{"id":1050,"date":"2014-11-23T16:55:23","date_gmt":"2014-11-23T22:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/?p=1050"},"modified":"2014-12-25T13:42:00","modified_gmt":"2014-12-25T19:42:00","slug":"why-we-need-more-movies-like-interstellar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/why-we-need-more-movies-like-interstellar\/","title":{"rendered":"Why We Need More Movies Like Interstellar<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"interstellar<\/a>Warning: There is an image at the end of this post that may not be suitable for young people or those with weak stomaches.<\/p>\n

I took my son to see Interstellar<\/em> yesterday. All I can say is Wow, just…wow.<\/p>\n

All right, obviously that’s not all I can say. Interstellar<\/em> isn’t perfect, but it’s a highly ambitious movie that gets so many things right. But before we get to the inevitable comparisons with 2001<\/em>, along with a rant, here’s a brief (partial) synopsis of the film.<\/p>\n

The setting is some time in the not too distant future.\u00a0 The world has suffered some sort of global catastrophe in which a blight is destroying crops.\u00a0 All the wheat is gone, okra is on its way out, and the only thing left is corn.\u00a0 Dust storms are starting to become common events.<\/p>\n

Cooper (Mathew McConaughey) is a former pilot and engineer who is now a farmer.\u00a0 He lives with his son Tom, daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy), and father-in-law (John Lithgow) on a farm and struggles to survive.\u00a0 His wife died of a brain tumor that would have been treatable before the world economy started to collapse.<\/p>\n

Cooper is called to a parent-teacher meeting with the principal and Murph’s teacher.\u00a0 The principal tells him that Tom is a good student but not good enough to go to college.\u00a0 He’ll have to be a farmer.\u00a0 The conversation implies that unless you’re one of the very brightest, you’re required to be a farmer.<\/p>\n

The conversation turns to Murph.\u00a0 She’s brought one of Cooper’s old textbooks to school.\u00a0 This has caused some problems, including several fistfights between Murph and some of the other kids over how the Apollo missions are presented.\u00a0 The teacher (Collette Wolfe) tells Cooper that textbook has been replaced by the federally approved text, in which the moon landings are presented as hoaxes perpetrated to bankrupt the Soviet Union.\u00a0 More on this point later.\u00a0 When Cooper returns to his truck, Murph asks how it went.\u00a0 He responds “I got you suspended.”<\/p>\n

Murph is having issues at home as well.\u00a0 One wall of her room is floor to ceiling bookshelves.\u00a0 She claims there’s a ghost in her room who is knocking books off the shelves.\u00a0 It’s not a ghost but something trying to communicate in binary by using a gravitational anomaly to leave dust trails in the floor.\u00a0 Cooper deciphers the code and realizes it’s a set a of coordinates.\"interstellar<\/a><\/p>\n

He goes to that location and discovers a clandestine space program.\u00a0 NASA (supposedly disbanded) is now a covert operation.\u00a0 A wormhole appeared near Saturn some years ago (placed there by someone), and a mission was sent through to scout for planets.\u00a0 There were twelve team members on that mission, and they each went to a different planet.\u00a0 One of Cooper’s old professors, played by Michael Caine, recruits him.<\/p>\n

So Cooper agrees to be the pilot on the followup mission to retrieve as many of the original team members as they can and find a planet where the human race can settle.\u00a0 That’s Plan A.\u00a0 The blight will eventually cause the oxygen in the atmosphere to be use up.\u00a0 (There was a bit of handwaving at this point.)\u00a0 Plan B is a collection of frozen embryos to be used to seed the human race on a suitable planet if Plan A fails.<\/p>\n

Murph doesn’t take this well.<\/p>\n

If you saw any of the trailers shown in theaters back in the summer, this is pretty much what you got.\u00a0 The story as I’ve summarized it to this point is about the first 45 minutes.\u00a0 The movie clocks in at just under three hours, so there’s a lot more.\u00a0 I’ll not go into too much more, because there are several twists in the plot, and I want to avoid spoilers.<\/p>\n

The blight is pretty sketchy.\u00a0 Even if the wheat is gone, there’s still barley, oats, and a number of other grains, but they aren’t mentioned.\u00a0 And since most of the oxygen is produced by phytoplankton in the ocean, I’m not sure the run out of oxygen scenario holds up.<\/p>\n

\"interstellar<\/a>The physics is impressive.\u00a0 Interstellar<\/em> presents some pretty abstract concepts in clear ways.\u00a0 The characters even used Newton’s Third Law of Motion correctly and identified it as such.\u00a0 I wish some of my students knew it that well.\u00a0 Several times we see what is happening in space, and (with the occasional exception of the soundtrack) there was no sound.\u00a0 The only real problem I had with the physics was near the end and involved a black hole.\u00a0 And yes, there are echoes of 2001 A Space Odyssey<\/em> near the end.\u00a0 But this ending drops the mysticism of that movie and gives us something full of hope and understanding.\u00a0 And none of the robots turn out to be HAL.<\/p>\n

There were a couple of character relationships that seemed rushed at the end, especially the scene that took place in a hospital room.\u00a0 A few more minutes would have really fleshed out these scenes.\u00a0 But these are minor quibbles.<\/p>\n

Interstellar<\/em> is what science fiction movies should be.\u00a0 The film was intelligent, moving, suspenseful.\u00a0 It was thought provoking and challenging.\u00a0 I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that presents the human cost of long space voyages in such a powerful manner.\u00a0 I mean, how do you tell your ten year old daughter that you’re going away and that when you come back the two of you will be the same age?\"instellar<\/a><\/p>\n

And the sense of isolation when Cooper and his crew begin to fulfill their mission was so palpable that you could cut it with a knife.\u00a0 When they find a survivor in cold sleep, he breaks into sobs when they wake him.\u00a0 He’d put himself into cold sleep and didn’t program a wake up time because he never expected to see anyone again.<\/p>\n

The movie doesn’t sugar coat the cost of exploration.\u00a0 It’s not easy to do something that’s never been done before.\u00a0 Explorers and pioneers have always had a high death rate.\u00a0 It comes with the job.\u00a0 But just because something is hard or dangerous isn’t a reason not to make the attempt.\u00a0 Sometimes the best reason to reach for the stars is because it’s hard.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the message in the movie.\u00a0 This isn’t a popular movie with some people.\u00a0 It’s been described as the anti-Avatar<\/em>.\u00a0 I think that’s a good description.\u00a0 And I despised Avatar<\/em>, in spite of the awesome eye-candy special effects.\u00a0 Interstellar<\/em> isn’t about worshiping the Earth and some mystical life force.\u00a0 Rather, it says that the universe is a hostile place, and sometimes the best you can do is leave detailed enough records so that those who come after you can figure out what killed you.<\/p>\n

I realize that last sentence sounds dark, but think about it.\u00a0 The universe is full of dangers.\u00a0 It’s not through New Age mumbo-jumbo that society and technology advance.\u00a0 It’s through observation, data collection, and logic.\u00a0 Cooper explains this to Murph early in the movie when they’re talking about her ghost.\u00a0 It’s a theme that resonates throughout the film.\u00a0 There’s a reason science fiction contains the word “science” .\u00a0 It’s about how discovery and investigation and exploration are essential to humanity.\u00a0 Technology applied well produces better lives for all mankind.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to the conversation in the parent-teacher meeting regarding the Apollo missions.\u00a0 Landing on the Moon was one of the greatest achievements in history.\u00a0 And then we stopped.\u00a0 We turned our tails and ran.\u00a0 We failed to dream.<\/p>\n

And there are voices in the culture that want to kill those dreams and minimize those achievements.\u00a0 Don’t believe me?<\/p>\n

The Rosetta mission just landed a probe on a comet.\u00a0 This was achieved in spite of some glitches in the process.\u00a0 Astronomer Dr. Matt Taylor was part of the team that pulled this off.\u00a0 You would think that would qualify him for Badass of the Year.<\/p>\n

\"t<\/a>Instead some folks got their panties in a twist and threw a giant hissy fit, Why?\u00a0 Because he had the insensitivity to wear this shirt<\/a>.\u00a0 (For a good response, see Dave Freer’s post here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Really?\u00a0 A historic first, and some people can’t see past his shirt.\u00a0 A shirt that was made by a woman, BTW. The cool greatness of the event was eclipsed by the shrill shrieking of how far civilization was set back by Dr. Taylor’s fashion sense.\u00a0 I now want one of those shirts, but alas, they’re sold out.<\/p>\n

When we’re more concerned about offending someone than the historic achievements that take us to new places in the universe and expand our knowledge, we’re in trouble.\u00a0 Fortunately, not everyone is walking down that road.\u00a0 Christopher Nolan isn’t, and for that I’m thankful.\u00a0 He hasn’t forgotten what it means to dream.<\/p>\n

If you haven’t seen Interstellar<\/em>, do so.\u00a0 You’ll be glad you did.<\/p>\n

\"astro<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warning: There is an image at the end of this post that may not be suitable for young people or those with weak stomaches. I took my son to see Interstellar yesterday. All I can say is Wow, just…wow. All right, obviously that’s not all I can say. Interstellar isn’t perfect, but it’s a highly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[204,100],"tags":[720,717,718,719,721],"class_list":["post-1050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","category-nasa","tag-2001-a-space-odyssey","tag-dr-matt-taylor","tag-interstellar","tag-mathew-mcconaughy","tag-rosetta-mission"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P5pJ-gW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1050"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1062,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions\/1062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}