Interstellar (2014)

Whoah, definitely not what I was expecting.

Upon introspection, it was a pretty good movie. An odd mix of hard sci-fi and lazy pop sci-fi; Space Odyssey meets Star Trek. Not a film that will have universal appeal, but it was pretty ballsy to make. I admire Nolan for creating it. Also had great acting, and a compelling plot with some interesting twists. The first third of the movie I was like 'meh.' The second third I was like 'This is interesting." The last third I was like 'Cool.' It reminded me of how I felt about "Twelve Monkeys."

Saw it last night and I thought it was very good. It didn't feel long and that's a good indicator of how good a movie is.


I give it an 8.5. Some tough parts to get though, specifically when he was watching the messages and seeing his boy grow up.

I really, really, really wanted to like this movie, but it suffered from the same issues as his last 3 or 4 movies. I don't wanna spoil anything, so I'll just talk about Nolan as a filmmaker.

My problem with Nolan is that he doesn't know what he wants his movies to be. He'll present this cold, clinical aesthetic and then shoehorn in some jarring saccharine moment that undermines the tone of the whole movie. His latest works are hodgepodges of Kubrick's measured direction and Spielberg's sentimentality, and he doesn't fully succeed at either approach. He just doesn't know how to convey the human condition.

I think a lot of the backlash against his movies is partially a reaction to his fans who seem to have an unwavering devotion to the guy. His "blockbuster" movies have invited all sorts of pseudointellectual bull**** and if you criticize his movies for their ham-fisted exposition and robotic, emotional husks who masquerade as human beings, people will just say "You just don't get it, man." It's a shame there's so much controversy surrounding Nolan because it's clear he crafts his movies with a lot of love and care. People just want him to make the best movies he possibly can.

I favor his small-scale movies because greater attention was given to character development and tone. His biggest flaw (in my opinion) is that he focuses so much on spectacle in these big blockbuster movies that he outright ignores any real attempt to create emotional resonance or he fails to temper those elements, ending up with off-putting melodrama.

It made me wonder how many realities of Cooper went through the blackhole to find an instance Murph of actually understanding the key to save humanity. To me, Cooper could have been going through this very same process hundreds of times -- of different variations of Coopers and Murphs.

I thought it was a pretty good movie.

Biggest plot issue for me is:

I saw it as the original timeline having Cooper and Earth all die but Brand makes it to her new planet and humanity continues from there. Fast forward lots (as in hundreds/thousands of years) and Brands colony has advanced to a point where they have the power to assist Cooper and Earth thereby saving them.

Saw it and wished I would have waited to rent it. It's ok but the ending is pretty meh.

Xevy_sl said:

Biggest plot issue for me is:

Spoiler

If Cooper is sent to that library/archive dimension thing by future humans, it means he saved the human race. That means he's in a paradoxical time loop wherein he must save humankind which then goes on to help him in the past save themselves. That's a bit of an issue. They could remedy this by some mention of multiverse and different timelines of the same points in time or something, but they didn't even hint to that. Time was a linear pattern and they could access points to it, but it wasn't several different streams off of the same point as far as I could tell.

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9/10 for me. Some of the dialogue felt very forced, and I wish they had kept some of the elements from the leaked script (if that was legit), but overall hit all the right notes for me. Haven't seen Gravity so can't compare the visuals but I thought this movie looked fantastic. The black hole was amazing looking and the other important visuals all looked great too.

Edit: Forgot to add MM was pretty great in this, again. Dude is on a roll. Some of the scenes with the family were pretty damn thick in the feels.

Loved the movie, but the scene where Hathaway was talking about how love transcended time and space had me rolling my eyes hard. I would give it 8.5/10. Even with the length of the movie, some of the transitions felt very forced and I absolutely didn't buy Matthew just showing up and then being made pilot. Surely they could have written that better.

Vvoid_sl said:

Spoiler

I thought they made it pretty clear it was future humans, to the point where he even has a revelation inside the black hole and says it isn't someone else, it is "us." Unless I'm completely misremembering that scene.

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Merrith_sl said:

Spoiler

Yes, he did have moments when he said "us", but I thought that was only regarding him being Murphy's "ghost", and later you see him being the one to "handshake" with Brand. It was his revelation that it had been him and their mission by extension that caused those things, which allowed him to realize he could then send the answer to the gravitational problem back as well. This seemed separate from who actually built the three dimensional model of time inside the black hole for him to understand that gravity could transcend time as well. The big phrase that made me think this was after they used the term "people" he clarified by saying some civilization who had advanced far enough. From my perspective that came off as him trying to say it wasn't future humans.

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Xevy_sl said:

Spoiler

Prettttty sure he says it is humans. TARS says that humans don't have this technology and he says "not yet, but in thousands of years we could" implicating that he believes that it is indeed humans.

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Merrith_sl said:

Spoiler

If that's really all the depth he was going for with that than I completely read too much into the whole convo...and it'd be a major plot hole for me. We're expected to believe those future humans would be the descendants of Brand's colony I guess?

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