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In Reply to: RE: Interstellar, Do you like talk? You'll love this posted by Road Warrior on November 05, 2014 at 14:17:41
Nolan may have overreached but he still hit the ball well out of the park. Those complaining about such films as Prometheus lacking a cohesive beginning middle and end will have little to complain about here, and the theme was more organic and humane.
When Nolan hammered the thesis at the film's climax it punched me in the gut with raw emotion (and no, the thesis wasn't the Dylan Thomas quote). If you have a daughter and that is what life is about to you, this film will bring you to your knees. The wormhole and binary code from beyond the horizon of space, time and gravity is tantamount to the "well" in Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, wherein the protagonist is driven to a metaphysical place from where he tries to contact his loved one.
It mirrors the human condition and rings true when handled with authority and poetic license, and Nolan is certainly gifted on both counts. A total powerhouse work, and even if you don't connect to the emotions of it, it's a helluva ride. Made Gravity look like much ado about nothing.
Follow Ups:
....in this film. The "human level" aspects of this film did dominate the surface. And with the physics of Einstein's theory multiplying the years of separation (for those remaining at home)it seemed only to add grief and depression for the astronauts.The movie was over-wrought with honey dripping emotions of love, grief and depression. With the astronauts what hope there was from the onset became systematically replaced with depressing news. At a critical juncture what should have been a calculated choice of destination among our astronauts was chiefly driven by emotion.
And it seemed that the ultimate salvation for the human race was not "plan A" as had been envisioned. Plan B did succeed. But that is where the movie gets complicated. Messages sent via Morse Code to the second hand of a mechanical watch from Coop to Murph. But by means of a 5th dimensional Tesseract where, from within, time and space can be crossed. Depicted as the insides of (between the shelves) a library. But to activate the second hand of Murph's mechanical watch assistance from the crews robot Tars was necessary.
Ultimately I was not involved with the events of this movie. Rather, I was repelled by the depression of it and found myself not really caring one way or the other about the outcome.
A downer of a movie.
-Steve
Edits: 11/10/14
...plan A that triumphed with gravity added into the equation, how did Murph and her entire family get there?
Right you are. See my post just below. 2nd viewing helps to clarify.
But now I'm $30 into this IMAX movie.
-Steve
I'm not sure how you can say the film was depressing when in the end humanity triumphed, Cooper was reunited with his daughter, sadly he had missed her whole life, but she had clearly led a life of success and was surrounded by her family at the end. She also basically told him to hook up with Brand to have the life he was meant to have, and that's exactly what he was doing when the film ended. Had Mann (Matt Damon) destroyed the ship or killed Cooper, I could definitely understand your point that it was too depressing but the film's first and final acts were a high note of optimism. I didn't think the physics (time and gravity) emphasis was particularly important. Nolan gave just enough of that and the special effects of space to draw in the viewer, no more and no less.
"........but the film's first and final acts were a high note of optimism."
-----------
Yeah, the mood, lighting and background music indicated a positive vibe. That there was success. That Murph read the code and was able to re-calculate the formula successfully and that changed the course of Earth history.
Then there they were living in a kind of 'ring-world' kind of space station in orbit around Saturn. I did not catch any mention of what had become of Earth and its billions of people. But I presume Earth was abandoned and only the lucky few associated with NASA were able to migrate to the new off world stations. Which I take to mean that it was Plan B they went with.
Further, Coop found himself living in a constructed replica of his old Earth farmhouse. He did not spend too much time in that rocking chair. No, he confiscated a spacecraft and took off for the last known location of Dr. Brand (Hathaway). I did not see any optimism in that final scene. Only the act of a man who figured he did not belong on that space station with the descendents of his family.
So much misery.
-Steve
I'm not sure how you came to any of those conclusions. Plan B was for the astronaughts who had reached the other inhabitable planet through the wormhole to populate that planet through artificial means (test tube babies). That didn't happen. Murph was able to set up a safe planet inside the galaxy and pursue plan A.
Coop didn't stay in the house for more than a cursory time and was taken there to see that the house had become a museum/novelty. Murph, on her deathbed, had told Coop to go rescue Brand, the obvious motivation being to have a life and family the way you're supposed to. He didn't confiscate the ship. Murph had arranged for him to go get Brand just as she had arranged for the farm house to be made into a museum.
I just returned from a second viewing. First viewing had me on sensory overload and I missed observing some of the key events. For what it is worth, some of the dramatic moments do seem over-wrought. But the film does mean to play to the emotional aspects. One has to accept it as such.Yes. Plan A did succeed. By solving the gravity issue, Murph was able to figure how to get the underground space station off Earth. And with it however many people from the planet could go with. However unlikely that may seem
Also the movie ended on a note of hope. Dr. Brand did continue on to Edmund's planet and in the final sequences it was seen that there was breathable atmosphere. She had set up camp. And now Coop was on his way to join her. Real hope there. The beginnings of a human colony on a habitable planet somewhere across the universe.
On the second viewing the events within the Tesseract made more sense. If there is anything that makes sense about a Tesseract.
Also, your comments regarding the message of love and human emotion became more clear. In the movie it was those aspects that worked to motivate Murph into doing her part.
From the beginnings of the movie it was clear that Earth was to be abandoned. The question was what would happen to the human population of Earth. I can't say the movie fully addresses this at the conclusion, or maybe I missed that too.-Steve
Edits: 11/10/14
You have an advantage over me in that you've seen it twice and I'm going by memory of only seeing it once. But it seemed clear to me that by solving the problems of space, time and gravity, Murph/NASA were able to transfer the entire population of Earth to a huge area (space station or moon?) orbiting Saturn not far from the wormhole.When Cooper flies off to rescue Brand at the end, the implication to me is not that he'll stay there with her but that he'll bring her back to the new Earth to have a family and a normal life with her. That would be the life he missed when he had to spend all his time fighting dust, when his wife died and he then abandoned his family to take the weight of saving the world on his shoulders. This new life and new chance at love was Murph's dying wish for him.
That was mindblowing too, to have the daughter older than the father and the parenting roles almost reversed. Murph had lived a full life and was a grandmother who obviously was involved in her family, whereas Cooper hadn't experienced that even though he wanted to and had learned the hard way that's what life is all about.
Edits: 11/11/14
would have no more success than those from the New World had in being populated by those from Europe.
And would not intelligence sufficient to create all that technology be able to do something as simple as contract what Buckminster Fuller designed decades ago, i.e. a huge canopy covering massive metro areas and protected, artificial agricultural areas?
I suppose some guys spent weeks thinking about "Inception," another overwrought effort: why bother? It's not "Hamlet." Making a narrative purposefully complex, when it doesn't have that much to say even when deconstructed, is a sign of weakness.
The Nolan "Batman" films worked--- they were straightforward enough. So did "Memento," largely because of the brilliant acting of Guy Pearce.
An over-reliance on "Wow!" dooms "Interstellar." It tries to pound the audience into submission.
Edits: 11/10/14
You're thinking too hard, Tin.Inception had a very simple thesis--that you could influence someone to the core by planting a thought in their head. We've all done this or feared this, where if we said something that was taken so seriously and deeply by someone else that it would alter all future interaction and the course of a relationship or life.
Interstellar also had a very simple thesis that built on the inception thesis. Best summarized when Coop said, "I promise to come back for you." Nolan always builds a complex plot around his theses, like layers of an onion, but his real gift -- what he does so well -- is he makes it relatable on the human level so that at the climax he can strip it all down to that core thesis.
Sure enough, when Murph was asked how she knew Coop was coming home, how she knew to keep trying after Caine's deathbed confession that he had no intention of solving the problem, and how she knew to not give up and walk out of that room without the answer...sure enough she said she knew because her dad had promised her he'd come back for her.
It was their love for each other that made it happen, and by hammering that at the climax with the right words, visuals and music, Nolan again elevated his film making. He has it down to a science and formula himself and it works. Very similar to Prestige, which also involved a key to deciphering a "real" magic trick, and a daughter being returned to her rightful guardian.
I won't get into Nolan's Batman trilogy. All three were great films that elevated the superhero genre. But I didn't care for Memento. Any film that uses nonlinear time as a gimmick like that (or like Pulp Fiction) just makes me feel like the director lacked the ability to make the story interesting if told sequentially and it bugs the crap out of me to see this approach taken, but that's more of a personal pet peeve.
Edits: 11/11/14
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