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[Orbis Tabula]

The original Lazarus Mission was forty years prior, I think.

Thanks. Shit really sucks for the people on Miller's Planet. That means they were only there for like 6 hours.

 

[Anton Sugar]

I saw this earlier. Fantastic movie.

I don't think Damon was miscast. I thought he did a good job, and was of a believable age to have been an accomplished scientist and yet still physically able to lead and embark on this kind of voyage. Though I think he may have telegraphed his intentions a little too strongly, but that very well possibly could have been under Nolan's direction. In any case he was effective.

I want to think that he actually didn't want to kill Romilly. Doesn't Rom ask about checking KIPP and Mann is very much, "Oh, don't worry, we can do that later."

I think his plan might have been to say that Coop fell and died, and then that they should continue the "mission".

 

[Truant]

In a way this film is reminding me of Signs on a lot of levels. Farm setting, well known hardass playing a familiy man, dealing with unexplained phenomena, mumbo jumbo dialog, something-somthing mentioned early on getting a big "IT WAS SOMETING SPECIAL ALL ALONG" treatment.

My biggest disappointment was that there was no Mr. Charles moment in Interstellar. When they pulled the Mr. Charles bit in Inception I was genuinely impressed. It just felt like something real dream-thieves would do if this was a real thing. I thought that bit was super clever, and made a lot of sense in the world. Felt spontaneous and on its feet. What I liked about Inception was that it presented the ideas and the rules, and then constantly fucked with them. It kept things fresh.

There should have been moments like this in Interstellar, because they make up for all the exposition in a way.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

Serious? Thought he looked fat and tired

Serious
Thought he looked fiiiiine

 

[Zoe]

Thanks. Shit really sucks for the people on Miller's Planet. That means they were only there for like 6 hours.

Brand said she could have died minutes before they got there.

 

[Katzenjammer]

Pretty much. The magicians in The Prestige would be proud.

You just made me snort my drink. A+ post

Also, Brand sr was really one of the most miserable characters in the end. Man wastes half his life in keeping up the lie to try saving humanity in his way, and then it's all in vain because of... magic. The last thing he thinks about when dying isn't even his daughter (as suggested by Damon), but his useless lie..

 

[More_Badass]

Brand said she could have died minutes before they got there.

Thinking about time dilation makes my head hurt.

 

[Anton Sugar]

Thinking about time dilation makes my head hurt.

8.5 minutes on Miller's planet is roughly a year on Earth.

Yowza.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

Dr. Mann asked about the "others" after waking and Cooper told them they didn't have the resources to find or save any of the others, and that they had basically devoted everything they had left to get to Mann's world.

Ah, okay. I must have missed that bit of exposition. I guess I can understand why he kept up the lie with that in mind, but I still think the attempted murder of Coop and the sabotaging of the AI that led to the other guys death was somewhat unnecessary.

Same goes for his mad attempt to get back to the Endurance and not care that he could potentially destroy the ship in the process. For someone who so desperately wanted to live, he sure took a number of silly risks right at the end.

 

[Orbis Tabula]

Brand said she could have died minutes before they got there.

Ah right, I remember that. Time dilation is a bitch. That scene of Coop watching all those videos from his son after they got back from Miller's Planet was something else.

 

[Apt101]

I want to think that he actually didn't want to kill Romilly. Doesn't Rom ask about checking KIPP and Mann is very much, "Oh, don't worry, we can do that later."

I think his plan might have been to say that Coop fell and died, and then that they should continue the "mission".

That's what I took from it. I was referring to his intentions to murder Cooper. He first tried to dissuade him from securing the sites. As they were walking you could see where he began to formulate the murder in his head. He wasn't some evil mastermind, planning several steps ahead for events he couldn't have known would ever happen. He could have rigged the robot up as a suicide device for himself, but decided to hold out some small sliver of hope and take the long cryo sleep instead. Later, that's just how shit played out.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

The fake moon landings was really bizarre. No explanation behind why that was suddenly a theory that had gained enough traction to be taught in schools.

I thought it was to make space exploration unpopular and discourage children from wanting to become astronauts or engineers.

 

[Brakke]

How is that the idea when Cooper rebuked brand and the sacrificed himself rather than go see his daughter

But he didn't sacrifice himself and he did go on to see his daughter.

Our connections and emotions bind us to each other. As Brand stated, we didn't invent love. Love isn't insignificant in how it ties our race together but we as individuals are.

When we act with self-interest in mind, it isolates us into individuals.

But those two weren't "isolated to individuals" in that moment. The stakes of that fight were The Survival of All Humanity on Earth. There were too many ideas jumbled up there "look these people are tiny" vs "look this fight settles the fate of our species".

I dunno, that shot worked as a cool shot that looked dope but not much else for me.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

I saw this earlier. Fantastic movie.

I don't think Damon was miscast. I thought he did a good job, and was of a believable age to have been an accomplished scientist and yet still physically able to lead and embark on this kind of voyage. Though I think he may have telegraphed his intentions a little too strongly, but that very well possibly could have been under Nolan's direction. In any case he was effective.

I like to think Cooper reaches Brand about four years into her future, and they return several years later as the now even more increased legends that they would have become. Brand goes into politics and continues Murph's tradition of focusing on science and advancement, leading to an eventual meeting between various alternate versions of human history hundreds of years later - one of them being the ones who created the tesseract. TARS went on to star in a series of films created to cater to robots, who had by that time advanced to full consciousness.

Holy shit, four years all alone growing babies in tubes and shit... Poor Amelia

 

[Apt101]

I thought it was to make space exploration unpopular and discourage children from wanting to become astronauts or engineers.

and for humanity to focus on the Earth (and producing food) rather than using resources to escape it.

 

[John Harker]

The biggest issue I had was... how did he encode potentially terabytes of previously unknown 'quantum data' from the Other Side of Physics... into a tiny little watch hand? via morse code no less. that is digestible enough in that form for her to decode singlehandidly in what seems like days before her "EUREKA!" moment.

I mean, clearly I don't know how much data TARS was able to capture in the blackhole, but he didn't know WHAT data specifically to look for, he was just 'gathering observable data we've never been able to observe before' - so presumably he'd be capturing a massive amount of data. That they somehow know how to boil down to the specific information that is needed on Earth to finish a formula that they didn't even know was broken.

Otherwise, great movie to see in theaters.
Enjoyed it a lot. I'm not sure it lived up to my expectations, or if it's even my top 5 favorite nolan films, but happy I saw it day 1 at IMAX.

 

[Zoe]

The biggest issue I had was... how did he encode potentially terabytes of previously unknown 'quantum data' from the Other Side of Physics... into a tiny little watch hand? via morse code no less. that is digestible enough in that form for her to decode in what seems like days before her "EUREKA!" moment.

I mean, clearly I don't know how much data TARS was able to capture in the blackhole, but he didn't know WHAT data specifically to look for, he was just 'gathering observable data we've never been able to observe before' - so presumably he'd be capturing a massive amount of data. That they somehow know how to boil down to the specific information that is needed on Earth to finish a formula that they didn't even know was broken.

They were sending the specific equation.

 

[Anton Sugar]

That's what I took from it. I was referring to his intentions to murder Cooper. He first tried to dissuade him from securing the sites. As they were walking you could see where he began to formulate the murder in his head. He wasn't some evil mastermind, planning several steps ahead for events he couldn't have known would ever happen. He could have rigged the robot up as a suicide device for himself, but decided to hold out some small sliver of hope and take the long cryo sleep instead. Later, that's just how shit played out.

Yeah, thinking about it, that's probably the case. Just things got out of hand and he panicked, took the ship, and then we got one of the coolest space sequences of all time.

I actually really liked Damon's dialogue, or at least the ideas. I think it just felt forced and out-of-place at that point. Especially considering how gassed both of them were.

You'd think after "THISH SHITTY...JUSHT PROVED..." Nolan would know to not deliver important pieces of dialogue by out of breath dudes.

 

[Maninthemirror]

But he didn't sacrifice himself and he did go on to see his daughter.



But those two weren't "isolated to individuals" in that moment. The stakes of that fight were The Survival of All Humanity on Earth. There were too many ideas jumbled up there "look these people are tiny" vs "look this fight settles the fate of our species".

I dunno, that shot worked as a cool shot that looked dope but not much else for me.

He did and did he know he was going to end up with his daughter. He was dropping down to die.

 

[John Harker]

They were sending the specific equation.

but they had no idea what the issue with the equation was, she didn't discover Michael Caine was lying about keeping a variable constant or whatever till after everyone left and she was an adult

 

[DiipuSurotu]

but they had no idea what the issue with the equation was, she didn't discover Michael Caine was lying about keeping a variable constant or whatever till after everyone left and she was an adult

Cooper and TARS had all the time in the world. Literally.

 

[Apt101]

But he didn't sacrifice himself and he did go on to see his daughter.



But those two weren't "isolated to individuals" in that moment. The stakes of that fight were The Survival of All Humanity on Earth. There were too many ideas jumbled up there "look these people are tiny" vs "look this fight settles the fate of our species".

I dunno, that shot worked as a cool shot that looked dope but not much else for me.

Yea, it was revealed that the scientists were chosen because they had no attachments (Brand and her lover hid their relationship). Mann had no one to care for, no attachment to humanity as anything other than some ideal or entity. In the end he acted entirely out of self interest. I think the message was that love wasn't some supernatural force, but rather the basic expression and characteristic of humanity. It actually is the reason people ultimately work together for the greater good. As sappy as it is, love really did save the world. Or maybe it's the joint I'm smoking right now doing the talking.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

LOL Jarmel. If Nolan's intention in the middle of that slug match was to visually imply how insignificant our infighting is, that aerial shot would have been from much higher up/further away.

Camera was maybe 20m away from them. It was just a bad shot, bro. It denoted nothing other than Nolan trying to mix up how he shoots fight scenes because got knows the man needs to keep trying when it comes to shooting action.

 

[Zoe]

but they had no idea what the issue with the equation was, she didn't discover Michael Caine was lying about keeping a variable constant or whatever till after everyone left and she was an adult

Mann told them about the equation.

 

[jey_16]

The original Lazarus Mission was forty years prior, I think.

I thought they said the wormhole only opened ten years ago?

 

[Anton Sugar]

I still have no clue what was wrong with the aerial shot.

I thought they said the wormhole only opened ten years ago?

Oh, you're right. I have no idea where forty years came from.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

I still have no clue what was wrong with the aerial shot.

It wasn't even a big deal. It just looked kinda funny and out of place and drew laughs from the audience.

 

[Zoe]

I thought they said the wormhole only opened ten years ago?

Pretty sure they said 48 years ago. Or that could have been when the anomalies started.

 

[Jarmel]

But those two weren't "isolated to individuals" in that moment. The stakes of that fight were The Survival of All Humanity on Earth. There were too many ideas jumbled up there "look these people are tiny" vs "look this fight settles the fate of our species".

I dunno, that shot worked as a cool shot that looked dope but not much else for me.

Mann really wasn't interested so much in Plan B but rather just surviving. Mann thought Cooper was going to leave even if Mann fessed up, and Mann needed the fuel to reach Edmunds.

Mann tries multiple times to convince Cooper to stay and even not to check the surface. He kept asking about Cooper's gear as a way to stall Cooper.

LOL Jarmel. If Nolan's intention in the middle of that slug match was to visually imply how insignificant our infighting is, that aerial shot would have been from much higher up/further away.

Camera was maybe 20m away from them. It was just a bad shot, bro. It denoted nothing other than Nolan trying to mix up how he shoots fight scenes because got knows the man needs to keep trying when it comes to shooting action.

The camera zoomed out just when the two started fighting/wrestling. That was clearly intentional.

 

[John Harker]

Cooper and TARS had all the time in the world. Literally.

They did yes, but she didn't. She decoded that info incredibly quickly

 

[Apt101]

Yeah, thinking about it, that's probably the case. Just things got out of hand and he panicked, took the ship, and then we got one of the coolest space sequences of all time.

I actually really liked Damon's dialogue, or at least the ideas. I think it just felt forced and out-of-place at that point. Especially considering how gassed both of them were.

You'd think after "THISH SHITTY...JUSHT PROVED..." Nolan would know to not deliver important pieces of dialogue by out of breath dudes.

Yea, I mean, in the end Mann was defined by his desire to survive above all else. I could see him in throes of utter depression, about to detonate his device, but his weakness instead forced him into the cryo device.

I think his dialog felt forced because he was a man who was reconciling murder and how it would play out, and it wasn't in his nature until he was essentially driven to depravity. He was fighting with himself just to leave Cooper there, even if he had revealed that his mind was made up about killing him ("I thought I could, but I can't"). A pretty nuanced character that couldn't be properly fleshed out because of a lack of time - ironically.

 

[Net_Wrecker]

It wasn't even a big deal. It just looked kinda funny and out of place and drew laughs from the audience.

There's no way for Nolan to show how insignificant that fight was without it coming off as funny. If he did from further away like you said it would be even funnier. At that point he might as well cut to a shot from orbit in complete silence for the ultimate comedic effect.

 

[Cse]

but they had no idea what the issue with the equation was

She did - it was the issue with time.

She told Brand that he seemingly wasn't interested in figuring out the issue with time, and was therefore attempting to solve the entire gravity equation with both hands tied behind his back.

Ironically, earlier in the film, Brand told Murph that he was a physicist, and didn't care about death - only time.

 

[Jarmel]

Nolan does a lot of zooming in and zooming out in the film to show scale. For example when the Endurance arrives at Saturn, the camera zooms in to show how small the Endurance is compared to the planet.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

There's no way for Nolan to show how insignificant that fight was without it coming off as funny. If he did from further away like you said it would be even funnier. At that point he might as well cut to a shot from orbit in complete silence for the ultimate comedic effect.

Untrue. There are ways to do it. I just don't believe for a second that's what Nolan was doing.

One way is for the camera to pass beyond them and simply lose interest in the fight for a while. The universe continues on without us.

It was a bad shot, guys. We cut straight from dirty close-ups of them fighting to this weird Peter Jackson aerial swoop medium two shot and then back in again. Shit was goofy.

 

[NotBacon]

Nolan does a lot of zooming in and zooming out in the film to show scale. For example when the Endurance arrives at Saturn, the camera zooms in to show how small the Endurance is compared to the planet.

Dat scene. Heard some bewilderment among the audience haha.

 

[Apt101]

Untrue. There are ways to do it. I just don't believe for a second that's what Nolan was doing.

One way is for the camera to pass beyond them and simply lose interest in the fight for a while. The universe continues on without us.

It was a bad shot, guys. We cut straight from dirty close-ups of them fighting to this weird Peter Jackson aerial swoop medium two shot and then back in again. Shit was goofy.

Looking back, I imagine it was just a device to prolong the fight without resorting to a too out of place action scene in the middle of a drama - so that the audience had time to digest the gravity of the situation. Man it's hard to discuss this film without it sounding like one is trying to make puns.

Edit: also, I didn't even think about that aerial shot until reading this thread, and the packed house I watched the film with didn't react to it at all.

 

[Jarmel]

Whether it was Nolan's intention or not, the aerial shot fits in with other scale shots in the film.

 

[Net_Wrecker]

Untrue. There are ways to do it. I just don't believe for a second that's what Nolan was doing.

One way is for the camera to pass beyond them and simply lose interest in the fight for a while. The universe continues on without us.

It was a bad shot, guys. We cut straight from dirty close-ups of them fighting to this weird Peter Jackson aerial swoop medium two shot and then back in again. Shit was goofy.

IDK man, I would've laughed either way because the move lost me once Damon turned heel and hit Mcconaughey with the steel chair. By the time he was headbutting him and "taking the odds" of a 50/50 chance of dying.....Somebody stop the damn match

 

[Anton Sugar]

Agree to disagree then. I like the contrast in the scale of the shots. No one in my two showings laughed.

Related, even though we've already talked about how the ice planet is basically a man vs man conflict:

(That's praise, btw)

 

[Aurongel]

Untrue. There are ways to do it. I just don't believe for a second that's what Nolan was doing.

One way is for the camera to pass beyond them and simply lose interest in the fight for a while. The universe continues on without us.

It was a bad shot, guys. We cut straight from dirty close-ups of them fighting to this weird Peter Jackson aerial swoop medium two shot and then back in again. Shit was goofy.

It was a wide shot that panned upwards pushing them out of frame, thus diminishing the immediacy of their struggle. There's nothing wrong with the shot, I recognized the emotions it was trying to convey immediately. You shouldn't view people chuckling at it in the audience as something so negative. Making you question and laugh at the silliness of their insignificant struggle in the face of pending human extinction is what that entire scene was trying to convey.

 

[KidA Seven]

Mann really wasn't interested so much in Plan B but rather just surviving. Mann thought Cooper was going to leave even if Mann fessed up, and Mann needed the fuel to reach Edmunds.

Mann tries multiple times to convince Cooper to stay and even not to check the surface. He kept asking about Cooper's gear as a way to stall Cooper.
.

From what I remember, he only wanted to kill Cooper because Cooper was planning to go back to Earth (because of his daughter) which would risk Plan B. This was after Cooper found out about Plan A being a lie.

Mann still cared about Plan B, but he also lied to everyone in order to save himself too.

 

[Brakke]

He did and did he know he was going to end up with his daughter. He was dropping down to die.

But he knew and didn't know doesn't matter because not five seconds after his "sacrifice" it's clear to the audience that he's not going to die. Even before he detaches, they built up so much how it would be possible to communicate out of the black hole at least once, meanwhile the entire concept of the movie set up a pivot that people or beings could manipulate gravity and that the black hole was the key to learning how to do that. Dramatically, the black hole didn't present a credible threat so the "sacrifice" wasn't credible either: any viewer paying any attention should have expected Coop to save the day by going into the black hole.

There's no way for Nolan to show how insignificant that fight was without it coming off as funny. If he did from further away like you said it would be even funnier. At that point he might as well cut to a shot from orbit in complete silence for the ultimate comedic effect.

Also the idea that the fight was "insignificant" is nonsense on every level. It's such a weird aside. "Hey people aren't important" just isn't an idea the movie is at all interested in. So why try and visit it with one fleeting shot?

 

[Miles Quaritch]

I thought it was to make space exploration unpopular and discourage children from wanting to become astronauts or engineers.

That actually makes some sense. Good call.

I guess that also ties in with Coop being told his son can't go to college/Uni.

and for humanity to focus on the Earth (and producing food) rather than using resources to escape it.

Decidedly short sighted too, especially with crops that weren't corn failings. Seems the more realistic and better thing to do would be to encourage farming alongside the need to leave Earth.

Are there any theories on what the blight is? Didn't seem like it was just desertification, but something more.

 

[Jarmel]

From what I remember, he only wanted to kill Cooper because Cooper was planning to go back to Earth (because of his daughter) which would risk Plan B. This was after Cooper found out about Plan A being a lie.

Mann still cared about Plan B, but he also lied to everyone in order to save himself too.

I viewed Mann using Plan B as self-justification for his actions. Mann was a coward who tried to dress up his actions in words like "I'm doing this for the human race" where if he meant that, he would have come clean much earlier.

 

[strobogo]

There's something I didn't quite understand, why was Coop's son such a dick when he grew up? His condemning his wife and son to basically die seemed to come out of nowhere, especially with him losing a son.

And the Matt Damon character. Why didn't he just tell them when they got there that his initial readings were wrong or that his theories about the planet didn't pan out? Why go on a murderous rampage? Seemed stupid really.

And what was the deal with the planet and the blight? Desertification? Shame that wasn't elaborated upon as it seemed like a really important aspect of the story. The teacher claiming the moon landing were fake was also completely bizarre as was the reasoning behind why Nasa had to hide their operations.

The Nasa thing kind of makes sense, but you'd think that people would also understand that perhaps it's time to look for new home when no crops are growing...

The fake moon landings was really bizarre. No explanation behind why that was suddenly a theory that had gained enough traction to be taught in schools.

I really disliked the whole 'love trumps all' aspect of the story. What's wrong with a sci-fi movie just being about sci-fi, why do they invariably end up going in a spiritual garbage direction?

To reinforce how dumb dumb humanity is and why someone like Coop and Murph are just so gosh darn special. We need farmers, not engineers! Even though everyone is going to die no matter how many farmers there are and can only be saved by smart people. Cuz farmers are dumb.

 

[Apt101]

That actually makes some sense. Good call.

I guess that also ties in with Coop being told his son can't go to college/Uni.



Decidedly short sighted too, especially with crops that weren't corn failings. Seems the more realistic and better thing to do would be to encourage farming alongside the need to leave Earth.

Are there any theories on what the blight is? Didn't seem like it was just desertification, but something more.

I could have swore I recall hearing a person who was studying genetics refer to some kind of "blight" in which dwindling gene pools lead to populations of organisms dying off. If crops are being recycled and farmed in smaller and smaller portions of land, wouldn't that be the outcome? I could be grossly misrembering.

 

[Anton Sugar]

To reinforce how dumb dumb humanity is and why someone like Coop and Murph are just so gosh darn special. We need farmers, not engineers! Even though everyone is going to die no matter how many farmers there are and can only be saved by smart people. Cuz farmers are dumb.

Yeah, I hated how that just reinforced what Coop was afraid of at the principal's meeting: "So he'll be an uneducated farmer."

Not just an uneducated farmer, though--a borderline monster. Hot temper, seemingly doesn't care about the health of his wife and kids, etc.

 

[Jarmel]

Also the idea that the fight was "insignificant" is nonsense on every level. It's such a weird aside. "Hey people aren't important" just isn't an idea the movie is at all interested in. So why try and visit it with one fleeting shot?

Humans being insignificant absolutely is a minor theme in the movie. The Blight, which is the primary agent in the film, is going to kill us off not due to it targeting humans specifically but rather it eating all of our food. Us dying out is a byproduct.

Humans have to run and hide just to survive for almost the entire movie.

 

[Glass Shark]

Ah right, I remember that. Time dilation is a bitch. That scene of Coop watching all those videos from his son after they got back from Miller's Planet was something else.

I never cry in movies but I was this close during that scene.