Holy shit was that awesome.
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Interstellar spoiler thread. All spoilers go in here.
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Shorty11857
Member
Yeah you're right they'd be able to get a lot of basic data, guess I just find the fact that it'd take thousands of years (Earth time) to determine if the planet was viable for long term habitation made it seem like the least viable choice from a Plan A perspective anyway.
I understand why it was in the film though, from a plot perspective, drama perspective, entertainment perspective it worked really well
The Mann subplot is really much more interesting and necessary than people give it credit for. It's something that benefits from a rewatch. Damon for example gives small little tells even in the very early scenes that he's lying.
"Tell us about your world"
Then you can see a small second where he looks to be thinking but we know that he was trying to remember his bullshit data and possibly rehearsed speech.
Mann represents the worst of us. Cooper and Brand had a conversation about the only evil being the evil that we bring with us, and Mann is the representation of that. Mann tried to justify his actions through a sort of hyper-rationality and what he was doing was only natural, as he repeatedly compared Cooper to himself. He knew he was a coward but also still tried to reason through his actions.
Mann is the opposite of Brand(female) and is the scientific side of humanity and is her thematic opposite. While Brand is emotional, he is so rational that he views his own existence over that of humanity's.
All of that said, Mann also had gone through a terribly traumatic experience. What most people don't appreciate is that Mann spent literally over 35 years in isolation. 35 long years in a fucking tundra. He's absolutely right in that few men have ever been tested like that.
"Tell us about your world"
Then you can see a small second where he looks to be thinking but we know that he was trying to remember his bullshit data and possibly rehearsed speech.
Mann represents the worst of us. Cooper and Brand had a conversation about the only evil being the evil that we bring with us, and Mann is the representation of that. Mann tried to justify his actions through a sort of hyper-rationality and what he was doing was only natural, as he repeatedly compared Cooper to himself. He knew he was a coward but also still tried to reason through his actions.
Mann is the opposite of Brand(female) and is the scientific side of humanity and is her thematic opposite. While Brand is emotional, he is so rational that he views his own existence over that of humanity's.
All of that said, Mann also had gone through a terribly traumatic experience. What most people don't appreciate is that Mann spent literally over 35 years in isolation. 35 long years in a fucking tundra. He's absolutely right in that few men have ever been tested like that.
BeatResetsTheWorld
Banned
You disregard the huge black hole in proximity, making time pretty wonky in that area. Who knows what path that person took to get down to the planet. Depending on how close/far to the hole their path was, their time elapsed could be DRASTICALLY different
You only get a quick glimpse at his face when he initially goes on his spiel. It then cuts to the Endurance crew walking on the planet.
SwiftDeath
Member
There was no subtlety whatsoever in the Mann subplot, I would hope like 98% of the audience would understand what Mann's character was going to be the second or third time the other characters reiterated "Mann's the best of all of us" before we ever met the charecter. It was immediately obvious they were setting up for a character who in fact was not "the best of all of us" and what that character would likely be
We have incredibly detailed information about the planets in our solar system without a human ever landing on them. For terrestrial planets of the type they were exploring in the movie there is no reason why they couldn't have known in advance using satellites that one is completely covered with ocean and also has MOUNTAIN HIGH WAVES while the other is a snowy shithole with a toxic atmosphere. They could have easily figured out that Brand's planet was the best chance.
Also, dying Murphy telling her dad to go get Brand. Why the hell didn't they just send someone in the decades that passed? Their station is placed conveniently close to Saturn to the point where they can find a single person floating out in space, why didn't they send more people through the portal after humanity was saved? Why is the daughter of a hero whom nobody has seen for decades telling him to go alone to help some random astronaut? Why not make a mission and help her ages ago?
The movie has a ton of stuff that doesn't make sense. When Cooper decided to drop into the black hole himself I immediately realized he was the ghost pushing the books, but the way it was done was literally him sitting in a room and pushing books. It's incredibly silly.
Also, dying Murphy telling her dad to go get Brand. Why the hell didn't they just send someone in the decades that passed? Their station is placed conveniently close to Saturn to the point where they can find a single person floating out in space, why didn't they send more people through the portal after humanity was saved? Why is the daughter of a hero whom nobody has seen for decades telling him to go alone to help some random astronaut? Why not make a mission and help her ages ago?
The movie has a ton of stuff that doesn't make sense. When Cooper decided to drop into the black hole himself I immediately realized he was the ghost pushing the books, but the way it was done was literally him sitting in a room and pushing books. It's incredibly silly.
BeatResetsTheWorld
Banned
This wasn't in our solar system so what's your point? If they could've gotten this information through satellites they would have
Other than the fact that those planets were in a completely different galaxy, and it's far easier to observe planets in our own solar system because they're in our own solar system, then yes, no reason at all.
Very little data was coming out of the wormhole. Stuff could come in but not much was coming out. The NASA meeting at the beginning clarified that Earth was just minor check-in status stuff.
I think they did mention that they sent probes inside the wormhole too. It's possible the probes got screwed up due to Gargantia's location, which was much closer than anybody expected.
You missed the part where NASA told Cooper they could only send small packets of binary through the wormhole. They received a "thumbs up" from the scout who landed on the water planet but they were destroyed by the wave before a second message could be relayed (relativity slows these transmissions to a crawl). Ice Planet seemed fine because Mann sent them a thumbs up and he alluded to the surface of the planet being what was actually desirable for humans.
Freezasaurus
Member
The robots were great. Matt Damon's character was a douche.
I really enjoyed the movie, though. Most of the science was theoretical, and a few bits were plain wrong. But I haven't forgotten that a suspension of disbelief is required at times when dealing with any type of fiction.
SwiftDeath
Member
Uh why wouldn't Nasa then just send a satellite with telescope etc. through the wormhole and collect data on these planets years ahead of the final team? They even mention they had a relay set up on the opposite side of the wormhole that collected basic data from the astronauts on the individual planets. The satellite could simply store the data until the team came through much like the relay did
I actually do remember that part. So why not just:
1) Send a crew in on Endurance with scientific equipment
2) Analyze the planets from afar
3) Maybe land on those who show promise and are not for example completely covered with water and killer waves
Basically 14 people died for nothing in this mission. They could have gone to the other galaxy through the wormhole, analyzed and started a colony on the planet where a landing actually made sense.
what
BeatResetsTheWorld
Banned
Because a satellite can't assess the conditions on the ground. Can't collect samples of air, viability of life, etc. I'm not sure why you keep trying to push this point. The entire point of the lazarus project was to assess these planets firsthand. Just look at Mars and the difference in information we had from simple satellite imagery vs the rovers on the ground
They're trying to see if they're inhabitable. Why do people keep suggesting observing from afar? There are vast limits to the amount of data that can be collected
Because NASA's budget was shot to shit. Sending a guy to land on a planet was probably significantly cheaper than putting a ton of satellites in orbit around planets a galaxy away.
keltickennedy
Member
Also, observing from afar doesn't sound very compelling for a space epic movie. lol.
If you couldn't understand my post I imagine you had a hard time with the film.
Simple spectrography of a planet can indicate whether it has the atmospheric composition and pressure suitable for human life. We don't know much about how Jupiter is like below the top cloud level but we sure as hell know that a human won't be able to survive there. The same was true for Mars, you didn't need rovers to know that it has an atmosphere only 1% as thick as the Earth composed almost entirely out of carbon dioxide and that the temperature is way too low for human life.
Even if you needed rovers, why didn't they send these cool robots while they chill on the ship? Do you seriously think you need to land on a planet to tell if its covered in ocean and freak tsunamis or if its a frozen wasteland with an ammonia atmosphere? Sending down people makes no sense.
Astral Dog
Member
I think the Wormhole dissapeared, that was mentioned a few pages ago, from an IGN interview.
UltimaPooh
Member
What? The Wormhole was always there.
I believe it closed when the fifth dimension construct closed. Hence why Cooper now has to scour the galaxy to find Brand's planet without the wormhole to get them there fast.
what...
Astral Dog
Member
?
They said on the movie the Wormhole appeared 40 or 60 years ago on Saturn and then in the interview they said it dissapeared, or im wrong?
The people on Earth had a rough idea what the other solar system looked like. For a budget stricken NASA sending twelve astronauts on a suicide mission was probably significantly cheaper than sending twelve expensive satellites into orbits that NASA couldn't verify, for those satellites to send back small bits of information.
Somebody would have had to go through the wormhole just to pick up the data. Then NASA would have had to sent humans to get feet time on the ground.
Shit be expensive yo.
Somebody would have had to go through the wormhole just to pick up the data. Then NASA would have had to sent humans to get feet time on the ground.
Shit be expensive yo.
Admiral Woofington
Member
Unless I'm remembering wrong wasn't all of that taken care of already? The point of the trip with Cooper was that NASA had found planets that with the limited data they could gather could maybe support human life. They sent the explorers to give the OK to come check that planet. They were limited on people and budget. Sending satellites would've been nice if we were talking about NASA with full support. At this point in the movie it could be assumed that they had exhausted all possible research alternatives outside of sending people down there and getting concrete info on whether they could survive based on planetary conditions, food, etc...
For this there's not much to argue for or against. They were probably limited on the robots as well and seeing how they can relay data their 'life' was probably just as important if not more important outside of a life or death situation. The robots could go down and say "oxygen levels are suitable" but can they assess whether the soil can grow crops or give data on the weather of the planet outside of temperature and patterns?
At that point we don't know how much the robots have available as tools/technology to assess the suitability of a planet for human life. They were there as assistants.
The movie stated early on that the robots are super limited. Murphy had never seen one before going to the NASA base with Cooper. The robots are never seen roaming the base on Earth either. Cooper even pointed out how TARS was a marine and female Brand stated that was all the government could afford to give(or something like that)
Also seems like there was a robot companion per each Lazarus crew member so it was both humans and a robot assistant.
UltimaPooh
Member
Well if it was, closed, closed that brings up even more questions now. Like how in the hell is he going to travel to another galaxy when they cant even go the speed of light?
BeatResetsTheWorld
Banned
Well according to Brand, the robots were limited. At least that's what she told Cooper when he first say Tars and given how incredibly valuable the robots seemed, they probably didn't want to risk sending them down there alone. Even though they're seen to be incredibly versatile, we never really see them doing much improvisation. If a wave carried away one of them on that first planet how would they get it back?
They have warp drives now essentially.
Admiral Woofington
Member
Yeah I now recall that they mention that they weren't developed specifically for world-exploration. Most of the complaints on procedures that could've been done better can probably just be explained with something as simple as
UltimaPooh
Member
When was that divulged?
They've solved the gravity equation, interstellar travel is not the 1000 year trip it used to be anymore.
Maninthemirror
Banned
I dont think it was intended in that way. He is an explorer. it was repeatedly stated he never wanted to stay he wanted to explore. and thats what he was going out there to do. explore and see if he can get to Brand with another wormhole
alternative theory is that gravity equation allows for wormholes
When Murphy solved the gravity equation it allows them to do some crazy shit, such as sending that whole facility into orbit.
Those are all good questions that you'll never get answers to because it's left to your interpretation. The technological advancements mankind made following the completion of the theory of gravity are never mentioned so they might in fact have achieved FTL travel.
It's hard to say.
Maninthemirror
Banned
analyze planets from Afar? this is not star trek.
UltimaPooh
Member
Conveniently solved.
That doesn't mean that they are able to travel so quickly. Sure they probably travel faster but nothing in the ending scenes provide you with anything that they can travel close or faster than the speed of light. It would take 25,000 years AT the speed of light to get to Andromeda. Nothing on the space station leads me to believe that they figured out wormholes by the time Coop returns.
BeatResetsTheWorld
Banned
Well that's what I assumed. How else was Coop planning on finding her?
Uhh, where was it implied they were built a light speed drive? She solved a GRAVITY formula, which implies whatever it is, allowed them to create wormholes or at least manipulate gravity (and space) and achieve wormhole like travel. At least that's what I got from it
plasmawave
Banned
Also I gotta say, I saw the ghost twist coming from a thousand miles away.
UltimaPooh
Member
True, but there isn't anything there to prove otherwise. It's not like the spinning tot at the end of Inception. There was no prior thing that leads you to believe they achieve FTL travel or are able to manipulate worm holes when Coop return a hundred years later.
I dunno, maybe the Alien Humans make another worm hole to conveniently get Coop back to Brand.
The fuel required to push something the size of that colony to Saturn, or whatever, would be absolutely batshit insane. They warped the colony there from Earth.
UltimaPooh
Member
The most likely answer is that the worm hole is still open.
They only close the tesseract.
It's an answer that's completely up to your interpretation, though.
Someone earlier in the thread stated that Nolan confirmed the wormhole was closed.
Otherwise anybody could have picked Brand up.
UltimaPooh
Member
But nobody knew about the mission, so that would be the reason why no one picked her up cept Coop.
Like I said, it's ambiguous.
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