Interstellar

Okay, so let me start saying I would have never watched this if it wasn't for my wife. Not because I'd heard anything negative, in fact, I hadn't heard anything at all. But a name like "Interstellar" coupled with the apocalyptic visage of a snowy background and McConaughey in a space suit isn't the kind of poster shot that makes me think "word, that's going to be my speed."I was wrong.First off, Interstellar is an impossible movie to describe simplistically. It starts slow, and seems almost banal at first. "Oh my god, they're on a farm, everyone is wearing dirty things, their truck is beat up, what could possibly make this interesting..." However, if you're paying attention you get an even more boring premise thrown at you... There's this thing called "blight", and it's killing all the world's plants. While that is a scary premise, it's like "What? Blight? Call the Wardens, there are some Darkspawn in need of a serious spanking... Or better yet, call those little fellows full of drink and merriment that helped that other little fellow meet a guy on a boat that kills a dragon and all that, they seemed pretty capable of handling "blighty things"." I kept walking out of the room to get another beer when the one I was holding was half full.At one point my wife even said "I'm not sure what's going on here?" To which I replied "there is some micro-organism that is killing off the world's crops and plants, which is eventually going to lead to starvation, then suffocation of those who don't starve due to the atmosphere becoming too nitrogen rich to sustain oxygen based life forms. Erry'body done lost they minds." She responded "Wow, you haven't even been in the room for the last hour, how did you get all that?" The truth is that it was that generic, I heard "blight", "starvation", and logically inferred "suffocation" even though I wasn't present for that part of the plot delivery.When I returned, there was a dust storm, lines of sand on the floor, and suddenly McConaughey racing down a dirt trail while simultaneously coming to realize his daughter had stowed away for the ride even after he had emphatically told her not to do so. I was becoming more bored by the minute. Then there was this stupid looking rectangle shaped robot, running it's... speaker... to McConaughey and I let out an audible sigh. Which irritated the wife, and I explained her feelings of irritation with my complete lack of engagement didn't even compare to how much I'd rather be removing all my body hair with tweezers instead of watching this movie.When McConaughey meets the now underground NASA board, I was ready to pass out in the chair. Then I heard Michael Caine explaining the true gravity of their situation, and the word "wormhole" made my eyebrow twitch. I took 3 astronomy courses as electives because they read as physics classes on your transcript, I also took physics and biology because I'm a genuine science guy (and my neuropsyche degree required them). So when I hear stuff like that in movies I engage for all the wrong reasons, I'm ready to tear a movie apart for trying to present itself as intellectually and educationally stimulating while getting everything wrong.This is where the five star part of the movie comes in, what happens after this long, slow intro, is some of the most incredible science fiction writing I've seen in a movie to date. The planets visited are interesting, the distortion of time due to the relativity principles attributed the reality warping effects of black holes and massive, dense planetary bodies is handled so well I was suddenly gripped by the material. Suddenly the boring robot designs make sense as you realize that they are not simply rectangular metal constructs that walk like retarded apes, they're actually seamlessly machined mechanisms consisting of multiple rectangular panels that can be individually manipulated to great versatility in design, and the AI's are believable. TARS was one of my favorite characters.There are things you'll just know are going to happen, it drives my wife crazy when I start calling movie happenings out the minute an arch is activated, and I'm usually doing it because the material is so transparent I have to pick at it to relieve my own discomfort at how unimaginative something is, I honestly do start declaring myself a "Great Prophet" in these moments because sarcasm is how I deal with discomfort. Here it was more "holy ish, if this is this way, and that is that way, there is no scientifically/logically sound way for it to deviate into another path, this is what HAS to happen!" The introduction of Damon's character, is handled so well that knowing what was going to happen from the minute they woke him up, made the movie feel more real. Because what he does is what psychology tells us he would most likely do, if he were a human being that actually found himself in his position. Though, the portion about the mission actually being about the continuation of the species makes little sense given the world was still full of very bright people they could have sent out on a colony vessel if that where the actual intention, and I had a hard time not pointing out that NASA at this moment, knows sending out a single person would be detrimental to that individuals psychology in the long run; we're just not built to be alone.That said, moving into the closing act, I was literally in awe at how amazingly well the entire thing was handled. The "beings of 5 dimension" muck they'd been running to that point felt like a half baked stab at string theory, but suddenly you're thrust into a beautifully handled representation of Einstein's theoretical models of relativity and gravity/time spacial relationships, asserting that time is not linear, at all, to the point that "relativity" doesn't even cover it, and that if you can place yourself in the right quantum space, you would be literally, everywhere, at all times (read: from the moment you entered that space, to the beginning of convergent happenings to that moment), at once.I'll leave it at that.If you've read this far into my borderline rambling review, take my word for it, watch this movie. Go into it expecting to be so thoroughly intellectually engaged and stimulated that your IQ will receive a temporary positive adjustment. You just, have to get through the first half.And forgive any typos, this isn't a peer reviewed paper, I'm not going to revise it 500 times and have someone check it for errors.

While it seems like just another “adventure in space” film on the surface, it really is much more subtle and impressive. It definitely has disasters, threats from alien worlds, lots of loud noises, fancy machines, brave guys to look up to and cowardly guys to look down on, and pretty girls aplenty, if that’s your genre, but it has a far greater depth than that too. Think of that as a bonus. In fact, think of the whole thing as a thinking person’s movie, from beginning to end. You’ll definitely get more out of it that way.I agree with the reviewer who said if you like being spoon-fed a plot, you’ll hate this movie. Well maybe not hate it exactly. If you’re 12 and your notion of “plot” is video games, you’re good to go. If you’re an adult who likes video games, you’ll just wonder why you wasted your time on the movie when you could have been playing video games instead. Everyone has their own way of participating; you get marks for being there.I wasn’t certain I’d like the movie—though I like disaster movies, and I had a cold. I wanted to watch others “suffer” as I was. And I’ve liked Mathew McConaughey’s movies in the past, so I gave this one a try.From the first, I realized this was a subtle work, much like legitimate theater and requiring active cooperation from the viewer. Surprise, surprise! Somebody gave me credit for thinking actual thoughts. Opening scenes seemed like it was “today,” especially those scenes of very much senior members of society reminiscing on TV about what it was like during the Dust Bowl days. Okay.But then the hero of the film says he always came back from flying at the speed of light and close to black holes, and bingo, I realized this was not “today” as in 2023, but not so very far in the future that everything looks like something from a 1920s movie about the “Future”—think “Metropolis” (1927). The whole movie is like that, giving the viewer little strange details about what’s going on without actually telling you. You start thinking, “It could be this…,” “Maybe it’s that….” “Well, this is kind of fun.” Like a “who-dun-it” movie.As things progress, you start to realize that this film incorporates an awful lot of what’s theorized in modern physics, so someone onboard is obviously steeped if not totally stewed in Quantum Mechanics and Relativity. (After reading a synopsis on Wikipedia, I realized that the famous physicist Kip Thorne was involved. We’re not talking kindergarten physics here—though I’ve no doubt today’s kindergarteners know way more about physics than I do). I was interested to see where they went with it.About ¾ of the way through it, though, I was a little disappointed. I felt like I was being led down a rabbit hole. Then I realized it was intentional. As usual with something that intrigues me, and this movie certainly did, I started thinking about the characters. What motivated them. And not just the characters as people, but the actors who were chosen to portray them. What was the meaning there? What was I supposed to have learned that I might have missed? In thinking about it a whole lot I realized, who but Michael Caine could produce such a convincing and compassionate character like “the mad scientist” Brand. The man’s a genius. I mean, who but Michael Caine could star with an entire cast of Muppet puppets and not come out second best?And Ann Hathaway? Really? Seems like everyone hates her for being so versatile and successful as an actress, as a woman. And her character goes on to be the stepmother of humankind. And what about McConaughey, he’s always a mister ordinary nice-guy, brave soul, laid back fellow, your next-door neighbor who always lets you borrow his snow-blower every winter, even though you never even replace the gas. And Matt Damon, he’s a born “hero” if ever there was one, or at least he plays the role well.And that’s when I got it. They’re all intentional typecasts. They’re all paradigms and foils for one another. Ultimately for all of us. They’re “Us” put in positions that try them/us, sometimes to the limits of endurance. I mean, poor Mann—what a name for a character who fails to be what everyone including himself expects him to be. The whole thing is about what strengths we bring with us to a tense situation that others can’t or don’t. About them/us facing the actual facts about who or what we are and especially are not. About facing unpleasant facts and dealing with them—or not. About sacrificing self or resisting it, about making excuses for ignoble behavior because we know we haven’t lived up to the image we had of ourselves but pretend "it’s all for a good cause,” “I really hate myself, but I have to do this,” and “I’m “really sorry, but….” Would you have been entirely sane if you endured what Mann had?And the robots. What about the robots? They were programed to be human but acknowledged that they were machines. That’s pretty self-aware, actually far more self-aware than the people. And it took a movie miracle plot twist, a deus ex machina intervention, to pull us out of the spot we got ourselves into. Is that a suggestion that the authors feel we are in for it, sort of “hang on, we’re in for a bumpy ride?” I think so.Someone once asked me if I thought humans could pull the earth away from a major climate catastrophe. I’m a skeptic, but not a denier. I said, “You can hardly get two people to cooperate on something. How are you going to get 8 billion of them on the same page? It’s just that the price of not trying at all is unthinkable.”