed to be explained what a wormhole is.

And the fact they found him floating around fucking Jupiter, with little oxygen left. "Very lucky" doesn't even begin to cover it.

[close]

Otherwise a solid romp.

[Buttress]

How I imagine the plot in this film (before i've seen the film):

- Matthew Mccongagnaueg (how does one spell that name? i'll henceforth refer to him as MM for ease of braincells) is some shamed Dad figure at first who is also a big shot scientist/astronaut - that's right he swings both ways - who wants to prove to his kids that its not all going to be miserable after all, that he can still provide them with a positive future life. To do this its come to cosmic, astronomical, interstella proportions (as Nolan likes to go 'big' these days), this Dad (symbolic father) has to do it for his kids damn it! For his kids!
- The world is ending, they all see MM off on his galactic cruiser in a tearful parade of saccarine excess, our only hope is with a Dad who just wants to do right by his kids (like he couldn't do with their Mum..)
- In space MM makes a wormhole or finds one or just happens upon whatever is most convenient for the narrative to progress. Enters it. It's spectacular, wow, bright. CGI budget the after-image on our retinas. It becomes a bit 2001-y for a bit and then:
- We return to 'normality' but it is crumbling, everyone in emergency mode, but then there's a tap at the door, Who's this? Why it's exposition's sorry fists!
- We find out that MM actually killed his wife in an attempt to create a black hole. It was pure contingent accident, just a shocking byproduct of harmless living-room quantum electrogravitational dynamics. His being a Dad after this moment for his Kids was frankly, a debacle.
- Some other stuff happens, maybe some quasi-spirtitualist garbage about the redemptive powers of a moderate social heirarchy.
- MM comes back through wormhole some 80,000 years into the future - his Kids dead. Everything else, dead. All that is left is bacteria. So then he realises wait a second, are not these bacteria also my children? And he, he makes it work.

[mobias]

I found myself a blubbering wreck in my cinema seat when he was watching the message from his suddenly adult son

Without having seen the film that sounds like it was robbed wholesale from Arthur C Clarke's novel The Songs of Distant Earth which as I remember it has an almost identical scene near its end.

edit. I've just been reading over on the Guardian website a few people comparing this film to Contact which apparently it closely resembles. I saw Contact at the cinema when it came out in 1996 and remember thoroughly enjoying it, primarily I think because the CGI was relatively new and state of the art back then. Then I saw it again last year when it was on TV and thought it was utterly awful. It takes itself far too seriously for its own good to the point of just being a bit silly and the emotional back story is shovelled down your throat. So is Interstellar kind of similar?

ps Contact is still one Sci-Fi novel I've never gotten round to reading. I really should  one day as its meant to be good. 

[Sam]

How does this compare to Gravity? That was visually stunning and hampered by corny dialogue and sentiment, but had the benefit of being half as long.

[greenman]

Without having seen the film that sounds like it was robbed wholesale from Arthur C Clarke's novel The Songs of Distant Earth which as I remember it has an almost identical scene near its end.

edit. I've just been reading over on the Guardian website a few people comparing this film to Contact which apparently it closely resembles. I saw Contact at the cinema when it came out in 1996 and remember thoroughly enjoying it, primarily I think because the CGI was relatively new and state of the art back then. Then I saw it again last year when it was on TV and thought it was utterly awful. It takes itself far too seriously for its own good to the point of just being a bit silly and the emotional back story is shovelled down your throat. So is Interstellar kind of similar?

ps Contact is still one Sci-Fi novel I've never gotten round to reading. I really should  one day as its meant to be good.

Its quite a bit better than Contact I would say, the religion vs science theme in that was cheesy as hell.

It does have a lot of over explanation in it, a good deal is needed for any non physics student but some stuff you would expect the average sci fi viewer to know is gone over.

As far as the soundtrack goes its loud in the mix at points but it seems much more of a considered artistic decision than some of Nolans previous films were it was a clear mismatch, taking obvious pointers from 2001. The weakness there perhaps is that its not as good as 2001 or more recently Sunshine, very epic in scope and rather Philip Glassish but not with anything that memorable.

As far as Matt Damon goes I would say...

Spoiler alert

If anything he was cast too well and by type, I guessed he'd faked the data the instant they found him

[close]

[Paaaaul]

How does this compare to Gravity? That was visually stunning and hampered by corny dialogue and sentiment, but had the benefit of being half as long.

The better visual scenes tend to be those on land, but there are a couple of excellent space-based segments near the end.
It's a much better film than Gravity, but if you've had problems with Nolan stuff in the past, you'll likely find similar problems here.
Also, if you see it at the premium screen in Norwich where I saw it today, there was an annoying mark on the screen that distracted me numerous times.

[Hank Venture]

It's sort of the halfway point between Gravity and 2001.

[Harpo Speaks]

Spoiler alert

If anything he was cast too well and by type, I guessed he'd faked the data the instant they found him

[close]

So did I. He just pulled me out of the film in general for whatever reason.

As for how it measures up against Gravity, I don't think it can match that film in terms of sheer visual spectacle (although a couple of scenes came close for me), but I found the story and characters much more engaging.

[amnesiac]

waiting for it to be released in iTunes so I can get the full experience watching it on my iPhone 3.

[Pdine]

Can imagine quite a lot of people won't like it because actually it is a straightforward and emotionally sincere (or sentimental) story that should make you cry in exactly the same way something like Black Beauty or Lassie does,

What, in pain at the shackles and blink-restrainers I must be wearing?

[An tSaoi]

I have strongly mixed feelings about this film.

On one hand, the visuals are absolutely spectacular, the acting is good, there are some exciting set-pieces (like docking with the spinning ship) and it's nice to see a big budget film with some ambition and interesting ideas. On the other hand, the sound mix drastically over-emphasises the music to the detriment of the dialogue, and the dialogue itself is absolutely awful, easily the worst dialogue in any Nolan film to date. At no point does anyone have anything resembling a real conversation; everything is either clunky exposition delivered in a manner that no real person would say, or stilted "profound" lines which were clearly only included so they could use them in the trailer. It's a credit to the actors that they manage to mostly get away with some of the terrible lines they have to deliver.

I'm not sure if the film entirely makes sense. The assumption that we make (or that we're supposed to make) is that

Spoiler alert

an advanced form of alien intelligence has created the wormhole, the black hole portal and the magic fifth-dimensional MC Escher bookshelf world in order to help humans reach the next step, a bit like the unseen intelligence from 2001. But the Shyamalan-ean twist is that it's not aliens after all; it's actually a highly advanced future version of humanity, which has evolved to the point where we can traverse the limitations of time or some gubbins. This raises a question: if present day humans are saved because of the intervention of future humans, how did those future humans survive in the first place? If humanity manages to live to the point where we're advanced enough to tinker with time in order to communicate with ourselves in the past, then presumably there must have been a point where we hadn't mastered the fifth dimension yet, so we must have survived without any future intervention, because we hadn't reached the point where we would be able to intervene.

[close]

So there's two choices:

1)

Spoiler alert

in a previous straightforward timeline there was a plan C, in which humans survived in some other, unspecified way. Eventually we evolve and manage to leave the boundaries of three dimensions, and we use this ability to intervene with our past selves via the bookshelf world, and save humanity, which is completely pointless because we must have survived anyway in order to set the whole thing up in the first place, so why change anything?

[close]

2)

Spoiler alert

it's a predestination time loop, where it was always going to happen anyway, which is possibly the shittest, laziest, and most non-sensical type of time-travel device. I know it happens in a lot of films, but it always bugs me. How can John Conner exist before he sends Kyle Reese back in time to become his father? How can Bill & Ted know where they're going to leave the keys? How can Scotty know what transparent aluminum is if no-one has invented it? (At least with the last one you can imagine that it would have been invented eventually, and Scotty just pushed it forward a bit.)

[close]

The thing is, those are action or comedy films, so you can overlook the fact that it doesn't make any sense because they're just for fun, but this is supposed to be super-serious, scientifically-accurate, thoughtful, artistic film. In the end it all boils down to a super hokey fantasy cop-out device.

Also, how did they intend to carry out plan B?

Spoiler alert

They've got a load of frozen embryos which they can use as a population bomb in case the rest of the world can't make it off the planet. But who's going to carry these embryos to term? Is Anne Hathaway supposed to impregnate herself a hundred times and raise all the babies on whichever planet they settle on? And of course the babies would grow up to have borderline incest with each other. Was that actually the plan? That's frigging insane. Ridiculous. Michael Caine is happy to let his daughter do this? And they only have one woman? What if she died? I'm pretty sure Cooper, Beardly Bloke and Black Guy don't have wombs.

[close]

[Puce Moment]

The comparisons to 2001 are doing a good job of underlining all the problems with this overblown, over-sentimental spectacle movie.

Kubrick and Clarke managed to make something that removed corny sentimentality and obvious three-act resolutions, in favour of something that genuinely speaks to who we are and why we are here. Rather than taking the simple beauty of that film, Nolan chooses to nick the 'Star Gate' scene and the score.

Interesting that people seem to be comparing this more to Tarkovsky's Solaris given that the dead wife angle is jettisoned like empty rockets on a spaceship in favour of something more related to the human species and children. 'Love' as a theme is presented in entirely mawkish terms, but when faced with a room full of his descendants, Coop decides to fuck-off without even having a quick beer with them and a chin-wag.

But picking up on plot issues is not that useful really. I wasn't bored, in fact far from it. The really, really shit dialogue and shit exposition and shit moments that don't make sense I largely swatted away like annoying gnats. In the end I just wanted spectacle - I wanted more and more of those shots of tiny spaceships in the massive expanse of space, and you get that just enough.

It is far, far better than Gravity, not least because they have the sense, after blast-off, to show the silence and emptiness of space instead of over-creaming it with OST.

I'm not the audience for someone like Nolan, but I enjoy his playing around with time that we saw in Inception, and overall this went quickly. But it's an empty film that I doubt I will ever see again.

3-stars.

[falafel]

the sound mix drastically over-emphasises the music to the detriment of the dialogue, and the dialogue itself is absolutely awful,

Yes, and such small portions.

[The Region Legion]

when faced with a room full of his descendants, Coop decides to fuck-off without even having a quick beer with them and a chin-wag.

This was extrordinarily stupid - the man who entered a black hole to communicate with his daughter across time and space would be greeted as the saviour of human kind, not like he was, which was as nothing at all. No one treats him with an ounce of respect except the guy who rebuilt his house, and even he has no actual questions for him - just "here's your old house, but now it's a museum but you also are meant to live here now too or something? Feel free to hang out on the porch with a beer and your robot friend at night". That was really bizarre. Were they trying to make the point that the world had moved on without him? Trying to give him a reason to leave the ship ASAP so they could wrap the film up?

This raises a question: if present day humans are saved because of the intervention of future humans, how did those future humans survive in the first place?

Of the two possibilities you mentioned, it was the 2nd one.

It's such a classic sci-fi trope at this point that I had no issue with it given the quality of what had come before. Time is not linear, so there's no reason that the future, 5th dimensional decendents of humanity needed Cooper to have do anything at all - they were just there, because he already had done all these things, and because they exist beyond time. If it had been a worse film I'd have considered it lazy - given the film, I'm going to take it as one of the best portayals of that concept in cinema since the art form began.



So yeah, I very much enjoyed it and probably only have 3 complaints.

1 is the sound-mix - how do they consistantly get this wrong? I can't hear anything anyone is saying!

2 is what Matt Damon's plan was exactly? So he lands on the planet, finds that its inhabitable but sends out a message saying that it's the place because he doesn't want to risk dying alone. But when he betrays them, what's he actually planning to do with the ship that he couldn't do with the other guys along for the ride too? Was he travelling to the other planet, the one that Brand ends up on? Was he going home? Was he going into the black hole? That's all the options, and Cooper and Brand both wanted one of those for themselves anyway, and they ended up doing the 3rd so... what? I think this might have something to do with issue number 1.

2a is really just an addendum to the previous, but I don't see what Matt Damon brought to the film really. His entire arc could have been cut and the same point could have been made in a single scene. I suppose then you don't have a reason for Brand to forgive Cooper for basically calling her an idiot for wanting to go to the guy she had a relationship with. If they got there and the planet wasn't fit but there wasn't an exciting action setpiece then she'd have just been stuck there going "THANKS A LOT COOPER". But they still could have worked out how to use the 2nd ship to get them to the other planet so again, it made no difference overall.

3 is what went through my head in the first few minutes of the film. "There's a ghost in my room Dad". Oh right, so the Dad is the ghost, somehow coming back through time and space to either try and stop himself going or to reunite with his children. It was so obvious to me that I actually assumed they'd reveal it about half way through and then the real ending would happen, so it was a bit disappointing that it was built up to be the major plot point.


Other than those though, I'm very satisfied. Remarkably beautiful film, a real modern day 2001 which is obviously what they were going for. Generally well paced, some great, if not new, ideas - a real science fiction film for a change. It's easy to handwave it away but what else has come out that's like this in the last 30 years? Marvellous.

[Puce Moment]

I hope the people in the future find a way to build architecture that allows people to communicate beyond the back of a bookshelf.

[Sam]

I really don't know what to think of it. It's a total mess of a film, with a few really brilliant moments. But it's nowhere near as good as I thought it would be, and 3 stars would be generous. I really admire the effort/ambition/scope and the lack of CG.  However there were lots of silly moments, and the concept/plot in general is silly.
Tonally it was all over the shop and even the good ideas/bits were like glimpses of good things rather than solidly satisfying moments.

I'm glad it exists and that I saw it, and I applaud the ambition, but this is not really a good film.

[Puce Moment]

There was a lot of laughter in the cinema I attended every time the overly clunky robots were on screen. Even the emotional moments were punctuated with mild tittering at the square marvinc3pgertyHALd2.

[An tSaoi]

It's such a classic sci-fi trope at this point that I had no issue with it given the quality of what had come before. Time is not linear, so there's no reason that the future, 5th dimensional decendents of humanity needed Cooper to have do anything at all - they were just there, because he already had done all these things, and because they exist beyond time.

But even if they have reached a point where they exist beyond time, there must have been a point before they existed beyond time. They weren't always like that, because they used to be us, and we obviously haven't got there yet.

If they were some sort of alien intelligence that could always traverse time it would be fine, but making it humans who need future intercession in order to survive into the future is just silly. It's impossible. The whole predesitination loop thing is so stupid it might as well be fucking magic. Fine in Bill and Ted, but not in something that's supposed to be serious. You'd never get Kubrick entertaining that sort of codology. At least 2001 could actually happen in the real world, as there's nothing paradoxical about the existence of the monolight makers. It would have been better if it was advanced aliens all along, and just do without the Shyamalan twist.

what Matt Damon's plan was exactly?

Either steal the ship and head home, or failing that, pop over to one of the other planets and hope they're less shit that his one, I assume.

I mostly enjoyed this film when I was watching it, but the more I think about it, the worse it gets. It keeps getting sillier and sillier.

[Blumf]

If they were some sort of alien intelligence that could always traverse time it would be fine, but making it humans who need future intercession in order to survive into the future is just silly. It's impossible.

Do you have proof of this?

[An tSaoi]

The onus is one you to prove that the result of an action can take place before the action occurs; that the result can precede the cause, and that the cause can only exist as a result of the result.

Even if some Sheldon Cooper type can hypothesise that it's actually possible, it still looks ridiculous in the context of a film.

I can't prove God doesn't exist either, but it would look silly if he showed up in the last act and sorted everything out.

[Blumf]

Well, you've made the statement that "it's impossible", but seem unaware of the current state of knowledge in the relevant fields of physics [nb]Which is a very jumbled bag of ideas and not much in the way of solid facts currently, for example, nobody has given a solid stab at explaining the apparent direction in the flow of time, there's just hand waving at the moment as more thinking is required[/nb] The correct position currently is 'we don't know' not 'impossible' (or, indeed, 'possible'). Your concept of fixed cause/effect may well be as wrong as the geocentric view of the universe (killed by Copernicus, Galileo, etc.) and the concept that the flow of time is constant and universal (killed by Einstein).

Remember, we're talking about a film where people travel through a black hole, so we're already passed the realm of everyday possibility into the zone of speculation. This is a very recent (2012) bit of thinking that suggests that basic sci-fi trope might be 'impossible' for example, but we're a long way from any solid conclusion.

[Sam]

The Damon plotline is very problematic, mainly for the reason mentioned, ie his options upon leaving the planet alone are the same as if he left with the others. In fact, he'd have had more chances of survival with the others. Obviously, they'd be pissed off he tricked them into rescuing him, but they'd be unlikely to kill him or leave him there as punishment.

Quite apart from the logical inconsistency is the tone of this segment being a bit silly, and taking the film in to a cheap thriller sub-plot that - as has also been said - could have been cut out of the film entirely.

I found the first third on Earth quite dull and clunky. The time between turning up at the secret base and being shot off to space is far too rushed and yet other parts of the film, like the scenes of them chatting on board, are too long. The pacing is not right.

Another tonal problem for me were the comedy robots, who looked and sounded ridiculous. All of the banter between them and McCon felt so cliched (humour settings etc. Didn't Star Trek do all these gags with Data?). In fact, you could look at the film cliches threads on here and do a checklist:

Characters explaining things they already know to each other; starting a conversation at the beginning of a walk around the facility and it continuing after an edit (what did they talk about in the meantime!); a crack team headed up by an old man who says the protagonist who's stepped through the looking glass is 'the best there is/only man who can do it' (this is Team
America stuff); Damon doing the 'villain talking elliptically about something profound before he dispatches the hero, giving the latter plenty of time to escape or be rescued'.

Then there are the  dodgy messages about the environment, of which George Monbiot wrote a good Guardian article.

I also felt the film could have benefited from exploring a bit more about the wider situation on Earth. It seems unlikely that even with Cooper's  calculations, parped out from the cavity wall
insulation of the Universe to Murphy, she could turn the whole of humanity around. (The hopelessness of the set up is comparable with Children of Men - current generation last to survive - and presumably outside of the deliberately parochial farm setting the whole world is falling apart).

There was a good 2 hour film in there but there are way too many major flaws outweighing the flashes[nb]literally[/nb] of brilliance.

[Puce Moment]

I actually quite liked the Damon storyline inasmuch as when they announced that people had gone off to different locations, I imagined the temptation to claim their world was inhabitable. The whole idea of him trying to save his skin and turning from hero to coward was interesting. What wasn't so cool, as Tyson has pointed out, is the need for two men to have a fist fight in a film with such a grand scale. It looked ridiculous and reminded me of the out-of-placeness of the Bond snow scene in Inception.

But you are absolutely correct about the timing and pacing of the first act. It's all over the place. They try to make it obvious that he has traveled a long distance to find the NASA base but it still doesn't work. Issues of inconsistency are covered by the idea that it is he himself who is giving the coordinates (although of course none of that makes sense in time travel terms), but it still feels very cobbled together.

What I did like was the way they overlaid the shot of him leaving the house with the countdown. Nolan isn't good at economy and brevity, at least not recently, and I thought it was a relief to have a clear time jump presented in a cinematic way.

But as someone said above, the more you think about it, the more ridiculous it seems. Why didn't the Black Doctor go down to the planet with them if it meant having to wait for so long? I know they thought they would be quicker, but still it was going to take at least months or years.

[Jerzy Bondov]

He wanted the time to do some black hole research I think

[greenman]

The argument against Damon's character does suppose that he was acting entirely logically when your dealing with someone who's been alone strewing in his guilt for over a decade. Besides paranoia that the others might abandon/kill him working with them would be a constant reminder of what he'd done.

[lipsink]

I thought the way the robots

Spoiler alert

moved really quickly when escaping the wave was beautiful, all spinning and that. Also, when they were carrying one character? Their whole obedience and working as part of the team, I found quite moving.

[close]

It's certainly Nolan's warmest film (not that difficult, although Dark Knight Rises and Inception had some emotional scenes)

Spoiler alert

The scene with Coop watching back the videos after coming back from that dreamlike planet was, as others said, both heartbreaking and just bloody weird

[close]

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