I loved it.

Hokey third act. Sorry. Plotting for convenience sake.

But the thing that still gets me was all the daddy-daughter angsting. Dude pretty much forgot the son and let the daughter relationship override what should have been two relationships. All done for purely manipulative emotional purposes.

Really liked it.

Really glad I didn't know much about anything past takeoff.

Really liked it, but can see why others may not - this is a true sci fi movie.

Saw it in IMAX tonight. FF mentioned gravity visuals, I enjoyed the visuals in this movie much more. Probably because of the variety, the gravity earth shots were better.

I can agree on some of the clunkiness, especially when they got back to the guy who has been alone for 29 some years. Overall it didn't detract for me.

Really enjoyed it, it's fun now spending time thinking about how there are innumerable real black holes out there in the universe...

Just got back from seeing it in IMAX. I thought it was fantastic and it lived up to my year-long (or since I found out about the movie last year...) excitement. Granted, I didn't get as invested as some who read scripts and followed all the details, I was plenty set up for a letdown. Nolan nailed it, IMO. My one and only gripe was the sound. At times, the bass was so overwhelming I could almost hear nothing else.

MM is on a roll lately and this did not slow down his momentum a bit (though, it wasn't another gear, if you will...no better than DBC or True Detective). The rest of the casting was swell, though I am growing tired of Anne Hathaway for some reason I can't put my finger on. May it is fatigue or feeling like she has a limited range, if you will...not sure.

Most of all, I appreciate that Nolan makes high caliber, original story-driven films. Yeah, he may have his "brand" pretty much established but it keeps working for me. He's right up there with David Fincher , Tarantino, and the Coen Brothers as directors who I almost always get excited about their next projects. Can't wait to see what he has in store next.

LOVED IT

Loved that he left at the end to go back to Brand

Loved it. Few questions though.

How did the wormhole appear in the first place? Also still a little confused about what Murph's half of the equation had to do with the end of the movie. Does it get them all into space where they now live? The station ala Halo was a nice touch.

My favorite scene is when he ejects into space. Just unreal.

Allowed them to build colonies and space stations off world without actually have to use the resources to leave Earth atmosphere I imagine.

Also loved the soundtrack. Thought it was pretty laid back but great for Hans Zimmer. Loved the organs.

The wife and I saw it this afternoon during the A&M - Auburn game (yeah, that makes me a bad Aggie today, but hey, it worked back in '84 when I skipped the sip game for a movie, and it worked again today, so y'all are welcome).

I had purposely avoided reading a whole lot about the movie, but not to the point of avoiding the other thread entirely or watching the various previews. I had some suspicions about how the movie was going to proceed, and I expected some serious emotions based on what I understand about the physical reality of space travel and what I was seeing in the previews. I was not disappointed on that front. The daughter's reaction to losing her dad in such a fashion and the re-union at the end was what kept me riveted to the screen. I thought MM and Jessica Chastain and the little girl playing the younger Murph nailed their roles.

The movie felt like serious science fiction (as opposed to Star Trek or even something like Alien). I thought the visuals were impressive, the music was out of the ordinary for Hans Zimmer but was good in its own right, and the story-telling was compelling.

Loved it.


The whole theme is "love transcends (literally) space and time"

Can anyone post a quick recap over the major differences between the final movie and the first script people read?

I still haven't finished reading the original draft, but I did just see the movie again, and I'm ALL IN after a second viewing. I didn't realize how much dialogue I actually missed in that muddled IMAX showing, and a clear audio track made all the difference. Also, knowing exactly what to expect, I was able to anticipate the ebb and flow of the plot a little better, and further grasp what Nolan was trying to do.

Most importantly, I've seen a few posts/tweets questioning why "they" would lead Cooper & co (along with all of humanity) to planets that close to a black hole. Well, first and foremost, I noticed this time around that Amelia referred to the "other systems" members of the original twelve were sent to. So it's not like every target was close to the black hole. It just so happened that the system with the most potential habitable planets was the one closest to the black hole.

That said, this is the big realization I had this go-around (one that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else)... the proximity to the black hole was absolutely ESSENTIAL for the grand version of the plan to work. Without it, Cooper would have never been able to communicate with Murph. And it was only using the black hole that the versions of us from the far future were able to construct the 5th dimensional space for Cooper to inhabit. Inside that space, Cooper had a line basically explaining that he's communicating across time with Murph just like "they" were communicating with him, with gravity being the language each were speaking. "They" were "reaching back," using gravity across time to construct the 5th dimensional space, while Cooper was using gravity back across time to communicate with Murph. And that essential communication wouldn't have been possible without a black hole. So our future home HAD to be close to one. If not, "they" could never have communicated with Cooper (using the 5th dimensional space), and Cooper never could have given Murph the gravitational data from inside the black hole (transmitted from TARS). Without that data, Murphy would have never been able to solve the gravity equation, and therefore never could have "raised" the colony off Earth.

To try and put that in the simplest terms possible (which isn't easy)... basically, the version of humanity from probably hundreds of thousands of years in the future needed to offer us a little nudge in order for us to survive. They obviously couldn't travel back in time themselves to do so, so they basically built a phone booth to "call" us instead. However, that phone booth could only exist inside a black hole - essentially, the only vantage point from which to establish a signal - and "gravity" was the only thing that could travel across the connection to and from the phone booth. To get us to the black hole, they also paved a road (the wormhole) - one we obviously never could have traversed ourselves - and made sure a new home for us was in close proximity to the phone booth as well.

Also, to expand on what I asked earlier - and to expand on the answer given to me, for those asking - Professor Brand told Cooper that once NASA realized "they" were sending pings through the wormhole using gravity, Brand & co realized that gravity was able to be manipulated. And if "they" were doing it, it would theoritically stand to reason that Brand & co could as well. So with that understanding, they knew it was possible to "raise" the colony if they could just crack the equation. But there were two problems: 1) the necessary data to completely "solve" gravity could come only from inside a black hole, and 2) essentially, without a "love connection," gravity couldn't transcend time and space. It took the love future/super-humanity had of us in order to communicate via gravity with Cooper, and it took the love Cooper had of Murph in order to communicate via gravity with her.

Overall, I'm probably not 100% on point (especially with the love aspect) - and if "they" could only communicate via black hole, I'm still wondering exactly how they constructed the wormhole outside of the black hole - but I don't really think that's important. All I know is that I'm on the right track, and that so much more of the movie worked for me this go-around. Not just the scientific aspects, but the emotional/situational/musical aspects as well. I still have a couple minor quibbles here and there, but man, I absolutely LOVE this movie now. It just took me a few days to come around.

Still, anyone care to pull a Murph and double-check/expand on my theories? I'm definitely curious as to how it all truly works out.

Really loved it. The space scenes really felt like 2001: ASO. No sound. That was great. I can't put my finger on it but the motion of the ship and its parts was very similar. It's like a mix between fluid motion and stop action photography or like the ship was a moving model they used in the old days.

The image on screen when the spaceship was transiting Saturn was probably the most amazing thing I've ever seen in a movie. The IMAX ticket was worth seeing that alone.

I'd put it just behind the opening sequence from Gravity, but I agree that it was phenomenal.

Definitely buying this...

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=4294987333

From reddit

Awesome graphic.


So Gargantua, the wormhole, and the black hole are all the same thing, right?

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Awesome graphic.


So Gargantua, the wormhole, and the black hole are all the same thing, right?

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Not quite. Gargantua is the collapsing star, and also the name of that particular solar system. (Like how our solar system is named after our sun, Sol). The black hole is the phenomena that is created by Gargantua collapsing. Think of Gargantua as the yellow swirly lines and the black hole as the giant black blot in the middle.

The wormhole is completely separate. The wormhole is that circular/spherical distortion with stars in it. It's a tunnel that connects the Sol system (near Saturn) to the Gargantua system.

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Definitely buying this...

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=4294987333

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There was a lot of physics the movie got right and there was still a lot they got wrong. I imagine they tried to follow as closely as possible.

Thanks Rogue.

Next question: When Romilly was killed, was that set up by Mann? Related to that, are we to presume that Mann disassembled KIPP because KIPP knew he was up to no good?

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Thanks Rogue.

Next question: When Romilly was killed, was that set up by Mann? Related to that, are we to presume that Mann disassembled KIPP because KIPP knew he was up to no good?

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Yes and yes. That was my interpretation as well.

Just got out of the imax theater. Holy. ****. LOVE THIS MOVIE.

2001 is one of my favorite movies of all time, and this movie belongs right alongside that one, imo. The scenes where they travel into the wormhole, and the black hole scene, were breathtaking. Imax was worth it for those scenes alone.

Agree with everyone that says the scene where MM sees his children as adults for the first time was incredible. Eyes got watery for sure.

I don't understand the criticism of the visuals at all. The effects were all amazing. At no point in the movie did I feel like I was watching something computer generated or fake.

TC, I'm glad to see you came around on the movie on second viewing. I definitely want to watch it again, but for now I need to process it some more. So much to take in.

First impression though: best movie of 2014, and possibly Nolan's best movie overall.

Some of ya'lls explanations are really good that help me with understanding the point of the film better.

However, (possible spoilers if you have not seen Memento or Inception): Does anyone how TIME seems to play a huge role in Nolan's films?


Memento: Movie takes place in ten minute segments, all happening in reverse.

Inception: Every dream level increases the amount of time a person can experience.

Interstellar: The physical reality of our surroundings affect our concept of time.



One could say that Nolan is trying to say a lot about this. Memento you can argue is more about memory I suppose, but Inception could be saying that our concept of time in introspective, in that Leo and his wife for example life a full life time in a small amount of time. Yet in Interstellar Cooper misses over a century of time through his experiences, and yet still has a strong connection to his daughter, saying that not even time can affect the love people have for each other.

Or am I reaching?


Loved Interstellar, great film.


Also, interesting fact regarding the visuals, normally the windows in a ship are just green screen, but Nolan had the visuals of the space these characters were in digitally rendered onto the windows so that the actors could have something to react to.

OK this may have already been theorized but here's how I reasoned Cooper's original decision to go into space.

Timeline 1: NASA sends the 12 up to find the habitable planet. They then send the Plan B pod without Cooper. Plan A fails but the descendants of plan B work out and grow a new human race.

Timeline 2: That group of people eventually learn how to communicate through gravity to an alternate timeline in the past. They convince Cooper to head to NASA and he starts the movie timeline.

Timeline 3: Cooper goes into the black hole and communicates with his daughter who makes Plan A work in the final timeline. This is how the movie ends in timeline 3.

That might make zero sense but it was the only thing that made sense to me for why Cooper ever went in the first place.

Edit: I just thought it through and this can't be right . Plan B needed the wormhole to work. So something else from the future must have helped them.

Interesting, Hudson. The question I'd have is what would motivate the plan B folks that eventually become 5th dimensional humans, who didn't need Earth's inhabitants to survive and obviously thrive beyond our imagining, to want to mess around with the past. I could probably come up with a lot of theories why but I think the most convincing one would hinge about a hopeless calamity that they were facing, despite their near unlimited power, which would destroy them...so the only hope was to change the past to bring about a situation where both plans are put into action.

TARS says very clearly to Cooper that it is not their goal to change the past.

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The image on screen when the spaceship was transiting Saturn was probably the most amazing thing I've ever seen in a movie. The IMAX ticket was worth seeing that alone.

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It was good, but I still put it behind the Mercury scene in Sunshine.

Just got back from the IMAX. Space has always fascinated me, and was one of the primary factors that I got into engineering, so needless to say I have been extremely excited for this movie for a long time. Here are my thoughts (which are definitely colored by my engineering brain).

First off, whoever put the IMAX audio together sucks at their job. There were critical plot moments where I couldn't understand the dialogue. Understanding Michael Kane's accent can sometimes be difficult as is, but when he's also just had a stroke (I assumed...) and is mumbling, it's that much harder. And it's impossible to decipher when the background music is cranked up so loud.

As others have said, the moment when Cooper is first viewing his 23-year collection of messages was the most well done part of the movie IMO. I definitely choked up watching him see his son grow up, get married, have a child, and lose the child all in a matter of minutes. When his daughter came on the screen, I lost it. Really well done scene.

Their decision to go to the water planet first was bogus. As others have mentioned, if they had thought about it, it would only have been mere minutes since the Lazarus astronaut landed, producing such little data there was no way they could have verified if the planet was viable or not. They've all trained for this mission, and know that a black hole causes time dilation. No excuse to not think that through. Second, the other planets were mere months away, yet they decided to go to the water planet, knowing that 1 hour = 7 years? That means that in just a few minutes (which is not enough time to allow them to do anything of note on the water planet), they would have used up the same amount of time it would have taken to get to the other planets. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Damon's acting seemed bleh. Initially, the robots were super creepy and felt ominous as well. Definitely expected them to turn against their masters at some point....pleasantly surprised when they turned out to be awesome, hilarious, stalwart additions to the crew.

The scene right after Damon blows up the ship and it's spinning super fast: Cooper is trying to match his spin rate with that of the main ship, and one of the robots tells him that he can't do it (I read that as "you don't have enough fuel"), and Cooper responds with the cheesy "It's not required....it's necessary".....wtf? Your need to get back to the main ship won't somehow create extra fuel for you to use to spin your ship.

Plus, because of the way their transport was oriented when it was docked, their thrust would have created torque in two directions: one torque would have slowed down the initial spin of the spacecraft, whereas the other torque would have spun the spacecraft in a different direction.

All of the docking shots were REALLY cool; also satisfying to see a big movie get the "no sound in space" thing right: seeing the thrusters fire in silence.

I was really hoping Interstellar would end up being one of my favorite movies. Sadly, it fell short of that mark. While it is a good movie, perhaps even very good, it just didn't have that awe-inspiring quality to it for me. I think one of the reasons for this was that there was very little focus on the space-faring technology in the movie. I didn't necessarily want the movie to be solely focused on technology, at the expense of the human elements and plots; but I just wanted more.....a few scenes of Dr. Brand showing Cooper around the NASA spacecraft, Cooper doing some training with the new (to him) technology he's going to be piloting, better views of the Ranger (instead of mostly POV shots from a camera attached to the hull), etc. would have gone a long way towards increasing the quality of the movie IMO.

All in all, while the movie fell short of my expectations, it is a very good movie. I would definitely see it again (though not in IMAX). I really hope it inspires people to support and even get into space exploration.

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Awesome graphic.


So Gargantua, the wormhole, and the black hole are all the same thing, right?

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Not quite. Gargantua is the collapsing star, and also the name of that particular solar system. (Like how our solar system is named after our sun, Sol). The black hole is the phenomena that is created by Gargantua collapsing. Think of Gargantua as the yellow swirly lines and the black hole as the giant black blot in the middle.

The wormhole is completely separate. The wormhole is that circular/spherical distortion with stars in it. It's a tunnel that connects the Sol system (near Saturn) to the Gargantua system.

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There is some speculation in the scientific community that the center of the black hole is a worm hole.

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All in all, while the movie fell short of my expectations, it is a very good movie.

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My thoughts exactly. Far from a perfect movie, but it's hard not to be in awe of the challenges that Nolan takes as a director. This (and Inception) was not an easy movie to make. There were moments of extreme brilliance and moments where I rolled my eyes pretty hard.

Just got back from seeing this in IMAX and thought it was alright.

I read an early draft of the script awhile ago (Thanks TCTTS!) and it's interesting how drastically different the final product was from that early draft. Some of the same beats are there, but almost everything on the other side of the wormhole was different. It's definitely worth a read just as an eye-opener on how much a movie can change from early concept to final execution and also as an insight into what Interstellar might have been.

As for Interstellar's pros I thought some of the grand visuals in outer space were fantastic, finding the water planet pod and realizing the astronaut had died five minutes earlier was fun (if ridiculous), and some of the emotional moments were superb. For me, the best moment was the goodbye one earth, with the cam on the side of Coop's truck as it drove away from the farm as the countdown working its way to zero and liftoff.

The problem for me is the cons were just more numerous.

Any movie whose plot begins because something from the future traveled back in time to jumpstart the story bugs me as a rule. For instance. Humanity would not have reached the future to create the black hole if Coop hadn't left, and Coop wouldn't have left if future Coop hadn't used the black hole to influence the past and give himself NASA's coordinates. So how did the plot ever start in the first place if our original timeline has Coop never leaving the planet, and therefore the gravity equation never being solved and everyone dying within 100 years? I would have enjoyed it much more if Nolan hadn't tried to blow our minds with Coop influencing the past to set events in motion.

The whole conversation about love being a fourth dimensional bored me. Maybe that resonated with some folks, but it just felt like a director trying to make us feel good about ourselves so we'd feel good about his movie.

Why in the world did Matt Damon set his destroyed robot to blow up if tampered with??? Why not just destroy its memory?

As has been mentioned, the group should have realized the astronaut on the water planet had been there only 10 minutes (or whatever it was water-planet time) before descending.

Why in the world did Murph light the crops on fire??? Almost everything about that sequence made little sense. It felt like Nolan was just trying to create drama to match what was going on in space so he'd have something to cut to. Murph goes up to her room ... then comes back downstairs ... the family gets into a fight and she's told to leave ... so she lights crops on fire and tells the family to flee ... then she goes back upstairs to wander at the room a bit longer ... and then her brother just takes her crazy ramblings as fact and hugs it out ... moments after being willing to let his family die because he thought Doctor's theories were crazy? If Murph knew the answer was in her room (as she said before heading there) why not just stay in the room til she figures it out?

Perhaps most annoying was the magic "gravity formula" a robot helps Coop zip back in time at the end of the flick. Nolan & Co. boast and boast and boast about how this movie is based in such strong science, then throw it all out the window at the end because, hey, we have to save humanity somehow? They also never explain why, if the inability to grow food is what's killing humanity, will moving to another planet where there is no food solve that problem? (Were they looking for a planet with zero nitrogen in the atmosphere?)

I also got a kick out of how broken up Coop was over were leaving all of humanity behind upon learning of professor Brand's duplicity when plan A is to get what, another few hundred/thousand more NASA employees out in space through the shuttle? No matter what, billions are being left on earth to die. They kind of glossed over that part.