Interstellar

[David]

kind of a thread on this from over a year ago, but it was really a thread about how crazy Nolan was for looking to hire matthew mcconaughey for his new interstellar movie and how terrible he was. kind of funny reading the thread now.

 

 

anyways, an oscar award later and now finally an official trailer that is not a teaser, and i'm all freakin' in for this movie. i'm going to be an absolute wreck when i watch this movie in theaters.

 

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/new-trailer-debuts-christopher-nolans-722320

[ShadowDog]

I don't care how many awards Matthew McConaughey wins, he is still fresh pressed ham.

 

Having said that this movie looks dope.

[Ryn]

With this and the new Cosmos, I'm hoping people start embracing this kind of ideal.

[RelentlessMalice]

 

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT

[Mara Jade Skywalker]

I looks like something I could really like...IF Matthew McConaughey et. al are actually astronauts/scientists/people with a good reason to go into space, and not "random Joes and Janes who volunteer" or "Bruce Willis et. al. in Armageddon."

[The Human Torch]

What was wrong with Willis in Armageddon? It was a last ditch, only option plan. Also no present astronaut was trained on the mission specific equipment. That's how Specialists get up there.

[Mara Jade Skywalker]

What was wrong with Willis in Armageddon? It was a last ditch, only option plan. Also no present astronaut was trained on the mission specific equipment. That's how Specialists get up there.

It was fine for Armageddon, because it was a completely different type of film. Interstellar seems a little more...intellectual, I guess is a good way to put it. More serious. Unless in this universe, normal people go into space all the time, it'd be hard for me to buy normal people heading off into interstellar space to find new planets to live on.

 

Or maybe I'm just tried of that trope and actually want to see astronauts going into space to save the world.

[D-Ray Kenobi]

So in this movie, literally, everyone else gets older while Matthew McConaughey stays the same age?

Wooderson had it backwards.

[Ryn]

In the first trailer, he reveals he's a pilot and an engineer.

 

Presumably, from what's shown so far, is that he isn't a stranger to space programs.

[Mara Jade Skywalker]

In the first trailer, he reveals he's a pilot and an engineer.

 

Presumably, from what's shown so far, is that he isn't a stranger to space programs.

Cool, I must not have seen that trailer. Going to look it up now.

[Pong Messiah]

In the first trailer, he reveals he's a pilot and an engineer.

Come on, Ryn. Like that proves anything. Where did he get his engineering degree from?

[Ryn]

DeVry?

 

ITT Tech?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-D11-iynEY

[pavonis]

Saw the trailer. Not interested. Somehow the idea that we'll "run out of food", but have the supplies to put together a mission to interstellar space stretched my suspension-of-disbelief past its breaking point, and that was just the trailer. I'd be pleased if the film were a serious attempt at a hard science fiction tale of space exploration, but I am not optimistic.

[Driver]

I read an early draft of the script, humanity is scattered, governments are local. People have to scrounge for tech, and the space mission is built by a group that has scavenged together parts from an ICBM, it's very First Contact.

[David]

negative nancy's need not apply. g'way. go away, you.

[The Human Torch]

I read an early draft of the script, humanity is scattered, governments are local. People have to scrounge for tech, and the space mission is built by a group that has scavenged together parts from an ICBM, it's very First Contact.

Sounds like a prequel to Firefly.

[RamonAtila]

I doubt this'll be 'high science fiction'. I imagine a lot of relationship drama, barely any more space shots than we saw in the trailer. My guess is they'll expect us to be more psychologically thrilled than visually entertained.

[Driver]

There's not really a live story at all. It's more about the lead leaving his kids behind on Earth.

And most of it takes place on an alien planet.

[Ryn]

I thought it was "planets." I know I've read it - thinking Entertainment Weekly.

[D-Ray Kenobi]

I got to see this in an advanced IMAX screening last night. I'm copying and pasting my review from elsewhere below, please be aware that there are spoilers in the last section.

 

I’ll get this out of the way to begin with. Interstellar is the most ambitious and powerful movie I’ve seen in a long, long time. This is very much an “event” movie that people are going to be talking about for years. It’s got some minor issues that keep it from being an absolute masterpiece, but this is still a must see.

 

I’m going to split this into two parts: First, with a general overview of the movie itself that skips on specifics and remains free of spoilers. But also with a spoilery section underneath where I talk about some things that can’t be discussed without giving away specifics.

 

Be warned that, perhaps in the company of Star Wars next year, if ever there was a movie that deserved being seen completely fresh without spoilers, it’s this. So read at your own risk.

 

Spoiler Free Review

 

First off, it it weren’t for his name being used ubiquity in the marketing, it might be hard to instantly know that this is a Chris Nolan joint. It makes far more use of wide and still shots than he ever has in the past. This is a far cry from the shaky-cam cinematography widely critiqued in “Batman Begins.” It’s also nothing at all like the kind of rawness that he used in “Memento.” This is a movie from a guy who has become a master at his art form and knows the appropriate techniques for the perfect times and perfect shots. It’s also a movie that has a heart that hasn’t been at all seen from this director in the past.

 

Admittedly, that “heart” is a little cheesy at times. The portions of the movie that aren’t tied to mind-bending concepts or effects are brought down to earth (no pun intended) by a healthy serving of emotional overreaching. Most of the character building story beats are well earned, but there are a few that feel forced and squeezed out of a Hallmark card. But these are very few and far between, and don’t distract in any way from the overall plot and world building of the movie as a whole. Or, in this case, universe building.

 

Those Hallmark moments extend a bit into the scenes set in space, but thankfully very sparingly. Those galactic portions of the story are where Interstellar becomes something else entirely than what has been advertised, and in an amazing way. Not only are the visuals and their use just as amazing as has been widely discussed, but the nearly mind-breaking way that they’re employed and communicated are just as astounding. Showy visuals aren’t just there for amazement or to throw money onto the screen, they’re also there to make you think. The concepts that the special effects represent are like watching an even more amazing version of the Neil deGrasse Tyson version of “Cosmos,” but in this case, they’re suggesting peer-reviewed theory instead of explaining fact. No movie has ever done this before, and watching it unfold in front of you is a revelation.

 

As far as human performance, which at its core this movie is about, it should be no surprise that the world’s favorite Texan positively drives this movie and makes it his. Matthew McConaughey is arguably the most charismatic human being alive right now, and that’s on full display. He’s funny, likable, and convincing. He takes concepts and ideas that other actors would struggle with in communicating and takes it down to Earth (or new worlds) in a way that we can understand and root for. The other actors involved do their jobs well, but are largely forgettable in comparison to Matthew. There is one very masterfully creepy and largely unadvertised performance that comes along as a big surprise in one of the last acts of the movie, but that’s best saved as a surprise.

 

The thing that keeps Interstellar from being an instant masterpiece is that it relies a little heavily on two areas of cliche. One being emotional, the other being sci-fi. It has a habit in those two areas of relying on things that feel as if they need no further explanation. Normally that’s fine, but in a movie that plays things realistically and masterfully portrays scientifically theory, it’s almost inexcusable. However, it thankfully doesn’t distract too much.

 

There’s really no point in trying to assign any type of grade or metric to Interstellar, because there’s nothing else to compare it to. Perhaps 2012’s “Gravity,” but this is the same archetype of a movie on an entirely larger scale. If you were to mix that, “Contact,” and “Cosmos,” you’d have something that resembles Interstellar, but there’s still no understanding it until you’ve seen it. There’s no better review I can give this movie other than the recommendation to see it as soon as possible on the largest screen possible.

 

Spoiler-Included Review

 

Seriously, don’t read past this line unless you’ve already seen the movie or really don’t mind being spoiled. I strongly urge you to see this completely fresh if at all possible.

 

 

If you’d seen it, you know the surprise creepy performance I was talking about was Matt Damon. He was so good at this role that I didn’t even recognize him until about five or ten minutes after he came out of his cryo-popsicle. He reminded me a lot of Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road,” in that he was such a creepy and impactful force that only needed a small portion of screen time to make a huge impact. It’s probably unfair to call him the villain of this movie when it’s largely a story of man vs. nature instead of man vs. man, but he still drives the plot forward so well in such a passive antagonistic role.

 

The two cliches that I talked about were these: The idea that “love” spans space and time, and that “we” supplied the MacGuffin’s from the future necessary to move the plot forward. The whole love idea is cheesy enough, but it’s presented adequately enough here for me to temporarily buy it. But the idea that Matthew’s character spoke to himself and his daughter from the future, or that evolved humans in the far future supplied the means necessary to do it, is kind of a cheap way to bring the plot full circle to resolution. For a movie that seems to pride itself on showing and not telling, this was kind of a letdown.

 

Still, those are just minor problems with a movie that overall is still breathtaking. The shots of the spaceship moving into and through the wormhole are some that are going to stick with me forever. I can’t think of anything else that visually explained bending space-time so well.

 

I did also see this on 70MM IMAX, which was obviously amazing, but I feel like I need to see it traditionally to really get the impact of scenes like that. Being surrounded let me get the full roller-coaster experience, but I’d still like to get the smaller experience if only not to be overwhelmed.

 

 

But again, it cannot be understated, this movie is a must see.

[Driver]

I read the script in an early stage, when it was still to be a Speilberg movie, so I'm very interested to see how that effected the ending. Just from the previews I can see there's been quite a few changes. But even that early version had a bit of trouble with its ending-- it's almost as if it got too big, both in terms of the scope as well as the concepts, and the ending was crushed by that weight.

[D-Ray Kenobi]

The actual final scene wasn't too bad.

The ending was Cooper being encouraged by his now-elderly daughter go ahead and find Amelia on the planet that she'd begun colonizing. For all she knew, she was the last human alive and that she'd need to start repopulating out of the genetic material she'd brought along with her.

But the "emotional" ending in the last few acts was kind of a stretch.

Cooper found himself in a construct made by the evolved humans of the future that allowed him to have very, very light communication with his self and his daughter at different points in time. His daughter thought a "ghost" was trying to communicate with them while she was young, and it turns out it was him all along. This relied waaay too much on leaps of logic and cliche, and I was slightly disappointed in it. It wasn't outrightly bad, but it didn't feel nearly as well constructed as the rest of the movie.

Also, I would have personally preferred to have seen this as a Spielberg movie. It kind of felt like Nolan was inexperienced and ineffective with the emotional stuff that Spielberg is best at. Especially the whole father and kids arc. But then again, Nolan absolutely hit the theoretical and space based stuff out of the park. It's a shame they couldn't co-direct like Peter Jackson an Spielberg essentially did with Tin Tin.

[Driver]

Interesting, that ending actually sounds more Speilbergian-- very shades of AI. Speilberg is the one that ruins the ends of all his movies to make sure everyone's family is intact and happy. The original ending was similar, but didn't have that extra bit of forced-family-happy.

[D-Ray Kenobi]

Seth, I thought more about this now that I've had some time for the movie to settle and I have a big gripe. Now that you're a bigshot Hollywood writer, I want your opinion. You might want to wait until you've seen the movie until you answer this though.

The whole "they" thing really bothered me because it only heavily implied an answer instead of outrightly explaining one. I think that's a crutch just as tired and bothersome as the "criminal who wanted to be caught" trope. A lot of Hollywood writers seem to think that leaving an answer to the imagination is a brilliant way of closing a story arc, but instead it's outrightly just lazy writing if you ask me.

In the case of the Nolan brothers, I can see them saying that further exposition or explanation wasn't needed because they'd already solved both the sci-fi and emotional arc of the story. But in that case I'd disagree because it pulled a bait and switch on who 'they' were. The whole movie, the advanced technology and scientific understanding leads us to believe that it's kind aliens looking out for us or some other type of advanced intellect. But instead all of the interactions from 'they' coincidentally turns out to be Cooper the entire time. But wait, 'they' weren't completely Cooper, because 'they' supplied him with the fifth-dimension construct in order for him to time travel to behind the bookshelf.

 

The Nolans can't have it both ways. Making it a hodgepodge combination of both their main character and an unseen MacGuffinesque force is a cheat and robs the movie of a full resolution.

 

[Driver]

I'll get back to you when I see it...