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Did we watch the same movie? They got bunch of physics stuff right, like the water planet, the relative aging due to being near the massive black hole etc. Only

Did we watch the same movie? They got bunch of physics stuff right, like the water planet, the relative aging due to being near the massive black hole etc. Only thing that wasn't "correct" was the wormhole and especially the tesseract, but that was some creative writing which allowed for a nice twist. I enjoyed it, a nice scifi.

kawa 2y ago
Their starship was bullshit. On earth they needed a big Saturn 5 like rocket to bring it into space and later they fly into orbit like it's nothing. If the planets they visited had much lower gravity then earth this may be possible, but this wasn't noticeable or talked about. And even on Mars you need much more fuel to get into orbit than could be stored in their tiny ship.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- AlexGizis 2y ago
  To expand on this, if they tried to land on the water planet where time so dilated that one hour equals 7 months… what would their velocity have been when they contacted the surface? And how much energy did their spaceship need to reach escape velocity from there?
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  Eh, this isn't actually that bad. It's quite easy, using a jet aircraft, to (via a ballistic trajectory) get into space. Surrounded by reaction mass as you are, the rocket equation isn't nearly so bad. You could conceivably dock with something in orbit, if you had elastic tethers or something to make the acceleration survivable. If you're much lighter than what you're docking with, you won't knock the satellite out of orbit. Heck, you could even ignore the jet aspect, and go for full rocket. (An ICBM only weighs around 50 tonnes, after all.) Getting the heavy thing into orbit, though, requires proper, multi-stage rockets.
  - hermitcrab 2y ago
    >It's quite easy, using a jet aircraft, to (via a ballistic trajectory) get into space A jet engine requires atmosphere. Spaces requires no (or very little) atmosphere. The edge of space is usually defined at 100km (the Karman line). The highest altitude reach by an air breathing jet is around 37km. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_altitude_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_altitude_record A scramjet might get to ~75km according to: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/44837/what-is-the-highest-operational-ceiling-for-an-air-breathing-jet-engine https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/44837/what-is-t...
    - wizzwizz4 2y ago
      That's the point at which the jet stops working, but by that point you can be going quite fast. If there isn't enough air to run the jet engine, there also isn't enough air to slow you down (much).
      - hermitcrab 2y ago
        Assuming no air resistance and 10m/s^2 gravity. I calculate that you would have to be doing ~1,100m/s (~mach 3.2 at sea level) straight up at 37km to reach 100km. Or ~1,600m/s (~mach 4.7 at sea level) at 45 degrees to perpendicular.
        wizzwizz4 2y ago
        Seems about right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP (1966) got 2100m/s from a ground-based cannon: this got the projectile to 179km.
- GTP 2y ago
  Well, if you look for this, many if not most movies will have some inaccuracy or holes in explanation like this. In the end, I watch movies for entertainment. If I'm looking for scientific precision, I see a documentary instead.
  - hermitcrab 2y ago
    Yes. Maybe don't make scientific accuracy a big part of your marketing campaign though.
    - m4rtink 2y ago
      Still better than what Ad Astra! :D Liked the killer space monkeys though. ;-)
      - hermitcrab 2y ago
        'Ad Astra' was a real stinker.
tambourine_man 2y ago
The whole premise is bogus and explained by Michael Caine in only a few sentences. We have a plague on Earth and doing an interstellar travel is the solution? I was very disappointed. I’m OK with a few plot holes, but this is so fundamental to the story that the movie can’t stand on its own.
- marcyb5st 2y ago
  Yeah, they could've used something simpler and less hand-wavy. Irreversible climate change or a freaking asteroid on a collision course with earth and they needed the black hole data to build something to deviate it. Literally anything else would've worked better.
  - throw310822 2y ago
    I think the blight was chosen as a metaphor for the virus of defeatism and anti-scientific attitude. To which the movie proposes (and arguably wants to be) a cure, made of optimistic sci-fi, cool science and, of course, love. The issue on the literal level of the narrative is that if you have no way to control the infection on earth, there's no reason to suppose you won't bring it with you to the next planet.
bhickey 2y ago
It was completely uneven. Cooper sobbing as he listened to years of messages from his family? I wish I could've written that. The twist where Mann activated his beacon because he didn't want to die alone? Solid. We need the gravity equation to get off Earth because the crops are dying? Love can escape a black hole through the tesseract? This is just patent technobabble nonsense. Where _Interstellar_ fails is in exposition. Love is the most powerful force in the universe? The Fifth Element pulled that off by not pretending to be serious. Anything is permitted in science fiction, but once you commit to explaining it, you need to make sense.
- bowsamic 2y ago
  I agree, in fact it almost gives it a sense of uncanny valley
- wombat-man 2y ago
  Yeah I agree. Overall I still like it but I need to overlook parts of it.
- ralferoo 2y ago
  Plus it helps that Fifth Element has that scene... where the General "would like to take a few pictures... for the archives"!
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  It can still make some sense, if you think that the future life forms expressed their inherited love to fix things way back in time.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  > We need the gravity equation to get off Earth because the crops are dying? The small craft could launch from a planet with twice the Earth’s surface gravity, make it to escape velocity, and meet the Endurance? Why would they need better propulsion than that to leave the planet and build space habitats?
  - Timon3 2y ago

kawa 2y ago

Their starship was bullshit. On earth they needed a big Saturn 5 like rocket to bring it into space and later they fly into orbit like it's nothing. If the planets they visited had much lower gravity then earth this may be possible, but this wasn't noticeable or talked about. And even on Mars you need much more fuel to get into orbit than could be stored in their tiny ship.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
AlexGizis 2y ago
To expand on this, if they tried to land on the water planet where time so dilated that one hour equals 7 months… what would their velocity have been when they contacted the surface? And how much energy did their spaceship need to reach escape velocity from there?
wizzwizz4 2y ago
Eh, this isn't actually that bad. It's quite easy, using a jet aircraft, to (via a ballistic trajectory) get into space. Surrounded by reaction mass as you are, the rocket equation isn't nearly so bad. You could conceivably dock with something in orbit, if you had elastic tethers or something to make the acceleration survivable. If you're much lighter than what you're docking with, you won't knock the satellite out of orbit. Heck, you could even ignore the jet aspect, and go for full rocket. (An ICBM only weighs around 50 tonnes, after all.) Getting the heavy thing into orbit, though, requires proper, multi-stage rockets.
- hermitcrab 2y ago
  >It's quite easy, using a jet aircraft, to (via a ballistic trajectory) get into space A jet engine requires atmosphere. Spaces requires no (or very little) atmosphere. The edge of space is usually defined at 100km (the Karman line). The highest altitude reach by an air breathing jet is around 37km. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_altitude_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_altitude_record A scramjet might get to ~75km according to: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/44837/what-is-the-highest-operational-ceiling-for-an-air-breathing-jet-engine https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/44837/what-is-t...
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    That's the point at which the jet stops working, but by that point you can be going quite fast. If there isn't enough air to run the jet engine, there also isn't enough air to slow you down (much).
    - hermitcrab 2y ago
      Assuming no air resistance and 10m/s^2 gravity. I calculate that you would have to be doing ~1,100m/s (~mach 3.2 at sea level) straight up at 37km to reach 100km. Or ~1,600m/s (~mach 4.7 at sea level) at 45 degrees to perpendicular.
      - wizzwizz4 2y ago
        Seems about right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP (1966) got 2100m/s from a ground-based cannon: this got the projectile to 179km.
GTP 2y ago
Well, if you look for this, many if not most movies will have some inaccuracy or holes in explanation like this. In the end, I watch movies for entertainment. If I'm looking for scientific precision, I see a documentary instead.
- hermitcrab 2y ago
  Yes. Maybe don't make scientific accuracy a big part of your marketing campaign though.
  - m4rtink 2y ago
    Still better than what Ad Astra! :D Liked the killer space monkeys though. ;-)
    - hermitcrab 2y ago
      'Ad Astra' was a real stinker.

tambourine_man 2y ago

The whole premise is bogus and explained by Michael Caine in only a few sentences. We have a plague on Earth and doing an interstellar travel is the solution? I was very disappointed. I’m OK with a few plot holes, but this is so fundamental to the story that the movie can’t stand on its own.

marcyb5st 2y ago
Yeah, they could've used something simpler and less hand-wavy. Irreversible climate change or a freaking asteroid on a collision course with earth and they needed the black hole data to build something to deviate it. Literally anything else would've worked better.
- throw310822 2y ago
  I think the blight was chosen as a metaphor for the virus of defeatism and anti-scientific attitude. To which the movie proposes (and arguably wants to be) a cure, made of optimistic sci-fi, cool science and, of course, love. The issue on the literal level of the narrative is that if you have no way to control the infection on earth, there's no reason to suppose you won't bring it with you to the next planet.

bhickey 2y ago

It was completely uneven. Cooper sobbing as he listened to years of messages from his family? I wish I could've written that. The twist where Mann activated his beacon because he didn't want to die alone? Solid. We need the gravity equation to get off Earth because the crops are dying? Love can escape a black hole through the tesseract? This is just patent technobabble nonsense. Where _Interstellar_ fails is in exposition. Love is the most powerful force in the universe? The Fifth Element pulled that off by not pretending to be serious. Anything is permitted in science fiction, but once you commit to explaining it, you need to make sense.

bowsamic 2y ago
I agree, in fact it almost gives it a sense of uncanny valley
wombat-man 2y ago
Yeah I agree. Overall I still like it but I need to overlook parts of it.
ralferoo 2y ago
Plus it helps that Fifth Element has that scene... where the General "would like to take a few pictures... for the archives"!
actionfromafar 2y ago
It can still make some sense, if you think that the future life forms expressed their inherited love to fix things way back in time.
rbanffy 2y ago
> We need the gravity equation to get off Earth because the crops are dying? The small craft could launch from a planet with twice the Earth’s surface gravity, make it to escape velocity, and meet the Endurance? Why would they need better propulsion than that to leave the planet and build space habitats?
- Timon3 2y ago