Interstellar (Nov. 2014)

[jakonovski]

Yeah, the space planes were a bit too advanced. It bothered me because they were enough to enact plan A. Just send TARS and CASE to the asteroids and build a space habitat.


 

[murdoc]

I think Samwise has some excellent questions. It is obvious they spent a lot of time on the science which is why throwing in plot conveniences like shuttlecrafts and one way communication stand out so much more.  It drives me nuts when a fantastical movie can't live within it's predefined rules, it stands out even more when a movie based on actual science won't do it.

I also facepalmed during the love speech.

Having said that, I loved this movie. I was instantly hooked from the first moments. I loved that they referenced Cooper's accident, but no more details were giving and we didn't have to sit through much of a flashback scene outside of the first few moments.

[Nevermore]

I definitely give this movie credit for getting enough right to make the stuff they fudged stand out so sharply.  If this were Doctor Who or something I wouldn't bat an eye at a planet where time goes slower when you're standing on it for no particular reason.  As is it's just very... uneven.  Going back to the thing with the rockets, I thought their initial liftoff and everything around that was really well done and did a great job conveying how fucking hard it is to get off a planet.  When that suddenly ceased to be a thing and they had Star Trek shuttlecrafts it was a very distinct "wait, wut?" moment.

I thought I've read in the past that it's actually not that difficult to get into space off a planet.  The hard part is attaining a lateral velocity so fast that you go into orbit around the planet instead of getting pulled back down again.  Not sure how that would relate in this particular case but just throwing that out there.

Edit: This askscience reddit thread gets into it a little bit, but I'm sure there's a lot more detailed explanations out there if one cared enough to look. 

[Samwise]

Yeah, the space planes were a bit too advanced. It bothered me because they were enough to enact plan A. Just send TARS and CASE to the asteroids and build a space habitat.

Yeah, that exactly.  It wouldn't have been as bothersome if the difficulty of getting into space wasn't the conflict that drove the entire plot.

On the topic of the asteroids, something about the ending that bugged me a little bit:

[MrHat]

Yeah, the space planes were a bit too advanced. It bothered me because they were enough to enact plan A. Just send TARS and CASE to the asteroids and build a space habitat.

Yeah, that exactly.  It wouldn't have been as bothersome if the difficulty of getting into space wasn't the conflict that drove the entire plot.

On the topic of the asteroids, something about the ending that bugged me a little bit:

[Samwise]

Yeah, it was a little unclear, but here are the things I picked up:


(edit) Half in the Bag just put up their review.  Mike's thoughts were similar to mine -- lots of great stuff in this movie but it would've been better if they'd either gone all in on hard science or all in on cosmic love woo woo.

[Mattemeo]

You've already looked up some of the more difficult physics for an (extremely amateur) enthusiast of these things like myself to talk about without simply resorting to wiki or whatever book I can drag the hard and fast stuff out of. That's fine; i'm no teacher and I don't dare condescend more anyway (I just get grumpy when people purposefully invent portions of narrative to explain how they would have done it better). We've already gone into ergosphere curavture time dilation in recepit of a super-massive Black Hole's influence, and I think we've established that maybe the distances involved are either fudged enough to work narratively or just kosher enough to appease the science informing the scene; either way we're talking about vast gravitational forces that are still firmly residing in theory (and as I said earlier, the working models created for the film's vlsuals are now providing observable data realised in 3D/real-time and giving science even more info) and the actual distances involved are quite literally astronomical. And sure, you're looking at an almost infantessimal degree of influence at the very outer edge, but that curve steepens significantly, exponentially further in as we understand things. Miller's planet is in a stable orbit around Gargantua (stable mostly because of the phenomental rotation of the black hole) and is probably on a wavering time dilation that works as it spins itself, which would honestly make the planet a no-go-zone for regular human habitation anyway. There's also the margin of error in the narrative that crops up - they fail to take into account where Miller's world is during its orbit of Gargantua, and their time on planet and the subsequent dilation outwards is so badly fucked up.

Concerning the ability of the scout vessel to VTOL (yes, it's just a more advanced version of what we've been using for 30 years), we know that the trip to Miller's world cost them more than time, it cost them fuel. The expenditure from visiting Miller's planet (and escaping + engine spark/fuel burn) cause them to be incapable of visiting both the next 2 planets on their schedule. The regular, work-a-day Rocket take-off in the film is 100% accurate in that it displays the forces necessary to get a large object out of atmosphere - when they're leaving earth, they're bringing fuel, supplies, all sorts that will then be sequestered into the main hub of the explorer vessel. They're not spending fuel they'd be using on the missions to do so, that's a write-off the moment the rocket breaks up. Their trip to Miller's world is costly in so many ways that it's easy to forget fuel was one of them.

I'd adress other things you've mentioned in spoilers but a lot of that is going into the more storified points and then it's really just my interpretation/opinion vs yours.

[Ginaz]

I saw this yesterday and I agree with most what's been posted here.  It was really good right up until the last 30 mins but even so it didn't detract from my overall enjoyment.  I don't know if it was just the theatre I was in, but it was one of the loudest movies I've ever been to.  They probably could have saved millions if they hadn't cast so many well known actors in minor parts.  You don't need anyone else other than Matthew McConaughey to sell your movie to the public.  I could see keeping Michael Caine and MAYBE Jessica Chastain, but I didn't think there was any need to have Matt Damon, Ann Hathaway, John Lithgow, Topher Grace & Casey Affleck playing the parts they did since they all seemed like they would be easy to replace with a dependable no name actor.  Damon in particular seemed really out of place and Hathaway was, in the end, reduced from a smart and courageous scientist to a woman who gets emotional and wants to bang McConaughy.  Of course, if you only have one guy to be stranded with on a remote planet and responsible for repopulating the species, I'm sure most women wouldn't mind if it was him.  Hathaway?  Meh, I guess.  We could always create a race of half human, half horse.

[Samwise]

Concerning the ability of the scout vessel to VTOL (yes, it's just a more advanced version of what we've been using for 30 years), we know that the trip to Miller's world cost them more than time, it cost them fuel. The expenditure from visiting Miller's planet (and escaping + engine spark/fuel burn) cause them to be incapable of visiting both the next 2 planets on their schedule. The regular, work-a-day Rocket take-off in the film is 100% accurate in that it displays the forces necessary to get a large object out of atmosphere - when they're leaving earth, they're bringing fuel, supplies, all sorts that will then be sequestered into the main hub of the explorer vessel. They're not spending fuel they'd be using on the missions to do so, that's a write-off the moment the rocket breaks up. Their trip to Miller's world is costly in so many ways that it's easy to forget fuel was one of them.

So didn't it seem more than a smidge weird to you while you were sitting in the theater that the scout vessel was able to land on a planet (one with stronger gravity than Earth, no less) and take off without any of that rocketry?  They had a throwaway line about it costing them some fuel, but the way rockets work it's not like you have this little tank of gas and you top it up and you can reach orbit before you need to refuel, you have those huge staged things because the amount of fuel you need is such that it makes up most of the payload you initially launch with.  They even referenced it later in that movie with the line about Newton (gotta leave something behind), while completely ignoring that their own ship was apparently exempt from that particular rule of space travel.  This isn't nitpicking after the fact, this was repeatedly slapping me in the face while I was watching the movie.

[Ironwood]

Hathaway?  Meh, I guess.  We could always create a race of half human, half horse.

Whut ?   

[Wasted]

I'm a big cry baby these days and was bawling by the end.  A beautiful movie, obsessing over the science is missing the point.

[Ginaz]

Hathaway?  Meh, I guess.  We could always create a race of half human, half horse.

Whut ?   

She has kind of a horse face.  Not a Sara Jessica Parker horse face, but she still has one.

[Maven]

Hathaway's beautiful. Full stop.

She's got a non-traditional look, sure.

I saw this movie -- and I thought overall the movie wasn't great. Props to them for realistic renderings of space phenomenons, but I've never seen a plot hole *actually* represented as a black hole before. Inception is a superior film. I even sort of liked Prestige more.

Now, that aside, Cooper's emotional moments were what sold the film. Emotional interplay inside strange circumstances is one of Nolan's strong points.The logistics and execution of Miller's planet. It does a good job with sound and music.

TARS / CASE are great. It was weird to hear their voices so clearly, when half the movie I had trouble understanding what the main characters were saying.

Was there any connection to the jump cuts that skipped significant portions of time and relativity? I felt like we were also leaping through time, especially between Cooper signing up for the mission and when the mission launches.


Edit: Brain's always fried on a Friday. That's why I call it Fried-day.

[Ironwood]

Possibly that was a spoiler rather than a quote ?   

[Abagadro]

[Maven]

[Maven]

I had mentioned the difficulty hearing dialog, right? Welp. That's one theater's take, but it supposedly hasn't come up in official discussion or commentary.

[Nevermore]

I just saw it and honestly that was my only major problem with the movie: the 'background' music was way, way too loud relative to the dialog.  Otherwise I really enjoyed the movie.

To address some points brought up in this thread:

Rockets were used to bring the crew to lift the crew off of Earth to conserve fuel on the ship.  Fuel was the major constraint during the entire mission, as the crew talked about on more than one occasion.  The 'magic hovercrafts' could have taken off from Earth by themselves, but why waste fuel they'll need during the mission by doing that?  As for the landers themselves, we can already build spaceplanes today (albeit less efficient ones) so I have no problem with there being better spaceplanes 50+ years in the future.

The one way communication thing could have just been a broadcast issue.  A station on Earth could generate a much, much stronger signal than the ships on the other side of the wormhole could.  Especially those small Lazarus ships.

The time dilation around Miller's World was specifically explained.  There's an entire scene were Cooper says they're going to put the Endurance in orbit around Gargantua outside the ergosphere instead of putting it into orbit around the planet so it could avoid the time dilation effect.

Those were the major problems some people had, no?

[NowhereMan]

Saw this and really liked it, TARS and CASE were awesome. Also the first movie I've seen in Malaysia where they just bleeped some swear words instead of jump cutting the scene. Gotta love censorship.

[Ruvaldt]

Saw it today on the 70mm IMax whatever.

This is a good movie.

[Teleku]

To address some points brought up in this thread:

Rockets were used to bring the crew to lift the crew off of Earth to conserve fuel on the ship.  Fuel was the major constraint during the entire mission, as the crew talked about on more than one occasion.  The 'magic hovercrafts' could have taken off from Earth by themselves, but why waste fuel they'll need during the mission by doing that?  As for the landers themselves, we can already build spaceplanes today (albeit less efficient ones) so I have no problem with there being better spaceplanes 50+ years in the future.

Err, you missed our point a bit.  The point is that in a world where magical hover planes that can take off from earth and go into orbit exist, there is no need for them to 'solve the problem of gravity'.  They could easily start taking boat loads of people and equipment up to space without issue.  The problem is that sending stuff to space is currently prohibitively expensive, and impossibly expensive when we are talking about moving a large population over for colonization purposes.  Which they correctly showed by it taking a massive rocket (which costs hundreds of millions of dollars) to get the 4 of them into space. 

We currently don't have any space planes that I'm aware of.  People have been trying for decades now to make the concept work, but we currently haven't defeated the laws of physics yet.  The moment somebody manages to build an airplane with an engine capable of letting it take off from a run way (or you know, just sort of hover up and go  ), fly around outer space, then return, with the only expense being the cost of fuel (provided the fuel isn't liquid platinum or something), would be a massive civilization changing epoch.  Like, man discovers the fire/wheel/agriculture/The Atom levels.

So for them to just casually show it while spending the whole movie worried about solving the problems of gravity so they can escape was a bit   .

Still liked the movie, and as I said, I understand why they did it as a way to let them visit places and move the plot along without bogging it down with even more technical issues to surmount (though I personally would have liked that, but I'm not the general public).

[Samwise]

Still liked the movie, and as I said, I understand why they did it as a way to let them visit places and move the plot along without bogging it down with even more technical issues to surmount (though I personally would have liked that, but I'm not the general public).

NERRRRRRRDDDD  by which I mean, I agree.   

Or they could've just established up front that they have Star Trek impulse engine technology and found something else to move the plot along and that'd be okay too (although I'd have really loved a movie that stuck to excitingly plausible near-future technology).  The mixing and matching is what really threw me.

[Nevermore]

We currently don't have any space planes that I'm aware of.  People have been trying for decades now to make the concept work, but we currently haven't defeated the laws of physics yet.  The moment somebody manages to build an airplane with an engine capable of letting it take off from a run way (or you know, just sort of hover up and go  ), fly around outer space, then return, with the only expense being the cost of fuel (provided the fuel isn't liquid platinum or something), would be a massive civilization changing epoch.  Like, man discovers the fire/wheel/agriculture/The Atom levels.

So for them to just casually show it while spending the whole movie worried about solving the problems of gravity so they can escape was a bit   .

Still liked the movie, and as I said, I understand why they did it as a way to let them visit places and move the plot along without bogging it down with even more technical issues to surmount (though I personally would have liked that, but I'm not the general public).

Spaceplanes:
X-15
Space Shuttle
Buran
SpaceShipOne
X-37

They are all rocket powered of course, but why can't the landers in the movie also be rocket powered?  They would just need a more efficient fuel.  It seems likely such a fuel would not be plentiful, which is why they used an old rocket to launch from earth and why they don't use those landers to move the entire population of Earth off-planet 4 at a time.  I'm also somewhat bewildered why VTOL landers are so outlandish when VTOL has been a thing for 50 years or so.

The closest thing to 'Star Trek' technology for any of that would be the super efficient rocket fuel for the landers, which I'm willing to forgive since the movie is set at least 50 years in the future.  And just because the fuel is super efficient doesn't automatically make it plentiful.  All the other tech they use is entirely reasonable.

Fake edit:  actually, probably the most sci fi element of technology in the movie is the hibernation chamber but no one seems to have any complaints about that.

[Samwise]

They are all rocket powered of course, but why can't the landers in the movie also be rocket powered?

In the context of getting something into orbit, "rocket powered" doesn't mean it's got a rocket built into it, it means it rides up on a one-use rocket.  Because gravity is a bitch.

There are "spaceplanes" that don't need to ride on rockets to get into "space", but they aren't making it to orbit (or outside of it), they're just cruising around in very thin air.

I think, anyway.

That's the big challenge of travel between planets -- once you're there, how do you get back?  Getting one ship off Earth is hard enough, sending along all the heavy equipment you need to get it off ANOTHER planet (which weighs many more times than the payload) is just about impossible.

[Teleku]

Spaceplanes:
X-15
Space Shuttle
Buran
SpaceShipOne
X-37

They are all rocket powered of course, but why can't the landers in the movie also be rocket powered?  They would just need a more efficient fuel.  It seems likely such a fuel would not be plentiful, which is why they used an old rocket to launch from earth and why they don't use those landers to move the entire population of Earth off-planet 4 at a time.  I'm also somewhat bewildered why VTOL landers are so outlandish when VTOL has been a thing for 50 years or so.

The closest thing to 'Star Trek' technology for any of that would be the super efficient rocket fuel for the landers, which I'm willing to forgive since the movie is set at least 50 years in the future.  And just because the fuel is super efficient doesn't automatically make it plentiful.  All the other tech they use is entirely reasonable.

Fake edit:  actually, probably the most sci fi element of technology in the movie is the hibernation chamber but no one seems to have any complaints about that.

None of those can fly into space.  The Space Shuttle, Buran, and X- 37 are all attached to a much larger and much much more expensive space craft that carries them into orbit.  Once placed into orbit by the other vehicle, they can fly around and then land back on earth.  The x-15 and Spaceship one can't even leave the atmosphere, and can only get that close when launched from another bigger and more expensive vehicle (though not nearly as cost prohibitive as rockets).  They are not true space planes in the context of this argument.  IE, a craft that can land and then take off back into space all on its own.

Producing a craft that has the capabilities of what the ship in that movie could do is no small feat at all.

For the hover thing I'm not really knocking it for that (just poking fun at it), since its very minor compared to all the other technical hurdles.  But VTOL adds an exponential amount of complication to an aircraft (look at the development of the F-35 and the cost/difficulties of the VTOL and none VTOL variants).  Its just the sort of funny that on top of all the physic breaking magic they managed to jam into that small craft, they also managed to also cram a VTOL system on top of all it, heh.  With the movie being so hard sci-fi focused, the magical hover space ship does seem a bit glaring.

[Nevermore]

The Space Shuttle, Buran and X-37 are attached to large, disposable engines to lift them into orbit.  In the 50+ years of Interstellar's future, those large disposable engines were shrunk down to smaller, non-disposable internal engines.  I really don't see how that any more unreasonable or physics-breaking than a fully automated coffin sized hibernation chamber or cramming the computing power of city-block sized 1965 computer into today's smartphone.

[Samwise]

In the 50+ years of Interstellar's future, those large disposable engines were shrunk down to smaller, non-disposable internal engines.  I really don't see how that any more unreasonable or physics-breaking than a fully automated coffin sized hibernation chamber or cramming the computing power of city-block sized 1965 computer into today's smartphone.

One answer to your question is the fact that while the computers we used to launch space missions in the 60s have gotten many orders of magnitude more efficient, and while we've made huge strides in solar panels and robotics and all that stuff, we're still using basically the same rocket technology.  

The characters in the movie even do a lot of exposition on why escaping the gravity of a planet is difficult and why we use rockets.  "Gotta leave something behind."  The difficulty of reaching escape velocity is the motivation behind the entire "solving gravity" subplot.  If they'd previously established via dialogue that they had no way to survive long space flights and made that an integral part of the plot, and they then suddenly whipped out the cryo-pods, those would have been similarly jarring.  It'd be like, wait, did someone who hadn't read the rest of the script write this scene and just drop it in there?

Turning off the brain makes it all better though.  It is a fairly decent Star Trek movie if you approach it from that angle.

[Nevermore]

One answer to your question is the fact that while the computers we used to launch space missions in the 60s have gotten many orders of magnitude more efficient, and while we've made huge strides in solar panels and robotics and all that stuff, we're still using basically the same rocket technology.   

So there can never be a breakthrough in efficiency in the future?  I mean, since the 60s we now have working ion drives.  Maybe in 50 more years they figured out a way to increase the thrust on those enough to reach escape velocity?  I mean, we aren't talking about some kind of entirely new propulsion devices here.  We're just talking about a more efficient version of something we already have.

[Samwise]

One answer to your question is the fact that while the computers we used to launch space missions in the 60s have gotten many orders of magnitude more efficient, and while we've made huge strides in solar panels and robotics and all that stuff, we're still using basically the same rocket technology.  

So there can never be a breakthrough in efficiency in the future?  I mean, since the 60s we now have working ion drives.  Maybe in 50 more years they figured out a way to increase the thrust on those enough to reach escape velocity?  I mean, we aren't talking about some kind of entirely new propulsion devices here.  We're just talking about a more efficient version of something we already have.

The wiki article on ion thrusters gives a pretty good breakdown on all the reasons they aren't at all practical for that purpose.  You'd have better luck using a bunch of helium balloons.

It's speculative fiction, they could have invented any technology we can imagine, including warp drive and quantum teleportation and whatever, but then you're making a Star Trek movie instead of something grounded in current science.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

(I feel the need to keep on including a disclaimer that it's perfectly fine as a Star Trek type movie because after the first post where I don't include that, the goalposts will shift from defending the movie as scientifically accurate to defending it as an entertaining sci-fi popcorn movie.  It's a perfectly fine popcorn movie and I will not give you fuckers an inch to suggest I said otherwise.  I'm on to you.)

[Khaldun]

The major thing to understand is that it's a time travel movie first, a space exploration movie second. I think there's more reason to complain about the weak thinking about what the material culture of a dying Earth looks like and the use of future-NASA level rocket-propulsion tech for traversing Gargantua's environs than there is to complain about the third act. The third act (from where Mann fucks up the ship onward) makes more sense than the earlier stuff, actually, given the premises of the whole thing. People who think it's all about the power of love, etc., are mistaking what the characters say for what the narrative says. The narrative says that what the characters say is only their romantic interpretation of something that's actually pretty coherent. In no way is the third act of this film like 2001's hallucinogenic freakout. It's almost too clear, really.

[Abagadro]

It's actually about looooove first, then those other 2 second and third.

[Samwise]

I feel like the movie's been out long enough and the thread's been going long enough that we can have spoilers in here now.  Are we okay with spoilers?  I'll hide them for now just in case.


I thought the general idea had potential, but it doesn't seem to fit together in a particularly clever way that makes you go "aha" at the end like most good time travel movies do.

[NowhereMan]

Woo! Spoilerchat!

[Khaldun]

[Samwise]

Your second loop would be a much more interesting plot than what they showed, but if that is what they intended (which I don't buy even though I like your version), LOL at what Cooper does at the end.