Retrospective Review: Interstellar

Retrospective Review: Interstellar

“Mankind was born on Earth, it was never meant to die here.” – Cooper

We can always trust Christopher Nolan and his brother, Jonathan Nolan, to make a unique movie that encourages us to think. In this regard, Interstellar delivers by presenting incredible ideas that challenge our imagination and intelligence. On the other hand, it is not as strong as their previous movies such as the Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception. Interstellar is a very complicated movie. While I thought Inception was very logical and relatively easy to follow, I found myself confused by parts of Interstellar on my first viewing of the film. I was able to answer a lot of my own questions after thinking about the film. Nevertheless, it does not seamlessly flow the way I expect from a Christopher Nolan movie. Despite these issues, the amazing concepts and the ideas in Interstellar outweigh any negatives of the movie. Nolan forces us to ask the question of what we would do in the situation that the Earth no longer supports life. He suggests we will need to look to the stars for the solution. Accordingly, he takes us on a journey to new worlds, worm holes, black holes, and the relativity of time. Equally as important, he provides an intriguing human story. Since the stakes are high with the human race at the edge of extinction, individuals are much more willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Regardless, emotional attachments (e.g. family ties) and basic survival instincts cannot be erased or ignored. Nolan delivers a compelling human side of his story as his characters struggle with balancing their humanity with the greater good. Matthew McConaughey is a very good actor and does a fine job as the lead character, Cooper. Anne Hathaway is one of the best actresses in Hollywood and does a good job as a co-star, Dr. Amelia Brand. They lead an excellent cast. Interstellar is not a movie for everyone. It is not the action movies that the Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception are. Interstellar is much more philosophical. If you allow this movie to make you think, it will stretch your imagination. The scenes of interstellar travel in space are breathtaking, especially when I saw it in IMAX. They are also great in Blu Ray.

At some point, the world may be uninhabitable. Of course, I do not anticipate it being a real issue in my lifetime or any foreseeable lifetimes. Nevertheless, the human race may need to leave the Earth in order to continue its existence in the very distant future. There are many reasons we may have to abandon the planet. The most plausible is best explained by Agent Smith in The Matrix: “I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.” Unlike the dinosaurs who roamed the Earth for hundreds of millions of years or any other organism, we consume the natural resources of the planet. While it will not be in the near future, natural resources are finite and will run out eventually. Unless we find alternative ways to live or find ways to create natural resources, we will not be able to stay on Earth. There could also be changes in the atmosphere or composition of the planet that makes it uninhabitable. Even the Sun will eventually explode and destroy the Earth. If human beings are still around 7 billion years from now, they will need to leave the galaxy.

A failing planet is a key premise in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Before the start of the movie, a cataclysmic crop blight has spread and made it very difficult to grow crops. As such, the world was starving to death and continues to struggle with the issue of food. Of course, nourishment is a necessity of every human being. As one could imagine, there were wars waged for food and a significant percentage of the people in the world died because of starvation or war. Eventually, the remaining people in the world understood that it was wasting its efforts fighting when they needed to dedicate all available resources and manpower to growing food instead. In the film, an example of this change in mindset is demonstrated in the changing of history books to state that the United States moon landings were faked in order to lure the Soviet Union into spending on a space program that helped contribute to its bankruptcy and collapse. In this world, the United States space program is a symbol of the old world that was excessive and wasteful. As such, the government changed history in order to discourage critical thinking and imagination to keep the population dedicated to the simple, yet important task of farming which is crucial to immediate survival. However, crops continue to fail and die out until corn is the only produce that can still be grown. The full extent of the issue is explained in the middle of the film: “Earth’s atmosphere is eighty percent nitrogen. We don’t even breathe nitrogen. Blight does, and as it thrives, our air gets less and less oxygen. The last people to starve, will be the first to suffocate.” There are also sand storms in the film that cause people to suffocate. It is a symptom of a dying planet where the human race can no longer survive.

Of course, the only way to prevent the extinction of the human race in this situation is to travel into space and find another planet similar to Earth that can sustain life. Accordingly, it provides the basis for Nolan taking us into his perceptions of space and time. The scenes of interstellar travel in space and new worlds are visually spectacular. More importantly, the film showcases the Nolan brothers’ well educated thoughts of anomalies in space such as worm holes and black holes. I definitely appreciate their efforts to make the movie as scientifically accurate as possible. Of course, everything about worm holes and black holes are theoretical. Scientists have no observations of real worm holes. While they know about the existence of black holes, they have no information about what is in them since nothing can come out of them (not even light). Nonetheless, it does not stop the Nolans from providing us their unique perspective about them in a brilliantly thought provoking story. They also provide an interesting perspective on the relativity of time. Although time moves in a constant rate on this planet and in this galaxy, the Nolans presented an interesting idea that time may move differently in another galaxy for a variety of reasons. For example, an hour in another galaxy may be 7 years in this galaxy. It is similar to how the Nolans suggested that time moves a lot faster in our minds in Inception.

Although the Nolans hired theoretical physicist Kip Thorne to consult on the film, scientists probably criticize and scoff at the realism of parts of it. However, the point of these radical ideas is not to be correct. Obviously, a movie prioritizes sensationalism over fact in order to have a good story. Regardless, I like that it challenges our imagination and forces us to think about things we do not usually contemplate. There is no doubt that the space race encouraged and inspired human beings to achieve things that we thought were impossible at that time. Art and film can do the same. I bet there were a lot of young, impressionable minds that were inspired by works of fiction, like Star Trek and Star Wars, to become engineers and try to move humanity along so that we can build real starships in the future. A moment from the movie Thor that is very good at describing this point for me is when Jane Foster makes the case that science fiction is “a precursor to science fact”. Even though Interstellar most likely does not have the correct explanations for worm holes and black holes, it definitely sparks our imagination and inspires our curiosity to search for those answers.

The cast of Interstellar is very good and delivers quality performances that incorporate the important human element in the film. Matthew McConaughey plays the main protagonist, Cooper. He is a very compelling character. Before the world changed, he was an engineer and space shuttle pilot for NASA. Unfortunately, he was born at the wrong time. The world no longer needs engineers and pilots. It needs farmers in order to desperately meet one of the most basic needs of the people: food. While he understands the situation and farms well, he naturally does not enjoy it and yearns to do more with his intelligence and life: “Well, we used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.” In his personal life, he is a widower who raises his two children with the help of his father, their grandfather Donald Cooper (John Lithgow). His son, Tom (Timothée Chalamet), is a very responsible person who enjoys farming. His daughter, Murphy (Mackenzie Foy), is more like Cooper. She is extremely intelligent and shares her father’s curiosity and passion for knowledge and science. Cooper and Murphy (Murph) are also rebellious by nature so they share disdain for society’s current view to suppress critical thinking and progress for the sake of immediate survival. Due to the similarities in personality, Cooper and Murph are very close. They have a sweet father-daughter relationship. It is developed and utilized very well in the film.

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Cooper explaining his version of Murphy’s Law

A moment that best illustrates their relationship is when Murph is upset at her brother, Tom, who teases her about her name since it is a reference to Murphy’s Law (the adage that “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”). Like the loving father Cooper is, he calmly and soothingly explains to Murph that there is a misconception of the law. From the perspective of Cooper and her mother, they believed that Murphy’s Law means that “Anything that can happen will happen”. Consequently, they believed that she is capable of anything and will accomplish great things. It represents hope rather than a negative connotation. As we know, the survival instincts of each individual are very strong. It extends to one’s offspring as children represent a way for a person to live on and survive past his own lifespan. For these reasons, our family members are our strongest relationships in life. Nevertheless, we are still invested in the well-being of the human race and society. It is a very fascinating aspect of the film watching a good man, like Cooper, try to balance his survival instincts and love for his children with making decisions that provide the best chance to preserve the survival of the human race. The grandfather, Donald, is also a very important supporting character. He links the past (the world as we know it) and the apocalyptic world. He understands the need for Cooper to adapt to the world as it is. He also recognizes that Cooper is meant for more. When an opportunity for Cooper to do something exceptional presents itself, Donald is a key character that counsels Cooper in reconciling the sentiment that he feels for his family and the need to do what is necessary for the greater good.

Of course, Cooper’s background as an engineer and pilot is a key reason he becomes an important person in an interstellar mission to save the human race. Fate appears to intervene in a form of a ghost haunting Murph in her room. Naturally, Cooper reassures her that there are no such things as ghosts. However, he challenges her to prove otherwise if she believes it: “Alright, Murph, you wanna talk science? Don’t just tell me that you’re afraid of some ghost. Alright? You gotta go further. You have to record the facts, analyze, get to the how and the why and present your conclusions. Deal?” The scene shows how father and daughter have a strong bond through their love of science. During a dust storm, the window is left open to the room. A message in binary code, a form of communication using 0s and 1s, is left in the dust on the floor. Murphy realizes that it is a message while Cooper deduces that someone is trying to communicate with them using gravity. Gravity is another main theme in the film and the Nolans do well in presenting their scientific thoughts about it. Cooper also deciphers the message as coordinates. He drives to them with Murph who sneaks into his truck. They end up at a secret facility. At first, they are detained and interrogated. Obviously, they are petrified and just want to leave until they are informed they are at NASA. Soon after, Cooper sees his former boss, Professor Brand (Michael Caine), who is masterminding the plan to travel into space. As we know, Caine has worked in other Nolan films (e.g. Alfred in the Dark Knight Trilogy and Miles in Inception). He always commands presence on screen and shows a lot of grace. Similar to those movies, he is a voice of reason in Interstellar and does an excellent job explaining the themes and concepts in the film.

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Professor Brand and Cooper discuss the situation.

Brand takes Cooper on a personal tour of the facility and fully explains the situation. One of the first things Brand reveals is that the secrecy of NASA is “Because public opinion wouldn’t allow spending on space exploration. Not when you’re struggling to put food on the table. Blight. Wheat, seven years ago. Okra, this year. Now, there’s just corn.” As referenced earlier, he also notes that the blight will increase nitrogen levels while lowering oxygen levels. For this reason, “your daughter’s generation will be the last to survive on Earth.” It is a dire prognosis for the Earth and the human race faces extinction. As a result, he asks Cooper to lead and pilot the last ditch effort to save humanity. Cooper is the most qualified person on the planet for the mission. While it may seem like fate has brought them together, Brand suggests that a “they” has acted like a guardian angel and brought them together. The “they” is explained at the end of the movie. Similar to how gravity was used to steer Cooper to NASA, gravitational anomalies alerted NASA to a wormhole that opened by Saturn forty-eight years before the start of the film. The wormhole leads into another galaxy that has twelve planets. Probes were sent into it. Then, people followed ten years ago. NASA named it the “Lazarus missions”. It was led by the “remarkable Dr. Mann”. As Brand outlines, “Their mission was to assess their world and if it showed potential, then they could send out a signal and bed down for the long nap, wait to be rescued.” For those who arrived at planets without promise, they gave their life “hence the bravery”. Through the sacrifices of those individuals, the field of potential planets has been narrowed down to three.

For Cooper, it is a dream to travel into space. In addition, he can find no greater calling than trying to save the entire human race. Nevertheless, Cooper has young children. Understandably, he is hesitant to go on a mission that is very dangerous and will take years to complete. However, Brand wisely appeals to Cooper’s fatherly instincts to protect and save his children by explaining “Plan A”. The NASA facility is actually a space station. The gravitational anomalies showed that “harnessing gravity was real. So I started working on a theory and we started building this station.” The station would take the survivors on Earth to Saturn where they will eventually travel through the wormhole if Cooper can successfully find an inhabitable planet. Of course, the space station has a significant obstacle. Although they now know that harnessing gravity is possible, Brand has not figured out how to do it yet. In the case of his failure which means the end of human life on Earth, there is Plan B which is a colony on a new planet to restart the human race. For this reason, the space shuttle for the mission will include “Over five thousand fertilized eggs weighing in at just under nine hundred kilos.” Even if Plan B is more feasible and likely, Plan A is more important because it represents hope. Despite the survival of the human race at stake, Cooper would not accept the mission unless he had hope that he could save his children.

Regardless, leaving his children for a long time is impossibly difficult emotionally. The scene in Murph’s room when he tries to comfort her is an important part of the human element of the story. Naturally, she loves her father and is heartbroken that he is leaving. She even tries to tell him there was an additional message left for them by “they”: “Stay”. In their conversation, he also brings up an interesting theory about relativity. As a farewell gift, he gives her a watch and he has an identical copy: “One for you. One for me. When I’m up there in hypersleep, or…or traveling in the speed of light, or near a black hole, time is gonna change for me. And it’s gonna run more slowly. Now, when we get back, we’re gonna compare.” To illustrate his point, he adds “Maybe by the time I get back, you and I, we might be the same age. You and me. What? Imagine that!” I absolutely love the idea. I understand that the experience of time is relative to how you perceive it. For example, the first twenty years of my life appeared to move very slowly. When you are a child growing up, time appears to move very slowly because you have all the time in the world to do anything you want. On the other hand, the last ten years has felt like twenty seconds. When you get more and more responsibilities (e.g. work), you have tasks that occupy your entire day and time feels like it is moving infinitely faster. Nevertheless, it has never occurred to me that time could physically move differently in another galaxy. It is an idea that blows my mind. Importantly for the film, it plays into the human element. An interesting aspect of the story is concurrent timelines that run with Cooper in space and his loved ones on Earth. Since time will move faster on Earth, Casey Affleck and Jessica Chastain play the adults versions of his children, Tom and Murph respectively. Chastain is one of the stars in the film. She delivers a compelling performance of a strong, independent woman that plays a key role in the events on Earth while dealing with the pain she retains as a young girl who misses her father. While Cooper is definitely dedicated to the success of the mission to save the planet, it is only fair to question the soundness of each of his decisions because they affect how long it will take for him to return to his children.

Of course, the human element of the film also holds true for the other astronauts on the mission who are Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway), Romilly (David Gyasi), and Doyle (Wes Bentley). They are a good supporting cast. In my opinion, Hathaway is one of the best actresses in show business and delivers a solid performance as Amelia, who is the daughter of Professor Brand. I immediately recognized Bentley as Seneca Crane, the gamemaker in the first Hunger Games film. Doyle is a very different role but he does a good job with the character. Among the group, he is the one who always thinks about the bigger picture of trying to save the human race and tables any sentiment for anyone on Earth. The team is also aided by a couple of robots, TARS and CASE. While the rest of the crew just see the robots as instruments for the mission, Cooper builds a relationship with TARS. Their interactions provide moments of comical relief in an otherwise very serious movie. TARS features humor and honesty settings. It is funny to watch it trying to balance these human tones that are simple for a person to understand but obviously complicated for a machine. The crew, with the aid of the robots, venture into space in the ship Endurance. Overall, the most intriguing part of these characters is how they weigh saving themselves and their families against doing whatever it takes to preserve the survival of the species. Cooper’s dilemma is obvious. He has young children that will grow up without him as he travels into space. It is exasperated by the fact that time moves faster on Earth than in the other galaxy. As such, his children could be his age or older by the time he returns home. Although Amelia, Romilly, and Doyle are trained and advised to not have any emotional attachments, it is impossible to ignore human feelings. Even if someone believes they can suppress sentimentality, they will realize that their friends and family means more them than they ever knew. In addition, they will yearn for human interaction if deprived of it. In the end, the most basic feeling of self-preservation will also be a major factor. All of these traits associated with being human are an obstacle in trying to make the appropriate decision for the greater good.

Saturn

The Endurance approaches Saturn.

The visual and special effects of the interstellar travel are stunning. Saturn, the wormhole, the black hole Gargantua, and the unique planets are spectacular to see on screen. As the team travels through the wormhole, it also appears that Amelia is given a handshake by “they”. The effects are great in supporting the story. It does not supplant the human story. It plays out immediately at the first planet they reach. The world is in close proximity to Gargantua. Accordingly, the gravitational pull dramatically slows down time in comparison to Earth. Romily calculates that “every hour we spend on that planet will be…seven years back on Earth.” When the crew devises a plan for landing on the planet to collect Miller and the data she has gathered, Cooper is not at all subtle that he prioritizes time and Plan A: “I’m thinking about my family and millions of other families. Okay, Plan A does not work if the people on Earth are dead by the time we pull it off.” For this reason, Cooper communicates his reservations about landing on the planet at all. Doyle rightfully challenges Cooper’s motives and asks him to “think bigger” to ensure the survival of the species. Obviously, they cannot afford a member of the crew to be reckless just to save time in a high stakes, dangerous mission where a crucial mistake could mean the extinction of the human race. Nevertheless, Amelia agrees with Cooper in that “We need to think about time as a resource just like oxygen and food” and mediates a compromise that balances time and performing their mission properly. Again, sentiment and attachment to loved ones is impossible to turn off. For this reason, Cooper will fight for Plan A as long as it is possible. While the team should obviously not be quick to abandon Plan A, there is a point when it is no longer realistic and they should move on to Plan B. However, will their personal feelings prevent them from realizing when that time is? Cooper’s emotions clearly cloud his judgment in this scenario. Trying to balance self-preservation, which extends to one’s family, with the survival of the human race is the most dramatic element of the film.

The landing on Miller’s planet is a disaster and realization of some of Cooper’s worst fears. The surface of the world is completely water. Unfortunately, Miller was killed immediately by a tidal wave when she arrived on her planet. Due to the “time slippage” on the planet, the signal the team received was Miller’s “initial status echoing endlessly”. In other words, it is a false positive that lures the crew on to the planet. Shortly after landing, a giant tidal wave the size of a mountain rolls towards the group. Doyle is killed saving Amelia. In addition, the engines are flooded so it takes time for the water to drain then restart. The extra time spent on the planet costs them twenty three years on Earth. In his desperation at the thought of the lost time, he hopes against hope and asks the team whether they can somehow gain the time back (e.g. jumping into a black hole). Unfortunately, Amelia explains that “Time is relative, okay? It can stretch and it can squeeze, but, it can’t run backwards! Just can’t. The only thing that can move across dimensions, like time, is gravity.” Although the fear of relativity is real, it is only a theory until they actually experience it. While they are stranded, transmissions are still being received from Earth and contain videos sent by their loved ones. When Cooper is back on the ship, he plays the messages. Naturally, he is overcome with emotion and cries at all the moments he missed. There are many messages from his son, Tom, talking about the girl he met [Lois] and eventually marries, the death of Cooper’s father Donald, the birth and death of his first son Jesse, and the birth of his second son who he named “Coop” after his father. Eventually, Lois tells Tom to let Cooper go because he is not coming back. In his final message, Tom concedes “And, uh…so, I guess…I’ll let you go. I don’t know where you are, Dad. But I hope that you’re at peace. And…goodbye.” The most heartbreaking moment is a message he receives from an adult Murph. She refused to say goodbye to him when he initially left and could not bring herself to send him a message over the years. When she finally relents and transmits, she tells her father “You son of a bitch. I never made one of these when you were still responding because I was so mad at you for leaving. And then when you went quiet, I feel like I should’ve lived with that decision, and I have. But today is my birthday. And it’s a special one, because you told me…you once told me that when you come back we might be the same age. And today I’m the age you were when you left… So it would be a real good time for you to come back.” Both Cooper and Murph are overcome with emotion and cry at the end of her message. This scene highlights the personal sacrifice Cooper and the rest of the crew is making. More importantly, it also turns the fear of the theory of relativity into real pain.

Although Cooper’s decision making is clearly affected by his constant thoughts about his family, the other members of the crew are not immune to emotion either. After the setback on Miller’s planet, they still have two potential planets to visit and only have enough fuel to choose one and return home: “Edmunds data is better, but Dr. Mann is the one still transmitting.” Amelia pushes extremely hard for the team to choose Edmunds’s world. However, Cooper tries to stay objective and reveals that she is romantically involved with Edmunds. Accordingly, she is choosing Edmunds despite Mann being the “best of us”. Nevertheless, she pleads “Yes. And that [love] makes me want to follow my heart. But maybe we’ve spent too long trying to figure all this out with theory… So listen to me, when I say that love isn’t something we invented, it’s observable, powerful. It has to mean something.” As Cooper continues to play Devil’s advocate, she notes “But maybe it means something more, something we can’t yet understand. Maybe it’s some evidence, some artifact of a higher dimension that we can’t consciously perceive. I’m drawn across the universe to someone I haven’t seen in a decade. Who, I know, is probably dead. Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can’t understand it yet.” Up to this point, Cooper is the only one whose decisions has clearly been clouded by sentiment. As a result, it is a very significant moment when Amelia tries to make an argument based on her feelings and love rather than logic and facts. As Professor Brand’s daughter and one of the top scientists in NASA, she should be totally committed to the mission and ignore emotional attachment because she was trained to do so. Nevertheless, she is still human and it is impossible to turn off being human. In the end, Cooper and Romilly override her judgment and decide to go to Mann’s planet. Although she can understand Cooper’s objectivity, she is obviously still upset and warns “Well, if you’re wrong, you have a very personal decision to make. Your fuel calculations are based on a return journey. Strike out Mann’s planet and we’ll have to decide whether to return home, or push onto Edmonds with Plan B. Starting a colony could save us from extinction. You might have to decide between seeing your children again or the future of the human race. I trust you’ll be as objective then.” This scene is great at demonstrating the difficulty of balancing personal feelings and doing what is best for the human race. It is also fair to weigh the decision making ability of someone emotionally compromised versus an objective opinion. In terms of the development of the plot in the movie, Amelia’s words are foreshadowing and raises the stakes of the decisions for the rest of the film.

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Adult Murph tries to figure out the gravity problem.

On Earth, an adult Murph works directly with Professor Brand on his solution for gravity for the space stations to save the people of Earth. Their relationship is natural. Similar to her bond with her father, Brand and she share a love for science. They are also filling a void in each other’s lives. Consequently, they form a father-daughter type relationship which makes sense since Muprh needs a father figure in Cooper’s absence and Brand needs a daughter type mentee in Amelia’s presence. As Brand nears the end of his life, he admits a terrible truth to Murph on “his deathbed: “I lied, Murph. I lied to you. There was no need for him to come back. There’s no way to help us.” Although Brand had Murph working on a solution for the space station for years, he already figured it out… or at least as much as he physically could. The missing piece of the puzzle is within a black hole. Since there is no way to know what is inside a black hole, the solution to the problem is impossible to deduce and he knew it the whole time. Naturally, she feels betrayed and incensed by the revelation. She sends a heartbreaking transmission into space for Amelia and her father: “[Amelia] Brand, did you know? He told you, right? You knew. This was all a sham. You left us here. To suffocate. To starve. Did my father know too?” Sadly, she endures an unimaginable pain from the thought that her father abandoned her: “Dad! I just want to know if you left me here to die? I just have to know!” Upon receiving the message and having no way to respond, Amelia and Cooper are shocked by the truth. In particular, Cooper is left feeling totally helpless that his daughter will die believing her father allowed her to die. It is an unthinkable horror for a parent.

While Cooper and Amelia had no clue that Plan A is a complete farce, Dr. Mann knew and explains when they awaken him. Mann is played by Matt Damon. When I watched the film the first time, I had no idea Damon is in it. I was pleasantly surprised because he is an excellent actor. Except for Elysium, I have always enjoyed his performances. I really like his role in this movie as the person who clarifies and demonstrates a lot of the human themes of the film. When Amelia asks why her father would waste the time and efforts of NASA to build space stations, Mann responds “Because he knew how hard it would be to get people to work together to save the species instead of themselves. Or their children.” As an example, he points to Cooper’s specific case and says “You never would have come here unless you believed you were gonna save them. Evolution has yet to transcend that simple barrier. We…we can care deeply, selflessly about those we know. But that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight.” Although it is “monstrous lie” and “unforgiveable”, Professor Brand concluded it was necessary. I personally agree with the psychology of the lie. Even though there is no greater cause than the survival of the human race, one’s self and family will always come first. It is impossible to turn off that instinct. As the saying goes, blood is thicker than water. An earlier line that TARS has in a conversation with Cooper also helps explain the idea: “Absolute honesty isn’t always the most diplomatic, nor the safest form of communication with emotional beings.” Without hope for self-preservation, I truly believe Brand’s assumption that his people would lose the will to fight for the survival of the species. Even if they continued, they would not push themselves as hard as they would if they thought they were saving themselves and their families. I am reminded of the scene from the Dark Knight Rises when Bruce Wayne is stuck on the bottom of the cave that he can only escape by making an impossible climb. He finally makes it after receiving the following advice, “How can you move faster than possible? Fight longer than possible? Without the most powerful impulse of the spirit. The fear of death [which will push him to greater heights to survive].” With this twist in the story, Interstellar makes a fascinating yet accurate commentary about human nature.

The point is further emphasized by Mann in a one on one conversation with Cooper. He notes that “You know why we couldn’t just send machines on these missions, don’t you, Cooper? A machine doesn’t improvise well, because you can’t program the fear of death. Our survival instinct is our single greatest source of inspiration. Take you for example; father, with a survival instinct that extends to your kids. What does research tell us is the last thing you’re gonna see before you die? Your children. Their faces. At the moment of death, your mind is gonna push a little bit harder to survive. For them.” The lines are brilliant in expanding on the concept of self-preservation and how it transfers to one’s own children. From a certain perspective, children are a way for a person to stretch beyond his natural lifespan. It explains the notion that a parent will do anything, including die, for his own child. Even though Mann is the supposed fearless leader who led the Lazarus missions, even he could not escape his own survival instincts. He admits to Cooper that “It’s funny. When I left Earth, I thought I was prepared to die. The truth is, I never really considered the possibility that my planet wasn’t the one.” After the crew heard Murph’s message, they agreed to allow Cooper to return home while they set up a colony on Mann’s planet. However, Mann cannot allow it because he faked the data about his planet so the team would come save him. As a result, he will need the Endurance to travel to Edmund’s planet to start a colony. Mann’s betrayal is a powerful moment in the film. Since he is assumed to be the best of all the astronauts that courageously ventured into space willing to die for the human race, it is a blunt reminder that no one (no matter how exceptional) can fight nature. As Mann executes his plot against the crew, he does it robotically with no emotion because he is only following his innate instinct to live. To him, none of it is personal. Although he can be definitely seen as a coward and maybe a villain, I view the character in a different light. He is not a hero or villain. He is not even an anti-hero, which has become popular these days. He is simply human.

Nevertheless, Mann’s actions have dire consequences. First, he attempts to kill Cooper and comes close. However, Amelia comes to Cooper’s aid to save him and they race their shuttle get back towards the Endurance in an attempt to get there before Mann docks first. Next, Romily triggers a bomb left by Mann that kills him. Since Mann has a head start to the Endruance because Amelia had to save Cooper, he arrives at the ship first. However, he docks improperly and causes an explosion that kills him. It also sends the ship spiraling out of control towards the planet. If it enters the atmosphere, it will crash on the surface and doom the mission. For this reason, Cooper makes a daring attempt to dock with the ship while it is spinning. Although Amelia notes it “It’s not possible”, he responds “No, it’s necessary”. Since Interstellar is not an action flick, this scene is easily the best action sequence in the movie and a unique one. Of course, Cooper pulls it off. Due to the damage to the Endurance, it cannot return to Earth. On the other hand, it has just enough fuel to make it to Edmund’s planet for Plan B if it flies towards Gargantua and utilizes the gravitational pull of the black hole to slingshot towards the planet. Again, the film showcases its ability to present an interesting scientific idea and have it be fun to watch. Since a return to Earth is not an option, Cooper never has to make the decision to choose between Plan B and seeing his family again. In the absence of his emotional attachment to his family, his decision making is very definitive and clear to ensure Plan B continues. While it would have been interesting to watch Cooper grapple with the decision, that struggle is already successfully developed during the film. If he had to make the call, I know it would have been very difficult for him to concede never seeing his family again but he would have been objective and picked the survival of the human race. He only decided to return home earlier because he was under the assumption that Mann’s world was suitable for a colony.

The ending of the film is adequate and ties up all the loose ends of the film. However, it is a little farfetched. In fact, the Nolan brothers disagreed on the direction of it. Jonathan Nolan wanted a more realistic conclusion. Christopher Nolan wanted a happy ending. Christopher won. In Cooper’s initial plan, he noted that they would detach TARS and allow him to drift into the black hole. The ship needs to lose the weight to complete the journey to Edmund’s planet and TARS might be able to find a way to transmit data about the black hole back out so Professor Brand’s equation can be completed and the people of Earth have a chance to survive. Cooper fails to tell Amelia that he plans to detach as well so he can collaborate with TARS in the black hole. His discretion makes sense since Amelia would have definitely tried to convince him otherwise. If she thought that he would pull such a stunt, she would not have the focus needed to complete the mission successfully. Although they had their friction throughout the film, they clearly form a relationship and emotional attachment. Consistent with the agreement they made earlier in the film and the themes of the film, Cooper knows he can only give her “ninety percent” honesty in this situation.

teseract

Cooper exploring the tesseract.

The movie becomes more science fiction than science theory once TARS and Cooper enters the black hole. They realize that they are in the “fifth dimension” of “they”. Moreover, “they” create a three dimensional space in the form of a tesseract. It includes all moments in time. One of the moments is when the Endurance was traveling through the wormhole earlier in the film. Interestingly, it was Cooper who was reaching his hand out to Amelia and appeared to be “they” offering her a handshake. In addition, the tesseract has all the moments in time of Murph’s room. As a result, we realize that Murph’s ghost has been Cooper all along. He was sending messages through time via gravity. He sent the word “S.T.A.Y.” Knowing what he knows about the mission now, he wishes he stayed home with his children. Nevertheless, he comes to his senses and knows he is there to serve a role to save humanity: “Don’t you get it yet, TARS? I brought myself here! We’re here to communicate with the three dimensional world. We are the bridge! I thought they chose me. But they didn’t choose me, they chose her!”  He sends the coordinates to NASA via Morse code. Next, TARS gathers the necessary data inside the black hole to complete Professor Brand’s data. Cooper also sends it Morse code to the hand of the watch he gave Murph before he left. Afterwards, he also notes his understanding that the tesseract is built by “people. A civilization that’s evolved past the four dimensions that we know.” The explanations are a little quirky but I like it. They are thought provoking, creative ideas even though they are not realistic.

Christopher Nolan also gets sentimental with the ending. Cooper believes that he is the “bridge” for “they” to communicate to Murph because of love: “It’s just like Brand said, my connection with Murph, it is quantifiable. It’s the key!” I understand this line is included to create a feel good ending for the human side of the story. Regardless, it is still a little cheesy and contradicts the idea that Amelia’s decision making was compromised by emotion which I thought was an important point the film made earlier. Once the tesseract falls apart, he ends up back in our solar system and is conveniently rescued just in time. He is brought to a space station by Saturn since Murph used the data he sent her to solve the issue of gravity and save the people of Earth. She is seen as the savior of the people of Earth. For this reason, they named space station, Cooper station, after her although a couple of physicians laugh at him when he initially assumed they named it after him. The people of Earth are in the process of traveling to Edmund’s planet to join Amelia. Due to relativity, Murph has also significantly aged and is an old woman on her deathbed. As such, it sets up a beautiful ending to the father daughter relationship. They embrace and Murph tells him that she knew he was her ghost. She says she knew he would return because “my dad promised me.” Since she is dying, she pleads for him to leave because “No parent should have to watch their own child die. I have my kids here for me now. You can go.” She instructs him to go to Amelia. Due to relativity, she would have just arrived on Edmund’s planet and set up the colony. The scene between Murph and Cooper has great lines and great performances. It provides a happy and hopeful ending.

I am a sentimental sap sometimes so I enjoyed the ending. I am also a person that needs to know everything so I appreciate that the film explains everything. Nevertheless, I ponder whether Jonathan Nolan’s ending would have had better artistic value. The Nolans could have made an open ended conclusion similar to the one in Inception. They could have just ended the movie with Cooper going into the black hole and Amelia reaching Edmund’s planet. Like Inception, the individual viewer can decide the ending. If they are the consummate optimist, they would believe Cooper and TARS found a way to transmit a message out of the black hole to the people of Earth with the data. If you are a realist, you can assume Cooper died in the black hole, the people on Earth perished, but human civilization was saved with a space colony. It would have driven me crazy because I want to know what happened for sure, but it would have been a good crazy. An Inception style ending would have worked perfectly for Interstellar too. Regardless, Interstellar is a very thought provoking movie. While it is confusing on the first watch, the ideas about space, time, and human nature are fascinating. The visual journey into space is spectacular. Nolan is able to capture and challenge our imagination again.

“Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right. Because their words had forked no lightning they do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

- Excerpt of the classic poem by Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, as recited by Professor Brand as the team journeys into space

 

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