Interstellar (Post-release)

As it was the film just peppered me with questions as I watched from the outset . I know a little about astronomy and space exploration and if you are attempting to pass a story off on me as a credible scientific take on one, you need to make some respectably logical choices in the script based on the science as we know it today.
Didn’t anyone at Nasa think that a telescope would be handy in the Ranger to make some reasonable planetary observations before they went charging down there for a landing? Does a test pilot think it’s ever a great idea to land his spaceship in an unspecified depth of water when he can’t even see the other craft he’s looking for.? Are “giant solid ice clouds” ever a good idea to have hanging over your head on a windy day? They travelled (via the worm hole)to another galaxy as provided by super intelligent beings. Aren’t there enough stars with habitable planets closer to Earth here that would have been a better choice?And isn’t our own Milky Way filled with black holes? And why did nobody go through to rescue Brand before Cooper returned ,it was, after all ,the habitable planet the human race was looking for. Instead they built the little house on the prairie . And how come Cooper could suddenly think he would reach er in just another Ranger that he pinched from that massive O’Neil cylinder?
Even at the beginning with the messages I thought, a drone comes down near a lake and cornfields. Is it going to be used at some point to observe mathematical symbols carved in either of them, by the gravitation waves or the combine harvesters ,(afterall its more noticeable than just dust or a “broken” second hand on the watch,hell even mine does that when the battery is running out!!! ) . Nope, because its more tear jerking if the guy is yelling at the image of himself being an idiot for leaving his daughter. The code leads them to a secret Nasa base (not that secret if they are launching bloody rockets from it, they tend to stand out abit! ).In there ,as theoffice door slides open, there’s an Apollo Saturn rocket "hiding" behind it. And they needed that just to take up a Ranger ? Isn't it built to land and take off again from planets with a greater gravity than Earth? Talking of which, launching that rocket from inside that tightly enclosed space? station like a firework in a bottle is going to cause a bit of damage isn't. You're going to need a new office at the very least!

Exactly, all these things bothered me as well.

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/11/the_7_biggest_problems_with_interstellar_partner/

Music, way too loud, someone really screwed up the mix.

Although I was entertained, all the story issues kind of took me out of it. It clocked in under 3 hrs but felt like more. The more I think about it the more irritated I get :lol
 
When I saw the movie, when they slid back that wall and showed those engines, I heard someone in the audience say, "Goodbye, Mister Bond," but my wife didn't hear it. It was tough not to bust out with laughter!

Nolan is a Bond man. I strongly suspect intentional nod.
 
I still have to pinch myself that this is a big budget non-sequel that revolves on astrophysics.
It's a tall glass of water in a vast desert.

Nolan films seem to invite a lot of criticisms as much as questions. Even the critics tend to be compelled to express thoughtful details. In fact, in the complaints I see around the net I find that people are thinking about science and space flight.
I see people discussing accuracy about black holes, tesseract geometry, branes and bulks, all that theory whether they liked the film or not.
And of course human space flight and what is or not possible for us, fate and state of Earth.
This is awesome. It has opened conversation and there are lots of stories across numerous media.
And it had a 50 million dollar domestic weekend with a demographic right down the middle for male and female..
Name any film that has been able to spark the above? Scientists were the big stars and heros, half male and female characters.
Not crazed white smocks making monsters or emotionally distant nerds.

As for the robots, seems they are liked even by hard critics. These guys are good guys, hero and helper, the
usual message for decades is to be terrified of A.I. even Elon Musk fear mongering about it.


So yes there are fair criticisms of what it did not bring to the table, sure I have my own, but it did bring some great food for thought on
large silver platters.

A final thought, not perfect but on my mind.... Jurassic Park inadvertently predicted Utah Raptor, the critters in the film were too large
for Velociraptors. So you never know what might end up being actually correct with science/speculative fiction
 
I think this says it best:
“Interstellar” is a film that isn't afraid to brush up against the edges of infinity; it's just too bad it has no idea how to navigate the voyage back.
-Review by Alonso Duralde
http://www.thewrap.com/interstellar-review-christopher-nolan-matthew-mcconaughey-anne-hathaway/
I still have to pinch myself that this is a big budget non-sequel that revolves on astrophysics.
It's a tall glass of water in a vast desert.
Yeah, with plenty of holes in the glass, yet so few people realize the glass has holes and anyone who says otherwise simply can't see that they should imagine the glass is intact. I'm still baffled by that.
 
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Maybe in the other dimension the sexes are old school! LOL

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I think this says it best:
“Interstellar” is a film that isn't afraid to brush up against the edges of infinity; it's just too bad it has no idea how to navigate the voyage back.
-Review by Alonso Duralde
http://www.thewrap.com/interstellar-review-christopher-nolan-matthew-mcconaughey-anne-hathaway/
Yeah, with plenty of holes in the glass, yet so few people realize the glass has holes and anyone who says otherwise simply can't see that they should imagine the glass is intact. I'm still baffled by that.


Well the glass being there at all is a pop culture miracle, perhaps those are wormholes in the glass. ;)
 
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My son and I saw the film and really enjoyed most of it. It's the kind of smart movie we need more of. However..I've read comments about the film being a call for more space exploration. Interstellar stuck me in exactly the opposite way. In Nolan's film humanity ultimately survives but we never see what they (we've) become.
I felt exactly like McConaughey's character when he woke up on that space station. I believe he had a, "this isn't Earth" feeling.
What I took away from Interstellar is we had better get off our lazy collective rear ends and work together to save this planet. Once this amazing resource is gone, it's gone for good.
 
Nolan Responds to Interstellar Science Gripes

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/11/11/nolan-responds-to-interstellar-science-gripes


Great graphic...

interstellar-timeline.jpg
 
I absolutely loved Interstellar. I thought the visuals were jaw dropping (kudos swgeek!), the soundtrack was amazing, the plot was thought provoking, and the characters were beautiful.

As for the critics of the science behind the movie, I might refer you to this article by a mathematician and physicist at York University:

http://ikjyotsinghkohli24.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/on-the-science-of-interstellar/

He explains (in far greater detail and complexity than most, myself included, could fully comprehend most likely) why specific critique of Interstellar's science isn't valid. In the biggest critique surrounding the numbers involved in the time dilation around the black hole, he explains the wrong equation was used by the critics of the film; they used the equation necessary for a stationary black hole, while Gargantua is a rotating black hole. Plus, Kip Thorne (the physicist who essentially saw this movie from inception to release in an enormously influential capacity) has written a book purely on the science involved in the movie, called "The Science of Interstellar". Basically, all the science shown is either hard science, or based on current understanding of theoretical physics and is entirely possible. Nolan had actually asked Kip about the plausibility of a certain plot point, and once Thorne said it couldn't be reconciled with real physics, Nolan cut the plot point. So I doubt anything in Interstellar outrightly contradicts science as we understand it. And overall, it's a movie, not a documentary. Personally, I am more than okay in trusting an actual physicist when it comes to the accuracy of the science.

Anyway, I thought the practical effects were absolutely stunning. I got choked up in multiple parts, the first of which was when the Endurance is cruising by Saturn and is dwarfed by it. The stark imagery combined with the beautifully gentle soundtrack were moving. swgeek, I have fallen in love with the Endurance, and I hope Interstellar shows more people how much of a difference practical effects make! Congrats on such a great piece of work. :)
 
A Iittle gasoline on the soundtrack fire. The comments are brutal. LOL
I didn't see it on Imax yet so can't say. The info on the organ is interesting though.


Why Interstellar's Organ Needs to Be So Loud
Hans Zimmer's score drowns out dialogue and has already broken an Imax theater, but there's thematic significance in all that noise.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...terstellars-organ-needs-to-be-so-loud/382619/

But the starring, and most meaningful voice, is the 1926 four-manual Harrison & Harrison organ, currently housed at the 12th-century Temple Church in London and played in the movie by its director of music, Roger Sayer. As Zimmer recently told the Film Music Society, the organ was chosen for its significance to science: From the 17th century to the time of the telephone exchange, the pipe organ was known as the most complex man-made device ever invented. Its physical appearance reminded him of space ship afterburners. And the airiness of the sound slipping through pipes replicates the experience of suited astronauts, where every breath is precious (a usual preoccupation with sci-fi movies that is taken very literally in Zimmer’s music, which also features the exhalations of his human choir).
Zimmer’s score—which alternates between a 19th-century Romanticism and 20th-century Minimalism—of course has an element of spirituality to it. But the organ does more than just recall churches. From the movie’s earliest moments, it performs some very necessary narrative legwork for the overburdened screenplay. When it kicks in as Cooper chases down an Indian surveillance drone, a light touch on the organ keys, paired with rousing strings, creates a whirling, ethereal sound that channels Cooper’s interior life. The giddy tone it sets demonstrates that Cooper is a risk-taker and adventurer, which solves the screenplay’s early problem of establishing emotional motive for Cooper to leave his children.
 
Who ever designed that infogram needs a swift kick up the backside! They’ve labelled the wormhole “Black hole.” That’s not going to help at all.

Perhaps I’m not making my point clear. Its not the issues with the theoretical science that annoyed me the most. I didn’t have any problems with the Marvel universe, in Star Trek ,Star Wars ,Contact or any sci fi where wormholes ,warped space or hyperspace and alike are simply a plot device to get you from A to B pretty quickly without all that tedious hanging around in Einsteinium Space. Kip Thornes work to imagine a set of circumstances under which wormholes don’t collapse is one step beyond anything I could conceive of but I‘m not a theoretical physicist . I also assume Nolan used the ideas about none paradoxical time travel to help make sense of the beginning and end of “Interstellar.” That’s fine. Its all an imaginary story.Arguably even the physics.
But it’s the blatant disregard for the actual rules and protocols of space flight used in the near future by Nasa and the crew that weakened the story so much. That’s my problem. Basic common sense approaches that anyone involved with space exploration would have been expected to do and to follow to ensure the survival of the mission. But they didn’t because then whole dramatic set pieces just wouldn’t have happened and Nolan wouldn’t have had an interesting story.Like getting water in the engines of the Ranger so it won't start. That he keeps trying to defend what he has done to exaggerate the whole story by claiming a trained scientist says its all possible is just getting me more annoyed. I like how he disingenuously says “nobody will get it all by just going to see it the once.” In all likelyhood if I go see again I’m going to end up ripping it to real shreds.
It was a good film that had some strong effects sequences that were thrilling and every bit as good as “Gravity” and that’s saying something. Indeed its rare these days that you can find fault with any films special effects, they are consistently that excellent. The actors were good and there were some strong female leads for a change. But all those damn niggling faults, daft dialogue, nearly all the action sequences arising out of the stupidly illogical decisions that trained pilots and scientists would have been unlikely to have made felt so deliberately contrived to make the dramas happen that it made me feel manipulated by the director, rather than moved by the characters and the story. And that just didn’t happen with “Inception” and I’ve watched and rewatched that a dozen times, despite just how daft it's scientific principles are.
 
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What I took away from Interstellar is we had better get off our lazy collective rear ends and work together to save this planet. Once this amazing resource is gone, it's gone for good.

So true and have to say the discussions, arguments and thoughts after the movie are inspitational.
More entertainment that requires graphs and math.
 
I thought the music was just fine. There was only one part where I couldn't hear what Cooper was saying to TARS, but it was such an 'in the moment' scene that I thought it was on purpose. Sucks to hear that other movie goers had bad audio. My theater was fine.


-The Truth is Out There-
 
Who ever designed that infogram needs a swift kick up the backside! They’ve labelled the wormhole “Black hole.” That’s not going to help at all.

Ha, I knew there was something wrong with that but just couldn't place my finger on it.

Visually and technically I thought the movie was great but for some reason it just didn't grab me which is weird cause I'm normally really into Nolan movies. Maybe one of those dropped implausible plot points is what it needed to work for me, who knows.

One thing that bugged me was, if they wanted Plan B to have a better chance of success shouldn't they have had more women on the team?

On an unrelated note, seeing the Hulkbuster suit on the IMAX screen was pretty cool, it finally looked as big as it should.
 
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