It's one thing to grow food in a relatively small controlled environment like a space ship or even a space city, and it's another thing to grow enough food for an entire planet in a controlled way. The earth itself really does have to cooperate (e.g. bees, just to name one of a 1,000 factors). The death of plants leading to a problem with Earth's oxygen cycle wasn't such a crazy hippy idea, even though we have very many bigger worries ahead of that one, of course. I don't even think it's political to look around at the anthropocene, with a true mass extinction and the acidification of the oceans (both of those are facts, by the numbers), and think humans just might be able to mess up Earth. (That's separate from the hot button climate talk, etc.) Plenty of hippy nonsense in the world -- I just didn't think that was a week party of Interstellar. A week detail was actually drinking so much beer in a world with a grain crisis. :grin: But whatever. On that note, cheers.
I don't disagree with you on any of that.. but the movie just made it seem that the problem was because of a nitrogen-breathing 'blight', which resulted in failed crops AND loss of oxygen. All the things you mention would have been a more sensible looming threat.. and yeah, I wondered what they were drinking too.. probably some kind of synthetic beer, or it was somehow corn-based..
I stand corrected. Coop did say their little maneuver would lose them 51 years, more importantly, together. If that was the case then they would be pretty close in age.
It's really not that important when the worm hole was placed there but in the context of the movie, it needed to be there during the lifetime of the Cooper's. They were the ones who lead mankind off the Earth.
I blame Lindelof for that, how this guy keeps on writing scripts escapes me. I didn't like Matt Damon's character at first but the more I thought it about he was necessary to the story. First that detouring to his planet and also blowing up part of the mother ship was necessary for Cooper and TARS sacrifice. If they hadn't done that then they would've just proceeded to Edmund's planet and Cooper and TARS would've had no reason to enter the black hole which was the event that set everything into motion from the moment that Cooper discovered the coordinates to NASA. The second reason for Matt Damon to be there is is his crazy speech regarding the survival instinct is actually important to understanding the plot. Cooper's love for his children is what makes him different than all the other astronauts. He is willing to sacrifice himself not for an abstraction of humanity as a whole but actually for something direct. I thought about this for a while after seeing the movie since it bothered me at first but if you think about it what ties it together is the idea that love is something that exist and is quantifiable. Maybe not to us but to highly evolved humans they understood that the crisis could only be resolved at that time and the only ones who could do it were Murphy and Cooper because not only are they intellectually capable they also love each other to make the connection across time and space necessary. As you note the story is a predestination paradox. At the beginning Cooper and Murphy are already destined to save humanity, how though isn't clear. From ours and Cooper and Murphy's standpoint it might seem like that it is Deus Ex Machina that allows them to do so. The problem with that is that you can't look at it just from linear timeline. You actually have to look at it from the future humans standpoint. To them this is all history. They exist so Cooper and Murphy succeeded. The problem for them though is that Cooper and Murphy can't succeed with their help. This isn't predestination but prophecy for the future humans. For the survivors of Earth some point thousands of years in the future humans will have the ability to transcend time and space to provide the tools to save themselves. While Cooper and Murphy are the direct agents of the prophecy the prophecy can only be fulfilled when future humans can create a wormhole and a tesseract. So rather than this being Deus Ex Machina, the Deus isn't something that just shows up at the end but is there along and from the future standpoint happened already. TARS in the Tesseract tells Cooper that they (future humans) didn't bring him there to change the past. He's there to fulfill it.
Dr. Mann's (Matt Damaon) story arc was added for drama and as you pointed out to show that even "the best of us," could be flawed. Also, them betting on the wrong planet (due to Mann's false signal) caused them to not have enough fuel to make it home. So, without Mann then Cooper wouldn't have entered into Gargantua and experienced the tesseract their future selves built for them. So while at it's surface Damon's character seems rather insignificant, he was extremely crucial to the entire story arc. No one on earth would have gotten the data TARS captured in the black hole, so mankind would have been wiped out on earth and only continuing due to the 5,000 embryos. The multi-dimensional beings were their future selves. And they needed a 5th dimension, not 4th - the fourth dimension is time. The four dimensions are X, Y, Z and time... the 5th, is gravity. They didn't explain how the wormhole appeared, but they did clearly state that it was them that put it there. Was it humans from thousands of years in the future, or ones from a secondary universe? We do not know, but we do know it was humans. If a future species of humans has the ability to create a wormhole that is open for an extended period of time, they could certainly investigate history to find out when the "right" time was to insert the wormhole. The original script was completely rewritten by Christopher Nolan's brother, then polished by both Nolan brothers and Kip Thorne. I've read the original script, and the new script is far better in my opinion. I commented on how they got off of Miller's planet in an earlier post, here is what I said: Mann's planet only had 80% of the gravitational pull of Earth, so I think escaping that atmosphere would have been easier. As far as Miller's, hers had a higher gravity but Gargantua was close to the planet, so it was actually pulling them towards the black hole which could make it easier to leave the atmosphere once you got up into the stratosphere. When they left earth they also had tons of equipment that would have been transferred from the Ranger to the Endurance (including all of the embryos). When they went down to the planet surfaces they would have offloaded everything but essential gear from the Ranger(s) to insure that they didn't burn more than the needed fuel. As far as the blight goes, I also commented on that: The losing of the crops was due to overpopulation, which caused over farming, which lead to a massive dust bowl - which has happened before, and is even happening now in some regions of the world. I agree, Prometheus was pretty terrible in my opinion as well. I'm not sure where you got that the planet was running out of oxygen, I don't recall that being in the movie at all. People were getting sick because of all of the dust in the air, not because of the lack of oxygen. There were giant dust storms all of the time, which isn't good on the lungs. They didn't get into "why" the earth was in peril very much, but they did give you enough to believe that it was. To me, this was a wise decision because of people thinking that the movie would have a politicized agenda. I've dug into the science of this movie heavily because I am both a science and space geek, being a child of 80s and growing up in Houston... and when you investigate stuff further, it really is solid or at least plausible science. I also read and watched a ton of the interviews with Kip Thorne, and he agrees. He vetoed several ideas the Nolan brothers had simply because the science wasn't there to back it up. I think the "love" comment that Brand made was more of the fact that humans will do anything for those that they love. Cooper will fly to the far flung regions of the universe because he wants what is best for his kids. Edmunds would fly to one of several worlds in hopes of saving the world, and his Brand, whom he loved. Murph would believe that her ghost was Cooper because she knew that he loved her that much... etc. Throughout the film, humans are doing extraordinary things because they love others... and love transcends not because people have superpowers, but because humans love, they will do anything.
Very good explanations for the most part. The two I still have problem with are: 1) When they got off Miller's planet, if it was the black hole that helped pull them off, then how did they get away from that same pull? 2) Whether the Earth was inhabitable because lack of oxygen, the blight, the dust storms ... If human could move on to a space station where they can grow food and harvest other things to support a sizable population, they could also have lived on that same "space station" sitting on the ground or any enclosed environment. There was no need to solve the problem of gravity. I think there are just not enough natural resources for space stations to support human life. They needed to go on to a planet.
I think at the end of the movie they were on their way to another planet. Probably Edmunds. The space stations where there so they could transport large numbers of humans on what would be at the minimum trips that would take decade's. The cylindrical space station is just a way of transporting all those people in something approaching Earth gravity and atmosphere for comfort and probably for piece of mind.
Some more science nerdy stuff. The idea of the cylindrical space stations at the end were pioneered by Arthur C. Clarke in his novel Rendevous with Rama with a giant alien ship that functions like that entering our solar system. The physicist Gerard K. O'Neill elaborated on that idea with the idea of O'Neil cylinders that could be used for human colonization of space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Neill_cylinder For fans of Babylon 5 that was basically an O'Neill cylinder.
1) Once in space, they wouldn't be fighting the gravitational pull of the planet - so the thrusters on the ship would allow them to escape the pull of Gargantua. Remember when Cooper drew on the whiteboard, they landed on the side of the planet furthest away from Gargantua. They were only ever really close to Gargantua when they slingshot'd past the event horizon. In the video I posted earlier with Neil Degrasse Tyson he discussed the "waves" on Miller's planet were actually tides - not waves. The tides were so large because of Gargantua. So they were more like the tide moving in and out on earth due to the sun and moon, not waves like from tsunamis. This is proven further by the fact that there is no water receding before the giant waves arrive, they are more like continuous "rolling" bulges of water. 2) They don't give a thorough explanation of why earth wasn't uninhabitable, other than a lack of food. Remember, the principal saying to Cooper "We don't need more engineers, we need farmers." I imagine, that the lack of fresh water was a big reason that the earth was doomed as well, and with over population you couldn't possibly cultivate food for 10+ billion people on a large scale - at least not forever. Man continued to survive for 80 years while the mission took place, so of course they were still able to keep people alive. NASA and Cooper were thinking about the long term future of man, not the short term "let's mass cultivate food." Again, this is all speculation because I think they smartly avoided the subject of overpopulation, global warming, pollution and other man-made factors that led to the earth's demise. It is a science fiction movie after all, so the suspension of belief is required - but the fact that a lot of the science was based on plausible possibilities should make it a bit easier to suspend the few doubts that one may have. If nothing else, the fact that they have gotten random people to dissect the science piece by piece for months and years on end - makes the film a tremendous success in my opinion. I wish the average human, not just American gave a damn about space, science and physics - so any medium or piece of work or art that gets people involved or interested is amazing to me.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The cylinder shape allows the space station to spin, to create faux gravity - much like when they are on Endurance. They spun Endurance to create faux gravity, which is what made Romilly sick to his stomach and ask for "lots of Dramamine."
When they were on the planet Miller, they experienced the gravitational pull of both Miller and Gargantua. Gargantua's gravitational pull needed to be larger than the pull of the planet Miller in order to get them off the planet. Once they are off the planet, they would be at a point where they would experience only Gargantua's pull and this should be larger than earlier. How did they get away from this?
Correct, while in space they'd only feel Gargantua's pull, but they only needed to get back to Endurance, which was orbiting the planet just outside of the time dilation of Gargantua. Once they got back to Endurance and docked, they could then use the extra fuel and/or thrust from Endurance to escape Gargantua... or better yet, exit the way they came in, on the "dark" side of Miller's planet - which wasn't as affected by Gargantua's gravitational pool. We know this because Romilly hovered there for 23+ years. Either way, getting away from Gargantua's pull cost them tremendous amounts of fuel, which which would come into play later in the film. This same thread is also played out again when they ride Gargantua's event horizon to sling shot brand to Edmund's planet. Endurance had the ability to escape Gargantua's pull, but only because TARS and Cooper both cut loose from Endurance. Truthfully, we weren't provided with enough information about Miller's planet's proximity, and where they dropped into the planet to know how much Gargantua's pull would effect them. I imagine this was vague for several reasons, to not inundate average viewers with complex facts and for ease of story telling.
I don't want to sound argumentative but you explained away something only to fall into another problem. If their lander did not need to escape Gargantua's gravity itself and it only needed to get back to Endurance than the fuel/ thrust needed to get the lander(s) + Endurance off Gargantua would be even bigger. The other way to escape, ie. from the dark side of Miller was not possible. Endurance needed to be in Miller's orbit for that to happen. It could not because it did not experience the gravity pull from Miller. The gravity pull on it was from Gargantua.
I think you need to watch it again. When Cooper first gets to NASA, and Professor Brand is informing Cooper of what NASA has been up to, he is showing him the research areas, where he mentions 'Okra' just died out, and that Corn would die as well, soon. And then he very specifically mentions that the Earth's atmosphere is over 80% nitrogen.. 'And we don't even breathe nitrogen. But the 'blight' does. And the more the blight thrives, the less oxygen there will be for us. The last humans left to starve will be the first ones to suffocate.' This is stated very specifically in the movie. Murph also mentions it in her video late in the film - 'Did you leave us here to starve? To suffocate?' It was not from dust, it was from lack of oxygen due to 'increased nitrogen'. And as for over-population.. perhaps that is what caused the dust-bowl conditions, they never said.. although, you also never see any 'dust-bowl' conditions comparable to what happened here a hundred years ago-ish.. everything we see is green, plenty of water, green crops. It wasn't that there was nothing able to grow, it was that the mcguffin-like 'blight' was destroying the crops and making them non-usable. So I am not even really sure where the dust was all coming from. I mean, you are probably right, but it was not really reflected in the actual scenery and settings. But the Grandpa makes a statement - 'Over 6 billion people, can you imagine it?' talking about the earlier time when technology was still going strong. That implies that, at the time of the movie, Earth's population was far decreased from those earlier levels. Ah well. Like I said, it's just a fairy-tale anyway, it was just wrapped in some 'hard science'. Oh and I am not so sure that orbiting a large and close black hole would somehow allow the Ranger to escape Miller's gravity.. Heck, just to go airborne at all would have required much larger thrust, especially due to the 1.3X Earth gravity, much less pushing that mass far enough away from the planet for Gargantua's pull to somehow pull it all the way out of that gravity well. If that were the case, the whole planet's atmosphere itself should have all been sucked away ages ago.
The dust made it hard for plants to grow, they were constantly fighting it. Corn is a weed, so it is one of the most resilient foods that you can grow. If you remember the interviews with the "old" people about how hard it was to breath and farm they foreshadow the issue somewhat. If it is hard for crops to continue to grow, it will be hard for oxygen to be made from plants around the world. They don't mention the oceans, or fish or plankton, but over fishing could have caused massive issues within the ocean ecosystem (which is already happening today) - also causing plankton deaths. They are vague, so trying to find the root cause is up to you. Without plants or plankton, people would suffocate to death. As far as "The Blight" is concerned, they don't tell you what it is. The earth's atmosphere is always 80% nitrogen (about 78% actually) - so something that breaths nitrogen would thrive here. What I concluded it was for myself was that it was a form of disease passed from plant to plant. I have no idea how it came about or where it came from, but there are things such as that on earth already. Again, they don't get into the details - but it could spread quickly and they generally do. "Heart Rot" in trees would be a naturally occurring example of this. Wheat, Okra and other plants had basically been extinct because the blight contaminating the supply. They talk of the Irish Potato famine in the Great Depression as an example. It was "green" where Cooper lived because he was a farmer, it was his job to grow plants - I imagine elsewhere in the world it wasn't green at all. And the green was mostly corn, which again is an extremely resilient plant. For me, they provided enough information for me to believe that in the story line they'd have planned the gravitational pull of each planet and Gargantua to know that they could leave the atmosphere. Either way, it is science fiction - so using solid evidence to help make the fiction more believable doesn't change the fact that it is fiction.
I saw this last night. I loved the cinematography, but I have one question that really stands out in my mind. Spoiler Based on the story line, you could change the past. Time could be warped, but you could not go back in...except, as Coop was leaving the black hole, traveling back through the wormhole, he experienced the same moment when he was first travelling into the wormhole. Wouldn't that have put him as returning at the same age as he made it to the Saturn wormhole, yet he returned essentially at the end of his daughter's life...23 years + 51 years later...
If John Connor didn't send his father into the past, then Skynet would not exist either. That too is a predestination paradox because doesn't resolve the initial root cause or trigger for all the events. I can buy that...it resolves the paradox for one reality, at least. The thing that I can't resolve is how the God-like beings "chose" Cooper when given all of their resources and infinite time to accomplish the reboot of humanity. The idea that Rocketsjudoka mentioned, "it was their role all along" has been incepted into the audience by the movie and also because how the bond between Cooper and his daughter convincingly made it unique. To cement it further, Cooper mentions that these multidimensional beings couldn't help humanity on their own because their dimension of time is not linear and perceived differently (perhaps a flat beer can like McConaughey described in True Detective...), so maybe I can buy that Cooper has unwittingly become a prophet/Messiah ala Babylon 5, but the nit picky part of me wants to flick at that those very, very time linear events, the Saturn wormhole and those gravity messages outside his daughter's room, which could maybe somewhat be resolved if Cooper was dicking around more inside the tesseract (...and causing his own crash perhaps?). I like this explanation better, but Anne Hathaway's monologue and the whole Tesseract scene seems to point to love being a superpower. Love is the sixth dimension... ::blech:: That said, I like the movie and the sci-fi in it. I'm open to admitting I misunderstood stuff.
Realism is a relative thing. It was more realistic than Star Wars, less realistic than Gravity. And for all the praise that the latter got, you can find extensive detailed breakdowns of everything that was wrong with it online. The truth is, if you got anywhere near a black hole, you'd be so completely irradiated by highly energetic particles and gamma rays that you'd glow in the dark for the rest of time, after which, you'd be ripped to spaghetti by tidal forces. Realism is a framework around which they built the story, but if it were 100%, you'd be watching a documentary. Regarding the paradox, the easiest fix is "multiple worlds" but then you can't mention the bookshelf at all until after they leave the first time, and that would destroy the narrative arc of the story.
