I read in The Guardian that Interstellar (2014) is currently “the internet’s favourite film” and has become the most-loved film of Christopher Nolan. So I decided to watch it again.
Today, I also listened to a long interview with Kip Thorne, the Nobel prize-winning theoretical physicist who advised Nolan on the making of the film, and even wrote a book, The Science of Interstellar.
In the years since the film was made, the idea that our best hope of saving humanity is to escape to a planet B has become associated with obnoxious billionaires and is parodied in the film Don’t Look Up. I think the makers of “Don’t Look Up” may have watched the mentioned interview, because the Star Talk host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, ends his show with what apparently is a signature line, “Keep Looking Up”; but this is the first time I had ever watched Tyson or the series, so I don’t know. There was also something in the elderly voice of Kip Thorne that reminded me of the high-pitched tone adopted by Mark Rylance in the character of the Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos/Steve Jobs surrogate of “Don’t Look Up”, but this may be unfair and subjective.
Anyway, the first question Tyson asks Kip Thorne is if it wouldn’t have been easier just to fix the environmental problems like blight-induced multi-crop failures, than to seek a solution involving space travel? Thorne’s answer requires the resort to one of the film’s many unexplained back-stories, and the same is true of most of his other responses to the difficult questions posed by Tyson. The science in Interstellar turns out to be theoretically interesting and conceivable, but it all adds up to a set of unconvincing implausibilities, to my mind.
I don’t think that audiences invest much attention to the matter of credibility in sci-fi films, though. They come for the wow-appeal, action and adventure. Indeed, what science fiction often lacks is emotional depth, which turns quite a lot of people away from the genre. But in Interstellar, the film’s fair storytelling, competent acting and emotional drama apparently work well enough to hold viewers through the film’s 2 hours and 50 minutes.
Ultimately, that this is the internet’s favourite film at the moment, says something about the mediocrity of our contemporary culture. Most popular never equals anything like best, of course, but still you could hope that the two apices would draw a little closer.
Source: https://hub.vikshepa.com/item/1dab7286-6688-472a-a508-a41409e90a32