Film: 'Interstellar'

[Wade]

Spoiler Free


I'm half with Tyger and half with Chris, while i do agree with Chris's assesement on Hans Zimmer soundtrack; not only in many cases did it overcome the dialog, but i instinctively knew (going by the soundtrack) of the full role that Matt Damon's Dr. Brand would play a little bit later on...the church organ never lies. Although i have to say in all honesty just going by the reviews i instinctively knew who the ghost would be, the other figure of the "first handshake" was a neat little surprise.

As far as the science...or non-science...in the movie i thought that was secondary to the main theme. Just like the Batman trilogy wasn't about a caped crimefighter (except on the surface) it was about morality and the distorted thin line between "right" and "wrong" , Interstellar wasn't about traversing wormholes or black holes (except on the surface) It's just as much about the human spirit, overcoming adversity and love (especially family) although i personally felt that was a matter of good concept but not so good execution on the whole love aspect, but i give Mr. Nolan plaudits for going there in trying to make it a important part of our quest to explore. Surprisingly (to me) the movie went light on preachiness , about how man's actions got them to this point and i thought that somewhere there would be a little self awareness on how we were probably destined to do it again elsewhere, although it was mentioned and dropped early on. I'm of the opinion that Christopher Nolan got himself immersed in a very dark corner with the Batman trilogy so he needed to do this to cleanse his palate.

Truth be told i will probably have to see it again ( I got a few free AMC passes ) to completely grog it, i also had to see inception twice and momento twice, the thing is, there is a lot going on in all of Chris Nolan's movies and it's usually on subsequent viewings that one can appreciate his vision. While i'm glad i didn't pay 12+ bucks to go see it, it's worth catching, or wait until it hits netflix/redbox. i don't think i would pay to see any IMAX versions, as i wasn't especially inspired by the cinematography, chances are if i did see it in IMAX i would have needed a little dramamine myself.

Lastly i didn't really find the ending the least bit ambigious, in fact as i alluded to earlier when Coop was free falling i KNEW what that struture was thus confirming my earlier suspicions. I will say though, and i'm glad i'm wrong, i thought that scene was going to be the pivot piont to change the past, to change what already happened.

 

[Tyger]

Spoiler Free

Not quite.

I'm half with Tyger and half with Chris, while i do agree with Chris's assesement on Hans Zimmer soundtrack;

Oh, but I agree. That music was wayyyyy too loud about 2 or 3 times.

not only in many cases did it overcome the dialog, but i instinctively knew (going by the soundtrack) of the full role that Matt Damon's Dr. Brand would play a little bit later on...the church organ never lies.

Funny. His attitude towards the robot, too - very, very suspicious.

As far as the science...or non-science...in the movie i thought that was secondary to the main theme. Just like the Batman trilogy wasn't about a caped crimefighter (except on the surface) it was about morality and the distorted thin line between "right" and "wrong" , Interstellar wasn't about traversing wormholes or black holes (except on the surface) It's just as much about the human spirit, overcoming adversity and love (especially family) although i personally felt that was a matter of good concept but not so good execution on the whole love aspect, but i give Mr. Nolan plaudits for going there in trying to make it a important part of our quest to explore.

Well said. Yes - and I thought some of what he touched upon was daring and might throw some people off - like maybe Climate Change Deniers? Recall the textbook conversation with the teacher? For some people that will be hard to take.

Surprisingly (to me) the movie went light on preachiness , about how man's actions got them to this point and i thought that somewhere there would be a little self awareness on how we were probably destined to do it again elsewhere, although it was mentioned and dropped early on. I'm of the opinion that Christopher Nolan got himself immersed in a very dark corner with the Batman trilogy so he needed to do this to cleanse his palate.

Though the whole episode between Matt Damon's character and the other guy was pretty obvious. Here they are on an alien world, and what are they doing? In the first showing of the film I saw, there was an audible 'oh fer pity's sake' going on. It was a statement.

Truth be told i will probably have to see it again ( I got a few free AMC passes ) to completely grog it, i also had to see inception twice and momento twice, the thing is, there is a lot going on in all of Chris Nolan's movies and it's usually on subsequent viewings that one can appreciate his vision. While i'm glad i didn't pay 12+ bucks to go see it, it's worth catching, or wait until it hits netflix/redbox. i don't think i would pay to see any IMAX versions, as i wasn't especially inspired by the cinematography, chances are if i did see it in IMAX i would have needed a little dramamine myself.

Yep! Though Inception took far more than twice for me and maybe I still don't 'got it'.

chances are if i did see it in IMAX i would have needed a little dramamine myself.

Too true! That was amusing - but also one of those aspects that drive home how alien space is to the human being.

 

[Wade]

Though the whole episode between Matt Damon's character and the other guy was pretty obvious. Here they are on an alien world, and what are they doing? In the first showing of the film I saw, there was an audible 'oh fer pity's sake' going on. It was a statement.

I would apprecaite a pm if you could on this as it got past me, i'd like to know what i missed. while at no point did i step out for a bathroom break i don't quite get the gist of this sentiment. re you refering to when Matt and Matt went off on a jaunt ?

i have always had a bit of a problem comprehending Matt McCoungahy anyhow ( in any movie )so maybe that is why i had an issue with the soundtrack.

 

[Tyger]

I would apprecaite a pm if you could on this as it got past me, i'd like to know what i missed. while at no point did i step out for a bathroom break i don't quite get the gist of this sentiment. re you refering to when Matt and Matt went off on a jaunt ?

PM on it's way.

 

[Wade]

Amazon.com: The Science of Interstellar (9780393351378): Kip Thorne, Christopher Nolan: Books
The Science of Interstellar Kip thorne

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[Wade]

. And, yes, “Hawking Radiation” means black holes aren’t strictly “black”.

If i understand correctly Hawking Radiation does allow for some information to escape ?

 

[Tyger]

If i understand correctly Hawking Radiation does allow for some information to escape ?

Seems so, maybe. I'm not the go-to person on this. I think it's great that Kip Thorne wrote a book. Maybe it's in there.

 

[boomerang]

REVIEW:
Incomprehensible w/ 'more holes than a donut shop.'

I'm very disappointed and still scratching my head after seeing this overly tedious, pretentious morass of a film. Sure, if you are the average movie goer, the film's attempt at combining lofty ideals w/ cutting-edge physics would come across impressively, but if you have even the slightest understanding of science, you too would scratch a furrow in your brow. The film's vaunted science made little sense and toward the end was combined w/ the new agey concept of love explaining the role of gravity. I could go on-and-on about the preposterous use of quantum physics, but what pissed me off the most was Hans Zimmer's atrocious soundtrack that droned on and on with the same five note sequence for hours through way too many scenes. Two or three times the sequence was so loud it literally drowned out important plot element dialogue! I have never seen/heard this before. Inexcusable, but at least these passages helped keep me awake... On the plus side, I thought the acting was far better than the plot and script, there were some cool scenes that were a mix of locations and green screen cgi and there were a couple of clever plot twists. But none of these pluses could possibly outweigh the film's many glaring deficiencies. If I sound a bit harsh, read the New Yorker Magazine review or many of the other reviews the screwer this turkey to the serving plate far better than I.

The real shame here is the almost unlimited potential of Hollywood to push back the frontiers of imagination with real SciFi. Despite the occasional bright spot, like the PK Dick adaptions and some of the Spielberg stuff, they instead insult us with sloppy space opera. And there's a deep well of good stuff in the history of written science fiction to draw on. Oh well.....

 

[Tyger]

We went to see the film again today - second time seeing it. I'm getting it - at least some of it. It's complicated - deep. It's about time and 'us'. I'm even getting the music and why he did what he did with it. Not for everyone. This will be a cult film.

It struck me that his having there be mention/belief that the Lunar landing in 1968 was a hoax - in the way it was done - would put off some elements of conspiracy theorists et al. Not sure that would be the case but crossed my mind even the first time I saw the film.

“I have to believe in a world outside my own mind. I have to believe that my actions still have meaning, even if I can’t remember them. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world’s still there.”
- Chris Nolan: Director of the new film: Interstellar

 

[Tyger]

"Black Holes: What do They Look Like? Kip Thorne, a highly respected astrophysicist, was retained by the producers of the film "Intersteller" to build a simulation.....

"According to Kip Thorne, no one knew exactly what a black hole would look like until they actually built one. Light, temporarily trapped around the black hole, produced an unexpectedly complex fingerprint pattern near the black hole’s shadow. And the glowing accretion disk appeared above the black hole, below the black hole, and in front of it. “I never expected that,” Thorne says.”

LINK: How Building a Black Hole for Interstellar Led to an Amazing Scientific Discovery | WIRED

Some of the back story told in Hollywood hype but still interesting -

TEXT: "KIP THORNE LOOKS into the black hole he helped create and thinks, “Why, of course. That's what it would do.” This particular black hole is a simulation of unprecedented accuracy. It appears to spin at nearly the speed of light, dragging bits of the universe along with it. (That's gravity for you; relativity is superweird.) In theory it was once a star, but instead of fading or exploding, it collapsed like a failed soufflé into a tiny point of inescapable singularity. A glowing ring orbiting the spheroidal maelstrom seems to curve over the top and below the bottom simultaneously.

"All this is only natural, because weird things happen near black holes. For example, their gravity is so strong that they bend the fabric of the universe. Einstein explained this: The more massive something is, the more gravity it produces. Objects like stars and black holes do this so powerfully that they actually bend light and pull space and time with it. And it gets weirder: If you were closer to a black hole than I was, our perceptions of space and time would diverge. Relatively speaking, time would seem to be going faster for me.

"What does Thorne see in there? He's an astrophysicist; his math guided the creation of this mesmerizing visual effect, the most accurate simulation ever of what a black hole would look like. It's the product of a year of work by 30 people and thousands of computers. And alongside a small galaxy of Hollywood stars—Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Casey Affleck, John Lithgow—the simulation plays a central role inInterstellar, the prestige space travel epic directed by Christopher Nolan opening November 7. Thorne sees truth. Nolan, the consummate image maker, sees beauty. Black holes, even fictional ones, can warp perception.

"Thorne Isn't your average astrophysicist. Sure, he's a famous theorist, but even before his retirement from Caltech in 2009 he was deeply interested in explaining the heady ideas of relativity to the general public. Just before his retirement, Thorne and film producer Lynda Obst, whom he'd known since Carl Sagan set them up on a blind date three decades earlier, were playing around with an idea for a movie that would involve the mysterious properties of black holes and wormholes.

"Before long, Steven Spielberg signed on to direct; screenwriter Jonathan “Jonah” Nolan wrote a script. Eventually Spielberg dropped out; Jonathan's brother Chris—known for directing mind-bendy movies like Memento and Inception (plus Batman) dropped in. And while Chris Nolan was rewriting his brother's script, he wanted to get a handle on the science at the heart of his story. So he started meeting with Thorne.

"Over the course of a couple months in early 2013, Thorne and Nolan delved into what the physicist calls “the warped side of the universe”—curved spacetime, holes in the fabric of reality, how gravity bends light. “The story is now essentially all Chris and Jonah's,” Thorne says. “But the spirit of it, the goal of having a movie in which science is embedded in the fabric from the beginning—and it's great science—that was preserved.”

"The story the filmmakers came up with is set in a dystopian near future when crops have failed and humanity is on the verge of extinction. A former astronaut (McConaughey) gets recruited for one last flight, a desperate attempt to reach other star systems where humans can once again thrive.

"And therein lies a problem. See, other stars are really far away. Reaching even the nearest ones would take decades at speeds we humans have no idea how to attain. Back in 1983, when Sagan needed a plausible solution to this problem for the story that would become the movie Contact, Thorne suggested the wormhole, a hypothetical tear in the universe connecting two distant points via dimensions beyond the four we experience as space and time. A wormhole was a natural choice for Interstellar too. As Thorne talked about the movie with Nolan, their discussions about the physical properties of wormholes led to an inevitable question for a filmmaker: How do you actually show one onscreen?

"That's not the only headache inducing bit of physics that the film's special effects team had to grapple with. Nolan's story relied on time dilation: time passing at different rates for different characters. To make this scientifically plausible, Thorne told him, he'd need a massive black hole—in the movie it's called Gargantua—spinning at nearly the speed of light. As a filmmaker, Nolan had no idea how to make something like that look realistic. But he had an idea how to make it happen. “Chris called me and said he wanted to send a guy over to my house to talk to me about the visual effects,” Thorne says. “I said, ‘Sure, send him over.’” It wasn't long before Paul Franklin showed up on Thorne's doorstep.

"FRANKLIN KNEW THAT his computers would do anything he told them to. That was a problem and a temptation. “It's very easy to fall into the trap of breaking the rules of reality,” says Franklin, a senior supervisor of Academy Award-winning effects house Double Negative. “And those rules are actually quite strict.”

"So he asked Thorne to generate equations that would guide their effects software the way physics governs the real world. They started with wormholes. If light around a wormhole wouldn't behave classically—that is, travel in a straight line—what would it do? How could that be described mathematically?

"Thorne sent his answers to Franklin in the form of heavily researched memos. Pages long, deeply sourced, and covered in equations, they were more like scientific journal articles than anything else. Franklin's team wrote new rendering software based on these equations and spun up a wormhole. The result was extraordinary. It was like a crystal ball reflecting the universe, a spherical hole in spacetime. “Science fiction always wants to dress things up, like it's never happy with the ordinary universe,” he says. “What we were getting out of the software was compelling straight off.”

"Their success with the wormhole emboldened the effects team to try the same approach with the black hole. But black holes, as the name suggests, are murder on light. Filmmakers often use a technique called ray tracing to render light and reflections in images. “But ray-tracing software makes the generally reasonable assumption that light is traveling along straight paths,” says Eugénie von Tunzelmann, a CG supervisor at Double Negative. This was a whole other kind of physics. “We had to write a completely new renderer,” she says.

"Some individual frames took up to 100 hours to render, the computation overtaxed by the bendy bits of distortion caused by an Einsteinian effect called gravitational lensing. In the end the movie brushed up against 800 terabytes of data. “I thought we might cross the petabyte threshold on this one,” von Tunzelmann says.

" “Chris really wanted us to sell the idea that the black hole is spherical,” Franklin says. “I said, ‘You know, it's going to look like a disk.’ The only thing you can see is the way it warps starlight.” Then Franklin started reading about accretion disks, agglomerations of matter that orbit some black holes. Franklin figured that he could use this ring of orbiting detritus to define the sphere.

"Von Tunzelmann tried a tricky demo. She generated a flat, multicolored ring—a stand-in for the accretion disk—and positioned it around their spinning black hole. Something very, very weird happened. “We found that warping space around the black hole also warps the accretion disk,” Franklin says. “So rather than looking like Saturn's rings around a black sphere, the light creates this extraordinary halo.”

"That's what led Thorne to his “why, of course” moment when he first saw the final effect. The Double Negative team thought it must be a bug in the renderer. But Thorne realized that they had correctly modeled a phenomenon inherent in the math he'd supplied.

"Still, no one knew exactly what a black hole would look like until they actually built one. Light, temporarily trapped around the black hole, produced an unexpectedly complex fingerprint pattern near the black hole's shadow. And the glowing accretion disk appeared above the black hole, below the black hole, and in front of it. “I never expected that,” Thorne says. “Eugénie just did the simulations and said, ‘Hey, this is what I got.’ It was just amazing.”

"In the end, Nolan got elegant images that advance the story. Thorne got a movie that teaches a mass audience some real, accurate science. But he also got something he didn't expect: a scientific discovery. “This is our observational data,” he says of the movie's visualizations. “That's the way nature behaves. Period.” Thorne says he can get at least two published articles out of it.

"When Thorne discusses the astrophysics that he likes best—colliding black holes, space dragged into motion by a whirling star, time warps—he uses a lot of analogies. He talks about two tornadoes running into each other or rays of light cast about like straw in the wind. But metaphors can be deceptive; they can make people think they understand something when they only understand what it is like. But Thorne's haloed, spinning black hole and galaxy-spanning wormhole are not just metaphors. Most Interstellar viewers will see these images—the wormhole, the black hole, the weird light—and think, “Whoa. That's beautiful.” Thorne looks at them and thinks, “Whoa. That'strue.” And from a certain perspective, that's beautiful too."

 

[Erno86]

I believe that Thorne's scientific analogies in the movie "Interstellar" are highly inaccurate, though my faith in black hole starships {Google: Black Hole Starships} seem to be the only viable and practical way for interstellar starship travel.

 

[Tyger]

I believe that Thorne's scientific analogies in the movie "Interstellar" are highly inaccurate, though my faith in black hole starships {Google: Black Hole Starships} seem to be the only viable and practical way for interstellar starship travel.

To each his own, I guess. But it always surprises (and amuses) me that layman (myself included) are willing to go up against someone like a Kip Thorne to say he is 'wrong' - in his own field, no less. Unless...... [P.S. But you are talking about his analogies, not his science. I see.]

"Kip Stephen Thorne is an American theoretical physicist, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics." Wikipedia. Plus he has won the Albert Einstein Medal in 2009. He's no slouch.

But I'm with you - I should be one to talk. I am someone who thinks Stephen Hawking has been talking through his hat for some time now. And that highly amuses me!

Are you going to read his book?

 

[Wade]

should be one to talk. I am someone who thinks Stephen Hawking has been talking through his hat for some time now

I wondered why his voice sounded so odd.

Gotta go grab my flak jacket now.

 

[Tyger]

I wondered why his voice sounded so odd.

Gotta go grab my flak jacket now.

Ha!

 

[SiGiL]

I saw the flick, and I thought it was excellent to be frank. I agree with you guys on Hans Zimmer score certainly not the best he's done, he normally does an excellent job with the music but I wasn't really fond of it in this movie. I did however like Dr. Mann's musically score.

The acting was convincing, especially with Cooper and his daughter. (Matthew McConaughey, Mackenzie Foy) I thought that both actors were on point. I really liked TARS. Although I didn't feel that way at first. I was thinking how can someone design such a ridiculous robot A.I. but I grew to like him the more I watched the movie. Plus, you really get to see what TARS is capable of later on the movie. I also knew who the ghost would be - there were clues that foreshadowed it. On a side note, I also enjoyed the cinematography too.

Anyway, to make a long review very short, I would give the movie a 9 out of 10 for me. Christopher Nolan has a great track record in my book. Go see it.

 

[Randall]

For me there's a point at which sci-fi turns into space opera or fantasy and when it does so successfully ( e.g. Star Wars ), it's great because for whatever reason I'm able to suspend my disbelief in the knowledge that it's simply a story and become swept-up in the plot. I'm able to do the same thing when sci-fi is fairly pure. The science behind it doesn't have to be perfect, but a recent example would be Gravity. However there is also a point between the two, a sort of uncanny valley of sci-fi, where it's just not believable despite the otherwise great workmanship. In this movie I found myself falling into that mode too often to remain immersed in the plot. But it was still entertaining, and those who have spent less time contemplating the possibilities of the theoretical science probably wouldn't be bothered by such science being turned into a sensationalist plot device.

 

[Tyger]

Christopher Nolan intervistato da Stephen Colbert al Colbert report! (12/4/2014)

What's fascinating is that his answer very much parallels the ideas of Jane Roberts under trance channeling the words of 'Seth' in the 1970's and 1980's. The idea that modern physics would come full circle with 'Seth Speaks' is kinda kinky.


Christopher Nolan Talks About 5th Dimensional Time Space Perceptual Entities on Stephen Colbert
LINK: Christopher Nolan Talks About 5th Dimensional Time Space Perceptual Entities on Stephen Colbert - disinformation

TEXT: "While watching this the other night it seemed pretty standard and then I got to the end and was like: Huh? What? Did that just happen? Transcript for those too lazy to watch (or in case the video gets yanked):

"Colbert: Are we happening now or is this us watching ourselves in the past? Do you believe that, do you believe that all time is happening at once?

"Nolan: I believe that if you were capable of living in a 5th dimensional world, if you were a 5th dimensional creature, you could in fact view time as a spacial dimension. So your idea of cause and effect would have to be completely rewritten.

"Colbert: You did not answer my question.

"Why is this compelling? Because that’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone talk about this straight up Occult concept on anything anywhere near this high profile. You don’t even see it mentioned on shit like Ancient Aliens where they keep talking about “actual flesh and blood extraterrestrials,” quite hilariously missing the point. After hearing that and having my mind blown, it did, in fact, occur to me that not only did Nolan make a high budget movie about lucid dreaming, but also a trilogy about Batman, so I’m sure he’s read Grant Morrison. What I found most compelling though, is that he actually talked about it using my freaking vernacular and quite accurately. By the model of Holy Trinity that was presented to me in a 2010 vision, a 5th dimensional creature (or father/mother) would in fact be the one looking at time as if it were a singular object. Of course, then, 4th dimensional beings (the Holy Spirit) are the conjunctive tissue holding all of our collective plotlines together, and a 3rd dimensional being (the son/daughter) would be someone like me writing this at my cubicle. Here’s the post I did on the concept last year if you’re curious, and I also touch on it as a guest on the Conspiranormal podcast which is absolutely worth a listen.

"What’s the best part about this though? Neil DeGrasse Tyson has been apparently nerd-tweeting about Interstellar since it dropped and here’s where I point out: Yeah, the movie you’ve been geeking out on and encouraging people to watch? It’s actually just as influenced by the Occult concepts that you love to deride as superstition as it is your ridiculously theoretical findings in astrophysics. Ha ha! (Nelson voice)."

 

[Tony B.]

Saw it last week - enjoyed it. I don't agree with all of the explanations for the science, but I've not had more than six or so units of college-level astronomy and physics, supplemented by over fifty years of reading voraciously (grin). Saw Dr. Tyson's bit on YouTube about his take on the science.

I *loved* the lensing effect of the wormhole and the appearance of the accretion disk at the black hole. The one bit that I had a hard time with was: when you get that much matter being accelerated to a substantial fraction of c... did anyone (besides Kip) have any IDEA of how much hard radiation (gamma and hard X-rays) that thing would be throwing out? You'd probably fry everything within twenty or thirty AU of the damn thing.

It also would have been nice if they'd depicted jets coming off the magnetic poles, instead of that solar 'corona' effect. Still not a bad film, I'll probably get a copy when it's out on DVD just so I can drool at the wormhole some more.

 

[Wade]

From Kip ' s book The Science of Interstellar

"...
A typical accretion disk and its jet emit radiation—X-rays, gamma rays, radio waves, and light—radiation so intense that it would fry any human nearby. To avoid frying, Christopher Nolan and Paul Franklin gave Gargantua an exceedingly anemic disk.

Now, “anemic” doesn’t mean anemic by human standards; just by the standards of typical quasars. Instead of being a hundred million degrees like a typical quasar’s disk, Gargantua’s disk is only a few thousand degrees, like the Sun’s surface, so it emits lots of light but little to no X-rays or gamma rays. With gas so cool, the atoms’ thermal motions are too slow to puff the disk up much. The disk is thin and nearly confined to Gargantua’s equatorial plane, with only a little puffing.

Disks like this might be common around black holes that have not torn a star apart in the past millions of years or more—that have not been “fed” in a long time. The magnetic field, originally confined by the disk’s plasma, may have largely leaked away. And the jet, previously powered by the magnetic field, may have died. Such is Gargantua’s disk: jetless and thin and relatively safe for humans..."

 

[Wade]

Why is this compelling? Because that’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone talk about this straight up Occult concept on anything anywhere near this high profile. You don’t even see it mentioned on shit like Ancient Aliens where they keep talking about “actual flesh and blood extraterrestrials,” quite hilariously missing the point

I'm interested in hearing why the author feels that the possibility that the past, present and future in 5th dimensional time would occupy the same "space time " (?) borders on the occult. I've heard this theory brought up a few times, Brian Greene mentions it in one of his books.

Having mentioned that, and this is not to deny leading physicists their due for their imaginative thought process but observing from an outsider's pov I'm struck by what they had to come up with to explain the effect of gravity on a macro scale and micro scale. If i understand correctly...and i probably don't...in order to justify that they had to come up with string theory, in order for string theory to work there must be multiple dimensions (up to 11) and to justify gravity ' s relatively weak force it must be leakage caused by the displacement (my words) of a large body's intrusion into the membrane of another dimension. All this because gravity has a different effect on macro objects than it does micro objects. All interesting stuff and I'll be open to it but given that line of reasoning I'm not going to begrudge those who choose to believe in a God or a creator. It's a lot simplier, and most people live and breath this Occam's Razor pov. If there is no physical proof...so far...of these things, and given its size a "string" will never be photographed, you're basically taking the findings of physicists on faith...and mathematics. As I brought up before, if a physicist came up with a mathematical equation to suggest a proof that a God could exist would he or she getting funding from M.I.T. ?