Interstellar (2014)

Soeaking of, this was a very interesting read:

Amazon.com: The Science of Interstellar (9780393351378): Kip Thorne, Christopher Nolan: Books

Finally saw this. My reaction was that it was cool and it felt like slaughterhouse five/space odyssey kinda vibe. I liked it, but I had some issues.

The first is that it felt like way too much of a ~science~! fistpump a lot of the time. So much of the movie felt like listening to people explain what was going to happen with whiteboards and examples (Didn't I see that exact wormhole with a piece of paper and pencil example in stargate universe? I know I saw it somewhere, and it felt like I was sitting through a class on review day). I feel like if you're not the kind of dude who's going to say, "Oh cool, an o'neill cylinder!!!" a lot of the sciencechat, time spend turning knobs and dialing dials, and explaining everything in laymans terms is just going to bore the shit out of you. I felt like I was right on the cusp of where I could understand the theories and ideas, and yet somehow it managed to feel like it was a lot of recap of other science fiction shows I've watched, only explained in a more tiresome way. I think everyone would bitch about it, but I wish there was a lot less "tell".

I didn't like the pacing. A lot of stuff felt too rushed to me, and there was so much time spent watching hull-cams and things spin around slowly. It's the same issue I have with rewatching 2001 more than once a decade. Just so much time spent spinning around in space breathing or whatever and I get bored without drugs. I feel like everyone collectively groaned when matt damon showed up and thats about when everyone started checking their phones and my party was definitely checked out by then.

Some of the dialogue...I don't know if it's because I got a particularly cynical group or if people going to see this so late are just less invested, but when the "love" speech came on, half of the threatre was snickering through it.

And then the stuff that was interesting to me (5th dimensional beings, time, communicating with the daughter) basically came and went in 5 fucking minutes at the end with some bad, "hey yo, this is whats happening right now" dialogue for the audience, and that felt disappointing to me. So yeah. I liked it and thought it had cool ideas, but I felt like the pacing kind of ruined it for me and it's not a movie I think I would want to watch again due to that. It kind of felt like someone glued together a bunch of other books I've read and rushed through the dialogue so that we could have sweet science moneyshots.

I'm not a big moviegoer, and this was the only thing in theater that even remotely interested me. It was a fun experience, but somehow I feel really let down by it and I can't quite put my finger on why that is other than movies in general rarely do it for me.

No, the love speech simply fails to deliver. Plus its put in a very bad spot of the movie.
This movie is about (wo)men pushing boundaries again and sums up what shit brings mankind to get their asses up and go beyond the frontier.

a) Exploration/Curiosity/Scientific Research
b) Desperation/Love

So it's still about faith vs science being sides of the same old medal.

For me the issue was the tone and pacing I think. It feels like it came up at the most awkward possible spot, didn't fit the tone of what was happening, and was sandwiched between a lot of "epic" kind of moments, and felt like they were trying to fit more in than they had time for in, with not enough room for proper transitions. I don't remember what it was, but there was a one-liner that sounded like it was right out of an 80s action flick when they were trying to dock with the spinning station. A lot of the tone for the movie just didn't seem to hit the mark for me.

My take on it was that the love dialogue was necessary for that final scene in the black hole, since they were foreshadowing how important it was. It just didn't seem to jive with the rest of the flow, and kind of feels like they decided love was an important theme, but had to add a 2 paragraph exposition on it or the audience wouldn't understand. I kind of hate being smashed in the hammer with stuff that blunt. But like I said, I thought it was cool overall and I appreciate that there was something playing that gave me something worth talking/thinking about.

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is the only film in the top 10 worldwide box office of 2014 to be wholly original--not a reboot, remake, sequel, or part of a franchise.

2014 in film - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and then...

Lego Movie #15 (US #4) - start of a franchise
Lucy #16 (US #22)
Edge of Tomorrow #17 (US #29)
Gone Girl #19 (US #17)
Maze Runner #20 (US #26) - start of a franchise
Big Hero 6 #23 (US #10)
The Fault in our Stars #24 (US #23)
Divergent #25 (US #18) - start of a franchise

Most of those are based off books/some sort of IP, aren't they?

Lego Movie #15 (US #4) - Who hasnt heard of Lego
Lucy #16 (US #22)
Edge of Tomorrow #17 (US #29) - Manga
Gone Girl #19 (US #17) - Book
Maze Runner #20 (US #26) - Book
Big Hero 6 #23 (US #10) - Marvel Comic
The Fault in our Stars #24 (US #23) - Book
Divergent #25 (US #18) - Book

I'm fine with them adapting novels. How is that substantially different from developing a screenplay originally? Novels are often better. It's usually an unfortunate process of bad decisions when they adapt a novel. To this day the only book->movie adaptation I feel was actually an improvement is The Postman. That book is fucking tarded. But still, the movies adapted from books are solid stories regardless of the loss in translation.

To this day the only book->movie adaptation I feel was actually an improvement is The Postman.

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Fight Club.

Also just got back from the movie, not gonna break it down because there's been enough discussion, but I really enjoyed it.

Liked the movie very much even though it had many cliche storytelling tropes within it.

I will say this, any critic that compares this to 2001 needs to quit their jobs, and then go hang themselves....

Juvarisx_sl said:

Edge of Tomorrow #17 (US #29) - Manga

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I know it's nitpicking, but, the manga is based off of a book.

Edge of Tomorrow was such an awesome movie and it really didnt get its due in theaters for reasons beyond me.