Interstellar received a lot of praise from both critics and scientists. Seldom do I find a movie of such critical acclaim to be “Awesomely Bad”. Then again, I do like to be contrary. I didn’t realize how laughable Interstellar was the first time I watched it. I suppose I was just taken by the sheer spectacle of the thing. After all this is said and done, I can at least say this movie is visually stunning.
You have Biscuits to thank for my realization that this movie was helplessly tripping over Matthew McConaughey’s bad acting. While searching for science fiction movies on Amazon Prime one night he mentioned that he had not seen Interstellar and so… here we are.
I’m a farmer now, but I used to be an engineer … and a pilot.
I guess space flight is like riding a bike. You never really forget how to do it. Are we to believe that years after the collapse of society Cooper (McConaughey) is still qualified to pilot an experimental spacecraft through a wormhole? He’s been a corn farmer for he better part of twenty years! The extent of his “engineering” was rigging combines to harvest fields autonomously using GPS. We already do that now… in 2016 and we have done so for years.
Whatever.
Maybe Cooper had some off camera re-certification. But before we even address that, we see he’s able to hack an Indian Air force drone. Take a minute to consider that the human interface language for the drone was probably Hindi. Cooper is fluent in Sanskrit? Never mind that for now. Let’s move on. So, he’s a software/systems engineer then? How was he a NASA pilot?
Love is the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived.
When choosing which of two promising planets to visit, Doctor Brand (Anne Hathaway) allows her romantic relationship to inform her decision. She’s had been involved with one of the expeditionary scientists who scouted potentially habitable worlds. The fate of the human race is on the line and she wants to choose the sub-par planet because her man is there.
Look, I’ve known a lot of scientists; people driven their entire lives in pursuit of discovery. These are not people prone to making rash emotional choices. Well I guess I don’t know Dr. Brand very well because she would have you believe that “love” transcends Humanity saying “we didn’t invent it”. Wow.
But the BIG problem is temporal paradox.
Here it is in a nutshell. Interstellar is a massive temporal paradox. That makes it awesomely, stupendously, unforgivably bad. It means that the entire film is an unresolved problem. Audiences don’t like being left without answers even if by design to provoke thought. At least here in the United States, the general public just isn’t that smart.
Consider this:
Cooper learns the location of the secretive remnants of NASA from the dust ghost in his daughter’s room.
Cooper goes through the wormhole and then ultimately falls into a black hole.
Cooper, acting as the dust ghost, tells his daughter the location of the secretive remnants of NASA
And so……
Cooper learns the location of the secretive remnants of NASA from the dust ghost in his daughter’s room.
Cooper goes through the wormhole and then ultimately falls into a black hole.
Cooper, acting as the dust ghost, tells his daughter the location of the secretive remnants of NASA
Past Cooper got the information from himself – Future Cooper, who would not have had the information had his past self not trusted the dust ghost, which turned out to be his future self. The information (Coopers knowledge of NASA’s location) never existed. It travels around in a temporal loop where the information was never created (learned) but is passed from Cooper to Cooper for all eternity.
Once again: Information was given to a man who lacked said information; by he, himself – who only had the information because it was given to him by himself.
It’s a paradox. The universe does not allow a paradox and that makes Interstellar Awesomely Bad.
Originally Published 25 December 2016