Yeah, I'm the same as you. I went in with high expectations and at end I felt disappointed.
Interstellar | SPOILERS! | Keep out unless you've seen it
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Yeah, I'm the same as you. I went in with high expectations and at end I felt disappointed.
Exactly how I felt. Good initially but became a mess later on.
Having slept on it "terrible" is harsh and more down to me having high expectations than it being a truly terrible film.
Really dissapointing though. I'm a massive McConaughey fan and it was painful watching him in that ridiculous scene. Plus the absurd soft focus reunion in the hospital near the end. Like something out of a Hallmark movie.
And the science, don't get me started on the science. Quantum data via morse code. Wtf? Waves that are kilometers high in a sea that's less than a metre deep and with gravity marginally higher than earth. Seems legit. And who on earth thought that the best way to visually represent the centre of a black hole would be to have a few red sparks bouncing off the space ship. I've seen better effects on Buck Rogers.
Really dissapointing though. I'm a massive McConaughey fan and it was painful watching him in that ridiculous scene. Plus the absurd soft focus reunion in the hospital near the end. Like something out of a Hallmark movie.
And the science, don't get me started on the science. Quantum data via morse code. Wtf? Waves that are kilometers high in a sea that's less than a metre deep and with gravity marginally higher than earth. Seems legit. And who on earth thought that the best way to visually represent the centre of a black hole would be to have a few red sparks bouncing off the space ship. I've seen better effects on Buck Rogers.
The planet was near the event horizon of a black hole, that was the reason for the large waves. And I imagine the sea was so shallow because rather a lot of it was rolling round the planet on the presumably many tidal waves.
So the entire sea is either heaped up in towering, vertical waves or less than a metre deep? Makes no sense at all. Besides, gravity causes tides, not waves.
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According to Kip Thorne himself:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...ce-of-interstellar-with-physicist-kip-thorne/
Black holes do all kinds of crazy shit.
Yeah, I heard about Kip Thorne's role in all of this which is why the flaws are so annoying. It obviously helped aid suspense to have a massive vertical wave with characters still knee deep a few metres away. Completely implausible though.
Watched it last night and I thought it was pretty fecking awesome. The ending annoyed me but apart from that it was worth my 10 euros.
McConaughey is a brilliant actor by the way.
McConaughey is a brilliant actor by the way.
You have a recognized scientist who is saying it is plausible and who provides elements to explain it, and who was an executive producer of the film, but you're going with 'completely implausible' and 'don't get me started on the science'?
Out of curiosity, are you a scientist yourself and do you study these phenomena? (it's an honest question)
If Kip Thorne's not enough of a source on whether it strains credulity too much, Neil Degrasse Tyson's chimed in on Twitter on the scientific credibility of the film:
I've seen interviews with him too on the subject, and he never objects to the portrayal of the wave. It doesn't roll around the planet, it stays at the location that has the strongest gravitational pull from the black hole.
If those two people see no problem with it, it'd be a bit rich for us in this thread to object and say it's retarded.
I've seen interviews with him too on the subject, and he never objects to the portrayal of the wave. It doesn't roll around the planet, it stays at the location that has the strongest gravitational pull from the black hole.
If those two people see no problem with it, it'd be a bit rich for us in this thread to object and say it's retarded.
Finally got round to seeing it. This is my favourite Hollywood film for a long time. It seemed shorter than it was which is always a good sign.
I don't mind the crazy shit either. The waves, while stretching the realms of possibility make "film sense" as the planet is orbiting close enough to a black hole that time is also hugely affected so seeing batshit crazy tides should also be believable.
Everything that happened once Coop passed the event horizon I can deal with - we have no idea what is past that point in science so there's plenty of room for artistic license to suggest that some crazy shit can happen there.
The only bit I didn't like was Ann Hathaway's love theory but the film was dealing with what this sort of expedition would do to people's sanity and how they would cope with the reality of their situation so I put it down to her going a bit crazy.
Everything that happened once Coop passed the event horizon I can deal with - we have no idea what is past that point in science so there's plenty of room for artistic license to suggest that some crazy shit can happen there.
The only bit I didn't like was Ann Hathaway's love theory but the film was dealing with what this sort of expedition would do to people's sanity and how they would cope with the reality of their situation so I put it down to her going a bit crazy.
Epilogues? FFS I left as soon as the credits rolled because I'd been busting for the toilet the past 2 hours! What happened in them?
Sorry man, what I meant was that as far as I'm concerned the film ended with the tesseract and everything after that was just a pointless epilogue.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the film to bits - Nolan is the type of director that I just "get" - but I didn't like how dragged out the ending felt.
Ah right, I'm just glad I didn't miss anything.
PS Did anyone else think the robots were awesome? I did.
Yup, love that they made them non-humanoid, even vaguely monolithic in appearance.
I thought that they were really stupid up until the scenes on the first planet, then all of a sudden their weird shape made sense.
I'm wondering about the science and causality relating to Coop going back in time... so Coop gave himself the coordinates to NASA which he wouldn't have been able to do if he never went so how did he originally go to send himself the coordinates blah blah blah?
What I'm wondering with that is - would having a "5th dimensional" being manipulating such a series of events to happen get around that problem of causality? If time is just another spatial dimension for them then causality must surely work differently for them too in respect to time as we know it. So if they are manipulating this course of events from start to finish - and they are beings that can look at the chain of events essentially as an object in space... it kind of works that maybe they can create the event of Coop being in the black hole before he's actually actually left Earth. Or something.
Edit: Hm but then if the 5th dimensional beings were us from the future then that kind of puts that whole hypothesis (if you can even call my incoherent ramblings such a thing) to bed.
What I'm wondering with that is - would having a "5th dimensional" being manipulating such a series of events to happen get around that problem of causality? If time is just another spatial dimension for them then causality must surely work differently for them too in respect to time as we know it. So if they are manipulating this course of events from start to finish - and they are beings that can look at the chain of events essentially as an object in space... it kind of works that maybe they can create the event of Coop being in the black hole before he's actually actually left Earth. Or something.
Edit: Hm but then if the 5th dimensional beings were us from the future then that kind of puts that whole hypothesis (if you can even call my incoherent ramblings such a thing) to bed.
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I was expecting them to turn on the humans because of their appearance. Glad they didn't as that would have been too predictable.
I did pretty much clock on straight away with that ghost thing that it would turn out to be Coop but I'd heard enough bits and bobs from people about the ending being weird that it was making me look for something like that.
Yes I'm a scientist (life sciences) and no, I haven't studied this stuff at all. I think people are misinterpreting my beef with the waves though.
It's not that I don't think massive waves are possible. It's the fact the water is incredibly shallow then lifts almost vertically into a massive wave. Even if accept a shallow sea could kick up that much water then how can it climb so steeply in near normal gravity? The way they were basically standing in knee deep water as the wave hit just made it seem really fake. You know it's even possible it's scientifically plausible but seemed so fake it took me right out of the moment. Then the spaceship climbed the face of the wave and surfed down the back. Wtf? Again, just a silly little detail but spoiled the moment.
Just so we're clear, that scene wasn't what spoiled the movie for me. It was the soppy shit about love, the baggy length, the characters who added nothing to the drama, the sparks in the centre of the black hole, the bit when his daughter threw her papers in the air and went "eureka", the fact they built a replica of his house inside a spaceship, the overblown score, the really fecking cheesy ending and almost every scene Anne Hathaway was in (she was such a fecking drip). Oh and the stupid looking robots, with their many different stupid looking walks.
There was a lot of stuff I liked too. His daughter (younger version) was excellent, McConaughey was his usual magnetic self and the scene where he was driving his car away from her into a spaceship launch was really superb. Had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. The beginning was really atmospheric throughout and I also thought the snippets of the elderly people reminiscing to camera was a great device. I bought into the set-up completely.
So yeah, it was a mixed bag but a bit of a mess and really disappointing overall. Especially the way it started strong but ended up so lame. Nothing worse than starting to fall out of love with a move before you've even finished watching it. If it started weak but ended strong I'd probably be singing its praises.
Until it had to move quickly and did that demented rolling stuff. I mean, feck's sake. Robots will end up with legs or wheels or a combination of both. That's the reality. The design of these things was just wilfully obtuse. Possibly a nod to 2001? If so, all they did was remind me of a better sci fi movie.
Thanks for the response Pogue, completely understand your criticisms (though I don't necessarily agree with them), it was just the science bit that had me intrigued as a lot of scientists have discussed 'the science of Interstellar' and it seems like it isn't half as batshit crazy as it initially seems (though of course there are currents of thought even in the scientific community).
And yeah definitely think the robots were a strong nod towards the monolith of 2001.
And yeah definitely think the robots were a strong nod towards the monolith of 2001.
When TARS first shows up I really did fear the worst, it looked silly. By the end I thought they were great, memorable even.
I agree with this review, Pogue.
Some really interesting ideas in there, but too much of a mixed bag to make it a great film.
I also get a bit annoyed with films that waste good ideas or don't live up to potential. Sometimes it's better not to have too many expectations before seeing a film.
For 'serious' sci-fi, can't beat Danny Boyle's 'Sunshine' for me...
The major thing that pissed me off was that Nolan had apparently worked closely with Kip Thorne to make it as scientifically accurate as possible. So I was expecting a sort of Science Non-Fiction-with-a-storyline sort of flick that everyone was billing it as. If that makes sense. I expected it to follow our rules of physics and be somewhat believable. So the ending was a huge let down after it had been somewhat plausible right up until they left the Ice Planet.
Then he gets pulled into the black hole and all that mythical shite happened.
Also, using TARS for comic relief felt so ridiculously old hat. It felt old in flight of the navigator 30 years ago.
Concerning the scientific accuracy of the film, I've read loads of articles on the subject (and I'm tempted to read Thorne's 'Science of Interstellar explained'), it's more than 'somewhat believable'. Unless you're referring to the Tesseract part, which doesn't really have any science to back it up of course.
I seem to recall Thorne saying the only part of the film he really disagreed with was the ice planet: he tought it was physically impossible, whatever the circumstances, to have 'ice clouds' and that part made him cringe. I think it was Thorne, maybe another scientist.
That's what I'm saying though, it all felt accurate and interesting until he decided to go into a black hole. The reality of that is that he would have been dead before gravity tore him to peices.
Up until then I was satisfied and interested with the twists of space time they were using.
Ah yeah sorry, misread you!
Oh yeah, the ice clouds. Forgot about them...
From what I understand, the particular kind of black hole encountered (far bigger than the one at the centre of our galaxy and spinning rapidly) meant that it was possible to pass through without being ripped apart. Thorne talks a bit about it in the interview I posted above - it may be hugely rare but is mathematically possible.
In the end it was never meant to be a scientific docudrama, it was a way of exploring some of the mental possibilities brought up by relativistic physics and multi-dimensional reality. That's what scifi's all about, I thought this achieved it very well.
Eventually seen it today
Will say hands down probably one of the best movies i have ever seen, I left the cinema and wanted to educate myself on space and black holes and Einsteins relativity etc
I will definitely be going back for round two next week.
Will say hands down probably one of the best movies i have ever seen, I left the cinema and wanted to educate myself on space and black holes and Einsteins relativity etc
I will definitely be going back for round two next week.
I really liked it the first time I watched it but after some of the criticism I read I thought a second viewing might show me how flawed it was, was curious to see if it would hold up if I was a bit more weary. Watched it again and I loved it, even more. I'll let time and maybe a third viewing decide, but for now it's my second favourite science fiction film of all time behind Blade Runner.
I really enjoyed it. The only thing I thought was silly was the apparent food blight that seemed to affect everything other than Corn. Surely the Dust would have killed everything including the Corn, so there was no real need for the blight?
Good film though.
Good film though.
There was Quorn left but the human race decided it'd rather die or feck off to mars than eat that plastic shit.
The blight was the cause of the dust. If you kill off all the vegetation, it leaves the soil bare, which is then easily blown away by the wind. That's essentially what desertification is
The blight was the cause of the dust. If you kill off all the vegetation, it leaves the soil bare, which is then easily blown away by the wind. That's essentially what desertification is
Yes, I don't doubt it for one minute. I assumed that myself (as it's not actually explained in the film) I was just baffled as to why it killed everything except magic Corn, which seems to be extremely blight and dust resistant. The dust would have fecked everything!
They would have been better just to say we've fecked the planet, it's a dustbowl and we can only grow limited food in warehouses or something.
Well they point out that eventually, corn will be fecked as well, it's just been more resistant so far. But it's not magic by any means (nor is that implied, from my recollection).
Yeah as @Rooney in Dublin said they do mention that the corn is going to fall victim to the blight soon. I assumed they had to constantly clean the dust from the corn, since otherwise it'd die... I do think it'd have made a lot more sense if they had used massive greenhouses instead of just growing them in fields though since it would be practically impossible for anything to survive in that situation. Everyone would be severely malnourished if all they had to eat was corn as well, and the weather would've been completely haywire...
Didnt like the final act and was annoyed by some editing errors as well as sound design problems but overall was a good film.
Great film, 8.5 for me, maybe even a 9. The soundtrack... wow.
Totally agree, although it may be a 10 for me