Interstellar: Final Blog Post

What has to be one of my favorite science fiction films of all time, and possibly my favorite cli-fi film of this decade, Interstellar is a beautiful tale of family and humankind at its tipping point. It shows us the best and worst of humanity in the diarist of circumstances. Directed by Christopher Nolan, and featuring an incredible cast, the film is an exploration of the human psyche and outer space. It's a film that has been crafted with great love and care.  Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne was even brought on to work a scientific adviser to ensure that they got most of the science correct, with a little bit of breathing space for artistic license.

 The premise of the film is that the Earth has been corrupted to the point that nothing will be able to grow on its soil. Faced with the possible destruction of our species, a secret project was being developed to preserve humankind. Coinciding with the decay of our planet, a black hole had been discovered 48 years prior to the present day on the other side of which was essentially a distant solar system. This led NASA to commence work on a Lazarus mission. This sent 12 astronauts to 12 separate worlds that had been located through the wormhole. All of which may serve as possible substitutes for another Earth. Unfortunately, with limited resources, it was a one-way trip. The astronauts had two years’ worth of life in their capsules which would enable them to work for multiple years using the sleep chambers to hibernate for most of their time to conserve food and resources. If the right conditions for habitation were discovered, the astronauts were instructed to turn on a beacon. This would inform NASA to send their subsequent Endurance mission to that location. Those who had landed on each of the planets that had no potential for life had to accept their fate and essentially die alone; even those that had discovered a planet with potential for life had no guarantee that the Endurance would be able to travel to them and pick them up.

The second part of the plan was to send a follow-up crew to confirm the discoveries and begin the setup of equipment to facilitate the first habitation of our species on another world. It's explained that only three, of the twelve, planets had sent a beacon back to Earth leading Cooper, a retired NASA pilot with the most flying experience of anyone currently available, Amelia Brand a scientist, Doyle a geographer, and Romilly an astrophysicist to investigate each of the three planets.

With 5,000 fertilized eggs and equipment to incubate their growth with which they can colonize a habitable planet and ensure the survival of our species, they make it through the wormhole safely. Now, the three planets that they are going to head to are Miller's, Edmunds, and Dr. Mann's planets.  The first stop is Miller’s planet. With no time to lose, due to the proximity to the black hole, every hour on this planet equals 7 years pass by on Earth.

  Brand, Cooper, and Doyle step off the Endurance onto Miller's planet. They see mountains in the foreground, but everything near them in submerged in shallow water. Brand finds the beacon half submerged and runs to collect it.  Cooper soon realizes that these mountains are actually waves coming in on them, so they rush back to the spacecraft.  Doyle does not make back in time and succumbs to the waves. While this scene lasts for about five minutes, 23 Earth years pass due to the time discrepancy.

The Endurance bolts and is now set to the next planet. On the second planet, they find Dr. Mann, a member of the doomed crew who tried to find a habitable planet. After they awake him from the long nap, they soon realize, although too late, that he has to some degree lost his mind and attempts to sabotage their intention to leave the planet. Dr. Mann creates an explosion that kills Romilly, now the crew must escape. They take Dr. Mann’s robot CASE, and then set off to leave the planet.  With little fuel left, Brand and Cooper, along with the robots TARS and CASE, try slingshotting around the black hole to reach the third and final planet. There isn't enough momentum for the plan to work with the ship at its current weight, so Cooper and tars eject into a small lander from the ship to allow Brand and CASE to reach the third planet alone. Cooper then ejects from the lander and falls into the horizon of the black hole entering the unknown once more.

Apparently alive and intact, Cooper finds himself inside another dimension constructed of an endless array of his daughter’s bedroom.  He can weakly manipulate Murphy’s bookshelf from the outside and conveys a message in Morse code, the same message that led Cooper and Murphy to NASA at the beginning of the film.  Then he re-establishes his contact with TARS and begins to piece together a plan to save the world. Professor Brand’s primary goal on Earth was to solve a gravitational equation that could enable humanity to leave the planet and to journey to their new home in the new galaxy.  Without the answers to this equation, the Earth is doomed, and only the scientist who traveled through the black hole could continue human life. Cooper decides to code the watch that he left his daughter with the answer to the quantum equation, related to him by TARS, into the second hand's movements, knowing that eventually one day, she would figure it out.  Of course, she does determine the message.  Then the dimension begins to collapse.  We see Cooper presumably traveling through a wormhole as he reaches out to brand in a scene we saw earlier when the crew first traveled through the wormhole to get to the new galaxy. He then ends up unconscious and floating in space, near Saturn where the wormhole first originated. Waking up on a space station appropriately named “Cooper station,” he finds himself far into the future and reunites with his daughter Murphy in the final stages of her old age.  Murphy urges him to find Dr. Brand.  He takes off back into space, on his way to Edmund’s Planet to save Dr. Brand, little does he know she is alive and colonizing new life.

                Quiz Questions:

1.       How many planets is the Endurance going to visit?

a.       3 Planets

2.       How many years pass per hour on Dr. Miller’s planet?

a.       7 Earth Years

3.       What is the name of the astronaut found on the second planet?

a.       Dr. Mann

4.       Who are the two surviving crew members?

a.       Cooper and Dr. Brand

Discussion Questions:

1.       Are we ready for space exploration on a broad scale?

2.       Does love transcend space and time?

3.       Can you foresee us trying to inhabit a new planet?

4.       Murphy felt abandonment issues all her life after her father left, do you think those last moments of her life with him would have helped mend the wound of loss?