Interstellar (2014)

[Spinal]

Isn't it OK, in a thread about the film, to not have to include everything in spoiler tags?

I can understand spoiler-tagging stuff in a thread not dedicated to the film, but in the main thread people should be able to discuss the film at hand without using spoiler tags.

Yeah, you're probably right. Just trying to be cautious.

[Barty]

Barty, I like that theory a lot. However, like Spinal, i ain't buying it due to Nolan's complete and total lack of transparency when it comes to the narrative. I think he just F'ed up.

I think Nolan reaallly likes to leave things up to the audience to figure out. I doubt, on a production this big and something this close to him, this didn't cross his mind.

[Barty]

[

Show Spoiler

The harnessing of gravity seems to be the key to human surviving. So regardless of whether humanity had the wormhole to go through and find a planet, as long as they figure out how to get those massive space stations into space they can at least survive in space.

What happens in the movie is very similar to that scene in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home where Scotty gives the Plexicorp Owner the formula to Transparent Aluminium. Bones tells Scotty he could be altering the future by giving the owner the forumla, and Scotty replies, "How do we know he didn't invent it anyway?" Well, in the novelization, Scott does know he invented it, and is basically just giving him a shortcut.

That's what happens in the movie, Murph would have discovered how to harness Gravity eventually, too late to save most people, but just enough to survive. Now with TARS data relayed by Cooper, she has her Eureka moment much earlier in the timeline, and of course with the wormhole, they can now save most of humanity.

]

[Russ]

I think Nolan reaallly likes to leave things up to the audience to figure out. I doubt, on a production this big and something this close to him, this didn't cross his mind.

I agree it's a (hopeful) possibility, but it's hard to give someone who displays a clockwork tendency to so explicitly hammer so many points home, the benefit of the doubt.

[Spinal]

[

Show Spoiler

The harnessing of gravity seems to be the key to human surviving. So regardless of whether humanity had the wormhole to go through and find a planet, as long as they figure out how to get those massive space stations into space they can at least survive in space.

What happens in the movie is very similar to that scene in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home where Scotty gives the Plexicorp Owner the formula to Transparent Aluminium. Bones tells Scotty he could be altering the future by giving the owner the forumla, and Scotty replies, "How do we know he didn't invent it anyway?" Well, in the novelization, Scott does know he invented it, and is basically just giving him a shortcut.

That's what happens in the movie, Murph would have discovered how to harness Gravity eventually, too late to save most people, but just enough to survive. Now with TARS data relayed by Cooper, she has her Eureka moment much earlier in the timeline, and of course with the wormhole, they can now save most of humanity.

]

This dramatically lowers the stakes that the film has set up. Even if it makes it more plausible, it doesn't make it a better film.

[Spinal]

And you would have to accept that most of the information you are receiving through meticulous expository dialogue is not in fact actually true.

[Barty]

This dramatically lowers the stakes that the film has set up. Even if it makes it more plausible, it doesn't make it a better film.

Yeah, I can see that. But, on one hand you have survival of a small number of humans while everyone else on earth suffocates and dies horribly, or survival by all of humanity and hope for a new Earth right around the corner. I would still say that's dramatically compelling.

[Dukefrukem]

Yeah, I can see that. But, on one hand you have survival of a small number of humans while everyone else on earth suffocates and dies horribly, or survival by all of humanity and hope for a new Earth right around the corner. I would still say that's dramatically compelling.

The journey to get there would be pretty dramatic too (which is what we sees).

[Barty]

I like the scene where the Hans Zimmer music is really loud and the spaceships are spinning.

[Dukefrukem]

I like the scene where the Hans Zimmer music is really loud and the spaceships are spinning.

What's your rating of this?

[[ETM]]

Special relativity allows for the existance of bootstrap paradoxes under certain conditions. It sure is one of the most far-out concepts in the film, but the science as it is laid out throughout the film allows for it.

[Melville]

Special relativity allows for the existance of bootstrap paradoxes under certain conditions.

Since spacetime isn't curved in special relativity, that doesn't sound right.

The bootstrap paradox isn't actually paradoxical in general relativity. It's completely consistent with the only way time travel could work in the theory. There would be no notions of "timeline A" or "timeline B"; there's only ever one timeline, and nothing can ever be changed. I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know if that removes Spinal's concerns.

[Spinal]

This all makes a lot more sense when shouted hysterically by Doc Brown in a thunderstorm.

[Fezzik]

I think Nolan is starting to lose me.

This was well made, and well intentioned, but I feel that it goes completely off the rails when it shifts from what had been a film steeped in hard science (even if much of it is theoretical) turns to new-agey pseudoscience at the end.

If it wasnt such a serious film, it would not have bothered me as much, but holy hell it completely ripped me out of the film and completely diminished it for me.

For those asking, YES the score was way too loud. I even made a point to tell the customer service at the theater about it, and they said that they've received multiple complaints about it but that the film or the print was designed that way. So freaking frustrating. Because of it, we missed several lines of dialogue.

And here again, most of the emotional moments fell completely flat for me. Other than the drive away / launch (which was pretty masterful, and makes the rest of the "heart tugging" moments more frustrating.

I got tired of the "spot the famous person" casting thing that Nolan keeps doing, and when [

Show Spoiler

Matt Damon

] showed up, I was like "really?"

His entire subplot was as subtle as a sledgehammer and I felt most of it could be cut out completely.

I agree, by the way, about the whole [

Show Spoiler

how could we place the wormhole if we had to be saved to place the wormhole

] problem - in a film that doesn't seem to take itself SO seriously, it wouldnt bother me near as much, but in this one, it stands out pretty glaringly.

In short, its typical Nolan: Well written for the most part (except for a couple of absolute groaners), gorgeous visually, but at the end of the day, it leaves me cold. Acting was adequate, not fantastic.

It gets a yay from me because it does have several good moments and good attributes, but its a VERY mixed yay because of all the frustrating negatives.

[Spinal]

I didn't really pay attention to who was in this film before I saw it. So Hathaway was just as surprising to me as Damon was.

[Pop Trash]

http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/11/07/in...lot-explained/

[Ezee E]

Absolutely loved it. Seeing it on the "real" IMAX screen was an experience.

The science talk gets close to being a bit much, but the movie pushes the idea of providing for your kids' future and the idea of exploration so much that I didn't really think about the science at all until I read this board. It was strong enough that I even got pretty emotional watching it, which almost never happens.

If this movie remained exploring planet to planet, I would've been fine with it. Each landing and the venture out led to the unexpected. Going into the wormhole and the black hole had me gripping my seat like I did in Gravity. It certainly didn't feel like three hours.

[transmogrifier]

I felt every second of the three hours. Nolan is still not very good at constructing a scene that involves dynamic movement; the movie staggers along and doesn't find any rhythm, racing through some parts, slowing to a crawl in others. Also, I don't really care about the logic of the time travel presented here because the movie is unable to convince me why I should care in the first place.

Someone mentioned performances; Caine totally phones in his performance. He couldn't have looked more bored.

[Fezzik]

This all makes a lot more sense when shouted hysterically by Doc Brown in a thunderstorm.

To be fair, doesn't everything?

[Spun Lepton]

Well, I had plans to see this tonight, but I hadn't done my research on the film, since I usually like to go in with as little info as possible. But, upon discovering the near-3-hour runtime, my friend and I cancelled for something less daunting.

Personally, after the 3-hour King Kong debacle, I have little to no interest in sitting in a theater for 3 hours for anything. It's going to have to be a movie that makes me lose my mind with anticipation. And as much as I enjoy Nolan's voice, this is not that movie. (Talk to me again when The Infinity Wars begins.)

So ... looks like this will be a rental.

[Spinal]

Interesting. I find it much easier to watch a 3-hour movie in the theater than I do at home. Time goes by so much faster when I don't have distractions.

[Lazlo]

Yeah, I'm with Spinal. At the theater it's a much more contained event. No temptation to check my phone, no roommate walking through the living room, the screen is your only focus. And nothing about Interstellar drags. It does not feel like a three-hour movie. Given the visual and narrative scope of the movie and the emotional resonance, I'd say you're doing yourself a great disservice by not seeing it in a theater. It just can't feel the same.

[Dukefrukem]

Agreed

[Spun Lepton]

All right, well ... it's not going to happen on any given weekday. I have Thanksgiving week off, I may have time to see it then.

[Henry Gale]

Yeah, as times goes on it feels like whenever I end up watching a movie longer than 2 1/2 hours at home, it ends up being doled out in multiple sittings, and I force myself to justify it in my head as an unofficial miniseries of sorts.

So for that alone, I completely agree with you guys about the theatre experience in general, but it also helps movie also looks and sounds fucking fantastic with the big screen facilitating its sheer spectacle, visceral atmosphere and general emotional journey of it completely consuming you uninterrupted for its runtime. I paid the full 20 bucks to see this in the IMAX 70mm and I don't regret it one bit. (Only Canadians might understand this, but this and then Nightcrawler helped push my Scene points to a free movie this week, and I might just use that to see this again on that same screen before it goes away.)