Interstellar - November 7, 2014

[FoolKiller]

Fantasy and science fiction have a habit of crossing over. The key in science fiction is the fiction bit. You can weigh more on the fiction than the science. I don't go as strong as you on science fiction because there is a futurist genre, whose very stated goal is to draw a picture of what to expect in the future.

 

[PletdeKoe]

Just saw this movie today. I loved it. The scope of this movie is unlike anything I've ever seen. 2001 a space odyssey was, is and always will be my favorite movie ever. And the fact that interstellar is being compared to that film says a lot about the quality of interstellar.

Both are very different from one another though. I think Interstellar is the pinnacle of modern day movie-making. And though one can argue about the impact on love, it is only a testament of the times we live in in regard to the stories we write today.

Interstellar captures our current generation in the fact that it connects our present day level of science with our present day view of ourselves as humanity.

I'm going to watch this movie again.

 

[Danoff]

Great movie. Perfect movie? No. Awesome movie? Yes.

As is my way, I've taken the liberty of rewriting a key scene to be far superior to the one in the film.

Spoiler

In the film, cooper uses gravity to encode a bunch of super important data about the black hole into the second hand of a watch. How this is done is not explained. I have no idea how gravity could encode a second hand on a watch to do something that the second hand isn't designed to do. It's a very strange concept. I also didn't like it because it creates a gap between cooper and his daughter that doesn't need to exist.

In my version of that scene, Cooper would travel to the moment that his daughter enters the room at the older age. He'd knock a book off the shelf at that instant to let her know he was there. At that point the two could have basically a conversation through gravity. She could even go back to the lab and get a machine that can detect gravity, and sit and encode the machine to receive waves to translate into letters. He could literally spell out a conversation with her through gravity (not unlike the abyss). That scene, where they talk across space and time into the heart of a black hole - reunited - could have been the most powerful scene in the movie. All you'd have to do is forget the stupid forced drama with the older brother. Plus it would make a lot more sense than the watch second hand.

Oh hell, I just realized a keyboard would work. Gravity on the key you intend to press... wow.

 

[FoolKiller]

Great movie. Perfect movie? No. Awesome movie? Yes.

As is my way, I've taken the liberty of rewriting a key scene to be far superior to the one in the film.

Part of me was afraid that you were going to tear into some of the physics errors Neil deGrasse Tyson style.

Oh and:

Spoiler

By doing the watch it creates mystery and tension. They purposely made it seem as if his ability to affect things was very slight. Straight up communication would have ruined the entire early communication stuff that basically created the story. Don't forget, it was his attempt to prevent himself from going that resulted in him going. If he had enough control to just type it out the story never happens, as they make it seem that you cannot change the past because your influence on the past has already happened and whatever you do leads to the present.

Why the second hand on a watch? It seems like it would be the simplest physical object to affect that a human would notice...or something?

 

[Danoff]

Part of me was afraid that you were going to tear into some of the physics errors Neil deGrasse Tyson style.

Oh and:

Spoiler

By doing the watch it creates mystery and tension. They purposely made it seem as if his ability to affect things was very slight. Straight up communication would have ruined the entire early communication stuff that basically created the story. Don't forget, it was his attempt to prevent himself from going that resulted in him going. If he had enough control to just type it out the story never happens, as they make it seem that you cannot change the past because your influence on the past has already happened and whatever you do leads to the present.

Why the second hand on a watch? It seems like it would be the simplest physical object to affect that a human would notice...or something?

Spoiler

There is no programming interface for gravity for a watch. There is no way you can encode a watch using gravity. One point of the movie was how difficult communication was, and having that communication occur in those circumstances would have been very powerful. None of that requires him going back to the past to change events that brought him to where he was.

 

[ProjectWHaT]

I bought the blu-ray two days ago and watched it again last night. I still love this movie. Its definitely one of my favorite movies of all time.

 

[Thematic]

This sheds some light on the subject (not): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150402132708.htm

 

[MeanElf]

As always, I was very late with getting to see this film (considering it's even been out on DVD for two or so months now.)

I really enjoyed it and feel that SF needs more films like this - some good innovation, especially with the robots, as mentioned by earlier posters.

...But that's the difference between fantasy and science fiction. Both can take place in the future, but fantasy clearly asks you to suspend your scientific beliefs about the world and let them make up their own rules (which still have to be consistent.) Science fiction asks what may be possible given what we know now, and is careful not to contradict accepted scientific theories...

I'm not sure that your definition of what is fantasy and science fiction is strictly correct. Whilst fantasy can indeed exist in any time, it is essentially focused upon magic and not science. As it has been observed that any sufficiently advanced technology will seem like magic to the uninitiated, it does not really rely on a suspense of scientific belief therefore; nor need science be constricted to what we know and accept - eg: how many novels and films utilise a form of hyperdrive that is never explained?

Spoiler

In the film, cooper uses gravity to encode a bunch of super important data about the black hole into the second hand of a watch. How this is done is not explained.

My take

Spoiler

He uses gravity to affect the second hand's progression with gravity to emulate the 0 or 1 values of binary code, which he then grouped to simulate Morse code.

 

[FuriousDemon]

Rewatching this in the lead up to Starfield and god damn this movie ages just like fine wine. I wasn’t sure if I’ll still think it’s brilliant years since the last rewatch, but it’s even better than I remember. Knowing the end you appreciate the beginning even more. Brilliant.

 

[Sprite]

Rewatching this in the lead up to Starfield and god damn this movie ages just like fine wine. I wasn’t sure if I’ll still think it’s brilliant years since the last rewatch, but it’s even better than I remember. Knowing the end you appreciate the beginning even more. Brilliant.

Yeh, it’s a great film. I’ve watched it multiple times now and I agree, knowing the end doesn’t ruin the beginning, it just means you can enjoy it even more.

I also found this with Tenet too.