Interstellar: A Visual Masterpiece with Disappointing Writing and Physics

[DaveC426913]

I agree, I don't understand the fuss. I love Star Trek, but let's face it.. they go on (unlikely) missions on new planets without extra gear all of the time. But no one talks about how unrealistic Star Trek is (because it's awesome). It's show biz.

I'm not suggesting it's forgiveable; hankarron doesn't think it is. So I'm asking what hankarron found stupid about the scenario in which, after 11 heavily researched and rejected candidates, she found herself on a habitable planet.

 

[DaveC426913]

You have conflated two things that have no business being conflated.

Once you cross the threshold of FTL flight with 'wormholes' and "exotic matter" what is scientifically sound?

Wormholes (including exotic matter) are legitimate, if hypothetical, constructs being studied by physicists.

Scientifically sound in Hollywood means someone not falling of the edge of disc-shaped planet due to the planets gravity because kids would laugh at how stupid it would look.

To suggest that the wormholes are as fanstastically fictional as Hollywood disc-worlds is disingenuous at best.

Further: there was no FTL flight in the film. None at all. So at worst, your mention of 'FTL flight' suggests perhaps you're not understanding the difference between FTL and wormholes, and are therefore lumping the whole thing as fiction.

 

[OmCheeto]

Nice little interview at The Daily Beast:

Meet Kip Thorne...

[Anne Hathaway] amazed me. She characterized herself as something of a physics geek, and she was asking questions I never expected to be asked by anybody who was not pretty deep into physics. She wanted to know whether there is any observational or experimental evidence for quantum gravity, for example.

(Thorne says their initial conversation later branched off into shooting the breeze on jazz, family, and general scientific inspiration.)​

Jazz? I think the first sentence I learned in Russian, back in my college days, was; "I love Jazz". I remember it as being pronounced; "Moy eez jazz". Though I can find no evidence of such a phrase now.

 

[OmCheeto]

Nice little interview at The Daily Beast:
...

Further into the interview, regarding Kip and Stephen Hawking's thoughts:

Neither of them are convinced that the interstellar travel of Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s imagination can happen in the real world. The laws of physics probably forbid wormholes from existing anyway, according to Thorne. But the two of them are enthusiastic supporters of getting the human race to far-off stars.

But like me, they're both old dudes, and don't have much of an imagination.

 

[nsaspook]

You have conflated two things that have no business being conflated.

Wormholes (including exotic matter) are legitimate, if hypothetical, constructs being studied by physicists.

To suggest that the wormholes are as fanstastically fictional as Hollywood disc-worlds is disingenuous at best.

Further: there was no FTL flight in the film. None at all. So at worst, your mention of 'FTL flight' suggests perhaps you're not understanding the difference between FTL and wormholes, and are therefore lumping the whole thing as fiction.

IMO using the wormhole prop is a great scientific cover for FTL travel/communication in the 'movie' as you have the time travel/dilation effects/etc... on Earth without the pink elephant in the room. The dividing line between the fictional and the hypothetical is pretty slim IMO when it comes to wormholes and human space travel. Showing pretty pictures doesn't make it more probable, just more entertaining.

 

[DataGG]

I find this title to be quite offensive. According to the community, "looks like interstellar got its science right"... An admin should change it to "Interstellar - A discussion" or something similar. It is stupid to title something as "stupid" when:

1. Is it really stupid? According to this article, the science seems to be pretty good. (I haven't read the article, nor would I understand most of it tbh. I'm basing this comment on stuff I've read on reddit/r/physics.)

2. OP doesn't provide any reasons for the adjective.

very bad basic physics

Like what?

 

[DaveC426913]

IMO using the wormhole prop is a great scientific cover for FTL travel/communication in the 'movie' as you have the time travel/dilation effects/etc... on Earth without the pink elephant in the room. The dividing line between the fictional and the hypothetical is pretty slim IMO when it comes to wormholes and human space travel. Showing pretty pictures doesn't make it more probable, just more entertaining.

Prop? It's the very core of the film. The very premise.

That's like saying the monoliths in 2001 were "mere plot devices" to get Bowman to Jupiter.

It's like saying this would be a better movie if it were a completely different movie.

It's like saying Raiders of the Lost Ark could have worked just fine with a more "believable" prize such as a chest of gold coins.
Aliens, but instead of Aliens, use really angry grizzly bars.
Star Wars, but instead of the Force surrounding us and binding us, it's just little critters in our veins...

 

[nsaspook]

It's a very entertaining premise of time-travel/alternate futures that blends modern science to render the backdrop of an advanced (space-time manipulators) 5D human civilization modifying its past or different past time-lines with the use of wormholes for some strange reason as humans did survive and advance to the point of creating/using the devices in the first place. This was the stupid part of the movie for me (Bootstrap). If there was some possible past time-line of all infinite time-lines where humans perished why would they care to create a paradox in it?

 

[Astronuc]

I saw "Interstellar"in IMAX. Fantastic visuals, but lazy dumb writing and very bad basic physics. Kip Thorne should be embarrassed to have is name so prominently associated with the movie.

Perhaps that's a bit unfair as afterall, it's science fiction, and one only has two to three hours to entertain an audience, not educate them on the physics.

As for using a Saturn V, well, it's a historical fact to which the audience can relate, and Nolan can use actual footage rather than graphics. I remember seeing it during my childhood in the late 1960s. I also remember the plants for an even larger rocket, Nova, as well as nuclear propulsion systems that stalled in the 1970s. From a practical engineering standpoint, a Saturn V is an economical way to get mass up the gravity well in which we found ourselves.

I hope they didn't make rocket sounds in the deep vacuum of space, as is the case in Star Trek movies.

I thought McConaughey's interview was pretty good. He's asking the same questions as the audience. He seem pretty enlightened.

Clearly the movie writer/director is not going the capture the physics as PFers would like, but PFers will be a small minority in the audience of moviegoers. Hopefully, folks will be motivated to learn more about science, astronomy/astrophysics, and technology.

 

[jshrager]

Oddly, the exact same wormhole imagery is used in the new-to-DVD and absolutely hysterical Mr. Peabody and Sherman. Way more fun at way smaller cost with way less pretension! :-)

 

[HomogenousCow]

One of the lamest serious movies I have ever seen.
The dialogue is laughable and just immature, melodramatic and preachy at every instance.
The story was just nonsensical. The resolution is one of the biggest macguffins in recent memory.
Love transcends time and space? How is that scientifically accurate at all?
How does quantum gravity solve the problems of space migration? The vessel at the end didn't seem like it made use of any phenomena currently unknown to us.
The characters are utterly, utterly wasted.
The son might as well not have been there, pointless character.
Michael Cane plays such a lame and uninteresting character.
Matt Damon was just awkward and confusing, his motives are all over the place.

 

[OmCheeto]

...
Clearly the movie writer/director is not going the capture the physics as PFers would like...

I liked the physics. But it's only the 3rd movie I've seen in 10 years at the theater.
I still haven't seen that "unobtainium" movie.

hmmm... Is it just me?
You can have an excellent, educational, multifaceted story, with known physics, and end up with:
Domestic Total Gross: $774,048^[1]

Or, you can make Interstellar:
Gross to date(10 days): $76,919,855

No brainer.

People love rocket ships zooming around, and lightsaber sword fights. (See Star Wars 1, 2, and 3. Not so much 4, 5, and 6. I fell asleep during those three.)

My brother, who has seen an average of a movie a day since he was 18, would probably say the movie was full of cliches. And I would probably agree with him about that about this movie. But, IMHO, one of the final scenes, was obviously a tribute to A.C. Clark.

About a year ago, someone I was arguing about politics with one day, blurted out to me; "That sorry old excuse"!?
Just because something is old, does not make it sorry, nor wrong. Old geezers, like Mr. Clark, were way ahead of their time.

One of the few regrets I've had in life, was not developing my antigravity, nor warp drive engines before his death. Upon hearing the news, I had dreams of landing in Sri Lanka, on his beachfront property, and saying, in a most "Contact" way; "Mr. Clark. You inspired me to build this craft. Wanna take a ride, to Mars? It'll only take about an hour".
[1] Mindwalk, not adjusted for inflation. Still one of my 5 favorite movies. But then, I liked "My dinner with Andre".

 

[DaveC426913]

Love transcends time and space? How is that scientifically accurate at all?

:audible blink:

What an utterly bizarre thing to say.

Did you go into the theatre expecting the film was actually simply a recounting of a published scientific paper?

 

[Jim Kata]

I just saw the movie. It was weird hearing the word relativity that many times in a major motion picture. The takeaways from the movie are that love solves M-theory and if you eject out of your spacecraft into a black hole you'll end up in your daughters bedroom as a ghost. I wonder Kip Thorne advised him on that part.

 

[HomogenousCow]

:audible blink:

What an utterly bizarre thing to say.

Did you go into the theatre expecting the film was actually simply a recounting of a published scientific paper?

What an utterly bizarre thing to say.

Does scientifically accurate and within the realm of reality mean something else as soon as Christopher Nolan takes the reins?

At least have some respect for your audience and not treat them to idiotic plot devices.

You know what, my problem with the movie isn't even that much to do with the science.
It's the fact that the plot is just so convoluted and lame.
They didn't even put a shred of effort into making the resolution reasonable and clever, nope just "love tarvis, love connects us all" *bam some alien fifth dimensional magic happens.

The science in the ending is about as realistically grounded as Alice in Wonderland.

 

[DaveC426913]

Does scientifically accurate and within the realm of reality mean something else as soon as Christopher Nolan takes the reins?

That is not what your complaint was. Your complaint was that love specifically, as portrayed in the film, did not live up to your expectation of scientific accuracy.

By what objective criteria do you measure love, such that the film violated it in a scientifically quantifiable way?

It's a rhetorical question. It merely demonstrates the absurdity of a complaint that the human-interest storyline can (let alone must) somehow be "scientifically accurate".

 

[PeroK]

As an alternative to this movie, you could check out:

http://www.queens-theatre.co.uk/show/558/return-to-the-forbidden-planet-25th-anniversary-tour

It may be slightly more accurate scientifically, as well!

 

[QuantumPion]

Aliens, but instead of Aliens, use really angry grizzly bears.

I'd pay to see that.

 

[OmCheeto]

I'd pay to see that.

Somebody get George Lucas on the phone!
We need to remake "Interstellar" with angry grizzly bears.

Or, Bruno Ganz*! He can be inserted throughout the film, ranting about the "bad physics".
Hmmmm... But then, people would start comparing it to Dr. Strangelove.

"They used someone with a German accent! Cliche!"

*Bruno Ganz played Hitler.

 

[HomogenousCow]

That is not what your complaint was. Your complaint was that love specifically, as portrayed in the film, did not live up to your expectation of scientific accuracy.

By what objective criteria do you measure love, such that the film violated it in a scientifically quantifiable way?

It's a rhetorical question. It merely demonstrates the absurdity of a complaint that the human-interest storyline can (let alone must) somehow be "scientifically accurate".

In the movie they use love as a genuine mode of communication across "time and space".

 

[OmCheeto]

In the movie they use love as a genuine mode of communication across "time and space".

I'll wait for the script to be published before I agree, or disagree with you. Or do you have the entire thing memorized?

Or are you misquoting the NY Times article?

Love and Physics
The Nolans take us into the farthest mysteries of space-time, where, they assure us, love joins gravity as a force that operates across interstellar distances.

force ≠ communication

I think they have different units of measurement.

Oh dear. Another can of worms...

 

[DaveC426913]

In the movie they use love as a genuine mode of communication across "time and space".

No, they say that's what they're doing. They're philosophizing. They're framing events in the context of human meaning. (That's kind of the point of telling a story in the first place. The characters just happened to state their beliefs about the meaning of it all - explicitly in the story.)

It is tantamount to a character proclaiming "I knew we'd make it. God was watching us." That is their explanation. It's not inaccurate just because a character's belief is fanciful. A film can't be said to be inaccurate about the characters finding their own meaning in cosmic events.

There were no actual lovions transmitted through time.
The events, on the other hand, which are the only viable target of scientific accuracy in this case, were to fall into a black hole, where our future selves built a tesseract so Coop could send the message.

The tesseract construct itself is something you can examine on the lab table of science.

 

[atyy]

Are the 5 dimensional beings 4+1 or 5+1? I think it is 4+1, since I am a 3+1 dimensional being and I can close a 3 dimesional cube. So they must be 4+1 in order to close a 4 dimensional cube? However, since our 4 dimensions which they can manipulate is already Lorentzian 3+1, could they be 3+2?

 

[dragoneyes001]

will you be writing a paper on the existence of "Lovions" and could they actually travel in time space?

 

[atyy]

No, they say that's what they're doing. They're philosophizing. They're framing events in the context of human meaning. (That's kind of the point of telling a story in the first place. The characters just happened to state their beliefs about the meaning of it all - explicitly in the story.)

The events, on the other hand, which are the only viable target of scientific accuracy in this case, were to fall into a black hole, where our future selves built a tesseract so Coop could send the message.

"Our future selves built a tesseract" is more in the first category - it's Cooper's belief about the meaning. I was at this point wondering whether the film-maker intended an allusion to another very famous use of the tesseract in art by Dali http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_(Corpus_Hypercubus).

 

[atyy]

will you be writing a paper on the existence of "Lovions" and could they actually travel in time space?

I think it has already been written http://physics.usc.edu/~bars/twoTph.htm

 

[HomogenousCow]

No, they say that's what they're doing. They're philosophizing. They're framing events in the context of human meaning. (That's kind of the point of telling a story in the first place. The characters just happened to state their beliefs about the meaning of it all - explicitly in the story.)

It is tantamount to a character proclaiming "I knew we'd make it. God was watching us." That is their explanation. It's not inaccurate just because a character's belief is fanciful. A film can't be said to be inaccurate about the characters finding their own meaning in cosmic events.

There were no actual lovions transmitted through time.
The events, on the other hand, which are the only viable target of scientific accuracy in this case, were to fall into a black hole, where our future selves built a tesseract so Coop could send the message.

The tesseract construct itself is something you can examine on the lab table of science.

So what, you consider that ending plausible and well thought out?
Interpereting the dialogue in a non literal sense does not change how poor and unoriginal it was.
As i stated my problem isn't even with the science, it's how lame and convoluted the story and characters were in general. For the many reasons i have stated.

 

[DaveC426913]

So what, you consider that ending plausible and well thought out?

Well it was certainly better thought out than your "scientifically-accurate love" complaint that started this sideline. :D

 

[OmCheeto]

So what, you consider that ending plausible and well thought out?
...

Hot chick stranded on a faraway planet, with the hero getting in his sports car/ship to save her = Sequel

Plausible, and brilliant!

 

[dragoneyes001]

mix two threads together: this one and the dark mater one and make "lovions" able to travel by dark mater transmission so two people in love can send their love across the universe in a form of FTL communications. the governments start a program of collecting people with a deep love bond and sending each in opposite directions across space to create an interstellar communications network...etc...