Interstellar Review

There’s been a lot of hullaballoo about Interstellar in the past few months. The hard science fiction aficionados of the world (read: guys who like their science to be accurate) have had a collective boner/lady boner for this movie for quite sometime. We’ll get to why that is in just a few short paragraphs.

Interstellar starts at some undetermined point in the future after the blight has come through, wiped out all our food supplies, and brought dust storms of epic proportions.

Two things real quick.

First, I love the word blight. Something about it gives me chills. Is it too late to rename Time Heist? Maybe Time Blight? Stop the presses! Interesting aside, while I love the word blight, it is so rarely used, unless you’re reading the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (which I am) and you watch Interstellar (which I did), in which case you’ve probably had your fill of that damn word.

Second, apocalyptic dust storms = totally not a sexy Armageddon. I pray as a species we find a more interesting way to annihilate ourselves.

Back on topic, go!

Interstellar, written and directed by Christopher Nolan (Think The Dark Knight), has a killer cast. Matthew McCanaienah…uh.. I’m gonna need a spellchecker over here.

Screw that. This guy———>

Ya also got that Anne Hathaway lady, Michael Caine, John Lithgow, Matt Damon, the kid from That ’70’s Show who’s name I won’t even bother looking up because it might as well be Eric Foreman. I care that little.

So, A-list actors? Check.

Enormous Budget? Probably also a check.

The movie starts off strong. Gets you into the world and does a great job establishing a relationship between the father (Matty Mac-C), Cooper, and his daughter, Murph, which pretty much defines the entire movie, so it’s kind of important. They do a pretty good job with it, too.

Cooper gets called up to make a pizza run across the universe, ya know, cause he’s the only one with the unique skill set for such a job. He reluctantly takes it and peaces out, saying sayonara Gramps, watch my kiddo’s. And don’t let Murph get into the oreos cause you know how she gets when she’s hopped up on cancer cookies.

I’m starting to diverge from the actual movie plot, but you can keep up, right?

Anyways, this part of the movie is intriguing because it asks some interesting questions. Such as, do parents stop having dreams and ambitions when their children come along? Do they lose the right to those dreams and ambitions? Now, Cooper surely loves his children, but he raises the valid point that he needs to go and be him, to be the thing he was born to be.

I don’t have kids so I won’t weigh in on that particular topic, but I’d love to hear your guys’ thoughts. What responsibilities to parents have to their children? Does it come at the cost of their own individuality, their own existence, their own lives?

So, Cooper bounces, waves goodbye to planet Earth in the rear-view mirror, and heads off to a wormhole that will take them to a different galaxy where hopefully they can find a new planet the plague known as humanity can set up shop.

Here’s where the sci-fi nerds start busting out the lube. In the process of making Interstellar, Nolan and the other writers wanted to be as scientifically accurate as possible. As such they hired a bunch of scientists to figure what things like a wormhole or blackhole or stinky star would look like. They put their heads together, made some doodles, and surprise, surprise, actually made a scientific discovery.

What?!?!?

Yeah, they actually figured out what a black hole would look like. Think about that and then go ahead and do the unthinkable, give Hollywood the old tip o’ the cap.

And here’s more or less what it would look like.

Awesome. And this is one of those times you really got appreciate what Nolan did. He made a science fiction movie where the science was actually legit and engaging. Granted around the 90% mark of the movie, things start getting pretty wonky, but hey, that’s theoretical physics for you. Those guys are nutters.

Final thoughts? I actually liked the movie. It could have been about 30 minutes shorter, but hey, that’s not necessarily a bad problem. Interestingly enough, while the movie was visually stunning, with awesome science, and cool new worlds to explore, it was that human dynamic between Cooper and Murph that really stuck with me. Which is all you can ever ask for from a story. Based on that alone I think the movie is worth seeing.

If you need a second reason, hell… do it ’cause you’ll learn something really nifty about wormholes that made me feel slightly stupid for never having thought of before.

Have you seen Interstellar? What’d you think? What was your favorite character? How badly did you want to kick Matt Damon in the nuts? Leave a comment and let me know.

Anthony