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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 hi

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
  Given enough time and resources, you'd be right, this would be sufficient. But remember the beginning of the movie - they explicitly stated that every year fewer crops could be harvested, which meant that most people had to work in food production, no matter what they did before. It was also stated that the population wouldn't accept spending going to interplanetary exploration instead of food production - they'd rather survive a little longer than to try and fulfill an impossible goal, or just to have a couple of people survive on ships/stations for a couple years longer, without any hope for long-term survival. Under these circumstances (only a couple years left until starvation begins & no existing industry) it seems absolutely realistic that the government is able to throw together one hailmary in secret, without also being able to scale production up to save most people before they starve. Remember, the goal of the mission wasn't to measure the data they need to finish their equations, it was to send out one single ship that could continue human civilization on an inhabitable planet. Had the future humans not intervened (by placing the black hole near inhabitable planets), humanity on earth would have died.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    > Had the future humans not intervened (by placing the black hole near inhabitable planets), humanity on earth would have died. Not only a black hole, a supermassive Kerr black hole with relativistic rotation at its equator. They could have done a better job at the planets themselves though - Most of them were pretty useless for terraforming. While I'm sure the US government would trade immediate comfort for long-term survival of the species, I don't think other governments would have the same priorities. I'd assume China would be one of the first to build multiple O'Neil cylinders with carefully controlled environments and as little Earth-originated biomass as possible (to contain the blight).
loa_in_ 2y ago
The love angle actually makes sense here. There's no technological way to do what needed to be done: find a willing recipient amongst strangers for a message from the impossible. Only because Murph shared a bond she was able to correctly bet on that there was a message and find out what it was. In something everyone else would not even consider.
- bhickey 2y ago
  Nothing is forbidden, until you try to explain it. I come from the perspective that genre is a contract with the audience. Here _Interstellar_ is making a genre error. Take _Star Wars_ for example. You don't need to know how the Force works. There's no suspension of disbelief because you've bought into the genre and its tropes. The Force is everywhere, Luke is atuned to it. We don't need to know anything else mechanixally. Then they rolled up with midichlorians and reduced the whole thing to jibberish. _Interstellar_ sets a hard sci-fi expectation with a visually accurate black hole before losing the train of thought. Imagine if _Lord of the Rings_ spent 20 minutes discussing how the plate tectonics of Middle Earth gave rise to Mount Doom before veering off into the history of the eagles. It gives your audience whiplash.
  - loa_in_ 2y ago
    I'd argue that Interstellar is defying your expectations, but it's hard sci-fi all the way. At no point happens something that's proven to be impossible, and the future is, well, ever unknown to us, and to the viewer.

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
Given enough time and resources, you'd be right, this would be sufficient. But remember the beginning of the movie - they explicitly stated that every year fewer crops could be harvested, which meant that most people had to work in food production, no matter what they did before. It was also stated that the population wouldn't accept spending going to interplanetary exploration instead of food production - they'd rather survive a little longer than to try and fulfill an impossible goal, or just to have a couple of people survive on ships/stations for a couple years longer, without any hope for long-term survival. Under these circumstances (only a couple years left until starvation begins & no existing industry) it seems absolutely realistic that the government is able to throw together one hailmary in secret, without also being able to scale production up to save most people before they starve. Remember, the goal of the mission wasn't to measure the data they need to finish their equations, it was to send out one single ship that could continue human civilization on an inhabitable planet. Had the future humans not intervened (by placing the black hole near inhabitable planets), humanity on earth would have died.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  > Had the future humans not intervened (by placing the black hole near inhabitable planets), humanity on earth would have died. Not only a black hole, a supermassive Kerr black hole with relativistic rotation at its equator. They could have done a better job at the planets themselves though - Most of them were pretty useless for terraforming. While I'm sure the US government would trade immediate comfort for long-term survival of the species, I don't think other governments would have the same priorities. I'd assume China would be one of the first to build multiple O'Neil cylinders with carefully controlled environments and as little Earth-originated biomass as possible (to contain the blight).

loa_in_ 2y ago

The love angle actually makes sense here. There's no technological way to do what needed to be done: find a willing recipient amongst strangers for a message from the impossible. Only because Murph shared a bond she was able to correctly bet on that there was a message and find out what it was. In something everyone else would not even consider.

bhickey 2y ago
Nothing is forbidden, until you try to explain it. I come from the perspective that genre is a contract with the audience. Here _Interstellar_ is making a genre error. Take _Star Wars_ for example. You don't need to know how the Force works. There's no suspension of disbelief because you've bought into the genre and its tropes. The Force is everywhere, Luke is atuned to it. We don't need to know anything else mechanixally. Then they rolled up with midichlorians and reduced the whole thing to jibberish. _Interstellar_ sets a hard sci-fi expectation with a visually accurate black hole before losing the train of thought. Imagine if _Lord of the Rings_ spent 20 minutes discussing how the plate tectonics of Middle Earth gave rise to Mount Doom before veering off into the history of the eagles. It gives your audience whiplash.
- loa_in_ 2y ago
  I'd argue that Interstellar is defying your expectations, but it's hard sci-fi all the way. At no point happens something that's proven to be impossible, and the future is, well, ever unknown to us, and to the viewer.