Interstellar 2014
A
I don’t know why I didn’t see this movie when it came out, but I got a really cheap digital copy in 4k on iTunes and then Apple introduced the AppleTV app so I could actually watch it on my TV. Knowing it was three hours long, it took me a while to get around to it, but I kept hearing about different stars who were in it, when I thought it just had a few characters. I won’t give anything much away here because I was mostly unspoiled and it really worked for me.
This movie feels a lot like a modern 2001: A Space Odyssey. There is some amazing scenery, a good story, and a lot of science, even for a science fiction movie. It is neat to watch it all unfold despite a lot of “yeah, right” moments that space movies seem to be filled with. There is also a nice dollop of family drama for a personal touch, while you also have the entire fate of humanity on the line. Maybe not every minute of it works and I will talk about some qualms in the spoilers below, but overall it is a neat story, and don’t even look at the cast beforehand since even that will have big spoilers. The acting is mostly good with Matthew McConaughey in the lead, but a lot of good supporting help. They do a good job of explaining what is going on, which means there is some clunky dialogue, but makes it easier to follow, though you still have to figure out some things on your own.
spoilers
I had a few issues. The Earth is dying because of plant disease, which they can’t possibly solve? Even if they grow stuff in a sterile bubble? And why would they try to deny the moon landings? Instead I think a reasonable argument can be made that the cost of sending people into space is too high when they have so many problems on Earth. And if they can’t grow plants in a bubble on Earth, why should they be able to do it in space? Also, corn is the last crop unaffected by the blight when they launch into space (and NASA says the corn blight is already starting), but 25 years later, they are still growing it? The expectation was there was a lot of urgency. If Michael Caine knows Plan B is the only option, then why not send more than one woman in the crew of four? Those embryos aren’t going to hatch themselves.
On the water planet, it looks like the one crewman is about ready to get back on the ship and he is the one that doesn’t make it. The water planet is completely covered by one foot of water? But has 100 foot waves? One issue I had was each planet was presented as one setting, one climate, but planets can have a lot more going on than that. One part could be terrible, but one part could be great, but they would just zoom down. If the gravity is warping time as much as they say, wouldn’t the signal have a doppler shift that could be easily detected (like it would take a year to say “ok")? I won’t even go into how they communicate through a wormhole. Once they are near the black hole they act like everything is pretty quick to get to, but the distances are larger than in a solar system, which takes years to travel through.
I’m not sure the relativity aging is done correctly, depending on exposure to gravity of the black hole instead of near light speed travel. If they are really exposed to insane amounts of gravity, it would flatten and kill them long before it would start bending time for them. Still, I like the premise of warping time, which is a real thing.
When you slingshot around a planet, or in this case a black hole, you don’t need to jettison weight: the ship is stealing some energy from the planet it goes around. At the very end, I wasn’t clear on what happened to Edmunds. I thought she buried him under a pile of rocks, but apparently it was a rockslide, so she never saw him alive. He wasn’t able to get more data out about it being a good planet? Who built the outpost with the lights?
Anyway, it is a thought provoking movie and while I think a lot of this stuff seems off, I don’t mind having to exercise my brain a little and also suspend belief to make the premise of the movie work. It seems like some of this could have been ironed out better, but there is so much going on in the movie that maybe it just couldn’t happen.
Written: 14 Sep 2020
Owned on: UHD, Blu-ray, Digital