How Interstellar Crashes in Its Third Act
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
So you're saying the prequel to Contact kept flubbing due to poor directions, splitting the focus between an emotional movie and a mental movie like a sin-wave. I avoided this movie because it shares one of those resemblances to a book that I wrote over a decade ago to the point where it could be plagiarism if I'd published it anywhere but a now-derelict forum.
Mh, i cannot really refute most of the arguments against the film.
That does not change, though, that I enjoyed the movie.
I went in with no expectations and I did not try to analyze anything DURING the movie except for what came to mind on it's own.
So I enjoyed it. Afterwards, I thought about a lot of bad plot points, the science and the stupid love thing.
The movie was good, nonetheless.
I don't know if the following is a good or a bad point, but the robots went from a "Who would design this??" to "coolest characters of the year"
Loved them. The movie has at least avoided the biggest possible mistake, making the robots evil, a mcguffin or cause for drama.
tl;dr
In the end, i do not view the movie as harsh as bob does, the points of critique are valid, though.
Yay robots!
That does not change, though, that I enjoyed the movie.
I went in with no expectations and I did not try to analyze anything DURING the movie except for what came to mind on it's own.
So I enjoyed it. Afterwards, I thought about a lot of bad plot points, the science and the stupid love thing.
The movie was good, nonetheless.
I don't know if the following is a good or a bad point, but the robots went from a "Who would design this??" to "coolest characters of the year"
Loved them. The movie has at least avoided the biggest possible mistake, making the robots evil, a mcguffin or cause for drama.
tl;dr
In the end, i do not view the movie as harsh as bob does, the points of critique are valid, though.
Yay robots!
Just came home from seeing it and I can't agree with you more... an interesting but in the end quite flawed film. Also, even though I did enjoy Inception (even though I think Memento is his best film to date) I felt that both Inception and Interstellar have in common that Nolan wants to cram soo much stuff in there. He wants so many twists and turns and everything should be explained, often in ways that are supposed to work in the universe of the movie but makes little or no sense to the audience. So in the end you just give up, stop rooting actively for the hero, you lean back in your seat and just waits for the ride to go somewhere.
That is where I think he does much better with much more focused stories in both Memento and the Prestige.
That is where I think he does much better with much more focused stories in both Memento and the Prestige.
Not the kind of movie they were going for but it seems but I can still find merit in the discussion of emotion vs. intellect as a driving theme and whether or not an epic concept can survive being stripped down to it's fundamental pieces while still keeping the emotionally resonance we're looking for in such a thing.
The only point I disagree with is Inception being Nolan's greatest work. In my opinion, The Prestige knocks it out of the park, In no small part because that movie isn't so concerned with explaining how it's science might work (honestly, had it tried I suspect I only would have found it even more unlikely) that it let me enjoy what the characters did with it.
Also, The Prestige has a twist that I genuinely didn't see coming, yet didn't feel convoluted and had a solid grounding in the core themes of the film.
Also, The Prestige has a twist that I genuinely didn't see coming, yet didn't feel convoluted and had a solid grounding in the core themes of the film.
So, basically Hollywood remade this boring, dull, overly-explained but also under-explained interstellar film about space travel and time distortion:
They just put Matthew McCanaughey in Jodie Foster's place this time.
I feel like Nolan is starting to turn into this character:
"Yes, Fi, this would be a very emotional, inspiration scene... if you would just SHUT UP about telling me how and why it's happening."
Show, don't tell, right?
They just put Matthew McCanaughey in Jodie Foster's place this time.
I feel like Nolan is starting to turn into this character:
"Yes, Fi, this would be a very emotional, inspiration scene... if you would just SHUT UP about telling me how and why it's happening."
Show, don't tell, right?
I enjoyed the movie a lot, the Power of Love thing was kinda lame, but I also thought that about the 5th Element and still loved that movie.
I agree they could have let up on the talking between Cooper and TARS a bit, but I don't agree that there was too much information given early. I think anyone who goes in at least knowing there will be space travel and can remember some of their high school science classes when it came to the lesson that gravity can bend time, will would guess what's going to happen fairly quickly. As soon as Murphy first appeared at the breakfast table and said there was a ghost in her room throwing stuff, I instantly thought, nah that's your dad from the future trying to talk to you. Fortunately I was distracted enough by the movie to forget that I believed that they had to be going into that black hole at some point.
I didn't really feel like Cooper was "The Omnipotent Dad" in that moment. Though the whole thing was very convenient and eye rolling, all he did was transfer information to his daughter through Morse code from TARS data. I had the distinct feeling the information was way over Cooper's head and only Murphy could do the math to make sense of it. She got the proper recognition for that. This is a movie that started out feeling like all the men were going to be the big damn heroes per usual, while female characters stand in the background quietly half smiling at each other and disappearing while the men have serious conversations. I'm cool with a handful of male characters being selfish assholes nearly wrecking everything in an attempt of making themselves feel like they are the important big damn heroes in the grand scheme of things. However I feel like there should have been a bit more of a boost for the heroines. The only scene I recall two women talking to each other is between Murphy and her brother's scenery wife. It would have been interesting character boost to have had Murphy and Amelia geek out over science together while the men were talking their important serious conversations. I had this fear for a bit that they were switching places, Cooper would become a proper father figure to Amelia, and Brand proper father figure to Murphy, and there would be some Electra complex subtext between Cooper and Amelia but things thankfully do not play out that way. I especially like that Murphy does ultimately make Brand look like a fool.
Also, the only black character still died in a really, really cheap death. Thankfully there was that somewhat racially mixed looking guy guiding Cooper around in the end, cause I would have thought all the white people abandoned the non-white people to die on earth.
In the end, the sound track has to be one of the worst soundtracks ever. I felt like my head was stuck in an organ pipe while someone played the same three annoying keys. When I was leaving the theater, everyone was complaining about how awful it was.
I agree they could have let up on the talking between Cooper and TARS a bit, but I don't agree that there was too much information given early. I think anyone who goes in at least knowing there will be space travel and can remember some of their high school science classes when it came to the lesson that gravity can bend time, will would guess what's going to happen fairly quickly. As soon as Murphy first appeared at the breakfast table and said there was a ghost in her room throwing stuff, I instantly thought, nah that's your dad from the future trying to talk to you. Fortunately I was distracted enough by the movie to forget that I believed that they had to be going into that black hole at some point.
I didn't really feel like Cooper was "The Omnipotent Dad" in that moment. Though the whole thing was very convenient and eye rolling, all he did was transfer information to his daughter through Morse code from TARS data. I had the distinct feeling the information was way over Cooper's head and only Murphy could do the math to make sense of it. She got the proper recognition for that. This is a movie that started out feeling like all the men were going to be the big damn heroes per usual, while female characters stand in the background quietly half smiling at each other and disappearing while the men have serious conversations. I'm cool with a handful of male characters being selfish assholes nearly wrecking everything in an attempt of making themselves feel like they are the important big damn heroes in the grand scheme of things. However I feel like there should have been a bit more of a boost for the heroines. The only scene I recall two women talking to each other is between Murphy and her brother's scenery wife. It would have been interesting character boost to have had Murphy and Amelia geek out over science together while the men were talking their important serious conversations. I had this fear for a bit that they were switching places, Cooper would become a proper father figure to Amelia, and Brand proper father figure to Murphy, and there would be some Electra complex subtext between Cooper and Amelia but things thankfully do not play out that way. I especially like that Murphy does ultimately make Brand look like a fool.
Also, the only black character still died in a really, really cheap death. Thankfully there was that somewhat racially mixed looking guy guiding Cooper around in the end, cause I would have thought all the white people abandoned the non-white people to die on earth.
In the end, the sound track has to be one of the worst soundtracks ever. I felt like my head was stuck in an organ pipe while someone played the same three annoying keys. When I was leaving the theater, everyone was complaining about how awful it was.
I assume Nolan was thinking something along the lines of, "Well, my target audience here is Nerds, and judging by how popular CinemaSins is (Neil DeGrasse Tyson went on there and did a whole video picking apart every scientific mistake in Gravity, and that's one of the most popular things online!), nerds apparently don't care about things like stories or characters at all. Apparently, nerds only want to smugly gloat about how superior their body of scientific knowledge is, over that of the unwashed masses who go see girly movies about icky girly things like emotions and character development."
I don't know, I try to think about it through the film makers perspective to try and figure out what were they aiming for. What was Christopher Nolan thinking? The problem with this movie is it harkens back to what a lot of people found wrong with the TV show LOST. Is it about the science, or the characters? And in the end of Interstellar, we had another space church scene where loved ones are reunited through the power of plot convenience.
I like to think Nolan had a simple idea in his head which he found as the dramatic keystone which the entire film was built around. The last scene where the Astronauts character finally reunites with his daughter. And she's now technically old enough to be his mother. The movie is built around what we know of "real" time travel, and how if we speed up enough or pass very close to a black hole (what we hypothesize as a possibility of "real" time travel that is... ahem!") we could possibly break the 4th dimension, and pull a Marthy Mcfly.
For some reason, the movie 12 monkeys popped in my head at the ends there. And after some thought... I know why. Just like 12 Monkey, it was all building up to that dramatic keystone moment. With 12 Monkeys' it's that whole time travel to witness one's own demise. With this movie it's time travel to witness one's daughter be old enough to be one's mother. It's a weird yet poignant moment all dramas thrive for, but how 12 Monkey's orchestrated it made sense, with this move? Getting to that point... not so much.
In the end, Interstellar just wants to be a dramatic story about father and daughter, a lot like how Contact with Jody Foster was, but the science made up on the spot to explain it just didn't add up.
I like to think Nolan had a simple idea in his head which he found as the dramatic keystone which the entire film was built around. The last scene where the Astronauts character finally reunites with his daughter. And she's now technically old enough to be his mother. The movie is built around what we know of "real" time travel, and how if we speed up enough or pass very close to a black hole (what we hypothesize as a possibility of "real" time travel that is... ahem!") we could possibly break the 4th dimension, and pull a Marthy Mcfly.
For some reason, the movie 12 monkeys popped in my head at the ends there. And after some thought... I know why. Just like 12 Monkey, it was all building up to that dramatic keystone moment. With 12 Monkeys' it's that whole time travel to witness one's own demise. With this movie it's time travel to witness one's daughter be old enough to be one's mother. It's a weird yet poignant moment all dramas thrive for, but how 12 Monkey's orchestrated it made sense, with this move? Getting to that point... not so much.
In the end, Interstellar just wants to be a dramatic story about father and daughter, a lot like how Contact with Jody Foster was, but the science made up on the spot to explain it just didn't add up.
Reading Bob's analysis, I kept thinking that Contact was a movie that nailed the emotional impact by keeping any literal explanation at an arm's length. I maintained my willful suspension of disbelief by assuming that the alien tech was so advanced as to demonstrate Clarke's 3rd Law.Groverfield said:
Also, my recommendation for an alternate ending:
Upon falling into the black hole, McConaughey finds
And proceeds to save the movie . . . er, world. He saves the world.
I think people are putting too much stock in the concept that "love" was the singular force that allowed Cooper to send the messages. They state pretty explicitly multiple times that gravity transcends time (which makes sense as gravity is both the weakest and yet most pervasive force, hell we still don't fully understand it), but its Cooper's personal connection that allows him to be in a position to make this interaction. They pair this with love because it has similar fundamentals. Matt Damon's character talks a lot about empathy only "extending to the edge of our vision" yet the brain fights for survival when shown those we love/empathize with and Dr. Brand discusses how love transcends space and time, characterizing it in the same way as gravity (transcending space/time, being both weak and yet powerful). Coupled with how good it looks when the theme is personal love vs. scientific reason, and it makes sense that they would go with using love and gravity to explain the climax.
I didn't take the love speech as anything significant- just the weird rationalisations of a besotted physicist desperate to see her love again.
All my friends were like "LOL the "love" talk, wtf?" I explained that it wasn't supposed to make sense, because she was in love.
All my friends were like "LOL the "love" talk, wtf?" I explained that it wasn't supposed to make sense, because she was in love.