Patrick Nichol's Midterm Blog Post Report
Interstellar Directed by Christopher Nolan
Interstellar, a film whose ambitions were quite literally out of this world, takes the viewer on a journey riddled with environmental guilt, scientific challenges, and the great unknown. Directed by Christopher Nolan in 2014, this film takes places on Earth in 2050. This futuristic setting is not coupled with flying cars running off of solar power, with abundant sustainable energy used by everyone; however, Interstellar depicts a dying Earth, with a bleak outlook for humankind. This leads to the main point of conflict in the film, which is the loss of edible crops that have been killed off by a vast blight. Now you might be asking, “what in the heck is blight?” Well, blight is a general term used to describe any pathogens such as a virus, bacteria, or fungi that attacks plant species. The Earth in Interstellar appears to have been devastated by a blight capable of wiping out all edible foods. One quote from the movie that shows the seriousness of this situation comes from Dr. Brand, a scientist in the film. He states “blight, wheat seven years ago, okra this year now there is just corn… Corn will die.” The blights severity is not just around food, it is a graver problem than that. With all of the plants dying out, this has caused oxygen levels to decrease, and dustbowl like conditions are already making it hard to breathe. It is predicted that the current generation will be the last to live before everyone dies of suffocation or starvation. Now that the main problem has been addressed, let's get into the characters, and what I know so far. From the beginning of the movie, the viewer is introduced to the main character, Joseph Cooper, former NASA test pilot. He lives with his daughter Murphy, son Tom, and his father on a corn farm. After a dirt storm, Cooper finds that Murphy left the window of her room open. As they rush upstairs to shut it, they find the dust settling into a uniformed pattern. After about 12 hours of studying it, Cooper realizes that it is binary coding leading him to a certain coordinate. This leads Cooper and Murphy to no other than NASA’s hidden location. After many conversations, Dr. Brand and his daughter, Dr. Amelia Brand cannot tell him anything else until Cooper agrees to pilot the next spacecraft to look for a new habitable planet. NASA made a discovery that something, which NASA refers to as “they,” has placed a wormhole near Saturn about 48 years ago. NASA has narrowed down 12 planets with the possibility of sustaining life. Approximately 10 years ago, they sent a team out on a mission called The Lazarus mission, this resulted with a possibility that 3 out of the 12 planets could contain and support life. Cooper has agreed to the mission of finding a new habitable planet, with one thing in mind, the future of his children. He must leave for the expedition by the next day, this results in Murphy cultivating great animosity towards her dad. With no time to lose, the next screen cuts to the rocket blasting off for space. Cooper is accompanied by Amelia Brand, Doyle, and Romilly; all are either scientists or physicist sent to help with the success of the mission. They are also joined by an old government robot, TARS, that has been modified to act an all-knowing human. They are on their way to Saturn, and the projected time is around two years. On the spacecraft named The Endurance, the astronauts settle down for the “long nap.” They do this by getting into a device where they zip up in what appears to be body bag and then they are submerged into hot water pods. This act allows them to not age. After coming out of the pods/awaking, they are about three hours from the wormhole, a sphere hovering in place. They enter into the foreboding black hole, only to find who knows what. 
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