Thread: Interstellar: Your Thoughts

Just like the title states I wanted to hear some of your opinions of the movie Interstellar directed by Christopher Nolan. I have now watched the movie over 20 times and I listen to the soundtrack almost every night while I fall asleep. It's safe to say it is now my favorite movie of all time.

I've also read almost every review and rant on the movie and know all it's flaws. What movie doesn't have flaws? The science behind the film is compelling and definitely adds to the movie, but for me it's the emotional component.

->Open Spoiler<-

The relationship with Cooper and his daughter Murph was one of the most inspiring and moving connections I've seen in a film. That on top of the score by Hans Zimmer moves me every time I see the scenes in which they are involved. (Watching 20 years of logged videos, the bookcase scene, and finally reuniting with his daughter 120-some years later)

I think that is what moved me the most. The concept of relativity and time in space. To have so little time pass by for one person, but for the other years go by. Then to have to deal with that on a human level.... it just hit home with me. The human element... that each and every one of us will one day die. That "we are just ghosts of our children's memories." Yes it's just a movie and for some these concepts/ideas mean diddily-squat, but for me there is so much truth in it.

I've even started working on what will be a life project. A application that let's a person record videos and save them only to be opened years later. It could be one year or it could be 20. It might be morbid to some, and maybe even a little off-putting, but for me recording a video now of myself as a 26 year old, maybe talking about my current life experiences, something that happened in my day that I think would be worth telling one of my children, a life lesson essentially; and then having them be able to watch it when they are a young adult....I think that is something that will also hit home with a lot of people around the world. Who knows by the time these videos are able to be watched I could already be dead and in that case the content would be even more powerful. Communicating with your loved ones when you've already passed on. It of course doesn't have to be dramatic content either. It could be videos of joy, the day your child was born, etc, etc.

Anyways what did you guys think?

I liked it, I agree with pretty much all your statements. Also cool idea about the videos.

*** Tiny Spoiler ***
My main gripe with the movie was how, at the end of the universe, they open up the bag and IT'S MOTHER FREAKING MATT DAMON! How did he of all people get cast in that role. THE END OF THE UNIVERSE and Matt Damon is sleeping inside waiting for them. Unbelievable. Worst casting decision of all time.

Other than that, solid movie.

Excerpt from Interstellar interview with Chris Nolan. May not answer your question directly Salty, but I too asked myself this question and found this when researching. Gives a little insight on why Matt Damon.

Why did you keep Matt Damon’s casting a secret?

Chris Nolan (C): I imagined Doctor Mann a bit like from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” You have Kurtz, this character that you hear about. Everybody says, “Oh, he’s great. Maybe you’ll get to meet him.” I really love the idea for an audience to go, when they see him, “Oh, it’s Matt Damon. It’s going to be okay.”


Matt very graciously agreed to do it. He didn’t have to shoot for long. So we didn’t want to market the film using him because he’s not in it very much. We didn’t want to mislead people. But Matt is a very important part of the movie. It’s fun to watch with an audience who doesn’t know because they haven’t heard about it.


Matt has the most amazing ability to project integrity and warmth. So he turns up in the film and he’s got a plan and it’s all going to be okay. For me, to realize that he’s a frail human being and subject to cowardice and all the terrible weaknesses that we all have… he loved that challenge. I loved what he did with it.

When people see Matt’s face, they are like, oh, okay. It’s the lift that the movie needs at that point. Structurally, you have a lot of talk in the 20 minutes before. There’s a lot of negativity, a lot bad things happening. The film is very much going to a dark place at that point. So getting that lift in that way with a great actor and movie star coming on screen, is a good thing.

I thought it was great. Right up until it wasn't.

They went to great lengths to make the science behind the movie believable and correct only to throw it out in the third act for one of the wildest hypotheticals they could come up with.

I have no problem with suspension of disbelief. I can easily buy a norse god killing aliens in new york with a green giant and a guy in a red and gold robot suit. But when you bill yourself as having solid science and basing your story on that... then pitch it out the window towards the end of the movie, it breaks the mood. You didn't have suspension of disbelief turned up past 2 or 3 and suddenly you throw something at the viewer that requires them to have it set to 8. That hurt it significantly.

I did like it. I watched it in the theater and I watched it again on blu-ray. I just think it could have been better at the end. 8/10.

Originally Posted by Kanati

I thought it was great. Right up until it wasn't.

They went to great lengths to make the science behind the movie believable and correct only to throw it out in the third act for one of the wildest hypotheticals they could come up with.

I have no problem with suspension of disbelief. I can easily buy a norse god killing aliens in new york with a green giant and a guy in a red and gold robot suit. But when you bill yourself as having solid science and basing your story on that... then pitch it out the window towards the end of the movie, it breaks the mood. You didn't have suspension of disbelief turned up past 2 or 3 and suddenly you throw something at the viewer that requires them to have it set to 8. That hurt it significantly.

I did like it. I watched it in the theater and I watched it again on blu-ray. I just think it could have been better at the end. 8/10.

This is a unfortunate opinion. Science fiction has no boundaries and the way the third act folded out was absolutely brilliant in my opinion. They did a great job in explaining what was going on and it made sense to me.

The movie was hands down the best movie I have seen in a very long time. I hate ranking systems but if I had to rank it I would give it a 10/10. It left me in awe and in wonderment. It is movies like this that inspires generations to look at the stars and wonder whats up there and maybe because of the inspiration this movie gave one important person/persons we may finally reach out and be among those stars one day. This movie is what this society needed. We are so caught up in our selves that we forget that there is something larger than us something that makes our problems seem like pebbles compared to mountains. And for some reason I never really got why people were so confused by it.

Assuming that he would instantaneously be crushed into oblivion by the pressure of the black hole and that he had the capability of visualizing what he perceived if he did survive, and that he was also able to manipulate the gravity in the way that he did, as well as being able to correctly modulate his interactions such that the timings of his interactions lined up with what she was observing in the room....then it would be plausible. The idea was there, and I appreciated they attempted to visualize a higher dimensional entity and it's perception of a lower dimensional-space. Who knows if that's what it would look like, or if it would look like anything, but the their effort in that regard was what won me over.

There was nothing confusing about it to me. I'm very familiar with the science they were pushing. As I said they went to great pains to make sure the science was good behind their fiction. The trouble comes from the point where they are caught in the gravity well and progresses from there. They can't expect me to applaud their great use of science to back up their story when they suddenly decide they need to ignore such things as spagettification due to the high tidal forces as he was being pulled towards the event horizon. Or the massive amount of x-ray radiation in the vicinity of the black hole. Things like that being ignored completely put the suspension of disbelief in full-stop mode. There's a lot of problems with the science but they are minor enough that you can just hand wave them away because it IS science fiction. But again... problems the size of an ant consistently through two hours of movie lull you into a sense that that's what you are going to get to the end. But then the giant pink elephant shows up and puts the brakes on full stop.

The way I interpreted the movie from the scene of Cooper entering the black hole is that we as a species have no idea what would happen once you enter a black hole. Yes most likely a human body would just be smashed, but we have no actual facts that say what would happen. Thus this gives Chris and Johnathon the ability to make the movie....a movie.

The entire movie did use sound science with the help of Kip Thorne, one of the greatest astrophysicists of our time, but once that black hole comes along we have no idea what would happen. So when Cooper survives the black hole, finds a never-ending "tesseract" of his daughters bedroom, and then is able to communicate with her by physically moving books and rays of light.... my brain doesn't say, "Well fuck that's not realistic or scientific at all." For all we know what happened IS possible, because we've never been in a black hole. Is it probable? No, and I think Kip Thorne probably said the same thing, but he also knew this was a movie and had to be a little lenient to provide entertainment for the audience.