Interstellar (2014)

Chuluun Sarangerel said:
I got all that, but:

If the 'ghost' from the future hadn't sent those messages, then Cooper would never have gone on the mission and then he wouldn't end up in the black hole and the ghost wouldn't send the messages. So we've got a loop here and I'm not sure it matters much whether it's possible to move along timelines. (I'm not ranting at you, I'm just saying that they should have explained it better so that there isn't a time loop.)
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I agree

That is what I meant by my reference to Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps"; it's a classic SF paradox.
 
Exactly! As Anthony says. And to be honest this sort of bootstrap, ouroboros style endless time loop does tend to be a rather overdone trope in time travel stories. Probably, for me, this was the most disappointing aspect of the film. However to be fair these days many (most?) SF filmgoers are not SF readers and so this was perhaps a novel idea for most of them.
 
My apologies if I missed it, but I wanted to start an Interstellar thread.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this movie.
 
stirdgit said:
My apologies if I missed it, but I wanted to start an Interstellar thread.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this movie.
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I saw the movie and really enjoyed it.

WARNING - COULD BE INADVERTENT SPOILERS

A lot of reviewers focused on silly things such as the odds of NASA having a secret base just up the road from the main character's house....but this sort of thing is pretty irrelevant to the overall plot.
What I liked was the massively expansive vision of the universe, contrasted against the importance of the seemingly tiny personal relationships. This combined with the interesting realistic view of space exploration kept my attention for the 3 hours.
I found that the end of the movie was more like something directed by Night Shyamalan (Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs etc). Everything coming rapidly together and finally makes sense to the movie goer. I'm a bit of a fan of Syamalan so this style was one that I was quite comfortable with.
My recommendation would be to keep an open mind and enjoy the spectacle.
 
mgilmour said:
A lot of reviewers focused on silly things such as the odds of NASA having a secret base just up the road from the main character's house....but this sort of thing is pretty irrelevant to the overall plot.
What I liked was the massively expansive vision of the universe, contrasted against the importance of the seemingly tiny personal relationships. This combined with the interesting realistic view of space exploration kept my attention for the 3 hours.
I found that the end of the movie was more like something directed by Night Shyamalan (Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs etc). Everything coming rapidly together and finally makes sense to the movie goer. I'm a bit of a fan of Syamalan so this style was one that I was quite comfortable with.
My recommendation would be to keep an open mind and enjoy the spectacle.
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When Coop & Murph were taken into the complex, I noticed a sign outside saying "Norad". Coincidence or not, it represented a real place, the underground complex in Wyoming. Are those cornfields anywhere near there? Don't know, but some poetic license, I suppose.

Gripes: Couldn't stand the soundtrack, e.g., Philip Glass on 'ludes. Matthew McConaughey seems always to speak in sotto voce, just like his car commercials.

Otherwise, Anne Hathaway put in a much stronger performance than I expected.
And once you got used to the idea that a robot could figure out and transmit to Earth enough about quantum mechanics to allow us to build a tube world, ala Rama, it was not a bad wind-up to the film at all.
The main strength of the piece was the human drama overlaying the space opera context. Nicely done and worth the length of it.
 
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I actually liked the soundtrack and thought that it did its job of working with the movie rather than overpowering it.

Never seen a Matthew McConaughey car commercial so can't comment.

Apart from that I agree that it was a very good piece of film making(y)
 
mgilmour said:
I really liked the soundtrack as well.....so much so that I bought it.
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Ahh. To each his own then. Although a good many people hated the soundtrack for The Fifth Element, I liked it enough to buy it.:whistle:
 
I have yet to get round to watching this, primarily because I have a nagging doubt it's another "Gravity" : all style and no substance.

Visuals are important of course, but a decent, absorbing story should top that! Regrettably, Gravity, and that other over-hyped mish-mash of a movie, Prometheus, had plenty of the former, but sadly lacking in the latter.

So will Interstellar, live up to my expectations of good story & visuals; or can I add it to the above two examples, and create a triumvirate of "All that glisters....."
 
I actually enjoyed Gravity....it was the first time that you really got the true impression of what it would be like in weightlessness. I found the effects staggering with all of the different pieces shooting around. The fact that Sandra Bullock (with a little help from George) had to carry the whole movie was pretty amazing. I've heard that a lot of people didn't like the movie but I wasn't one of them. :)

Prometheus was a dud....plain and simple. I love Ridley Scott but he blue it with this one.

I like to think that Interstellar was more like a Night M Shamalyan (however you spell his name)....there's lots of mystery and tension in the characters. This combined with some pretty incredible special effects gave a realistic view of humanities first foray into the stellar void.
 
HanaBi said:
I have yet to get round to watching this, primarily because I have a nagging doubt it's another "Gravity" : all style and no substance.
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Opinions vary widely on Gravity. It wasn't one of my favorites, although it was worth a watch. Interstellar is more of a thinking person's space opera. A lot of layers, but ultimately very much a human story.
 
clovis-man said:
Interstellar is more of a thinking person's space opera
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Maybe that's why I didn't enjoy it :(.

Actually, I did really like it until near the end. At that point I couldn't decide if it was pure genius or total tosh. Very confusing. :confused:
 
Nechtan said:
Maybe that's why I didn't enjoy it :(.

Actually, I did really like it until near the end. At that point I couldn't decide if it was pure genius or total tosh. Very confusing. :confused:
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A bit of both?
 
Just watched this on Blu Ray, and the sound levels were awful. Thsi is what I got from the film:


mumble mumble dust mumble whisper mumble earth is dying mumble mumble mumble fly to a wormhole mumble mumble astronauts explain basic physics to one another mumble mumble no one takes readings of planets before landing on them, resulting in huge waste of life, equipment, time, and money mumble mumble HANS ZIMMER'S PIPE ORGAN mumble mumble Gravity is important - except when you're near a Black Hole - then you ignore it mumble mumble HANS ZIMMER'S PIPE ORGAN AGAIN

The film had gripping moments - but the script was self-indulgent and made no sense so much of the time. For example - why did the crew never take readings of the conditions of the planets they wanted to visit, before landing on them? Because they didn't it resulted in a huge waste or life, equipment, time, and money.

It was also Hollywood casual discrimination by the numbers: white man is boss, black friend dies, and female lead is hysterically emotional and exists to make babies (literally).

The film was too long as well. The Damon scenes added nothing but a huge digression - in fact, they could have dropped the whole planetary system bit and simply had the Black Hole experience within the wormhole itself. It would have made just about as much sense, but drastically cut the film - and a ton of silliness.

The ending? White man gets into ship, flies away into the ... sunset? What happened to earth? Looks like they didn't do well saving it to have mined so much material as to create the Saturn space station.

The film had potential, but IMO was badly put together.
 
stirdgit said:
My apologies if I missed it, but I wanted to start an Interstellar thread.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this movie.
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The scene where the crew return from the tidal wave water planet and are confronted by the crew member who waited 15 (or something) years for them to return (due to the gravity-time fiasco) is so powerful, i cant even imagine what that was like for him to be alone so long and have them come back all nonchalant after aging...like...5 hours.
 
It's well-acted and the effects are good (especially the visual of Gargantua) but you have to ignore physics and biology to enjoy the story. There is also the need to overlook some plot holes (at the end Cooper doesn't really seem to care whatever happened to his son). I expected the story to be somewhat more cohesive coming from Christopher "Memento" Nolan. But it is an enjoyable popcorn flick.
 
This is still on my to watch list. I'll try and watch it Sunday.

I like the look of it and I love what I've seen of Christopher Nolan's work so far, although I haven't seen Inception or The Dark Knight yet.
 
A first fate film, easily Christopher Nolan's best film. In the category of science fiction film it is is one the best of all time and a future classic. (y):cool:
 
Well ... I'm listening to Hans Zimmer's soundtrack now, and it's powerful stuff. It's making me want to watch the film again. Though I had criticisms before, coming at it with lower expectations might make for a more interesting experience 2nd time around.
 
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