Media Criticism, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Interstellar

20 Comments

Just got back from a week in Missouri visiting family, and still haven’t seen the movie. But I see that (miracle of miracles) it’s still playing in IMAX at one theater in LA, just a few minutes away, so going to finally check it out at a matinee today.

[Monday update]

A lot to comment on, but many reviewers have already digested it pretty thoroughly. One comment I haven’t seen is the problem of the psychodynamics of such a long mission with several men and one woman (a problem shared by the original Planet of the Apes movie, though she died en route).

20 thoughts on “Interstellar”

      1. I enjoyed it, on its own terms. Was it realistic? No. Was it entertaining? Yes.

        I was amused to see Gavin Schmidt Sean Carroll tweet the other day how astonishing it was that anyone could think that the revered Dr. named “Mann” in the movie who falsified data to show that a cold planet was warm could be anything but coincidence.

        1. Rand, if you are ever in the same venue as Dr. Mann, please inform him: “There is no surface.”

          Somebody explain that ice cloud planet to me!

        2. Oh, shit. I completely missed that!

          Saw it last night. It was mostly entertaining, but it definitely dragged at points. And I had the main plot (‘though not all the particulars of the devices) figured out 30 seconds into the “poltergeist” events.

          It had a bit too much of a deus ex machina feel to it, but if you really buy into the premise, then I guess it makes sense.

          And thank G-d someone finally gets how to do audio in space!!!

      2. *Snort*

        If Ron Howard directed then Dr. Mann would’ve been played by his brother Clint instead of Matt Damon.

        1. I’m thinking that either a) Damon didn’t understand the reference, or b) He said “Meh, it’s a job.”

          He’s not poor as far as I know, so I’m going with (a), because I’ve never seen much evidence of intelligence from him (including his role in Good Will Hunting).

          1. When he popped onto the screen, I am sure the other moviegoers herd me exclaim: “Matt Damon” in my Team America Matt Damon voice.

  3. The flaw: How did the hyperdimensional humans of the future send the wormhole if the wormhole was required for them to exist? I suppose humans survived w/o it and those are the ones that created a new timeline w/ it?

    I’m guessing Matt thought Dr. Mann was the hero?

  4. “The flaw: How did the hyperdimensional humans of the future send the wormhole if the wormhole was required for them to exist?”

    The no first cause paradox of time travel. It simply was because it had to be.

    1. There is an exchange between Cooper and the robot that lends itself to that. The part where they match the spin of the space station in order to dock and the robot says it isn’t possible but Cooper says it will happen because it has to. (Or something like that)

  5. First of all, in spite of some scientific & other issues, I really liked the movie, and I especially thought the several bits of ‘homage’ were well-handled.

    HOWEVER –

    If you are going to nitpick the science, you really don’t need to get into the quantum physics at all. They clearly have the technology (and had it developed quite a few years before the time in which the film is set) to make use of re-usable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) space craft. I don’t understand why the initial launch required a large booster rocket, either … because later in the film the Ranger craft is able to achieve orbit from a planet with 90% Earth-gravity without any such assist.

    So – if you have a fast, obviously re-usable SSTO craft that can hurl a bunch of mass into orbit over & over, you really don’t need the dang wormhole. With decades in which to work, and a presumably well-motivated civilization, they would never have reached this point of desperation in the first place.

    Throw enough mass (materials, fuel, equipment, people) into low-earth orbit with a fleet of re-usable SSTO craft (the Rangers) … and do it thousands of times over perhaps decades of time, and you will have no problem expanding the reach of your civilization beyond a single planet.

    Problem solved.

    1. Actually, they have this covered. The Rangers use both chemical and plasma rockets, and NASA uses fusion reactors for the mission. They’ve got enough He-3 for this mission and the Lazarus ones, but not for thousands of ferry missions to LEO.

      Also, the Rangers have a pretty limited payload.

  7. It’s a long mission, but most of the crew aren’t awake for most of the mission. Romilly was the only one awake for long, and solitary for almost all of that.

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