Christopher Nolan's INTERSTELLAR

[Winterfell is Burning]

Responses to some questions (my view/understanding):

Q. What was wrong with the earth?

A. The plight was something that was feeding off nitrogen, which is 80% of the atmosphere. As it grew it was blocking out oxygen. And obviously a lot of plants had problems with it. What exactly started it is obviously left unstated.

Q. What was the formula for?

A. Provide the energy boost to turn subterranean bunkers into space craft. This may also be partly due to controlling gravity.

Q. Why not grow the food underground?

A. The formula gives free energy which would need to be replaced by something finite underground, plus you have solar energy in space. The key was probably more the energy than the location.

Q. Why didn't NASA simply know he was alive?

A. You mean the NASA that got closed down? That was then re-started in secret when its pretty clear a big chunk of the population is dead and a lot of technology no longer works? I wonder why they didn't have time to go through all the files of the old building (if they still existed) ....

Q. Why have the Matt Damon part?

A. Two reasons. Mann is one of the only ones who knows Plan A is a lie. That's necessary to drive certain actions. Secondly, if Mann doesn't exist and do what he did, they go to Edwards planet.

The consequences of those two actions is they go to Edwards planet, drop off the modules and commence Plan B, and Cooper heads home to futilely find the formula isn't complete.

Instead, the results of Mann's actions and the information forces them to plan the wild card of sending a robot into the black hole, and with the damaged ship forces both Cooper and the robot in. Hence allowing for the interaction with the Others, and the saving of the population on Earth.

No Mann story line, no need to go near the black hole.

Q. Why did NASA make Cooper a pilot so quickly?

A. Because all their breakthroughs had been as a result of the Other, so when they lead a trained pilot to your door you bloody listen. Or rather, you're programmed to listen. I mean, if they were nice enough to open a worm hole, ignoring the pilot they stuffed in your face would be a bit impolite, wouldn't it?

Q. Why was Hathway's love speech necessary?

A. Because it added weight to the interactions after, and it meant Cooper's revelation about love being something that connects over 5 dimensions didn't come out of nowhere. And it should be noted in the movie when Hathway gives that speech, the others don't even bother voting. It sinks her argument for her. So science in that scene did rule supreme, as it seems most of the audience reacted to it. The way the audience reacted is how Cooper and the third pilot reacted.

Q. Why did the first explorer die in a sealed suit?

A. Because there are 100m waves over a surface of a few feet lifting you up and crushing you down. She'd have had a number of hours of the treatment by the time the others got there.

Q. Also how does what seems like I dunno 5 square miles of a planet show that the entire planet is inhabitable? Heck nearly the same with Matt Damons world.

A. Because having that strong a gravity pull from a black hole (versus a moon) would pull the water into massive waves which would likely follow the gravity around the planet destroying everything. Of course, why they didn't think of that before going there....

That said, they should have known that the first planet's info was off only a few hours (and what gravity would do to free standing water that close to a black hole) and I agree the response to Cooper coming back was a bit meh. This was a guy who survived a black hole! And the computer with the original data and info on the transmission to Murphy had already been found. It shouldn't have been on a museum on a ranch, it should have pride of place.

This is very well thought and I thnk you're correct about everything.

[Corvinus85]

Only one physics thing (right now) bothers me, and it's closer to the physics I understand.

Why did Coop also have to detach while going by the black hole? The mass of ship is insignificant compared with the mass of the black hole, so losing a bit of that mass will barely have an effect on the force of gravitational attraction between the two bodies.

[Francis Buck]

Only one physics thing (right now) bothers me, and it's closer to the physics I understand.

Why did Coop also have to detach while going by the black hole? The mass of ship is insignificant compared with the mass of the black hole, so losing a bit of that mass will barely have an effect on the force of gravitational attraction between the two bodies.

I thought it was about reducing mass so that Ameila had enough fuel make it to the last planet, but I may be wildly off on that.

[felice]

Only one physics thing (right now) bothers me, and it's closer to the physics I understand.

The mass of a rocket is insignificant compared with the mass of Earth, so why bother minimising the weight of the payload when launching into orbit?

[Jace, Extat]

The mass of a rocket is insignificant compared with the mass of Earth, so why bother minimising the weight of the payload when launching into orbit?

My understanding the the boosters fall off the shuttles/ships because they're simply useless mass at that point. It's not that they'll pull the ship back into the atmosphere, but their extra and useless weight makes you use more fuel when maneuvering.

[Corvinus85]

The mass of a rocket is insignificant compared with the mass of Earth, so why bother minimising the weight of the payload when launching into orbit?

I don't know exactly. I would say it also has to do with other stuff, like getting rid of useless parts of the ship that may cause problems during re-entry or navigation in orbiy. But the law of gravitational attraction states that the gravitational force between two objects is the product between the 2 masses divided by the squared distance. In the case of the rocket leaving Earth, I would say that the ever increasing distance is more of a factor, though at first it's the Earth's mass. On on the other hand the mass of the black hole is just insane, so it plays a huge factor.

[Kyoshi]

I don't know exactly. I would say it also has to do with other stuff, like getting rid of useless parts of the ship that may cause problems during re-entry or navigation in orbiy. But the law of gravitational attraction states that the gravitational force between two objects is the product between the 2 masses divided by the squared distance. In the case of the rocket leaving Earth, I would say that the ever increasing distance is more of a factor, though at first it's the Earth's mass. On on the other hand the mass of the black hole is just insane, so it plays a huge factor.

Wouldn't gravitational force be trivial (in a sense) then? Wouldn't a different physical law come into play? I admit I'm not clued up on the subject so I apologise if my question is a really stupid one.

[Kalbear]

You're thinking of it wrong.

Say that it takes force x to move two parts. If you get rid of one of the parts , force x now is effectively double it's potency. It has nothing to do with the force you're fighting against and everything to do with the amount of energy that you are using to push yourself.

It made perfect sense.

[Corvinus85]

Wouldn't gravitational force be trivial (in a sense) then? Wouldn't a different physical law come into play? I admit I'm not clued up on the subject so I apologise if my question is a really stupid one.

No it's not a stupid question. When dealing with black holes the normal laws may not apply. Also, they were performing a slingshot maneuver around the black hole, so there is another force at play. I'm still not sure about the relevance of having to lose some of the ship's mass.

[felice]

I don't know exactly. I would say it also has to do with other stuff, like getting rid of useless parts of the ship that may cause problems during re-entry or navigation in orbiy.

No, mass is definitely the big issue for escaping a gravity well. I assume the important factor is the mass being accelerated. Theoretically you could also launch a payload into space by putting rockets on the Earth and pushing it away from the payload* with more force than the gravitational attraction between the two masses, but it's a lot easier to attach the rocket to the payload, because the payload is many, many orders of magnitude less massive, and takes correspondingly less energy to accelerate to escape velocity. It's easier to throw a tennis ball into the air than to throw a refrigerator.

* of course, you'd also be pushing the Earth away from everything else on that side of the planet, and subjecting everything on the opposite side to rocket-level G-forces, as well as pushing the planet out of orbit so it will eventually fall into the sun or be flung out of the solar system entirely, so there are drawbacks to this plan beyond the inconceivably vast quantities of energy required and the engineering challenges of building suitable rocket engines.

[red snow]

If I ever watch this film again I'm going to check out the formula board to see whether " G < 3 " turns up :)

[Clockwork of House Orange]

I wish more emphasis was put on the causes of the initial state of Earth. Personally, I thought the nitrogen bacteria were an effect of some prior event, not the cause of all their problems. I know Nolan likes to leave some details ambigous on purpose, so the audiance can interpret it, and I love that, just it seems this time he should've given us more on that. At first, it looked obvious that we did that to the planet (like we're pretty much doing right now, both to the planet and ourselves), but the nitrogen story kinda makes it look like it wasn't our fault...

To be honest, I expected from Nolan to make this film more relevant to our current, real life, struggles. An epic sci-fi story of this scope really has potential to send important messages and inspire some deep thoughts on the state of humanity, but he just made it into a pretty space flick...

So what was the message he conveyed? "Oh, our home planet is messed up? Screw it, lets abandon ship and find a new one, bet it's easier to move to another galaxy than to fix the mess we made..."

Still found the movie entertaining, though, but expected much, much more from Nolan and crew. Very far from their best work...

[DaveSumm]

I can't see why we needed more info on the state of the planet, it was irrelevant. The movie's already bursting at the seams with scientific exposition, and the salient piece of info for the plot was that we needed to get off Earth. And the 'we used to be pioneers' part was enough message for me. It was about space exploration, that's all the message I need.

[Kalbear]

One thing I liked is the thematic element of human interaction and how important it is to stay together - and how harmful it is when you are left alone.

this was obviously echoed with Mann (and I loved the foreshadowy line "the only evil is what we bring with us") but we had it with rommely, with murph and with coops son, with coop himself and his wife...it was a nice theme. That was one of the things that affected me most - what would you do if you were forever alone? With no way to determine if you would ever see a person again? How angry would you be if your father left you? Your wife? Your friend?

I wish they had continued this with cooper more; he could have been stranded in the tesseract for eons, grown to love tars, etc. in that the ending kind of failed. At the same time it succeeded, just because the conclusion was that brand would need that too.

I think that was another reason the movie worked for me - a central conflict was essentially what would a father do to save their children. How painful would it be to lose 23 years of their life? How much more would it hurt knowing that they justifiably gave up on you? That you in some very meaningful way failed them? That emotional conflict in a hard sci fi setting was great.

[Corvinus85]

One thing I liked is the thematic element of human interaction and how important it is to stay together - and how harmful it is when you are left alone.

this was obviously echoed with Mann (and I loved the foreshadowy line "the only evil is what we bring with us") but we had it with rommely, with murph and with coops son, with coop himself and his wife...it was a nice theme. That was one of the things that affected me most - what would you do if you were forever alone? With no way to determine if you would ever see a person again? How angry would you be if your father left you? Your wife? Your friend?

I wish they had continued this with cooper more; he could have been stranded in the tesseract for eons, grown to love tars, etc. in that the ending kind of failed. At the same time it succeeded, just because the conclusion was that brand would need that too.

I think that was another reason the movie worked for me - a central conflict was essentially what would a father do to save their children. How painful would it be to lose 23 years of their life? How much more would it hurt knowing that they justifiably gave up on you? That you in some very meaningful way failed them? That emotional conflict in a hard sci fi setting was great.

Yes, these are questions humans will probably have to think about if we ever venture out into the Universe.

[Raja]

It's just the execution of some of the aforementioned ideas is so poor. There is no subtlety in the emotions the characters are trying to convey, instead, they're actually saying them out loud.

[williamjm]

Since this thread is probably about to be locked for size I've started a new thread (although marked as a spoiler thread this time since almost all the recent discussion has been by people who have seen it).