Just saw Interstellar

[Everlong]

I've been looking forward to this movie for a long time, and it absolutely lives up to the hype. I'm not 100 percent sure I'd label it Nolan's best work yet, but it's absolutely his most ambitious, and for a movie with such an incredible far-reaching aim he manages to deliver with really good focus.

Hard to talk too much about it without giving anything away, but it's absolutely brilliant. Not flawless, of course--I'm sure people will be able to find some small faults with character depth, for instance, although I think he greatly improved on this area from Inception, where that was one of the main criticisms. There are also some moments that seem a bit farfetched, but we're also dealing with concepts where we only have a very limited knowledge. There are also a few instances of corny dialogue, but for the most part I thought the script was well done.

Strong performance form Matthew McConaughey, who really is the vehicle that makes this movie work. Strong supporting performances as well, especially from David Gyasi and some others.

Overall, you will absolutely not regret it if you see it in the theater. Hell of an experience. Check it out.

Edit: If I have to give it a number rating I'll give it a 9 or 9.5/10.

[Hanley!]

I'm really interested to watch it, but at the same time I think I'll probably hate it so it's hard to justify the expense. I do feel like it's a conversation I want to chime in on though.

I've liked almost all of Nolan's films so far (The Dark Knight Rises was a bit meh, but everything else he's done has impressed me). But based on the early leaked script of this film and some of what I've heard about it so far, along with the reviews I've been seeing, I'm getting some strong Prometheus vibes from it. I'm worried that it's a film that's winning people over with beautiful direction and ambitious concepts, but which fails to deliver on storytelling or characterisation. I'll almost always value the latter over the former.

Still it's good to see that it's getting some good feedback. I'll probably catch this at some point, but with some other interesting looking films coming out this month, I doubt I'll get to it soon unfortunately.

[JDD]

I thought it was alright. Could have been shorter, and there were a few cheesy moments that took me out of it. The third act was a bit of a mess as well. Id still recommend it though. Mccounaghey (i know i messed that up) was awesome an definatley should get an oscar nom.

[Everlong]

I'm getting some strong Prometheus vibes from it. I'm worried that it's a film that's winning people over with beautiful direction and ambitious concepts, but which fails to deliver on storytelling or characterisation. I'll almost always value the latter over the former.

I thought the storytelling was outstanding, personally. The character development always tends to be one of Nolan's weaker points, but I do think that he has shown some marked improvement with it in this movie. The main character of Cooper is very well analyzed, and the relationship between Cooper and his daughter is done extremely well and is part of the reason the story works as well as it does. Especially when the two are together on earth as father and young daughter, some really good stuff.

I wouldn't worry about it being a Prometheus at all. This isn't Ridley Scott we're talking about here.

I don't know much about the leaked script, but I did read somewhere that there were some fairly significant changes made to the movie from the script that had been leaked. Like I said, couple moments where the dialogue seemed corny and unnatural, but for the most part it flowed well and really worked. More natural than most of the Batman movies.

To me, this movie marks a rebirth of science fiction as a blockbuster. Sci fi has sort of descended and blended into action films. That's my biggest problem with the new Star Trek movies... JJ Abrams did away with the sci fi core of the franchise and just turned them into new space action flicks. This is a movie that truly inspires wonder and awe about our universe, all through the concepts used, the visualization and then seeing the real effect that it has on some of the characters (particularly one on a planet later in the movie).

[Everlong]

The third act was a bit of a mess as well.

In what way?

[JDD]

The third act was a bit of a mess as well.

In what way?

Honestly, it probably wasnt the movies fault and im just dumb but

Spoiler:

while the requires alot of suspension of disbelief, the third act took it overboard. How has Brand not aged? How did Cooper just happened to get found in space? By who? There was no one there. Plus, the father-daughter reunion was a pretty awkward scene. And I got pretty confused with the bookshelf "5th dimension" stuff but thats just me being dumb.

Overall i did enjoy the movie. Got to see it in 70mm IMAX and it looked amazing.

[Everlong]

JDD:

Spoiler:

while the requires alot of suspension of disbelief, the third act took it overboard. How has Brand not aged? How did Cooper just happened to get found in space? By who? There was no one there. Plus, the father-daughter reunion was a pretty awkward scene. And I got pretty confused with the bookshelf "5th dimension" stuff but thats just me being dumb.

Spoiler:

Brand hasn't aged at the end because she's one one of the planets in the far galaxy. Remember how the first planet, every hour equated to 7 years in earth time? The standards of time are different in that galaxy.

When Cooper gets out of the tesseract, you can see the space station in the background behind him (you may have just missed that). They probably could have done a better job explaining how they came across him, but by the time he emerges from the tesseract they've already populated the Cooper space station near Saturn, where the initial wormhole was located.

Yeah, the reunion at the end was kind of awkward, I'll agree with that.

The bookshelf bit, basically what was happening was that Cooper was inside the tesseract, which was located in the Gargantua black hole in the other galaxy. By being inside the tesseract, he wasn't bound by the laws of time. The general theory of a wormhole/tesseract was sort of explained at the beginning of the movie (remember him folding the paper and sticking the pin through it?). Because there's so little known about these kinds of theoretical wormholes we really don't have a good way of visualizing how they'd work from the inside, so it was basically Nolan's choice to set it up this way. "They," who are revealed to be the evolved lifeforms of humans long into the future, set up the tesseract so that when Cooper entered it, it would take him to a location where he could communicate with his daughter, who would then be able to get the data transmitted from TARS to be able to engage in interstellar travel on a more massive scale to get people moved and colonized on the new planet.

Definitely confusing though, but that's my understanding of it.

[Hanley!]

I do like that Nolan is actually making new blockbusters, not based around properties that have been done to death already. That is a breath of fresh air and something that I really hope catches on a little. I'm sick to fucking death of superheroes. Lets bring back a bit of sci-fi and some fun high concept films.

Mostly comments on dialogue, plot holes and weird characterisation are what have me worried here. And that old leaked script sounded awful, but if they've made changes then that can only be a good thing (and they must have or this film would be reviewing a lot worse than it currently is). This is a script that was originally made for Spielberg also, and I have heard a couple of reviews saying that it occasionally seems a little out of Nolan's wheelhouse as a result.

This doesn't seem like it'd be quite my thing, but I definitely want to find out. And at the very least, I respect that Nolan is doing new things. A Nolan film is always going to interest me more than a film by the likes of Abrams, regardless of how the trailers look.

[Everlong]

I'm wiling to accept that any mainstream movie that takes on such complicated science is going to have plot holes, especially when you consider that we don't even truly understand the science surrounding a lot of the subject matter. So if there's clunky science involved, it doesn't really bother me, because the movie isn't inconsistent with the rules that it sets.

Though I did say I had criticisms about some dialogue and characters, I wouldn't by any means say that they were bad or that they dragged the film down. Just a couple things I'd have changed or added here and there that would have made them a bit stronger.

I'm not 100 percent sure if you'll like it Steve because I'm never completely sure if you'll like anything ( ) but I tend to be critical in the same areas you are when it comes to movies (though not to the same extent) and I thought it was fantastic. You're going to come away with some criticisms, but I'd be surprised if you came away feeling like it wasn't a good movie.

[Viazon]

I absolutely cannot wait to watch this movie. Nolan is my favourite director and I don't care what people say about it. I would watch a clip of a man taking a dump if I knew it was directed by him.

I have been looking forward to this movie ever since it was first announced.

[SortaCreative]

So I just saw it and overall I left the movie impressed and challenged and quite satisfied. I'd agree that there were a few moments of corny dialogue but overall I felt like they didn't drag the film down too much.

Show Spoiler

I would say that I felt the Dr. Mann twist was probably the one that took me out of the movie the most. Dr. Brands lie was fine, I felt that worked well and was a nice way to add some tension to the plot when it needed it but... Dr. Mann going mental and jepordising everything for... what? I didn't think that was the films strongest point.

Overall though it was a wonderful experience.

[Everlong]

@SortaCreative

Spoiler:

The way I see it, the two planets they visited were supposed to represent man's struggle with nature (the waves) and man's struggle with himself (hence the fight, and him being named Dr. Mann). Man's struggle with nature is inevitably going to end poorly, and man being his own greatest enemy... those are two of the biggest themes of the film and the main reason that they had to leave the earth in the first place.

Mann had basically gone insane through his isolation, and was willing to do whatever it took to get rescued and taken from the planet. His best option to do that was to fake the data so that someone would come to him.

I thought the Mann sequence was brilliant personally, and Damon was great. I didn't know he was going to be in the movie, he came out of the tank and I was like "holy shit" haha.

The only Mann part I hated was McConaughey's "derp, Lazarus" line.

[SortaCreative]

@Everlong

Show Spoiler

Yeah, I can appreciate that the planets represented. Nature, Human Nature and Love, like those were fine and it made sense but I felt like Dr. Mann jepordised too much, the stakes were too high for him to potentially leave everyone else behind and do what? He couldn't even listen to simple, logical instructIons like "don't open that door you will die". Part of that is probably very movie tropey and that's okay. I just felt that a character described as the "best of us" would at least have some capacity for rational thought left, even having been alone and in cryosleep for so long. He seemed to put on a rational front for the others after they woke him up fine.

I still enjoyed the moment I just didn't see it being the way I thought it would go and that I felt maybe if it wasn't so evil genius twirling mustache i'm going to leave you on this frozen planet to die moment it may have worked better. What was he going to do once he got to the ship alone? Where was he going to go? To the third planet? Alone?

I felt like if the moment was played that once he got woken up he realised that he would be caught in the lie and that the others would quickly realise that he had lied because he was lonely and maybe portraying him as a slightly more pathetic and even sympathetic character may have worked better to ramp up the tension in the film that they wasted time yet again. They could still have had a moment of technical sabotage where they threaten to leave him and he has an outburst that way and tries to steal the ship.

[SortaCreative]

I dont even know if I managed a cohesive thought in that last reply... my mind...