6 ms·

TikToker finds clue in Interstellar that changes meaning of whole movie

29 points by Bluestein 2y ago

JohnMakin 2y ago
Fan theories are fun but usually extrapolate far too much off of innocuous (and likely accidental) clues. Post production cuts are often out of the control of the director entirely. If this was the intended meaning, it would have been far more explicit - Christopher Nolan isn't Edgar Allen Poe, he's making blockbuster movies meant for a general audience.
- razodactyl 2y ago
  Can't argue that it's not an interesting interpretation though... then again, pareidolia...
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    I mean honestly, to me, it isn't - Dreams foreshadowing future events is an extraordinarily common film and storytelling trope and much likelier is what was intended. Stuff like this: > “Then the dialogue, the words his kids speak, they sound so much like private thoughts that a person would have about a parent who suffered an untimely, accidental death.” This is actually explained by following along with the plot. To them, he was for all intents and purposes dead - he fast traveled many decades into the future where they didn't hear from him.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > Post production cuts are often out of the control of the director entirely. How accurate is this? I could see it for movies where the director doesn't have much sway with the studio... But I can imagine when you look at the likes of Scorsese, Coppola, The Coen Brothers, Spielberg, Wes Anderson and the like, they probably do have the sway with the studio to have "final cut" rights or at least approval.
  - gamblor956 2y ago
    Cuts are done by the editor of the film, usually but not always in consultation with the director. Some directors also edit their films but that is the exception.
    - zoky 2y ago
      That is understating the facts by quite a bit. The editor will usually do an initial cut without the director, but once the director is involved in editing the two of them work very closely, often sitting in editorial together making the changes in real time. If the director asks the editor to make a change, there is basically no chance that the director won’t subsequently review and approve the change. The director’s cut may not necessarily be the final cut, particularly with newer directors, but for someone like Christopher Nolan it almost certainly is. So however the film was edited, it can be assumed that that is exactly how Nolan intended it to be.
      - gamblor956 2y ago
        No, the whole reason "Director's Cuts" exists is that those represent the cut the director wanted, not the theatrical cut released by the studio (which is driven by the studio's or producer's wants). See, for example, Alien 3, Blade Runner, and Justice League for the most notorious/well-known examples. Lesser known examples include Aliens, The Abyss, Kingdom of Heaven, Doctor Sleep, Lethal Weapon, Dark City. Only a handful of directors at the big studios get the right to control the final cut. You'll notice the director responsible for 3 of the 4 highest-grossing movies of all time has 2 movies in that list; this is because James Cameron didn't earn the right to control final cut until after his 3rd blockbuster success. A few studios, like Netflix and A24, adhere to the "auteur's theory" of filmmaking, and let the director have full control over the creative process of the film, including the final cut, even without an established record of hits, but this is the exception, not the norm.
        tedunangst 2y ago
        Cynically, the directors cut exists to drum up hype and resales. Hence Netflix now carrying the Snyder cut of rebel moon alongside the apparently sullied plebe cut.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > If this was the intended meaning Directors will leave these sort of against-the-grain intepretations open for film buffs. One can similarly watch Dumbo, Encanto and Coraline as involving, past an early part of the movie, a character in the process of dying.
- popalchemist 2y ago
  Yes in general this is true, but not for Christopher Nolan. Everything is intentional and he has final cut on all of his films. Not saying this theory is true, but just that this particular argument against it doesn't hold water.
- Rastonbury 2y ago
  Have you seen Memento?
jmaker 2y ago
I thought that initial flight sequence was about his prior flight experience where he’d hit a turbulence and had to abandon, which later is referred to at that roundtable scene at the NASA meeting when they begin to mention the gravity clusters.
tedunangst 2y ago
And this is why you don't pirate movies, kids. In the actual movie, it's not the exact same footage.
- urbandw311er 2y ago
  No way - is this comment for real? Don’t have a copy to hand to check. But if so then that’s hilarious that the proud “Tik-Tokker” (I am so sad that this is even a noun) has incriminated themselves!
- adamomada 2y ago
  Are you implying that some pirate release out there took the time to actually edit the film to change the opening scene?
  - tedunangst 2y ago
    Well, it would be uncharitable of me to suggest the theorist needs his eyes checked, so I made my own fan theory to explain the confusion. But seriously, resplicing is a common tactic to avoid copyright detection. The most popular YouTube video for the captain America civil war battle is recut and out of sequence. Imagine a fan theory "ant-man only enters the fight after..." based on this video.
    - adamomada 2y ago
      Oh I see what you mean now. I guess I’m in the old-school scene release download it yourself pirate mindset, preserving the best possible original release of the work in the best format available. But I forgot all about those reuploads to video hosting sites and even YouTube which kind of makes sense now.
- adamomada 2y ago
  Yeah I was bored and checked - in the opening dream sequence there is blue sky and clouds, when they go to Miller’s planet it is overcast and grey skies.
gamblor956 2y ago
The theory doesn't make any sense; unlike The Sixth Sense, the main character in Interstellar interacts with a lot of people. If he's dead, so are they (or they're just figments of his post-death experience). The journey doesn't make any sense as a post-death experience, since none of the events are tied to his life (before the events of the movie), so there's no deeper meaning to the wave planet, or the ice planet, or falling into the black hole. Also, Nolan doesn't do meta-contextual films. His specialty is the technical aspects of storytelling (see, e.g., Memento, The Prestige, Dunkirk, and Tenet), not in imbuing deeper emotional meanings into his works. Indeed, one of the big critiques of his films (excluding Dunkirk and Oppenheimer) was that they generally lack any emotional depth.
- lo0dot0 2y ago
  What do you mean by technical aspects of storytelling?
  - gamblor956 2y ago
    Structure, mostly. For example, in Memento telling the story backwards. In Inception, the nested dreams. In the Prestige, presenting the plot in the style of a magic trick (which the book does not do). In Tenet, telling the story backwards and forwards. In Dunkirk, mirroring the chaos of the evacuation with the chaotic/non-linear presentation of events.
- whoiscroberts 2y ago
  Another commenter says that the actual released film does not have the same clip twice and suggests that the TikTok maker watched a pirated version.can anyone else confirm the reuse of the clip?
  - robertlutece 2y ago
    clips online also show two different shots [1][2], although the ships do seem to be identical to a fault. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NPGC0jlRc&t=29s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NPGC0jlRc&t=29s [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9pjBEnnh3A&t=107s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9pjBEnnh3A&t=107s
tayo42 2y ago
> It has amassed a cult following for both theories around its meaning What kind of meaning? It was a good, fun interesting movie, but overall message and issues it dealt with seemed pretty straight forward?
- pndy 2y ago
  Yeah, I can't see any deep meaning - the story is simple and provided in digestible way, visuals are good and they even were praised for the scientific accuracy. Cast is pretty fine as well tho I personally didn't like Hathaway in it and at first I raised brow for McConaughey because I'm not really associating him with such films (despite his past role in Contact). It's enjoyable on par with Transcendence released earlier that year, but again: I hardly can see any way, reasons to dismantle it for solid theories.
valianteffort 2y ago
Fun theory but I don't buy it. Cooper meets people he never met before in his journey. You'd think if it were a trip into the afterlife he'd see his wife, or more people from his past besides Professor Mann.

29 points by Bluestein 2y ago

Fan theories are fun but usually extrapolate far too much off of innocuous (and likely accidental) clues. Post production cuts are often out of the control of the director entirely. If this was the intended meaning, it would have been far more explicit - Christopher Nolan isn't Edgar Allen Poe, he's making blockbuster movies meant for a general audience.

razodactyl 2y ago
Can't argue that it's not an interesting interpretation though... then again, pareidolia...
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  I mean honestly, to me, it isn't - Dreams foreshadowing future events is an extraordinarily common film and storytelling trope and much likelier is what was intended. Stuff like this: > “Then the dialogue, the words his kids speak, they sound so much like private thoughts that a person would have about a parent who suffered an untimely, accidental death.” This is actually explained by following along with the plot. To them, he was for all intents and purposes dead - he fast traveled many decades into the future where they didn't hear from him.
FireBeyond 2y ago
> Post production cuts are often out of the control of the director entirely. How accurate is this? I could see it for movies where the director doesn't have much sway with the studio... But I can imagine when you look at the likes of Scorsese, Coppola, The Coen Brothers, Spielberg, Wes Anderson and the like, they probably do have the sway with the studio to have "final cut" rights or at least approval.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  Cuts are done by the editor of the film, usually but not always in consultation with the director. Some directors also edit their films but that is the exception.
  - zoky 2y ago
    That is understating the facts by quite a bit. The editor will usually do an initial cut without the director, but once the director is involved in editing the two of them work very closely, often sitting in editorial together making the changes in real time. If the director asks the editor to make a change, there is basically no chance that the director won’t subsequently review and approve the change. The director’s cut may not necessarily be the final cut, particularly with newer directors, but for someone like Christopher Nolan it almost certainly is. So however the film was edited, it can be assumed that that is exactly how Nolan intended it to be.
    - gamblor956 2y ago
      No, the whole reason "Director's Cuts" exists is that those represent the cut the director wanted, not the theatrical cut released by the studio (which is driven by the studio's or producer's wants). See, for example, Alien 3, Blade Runner, and Justice League for the most notorious/well-known examples. Lesser known examples include Aliens, The Abyss, Kingdom of Heaven, Doctor Sleep, Lethal Weapon, Dark City. Only a handful of directors at the big studios get the right to control the final cut. You'll notice the director responsible for 3 of the 4 highest-grossing movies of all time has 2 movies in that list; this is because James Cameron didn't earn the right to control final cut until after his 3rd blockbuster success. A few studios, like Netflix and A24, adhere to the "auteur's theory" of filmmaking, and let the director have full control over the creative process of the film, including the final cut, even without an established record of hits, but this is the exception, not the norm.
      - tedunangst 2y ago
        Cynically, the directors cut exists to drum up hype and resales. Hence Netflix now carrying the Snyder cut of rebel moon alongside the apparently sullied plebe cut.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> If this was the intended meaning Directors will leave these sort of against-the-grain intepretations open for film buffs. One can similarly watch Dumbo, Encanto and Coraline as involving, past an early part of the movie, a character in the process of dying.
popalchemist 2y ago
Yes in general this is true, but not for Christopher Nolan. Everything is intentional and he has final cut on all of his films. Not saying this theory is true, but just that this particular argument against it doesn't hold water.
Rastonbury 2y ago
Have you seen Memento?

jmaker 2y ago

I thought that initial flight sequence was about his prior flight experience where he’d hit a turbulence and had to abandon, which later is referred to at that roundtable scene at the NASA meeting when they begin to mention the gravity clusters.

tedunangst 2y ago

And this is why you don't pirate movies, kids. In the actual movie, it's not the exact same footage.

urbandw311er 2y ago
No way - is this comment for real? Don’t have a copy to hand to check. But if so then that’s hilarious that the proud “Tik-Tokker” (I am so sad that this is even a noun) has incriminated themselves!
adamomada 2y ago
Are you implying that some pirate release out there took the time to actually edit the film to change the opening scene?
- tedunangst 2y ago
  Well, it would be uncharitable of me to suggest the theorist needs his eyes checked, so I made my own fan theory to explain the confusion. But seriously, resplicing is a common tactic to avoid copyright detection. The most popular YouTube video for the captain America civil war battle is recut and out of sequence. Imagine a fan theory "ant-man only enters the fight after..." based on this video.
  - adamomada 2y ago
    Oh I see what you mean now. I guess I’m in the old-school scene release download it yourself pirate mindset, preserving the best possible original release of the work in the best format available. But I forgot all about those reuploads to video hosting sites and even YouTube which kind of makes sense now.
adamomada 2y ago
Yeah I was bored and checked - in the opening dream sequence there is blue sky and clouds, when they go to Miller’s planet it is overcast and grey skies.

gamblor956 2y ago

The theory doesn't make any sense; unlike The Sixth Sense, the main character in Interstellar interacts with a lot of people. If he's dead, so are they (or they're just figments of his post-death experience). The journey doesn't make any sense as a post-death experience, since none of the events are tied to his life (before the events of the movie), so there's no deeper meaning to the wave planet, or the ice planet, or falling into the black hole. Also, Nolan doesn't do meta-contextual films. His specialty is the technical aspects of storytelling (see, e.g., Memento, The Prestige, Dunkirk, and Tenet), not in imbuing deeper emotional meanings into his works. Indeed, one of the big critiques of his films (excluding Dunkirk and Oppenheimer) was that they generally lack any emotional depth.

lo0dot0 2y ago
What do you mean by technical aspects of storytelling?
- gamblor956 2y ago
  Structure, mostly. For example, in Memento telling the story backwards. In Inception, the nested dreams. In the Prestige, presenting the plot in the style of a magic trick (which the book does not do). In Tenet, telling the story backwards and forwards. In Dunkirk, mirroring the chaos of the evacuation with the chaotic/non-linear presentation of events.
whoiscroberts 2y ago
Another commenter says that the actual released film does not have the same clip twice and suggests that the TikTok maker watched a pirated version.can anyone else confirm the reuse of the clip?
- robertlutece 2y ago
  clips online also show two different shots [1][2], although the ships do seem to be identical to a fault. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NPGC0jlRc&t=29s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NPGC0jlRc&t=29s [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9pjBEnnh3A&t=107s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9pjBEnnh3A&t=107s

tayo42 2y ago

> It has amassed a cult following for both theories around its meaning What kind of meaning? It was a good, fun interesting movie, but overall message and issues it dealt with seemed pretty straight forward?

pndy 2y ago
Yeah, I can't see any deep meaning - the story is simple and provided in digestible way, visuals are good and they even were praised for the scientific accuracy. Cast is pretty fine as well tho I personally didn't like Hathaway in it and at first I raised brow for McConaughey because I'm not really associating him with such films (despite his past role in Contact). It's enjoyable on par with Transcendence released earlier that year, but again: I hardly can see any way, reasons to dismantle it for solid theories.

valianteffort 2y ago

Fun theory but I don't buy it. Cooper meets people he never met before in his journey. You'd think if it were a trip into the afterlife he'd see his wife, or more people from his past besides Professor Mann.