Interstellar

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Interstellar is Christopher Nolan’s newest sprawling epic and if you’ve seen many of my posts here on movieforums then you probably know that I am not the biggest Christopher Nolan fan. That being said, I was extremely impressed with Interstellar and was completely blown away
by the end of the film.

First of all I can’t really give away anything about the story because I don’t want to spoil anything. But let me say that Interstellar is not a particularly fast paced movie. But once you get into the story you won’t be able to look away. There are some slight pacing issues at times, since it goes from long talking sequences to thrilling sequences at the blink of an eye at times and it can be a bit jarring. Also, there are some really confusing things about the film. For one, the constant technical science gibberish is confusing and at times I think it comes off as a bit pretentious, like Nolan is saying “ok, we know lots about science and we’ll just have a ton of lines full of science that the average moviegoer won’t understand and we’ll seem really smart!” Well, at least that’s kind of how I saw it. These lines ultimately ended up making the audience more confused and didn’t really take the story anywhere. Also, they needed more Casey Affleck and some of the character’s decisions were hard to make sense of. But other than those things, the story was great, especially in the last hour of the film. In my opinion, the last hour of the film was the best part, and was worth the entire 2 hour 49 minute running time alone. It really builds well to that spectacular ending, and an amazing twist.

Let’s move on to acting.

Of course the acting was really good in this film especially from McConaughey. Some of the other characters probably should have been a little more fleshed out but the acting was pretty much great all around. (Not to mention a surprise guest later on in the film). There’s not much else to say. McConaughey is as good as you would expect him to be and you really feel the emotion in the emotional scenes thanks to his performance. Let’s move on to camerawork.

The camerawork and imagery was really spectacular in Interstellar. This is one of the strongest things about the film. I can’t give away too much, but there are some truly beautiful scenes and some mind boggling visuals throughout the film. Definitely see this on the big screen while you have the chance because it was quite the experience, especially for the visuals.

Music was another huge plus for this film. The music certainly pays homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey and the music really helps to keep the mood and fits very well with the film.

Overall Interstellar is a powerful piece of cinema with amazing visuals and music and the last hour or so of the film is really spectacular. When I began walking out of the theater I was shaking just a little bit because I was so blown away. This really was a great experience, and I highly suggest that everyone go see this while it’s still in the theaters. It was great to see on the big screen and if you just watch this when it comes out on dvd/bluray then you’ll be hitting yourself saying “why didn’t I see this on the big screen??” Interstellar did have a few issues, but as a whole I really enjoyed it and found it to be one of the best films of the year by far. Please go see Interstellar in the theater. Please.


4.3 out of 5
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I think this might be in the running for Nolan's weakest film. As pure spectacle and awe, see it in IMAX, but I couldn't help but get the AVATAR feeling while watching it.



My review---

Christopher Nolan's INTERSTELLAR starts on one spectacularly grand premise---that all the speculations that scientists and astronomers make about existence of wormholes in the universe and black holes being conduits for space/time travel are true....to the best of my knowledge all these theories are unproven but the movie assumes them to be true ; or rather it assumes that they will be proven in the future .

.....For it is in the future that the movie is set , though it is not the distant but the near future...
And that future is not the future as we envision it , but it is in fact a bleak future...living standards everywhere have fallen , and humanity has been reduced to trying to eke out an existence by farming because there is lack of food on earth---dust storms regularly imperil even the existing crops .

So the leading actor of the film ( Cooper---played by Matthew McConaughey ) , whose talent of flying a space shuttle has been lying unused because of the lack of resources until now , is selected to command and fly a space mission through a wormhole across space and time . He has to fly it to distant planets in some other part of the universe to find if one of them is fit for supporting permanent colonization of humans , where other humans have already been sent a while ago .

And his selection has not been random ; he has been selected not by the group of scientists who are in charge of the project....but he has been selected for his task by 'they' , and even to the group of scientists who are in charge of the project the opinion of 'they' carries far more weight than their own---due to the belief that the wormhole has been set up in the solar system by 'they' for helping us....

So are 'they' ? Are they extraterrestrials who want to help us ? Or is it God himself ??
And does Cooper and his crew succeed in finding out a planet where humanity can thrive again ??
Above all , what about his family and crying daughter whom he has left on earth ?? Will he meet them ever again , lost as he is across the mists of space and time ?? What about his pain and anguish about not seeing them grow up , and his daughter's pain and anguish at not being able to be with her dad ??

Watch the movie for the answers , for telling any more will be spoiling the entertainment for you.....

To be honest only some astronomer can tell whether all the science fiction shown in the film can come close to truth in reality .
And frankly I could not fully comprehend some of it .But one has to give credit to Nolan for undertaking a science fiction adventure of such grandeur , and showing it with some nice special effects .

It's not a regular thriller at all....but one which relies on the incredible scope of the undertaking ( travel through space in double quick time to find a habitable planet in another galaxy ) to awe us , rather than rely on giving thrills and shocks every few moments like other thrillers .
....And it does awe us , for the scenes like the visuals of the wormhole and sightings of the black hole and the ride through the event horizon are the stuff that astronomer's fantasies are made of . And that's why---a little bit of basic reading of astronomy , if done in the past , will come mightily handful in watching the movie .

Photography of the movie cannot be called fantastic ; I have certainly seen better efforts...
But some scenes , like the tsunami in the sea on the new planet , and the stark topography of the other planet , are breathtakingly photographed , or rather created by the special effects team---for no one has really traveled to distant galaxies to film anything there .
Music of the movie does inspire you however .
Acting in the film can be called good , especially by the lead actor but also by others .

Maybe the movie relies too much on that fragile emotion called love to propel the story forward , or maybe that's the director's way of keeping the audience interested in the midst of all the advanced science fiction . Some gadgets , like the robot which talked and joked besides walking and leaping and calculating faster than humans ( did the robot even wink in one scene ? ), were nice . The idea of fixing the robot's parameters like honesty and humor etc to a certain percentage was funny and likable .

The ending of the movie was a nice touch ; did it hint at an impending romance ??
And...was the bad guy in the film really a bad guy , or was driven to badness by force of circumstances---just like the American soldiers of FURY ??

Once more Christopher Nolan has given us a cerebral thriller , which makes other movies that rely on special effects look shallow in front of it . But has he exceeded his intellectual reach beyond what the audience can fully understand and digest ??

To be honest , I was tempted to give a full four stars to the movie , but reduced it by half a star because the movie is not easy to understand . The movie has the feel of a great movie throughout , as if we are watching something epic---is it because it is a Christopher Nolan movie ?? Has the sheer fact that the movie has been made by HIM weighed on our minds to create the effect of greatness ?? I prefer to believe not , but there is no denying that the publicity that the movie has got and the fact that people in a distant country like India are flocking to the theaters ( almost no tickets were available in Bombay in India---where I live ) to see the film is due to HIM .

Verdict---Good enough .




I'll go to see this on Wednesday. I've been told that is better not to trying to find any logic... Is that true?



That'd be going a bit far. It's logical within its own framework, which is all you can really ask of a film like this, I think. It puts in its time, so to speak, so that the concepts are established and explained insofar as they can be, and it trusts you to meet it the rest of the way when it stretches a little past them, into speculation.



Three weeks in a row? Can it happen that I see new movies 3 weeks in a row that are off-center and very interesting? Well, yes. The previous 2 weeks we saw Nightcrawler and Birdman, and this week it was Interstellar, a huge intellectual undertaking. The latest FX and scripting extravaganza from Chris Nolan is a real onslaught for viewers who are well versed in theoretical physics and cosmology. The movie takes place some decades in the future. Live on our little planet Earth is crashing from some vague problems that have resulted in depopulation, serious weather disruptions and a long-term dust bowl and blight that are eliminating crops, one at a time. Farming is a mortal challenge, between dust storms and drought and life on our little orb is in serious danger. Into this toxic mix comes the sad remnant of NASA. They contact Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) who was formerly an astronaut and a possible candidate for a hail-Mary attempt at rescuing life, if only by evacuating earth via worm holes and black holes to possible planets in another galaxy. Cooper is currently living a hardscrabble life with his family as a subsistence farmer, trying to grow corn, which is one of the last viable crops. Something, however, is very strange in Cooper’s house, subtle indications, mostly visible to his daughter, that something is going on. She thinks that is a ghost, and we just don’t know, but something about it seems important and becomes important late in the movie.

The daughter, Murphy, is devastated to find out that her father is about to leave home on a risky voyage that will probably last for many years if it IS a success, with a small crew that includes “Brand” (Anne Hathaway), on the way to a worm hole that will take them on an inter-galactic voyage to find somewhere to off-load the human race. What happens when they do reach the other side of the worm hole and what it means for the earth and its endangered residents is the rest of the story. Midway through the movie, we catch up with Murphy, now an adult, played by Jessica Chastain, having never completely recovered from the loss of her father, still trying to figure out some enigmatic clues left behind by him. The story stretches out over the life of Cooper’s children and encompasses the ultimate fate of the earth.

I found this to be a truly fascinating movie, but I don’t know that it will have the appeal of some other Nolan epic, notably The Dark Knight. It’s a complex movie, with a difficult, sometimes non-linear plot line and a pervasive feeling of gloom and doom. Nothing seems to be happening that will slow the decline of life on earth and it’s far from certain that Cooper’s and his crew’s voyage will amount to anything other than suicide in a far corner of the universe. In spite of its complexity, however, I’d rather see Interstellar than most movies and enjoyed struggling over whether I knew enough physics to find the plot holes. The acting is good, although the plot and spectacular effects often overshadow it.

We saw the movie in the new ultimate Cinemark theater in Towson, MD, in “XD”. The low frequency effects are often chair shaking and sometimes obscure the dialog. Image quality, however, is amazing, as is the immersiveness of the imagined environments on the huge, curved hi-def screen. As for the general feel, I found myself thinking about 2001 A Space Odyssey, Mission to Mars, the comet landing this past week, Commander Data (from Star Trek Next Generation), the book “The Worst Hard Time” (about the dust bowl) and Tree of Life a lot, especially given the non-linear plot and a lot of scenes of Jessica Chastain looking off into the distance with an ambivalent expression. Being somewhat of an armchair fan of physics and astronomy, I am familiar with the heavy science language of what’s being discussed here and I didn’t want to put much effort into looking for science bloopers. I can’t imagine NOT seeing a Christopher Nolan spectacular, and Interstellar did NOT disappoint.






That'd be going a bit far. It's logical within its own framework, which is all you can really ask of a film like this, I think. It puts in its time, so to speak, so that the concepts are established and explained insofar as they can be, and it trusts you to meet it the rest of the way when it stretches a little past them, into speculation.
Yep, you were right.

I didn't like 'Maconajiu' at the beginning, a bit overreacted in my opinion. On the other hand, Jessica Chastain was actually pretty good. The problem I see in Nolan's films (in some of them), is that the script is not as good as the visual effects. Nolan tries to make an exceptional movie with a lot of "WOAHHHH SO BEAUTIFUL" moments, but the script is not at the same level as photography.



The biggest problem with this film and this is the case with almost all of Nolan's work, is the expository dialogue. Take the opening sequence for example. Nolan gives us a talking head, describing the current state of earth and how we've exhausted our food and resources. He shows us this with images of the crops, the dust in the houses and the routine of placing all the plates and cups upside down. These images alone are more than enough to indicate to us the message he wants to get across. Instead he doubles down, which makes me sad because I like Nolan's stuff.

This problem seeps into the other characters. Cooper is the only one who doesn't suffer from this, he is the LISTENER of the group, thus the only one who has some arc. Everyone else: Caine, Hathaway, Chastain, Bently...they're all there to expel some sort of expository dialogue to the audience, not much else. The one Nolan film that makes this mistake the most is Inception, yet he made it somewhat interesting because of the heist aspect. Here we have people standing around talking TO US about stuff that most people won't be able to grasp.

With all this exposition being thrown at us, people still walked away from this one confused.

I won't go ahead and compare the film to Kubrick's 2001, as that would be unfair, but it's clear to me that Nolan went for something similar and he swung for the fences with this one. Unfortunately, he misses the mark. This film is marvellous, from a technical standpoint, but I want something to chew on, not listen to mind numbingly.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
The biggest problem with this film and this is the case with almost all of Nolan's work, is the expository dialogue. Take the opening sequence for example. Nolan gives us a talking head, describing the current state of earth and how we've exhausted our food and resources. He shows us this with images of the crops, the dust in the houses and the routine of placing all the plates and cups upside down. These images alone are more than enough to indicate to us the message he wants to get across. Instead he doubles down, which makes me sad because I like Nolan's stuff.

This problem seeps into the other characters. Cooper is the only one who doesn't suffer from this, he is the LISTENER of the group, thus the only one who has some arc. Everyone else: Caine, Hathaway, Chastain, Bently...they're all there to expel some sort of expository dialogue to the audience, not much else. The one Nolan film that makes this mistake the most is Inception, yet he made it somewhat interesting because of the heist aspect. Here we have people standing around talking TO US about stuff that most people won't be able to grasp.

With all this exposition being thrown at us, people still walked away from this one confused.

I won't go ahead and compare the film to Kubrick's 2001, as that would be unfair, but it's clear to me that Nolan went for something similar and he swung for the fences with this one. Unfortunately, he misses the mark. This film is marvellous, from a technical standpoint, but I want something to chew on, not listen to mind numbingly.
While I do agree with you that Nolan tends to use exposition a little too much in his films....doesn't it fit here? I mean, these characters are scientists after all and what do scientists do? They talk...and talk...and talk...

The exposition didn't bother me here because it felt like it pushed the narrative forward for me. The same with Inception. Here, we need it because of what Nolan and co. are trying to accomplish, so it didn't bother me in the slightest.

My problem is more with the ending.

WARNING: "Insterstellar" spoilers below
Let's ignore the theories about the ending being a death dream for either Cooper or Murphy and take it at face value. She spent her entire life trying to reconnect with her father. He would jeopardize the mission, just to get back home to be with his family. THEY FINALLY GET THAT CHANCE...and spend two minutes together before he leaves? It felt fake to me. The one thing that drives both of these characters for the entire film is thrown away at the end and we are suppose to believe this one line of dialogue about parents not suppose to see their kids die as a reason? It's a lazy screenwriting tact to change the character directions.


I enjoye Interstellar, my IMAX experience was great. I wouldn't rank it as high as Memento, Inception, The Dark Knight or even the Prestige, but the ambition is there. All those movies I mentioned are 9/10 or above, so his filmography is pretty tough to top. I'll have to see it again and wrestle with it, but I do feel that it kind of goes off the rails at one point. I'll just call it the Communication with the Past scene. It left me scratching my head a bit. Sure they explain it...but not well enough for me to grasp, understand or even believe.

Also TARS kicks ass.
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Suspect's Reviews



Saw it at the IMAX and then again in 35mm. Extraordinary, just extraordinary in every way. Not sure what else to say as I am still processing it all. Makes Inception look quite shallow despite being a technical marvel.

While I don't think it quite beats Memento as far as Nolan's signature film, it does come close. I didn't think that this was going to be all that in the end as the trailers didn't really do anything for me, but was happy to be proven wrong. Nolan's best film since Memento and my top pick for best film of 2014, which has been the strongest year for film in a LONG time. Two Days, One Night has been beaten. Quality.



All right, I am going to get this out of the way, I am a Nolan fanboy. Baring that in mind, I will try to keep this review balanced. I saw the film in IMAX.

Interstellar is a science-fiction film by Christopher Nolan set in a dystopia future where mankind has decimated the planet. Society is still recognisable but mankind is on the verge of starving itself to extinction. Hence, there are lots of farmers being conscripted to farm (or be caretakers as one of the character's puts it) their whole lives due to the huge demand for food.

The story follows an ex-pilot-turned-farmer as he experiences strange, possibly supernatural, events in his home and tries to cope. No spoilers, but one things leads to another and it ends up with him going to space with Anne Hathaway and a robot.

The adventure is smart, and requires viewers to be emotionally involved with the characters. It twists and turns like a rollercoaster and starts off being one thing before revealing itself to be completely different. It has side-stories that have emotional resonance, just like in Nolan's earlier works such as Memento and Inception. And of course, it has floods of spectacle. Due to it's lighter tone, compared to other Nolan flicks, it is a film that can be viewed and enjoyed by all ages. It is a family film both in narrative and at it's heart.

The only negative I could find, and it isn't really a negative, was with the ending, that arrives with a jolt. It's still emotionally satisfying, however, and rounds off the loose ends. Imagine it like a plane landing on a runway after a flight.

Interstellar has spectacle, majesty, excitement, a rollicking story with twists and turns aplenty, is a showcase of theoretical astro-physics and a wonderful film about family for families. I whole-heartedly recommend it.



^First Review on here. Can people let me know what they think? And no, I am not going to have the five star system. I am going a la Kermode all the way.



little bit of disturbance with the graphics and sound but all above a great tour to space



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I'm waiting it out. I've added this to my Christmas-break-binge session. From what I've heard thus far is that the movie is overly complex. A thing I find a bit annoying about Nolan movies. Will surely dig this thread up again once I've seen it.



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I was surprised that I kept awake throughout the entire 3-hour show.



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Really? Couldnt stay awake? I'm now having second thoughts. It cant be that mundane?!



I thought it would be better)



Sorry Harmonica.......I got to stay here.
Fantastic movie. I like the fact that the creators worked closely with Kip Thorne to avoid Hollwood-izing the science. Like The Matrix, I thought it did a great job representing tough-to-get-your-head-around ideas. For a long film, it kept you right there with it at every step. That being said, I found the overall premise very sad and depressing.
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