Interstellar

Collapse

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #16
    Re: Interstellar

    Maybe a spoiler............


    Really a dud. What a shame. It had me from the title...but turned out to be only a poor rehash of Space Odyssey with a father-daughter soap opera plotline pasted in. I mean, really...he had to go to another galaxy to do the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe thing? (Substitute book shelf for wardrobe.) And the music...very similar to the Ligeti selections used in '2001'.

    A very ambitious movie to be sure--a stewpot of ideas from environmental depradation to ruminations on the survival instinct to the theory of relavity/time dilation to quantum mechanics to hoaxed moon landing. Every 15 minutes or so the plot, such as it was, ground to a halt so the characters could unburden themselves of exposition about high school level science or pseudo science.

    I tried, mostly successfully, to read and listen to nothing about it in advance. I had no idea of the cast members except Matthew McC. I readily accepted the inclusion of Lithgow, Caine and Hathaway, but as the adventure shuffled on, a sort of distracting game ensued as A list and sub A list stars kept popping up...oh, there's Jessica Chastain...oh, there's Casey Affleck...oh, there's Topher Grace...oh, there's, omg, Matt Damon. It felt like stunt casting.

    For me, the movie completely lacked the quality of awe that made '2001' such a great film. And frankly, for my money, '2001' looked better.

    Comment


    • #17
      Re: Interstellar

      Amazing film and accomplishment. Clearly not for everyone as this thread suggests but I was simply blown away. There's some great stuff on Slate and Screenrant that illustrate the science behind it, and Kip Thorne wrote a book as well. What a movie. I saw it in 70mm IMAX by the way, but loved the story as much as the score and visuals. I wasn't a fan of some of the 2nd act choices once they reached another astronaut, just didn't feel those beats were necessary, but it's hard to complain about such a remarkable film. I also think Nolan was successful with the protagonist's personal story, in a way that I didn't get from Inception. I enjoyed Inception, but the weakest link of that movie for me was one of the strengths of this one.

      Comment


      • #18
        Re: Interstellar

        As with a lot of Nolan films, I think there's a lot to admire here, but it ultimately left me cold.

        It desperately needs to have 20-30 minutes cut. There are a some major logic problems, and some poor choices about which way to take certain characters. On the other hand, some of those sequences were freakin' fantastic.

        Comment


        • #19
          Re: Interstellar

          Just saw it, pretty good IMO but definitely had some logic issues and the whole thing with the bookcase at the end left me scratching my head like WTF? I didn't really get what Matt Damon's agenda was once he started hauling ass to the docking station....not sure what his plan was there.

          I liked the emotional storyline of the movie the best, everything else was just eye candy and talking heads for me.

          First thing my friend asked me as soon as I left was "Was it better than Inception?" -- I don't really think that's a good comparison since Inception was more of a sci-fi thriller and this felt more of a sci-fi adventure. I'd watch Inception over ....I only needed to see Interstellar once.
          One must be fearless and tenacious when pursuing their dreams. If you don't, regret will be your reward.

          The Fiction Story Room

          Comment


          • #20
            Re: Interstellar

            I've never been a big Nolan fan, but caught it in IMAX and thought it was terrific, best film I've seen in a while and Nolan's best because it had more heart (he's otherwise too cold and clinical for me).

            It was far better than Inception to me, but maybe that comes form having an interest in space. Certainly I will take films like this any day over another comic book film. Original, smart, emotional, well acted, visually spectacular, what's not to like!

            Comment


            • #21
              Re: Interstellar

              Originally posted by Captain Jack Sparrow View Post
              It was far better than Inception to me, but maybe that comes form having an interest in space.
              I have a great deal of interest in space, but I thought this fell very flat.

              WARNING SPOILERS.

              Hathaway's character was terrible - and honestly offensive. The first scene we meet her, they relegate her character - supposedly an established doctorate in astrophysics or something comparable - to babysitting Coop's daughter while the grown-ups go talk. Ludicrous. My wife is a scientist and immediately took offense to this, and I don't blame her. I had the same reaction.

              Then her "love transcends all dimensions" crap - scientists absolutely do not talk like that. Physicists do not talk like that. Bad screenwriters might talk like that. But a scientist would never say that crap, especially someone who studies physics and would not use the word "dimension" so loosely and metaphysically.

              Again, I thought it was stereotypical bordering on offensive to stick the one female scientist on board with the emotional, metaphysical, pop-science crap. Some of the theoretical science might've been Kip Thorne, but the philosophy was about on the level of stoned teenager.

              The whole space adventure was ridiculous. Everything would've been planned and much better thought-out ahead of time. They wouldn't have sent scientists into space and just winged it the way they did. And then the mad scientist in Matt Damon's character...they lost me there. SPOILER - Michael Caine being able to keep secret for years that his "equation" didn't work or whatever, more garbage. I'm sorry, but there's only two theoretical physicists left in the world, him and Coop's daughter? Nobody else is capable of understanding his work? If Murph is such a great physicist, she couldn't see through Caine's BS? And are we really supposed to believe there is just ONE equation that solves it all. - END SPOILER It'd be great if it were that simple.
              Last edited by thirdman23; 11-10-2014, 11:36 AM.

              Comment


              • #22
                Re: Interstellar

                Originally posted by Juno Styles View Post
                Just saw it, pretty good IMO but definitely had some logic issues and the whole thing with the bookcase at the end left me scratching my head like WTF?
                I just read most of Kip Thorne’s book, let’s see if I can distill it for you, or myself actually. Some of it is obvious. Some is a little trickier. I'm not a scientist but I find space fascinating. There’s a lot of little details here, so I'm single spacing it. [If you haven’t seen the movie, this would only confuse you so watch it first.]


                MAJOR SPOILER…





                We live in three dimensions, but to the “bulk beings”, time is an additional dimension. There is also a fifth dimension in the bulk of space, space outside our universe.

                [In theories Thorne refers to, there are actually nine, not five dimensions, but to simplify for the purposes of the movie - five were used.]

                These fifth dimensional beings are what humans evolve into one day, but they don’t have the same properties of matter that we do. We can only live in three dimensional space, in fact, all matter has to according to the laws of physics.

                So the “bulk beings” or fifth dimensional beings built a tesseract in the well of the supermassive black hole, where Cooper could survive its “gentle” singularity and Tars could receive the quantum data.

                The blackhole leads to bulk space, or hyperspace, where Cooper would not survive. Tars wouldn’t either. That’s why a tesseract was necessary.

                In it, Cooper was allowed to view time as a physical dimension. Cooper was able to see the past, and communicate with it through gravity.

                Matter could not transcend the dimension of time, but gravity can.

                The bulk beings were using Cooper as a vehicle to communicate the quantum data [or principles of quantum gravity] to his daughter - in the past.

                This suggests the bulk beings were unable to communicate with the past themselves, except through gravitational anomalies.

                Because of the information Cooper conveyed to her - Cooper’s daughter discovered how to manipulate these gravitational anomalies, in order to use them to lift large colonies of humans into space and save the human race.

                Cooper communicates the data to her in morse code, by using what look like strands of light in the tesseract. According to Thorne, these are particles that make up the walls of the tesseract.

                After Cooper succeeds, he is transported through the bulk in the tesseract, and that’s when he encounters Brand’s character from an earlier time, and she shakes his dissolved looking hand, unknowingly assuming she’s communicating with the bulk beings.

                What was made clear is that bulk beings are us. But in order for us to evolve into them, we had to survive the loss of Earth.

                This bootstrap paradox isn’t addressed in the book as far as I can tell. Admittedly, I skipped to the fun parts about fifth dimensional beings and tesseracts lol.

                I’m sure all this stuff is up for debate from a logic and science perspective, but I’m not Nolan and not Kip Thorne so we can leave that to them. But the book was interesting to read for sure.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Re: Interstellar

                  Well, it wasn't number one at the box office.

                  Theoretical (and therefore, wrong) physics does not a good movie make.
                  "Running down a dream, that never would come to me." Tom Petty

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Re: Interstellar

                    Originally posted by Exponent5 View Post
                    Well, it wasn't number one at the box office.

                    Theoretical (and therefore, wrong) physics does not a good movie make.
                    That's a lot of subjectivity, rather than objectivity.

                    Interstellar also had a 60 minute longer running time and the lack of 3D ticket prices boosting it. Which could be somewhat offset by the IMAX prices. Also count 200 less screens.

                    I'm far more excited that they're both new properties and not sequels/remakes. Not #1? Ehh, no big deal.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Re: Interstellar

                      Originally posted by Exponent5 View Post
                      Well, it wasn't number one at the box office.

                      Theoretical (and therefore, wrong) physics does not a good movie make.
                      Interstellar made 47.5 million domestic and another 83 million international. Not sure if you mean that's somehow a failure?

                      How is theoretical physics "wrong?" What on Earth (or Space) are you talking about?

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Re: Interstellar

                        Originally posted by Exponent5 View Post
                        Theoretical (and therefore, wrong) physics does not a good movie make.
                        Please explain how they are wrong. If the physics are purely in the realm of theory, as is the case with Interstellar, you can pretty much assign any values or traits you want to it.

                        And the film is making a ton of cash at the BO. Nolan rarely, if ever, fails. He's probably one of the most bankable directors working now, aside from Bay.
                        @TerranceMulloy

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Re: Interstellar

                          For the science die-hards:

                          http://www.cnet.com/news/what-did-ne...-interstellar/

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Re: Interstellar

                            Originally posted by Terrance Mulloy View Post
                            Please explain how they are wrong. If the physics are purely in the realm of theory, as is the case with Interstellar, you can pretty much assign any values or traits you want to it.
                            But a lot of the movie is NOT based on established theories. For eg.

                            SPOILERS

                            - There's no theory that states there's a 5D hyperspace inside a blackhole.

                            - I'm not getting the "gravity can only transcend time theme." Where'd they get that from? Nolan's ass? Why NOT matter?

                            - And even if that were true, how does that allow Cooper to push a book? Pushing a book requires the electromagnetic, not gravitational force.

                            - In string theory, the extra six spatial dimension (9 total) are curled up into a tiny tiny TINY space. 5D beings (nor anything else) can exist there... And if, let's say, they were from a 5D space "outside" the universe, they would be outside of our space-time, so they wouldn't care WTF happened in the past. It couldn't effect them.

                            It's a 50/50 mashup of hard science and hard bullshit. And maybe this is why it's angering some people.
                            I'm never wrong. Reality is just stubborn.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Re: Interstellar

                              Originally posted by FoxHound View Post
                              But a lot of the movie is NOT based on established theories. For eg.

                              SPOILERS

                              - There's no theory that states there's a 5D hyperspace inside a blackhole.

                              - I'm not getting the "gravity can only transcend time theme." Where'd they get that from? Nolan's ass? Why NOT matter?

                              - And even if that were true, how does that allow Cooper to push a book? Pushing a book requires the electromagnetic, not gravitational force.

                              - In string theory, the extra six spatial dimension (9 total) are curled up into a tiny tiny TINY space. 5D beings (nor anything else) can exist there... And if, let's say, they were from a 5D space "outside" the universe, they would be outside of our space-time, so they wouldn't care WTF happened in the past. It couldn't effect them.

                              It's a 50/50 mashup of hard science and hard bullshit. And maybe this is why it's angering some people.
                              Well, Neil deGrasse Tyson said the science was entirely plausible. That's good enough for me. And the movie was based on Kip Thorne's own theories, who also consulted on the film. These are simply theories being presented. They are not proven theories.

                              Yeah, the whole thing is bullsh*t, dude. It's a movie.
                              @TerranceMulloy

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Re: Interstellar

                                Originally posted by Terrance Mulloy View Post
                                Well, Neil deGrasse Tyson said the science was entirely plausible. That's good enough for me. And the movie was based on Kip Thorne's own theories, who also consulted on the film. These are simply theories being presented. They are not proven theories.

                                Yeah, the whole thing is bullsh*t, dude. It's a movie.
                                Look, I liked the movie AND I have a degree in physics. My point was that 50% of the movie was hard, hyper-realistic science, and the other half was fantasy BS out of a Star Trek episode. For some people, the dichotomy didn't work.

                                I certainly would hurl if it was announced Star Trek 3 would be "hard physics." Star Trek works because it's all fantasy sci-fi BS. I mean "red matter," "Q continuum." That's what makes it fun.

                                Conversely. Babylon 5 worked by being more grounded in reality.

                                Mixing real and fantasy is a difficult balancing act. I can't actually think of a successful TV/Film that did it.
                                I'm never wrong. Reality is just stubborn.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X