Nerd Movie Gems: (I Didn't Like) Interstellar

It might be mildly perplexing that I would label this as a "nerd movie gem" but then follow up with "I didn't like Interstellar", but I'll explain why that is in time.

First, let me say that this movie was long. Like, almost unforgivably long. Three hours of my time is very rarely spent doing any one thing consecutively anymore. Video games are probably the only exception because they require a different level of attention than most other entertainment mediums these days, and even then I actually tend to harbor some semblance of guilt when I discover I've put a handful of hours towards an activity that hasn't really furthered me as a human being.

Nevertheless, time was a major reason why I never sat down to watch Interstellar, and even then I actually had to take the movie in in two sittings. That might have been part of my mistake, but I'll argue that I doubt sincerely that it was despite what others might think. The latter half of a movie should be the part everyone looks forward to because that's when everything in the first half of the movie finally comes together. For me, the last half of Interstellar was where it all fell apart.

I only partially blame Matt Damon.

First and foremost, I am a science and space geek at heart. Give me a space epic and I am down! I still have high hopes that the real world will someday catch up to the desire to expand civilization out into the stars, but for now I'll take what I can get in video games and movies. So, that being said, Interstellar really should have been a shoe in for me. That and the all-star cast provided by Christoper Nolan, and I was left with very high expectations for this film.

I guess I was only half disappointed, because as I said, the first 1.5 hours of this film were pretty good. The drama was built pretty sturdily, and both strong characters and good acting made everyone on screen appear very believable. The issues at hand were easy to buy as well, with a touch going back to the old 1920's dust-bowl era. This is about the only grasp we have on the worldwide issues that pose a threat to humanity, but just taking a page out of our current landscape as a people and the rest isn't difficult to put together. The fact of the matter is: people, and the planet, are dying. How do we survive?

To be honest I'm kind of surprised the right-wing media didn't have a major hullabaloo about this. Another "green" message trying to assimilate the minds of young people into "buying into the lies that is global warming", no doubt. Either I blocked it out, or this movie was so broad in it's prospects that none of those usual nay-sayers had the mental capacity to swallow this film and be left with any semblance of comprehension as to what was going on.

Let me preface really quickly with there will be spoilers from this point on, so if you still haven't seen Interstellar and want to, don't read past this paragraph.

"Ouuuuuch" - sorry, wrong movie.

My first issue was that I figured out the big reveal at the end of the movie 30 minutes in. I hate when movies are so highbrow that they assume their audience is dumb and not going to comprehend what's going on on screen. When Hathaway's character mentioned that only gravity could travel that time and distance through a black hole, and Cooper had stated that gravity was what was creating the morse code messages in Murph's room, I knew instantly that it was future space-time travelling Cooper sending those messages. The fact that the messages started with "stay" was what cinched my theory, and from there on out I really didn't even need the rest of the damned movie, because the plot loosely maintained it's focus on the mysterious ghost messages that Murph was receiving over the past few months before the movie picks up. For a while they tease that the issue of saving humanity is the issue, but I'll be honest, it really felt like this particular plot line got lost in the thick of things very quickly. I actually forgot what adult Murphy was trying to solve at NASA over the course of the movie. Were they trying to solve the food crises? The environmental shift crisis? The population crisis?

It wasn't until the end of the movie that I remembered that they were trying to get people off of the planet, and I had to look that up on the internet afterward just to be sure, therein realizing my main issue with the film: the scope was so broad that you lost the reason people were doing things in the first place. Coupled with the fact that I had a total of three hours to forget about a lot of this, and I have a movie that feels more like a mess.

The science was actually probably some of the best researched I'd seen in a film of this caliber for quite some time, however. I'm (obviously) no expert on black holes, and although I didn't like how they presented the inner workings of one, I'm not going to complain (due to previously aforementioned lack of expertise on one of the most complex features of the known universe). Since I already knew that it was Cooper sending the messages to Murphy, I wasn't surprised at that revelation, so moving on from there is my disappointment with Cooper's return to civilization.

I felt that more really could have been done here in the movie, for the first time in ages. I mean, I know why the station was built in a circular pattern, but at this point you've assumed that the audience isn't going to be picking up on anything else in this movie, Mr. Nolan, why did you leave that part unexplained? Also, it looked pretty small overall. Could we have been afforded a few more sights before getting into the swing of things?

Finally, we see Murphy. Now, quite literally, on her deathbed nearing probably around 85-90 years of age. Cooper is, naturally, distraught at the site of his dearest child now reaching the end of her life (not a tear was shed for her older brother though, which I felt was kind of a crappy touch). We get a few minutes of a tearful reunion before Murphy tells him to go and find Doctor Brand. I guess being reminded of potential poon is enough to leave the side of the daughter you've spent ages doing nothing but fighting tooth and nail to get back to, so we see Cooper heading back to get to Brand who is now alone on the planet that can now be used as humanity's new home.

This was very dissatisfying as a viewer. I felt that that reunion should have been longer, and that Cooper owed it to her to be at her side until the end. It's not as though Cooper could have offered Brand anything anyway once he got there. He wasn't a scientist, he was a pilot, so the suggestion that he should go off and start anew, while not exactly untoward, seemed to grate against the element of humanity that this movie worked so hard to build up.

That being said, the sets, cinematography, planet design, acting, and music (god, the music!) were absolutely stunning. I would almost - almost - count this as an art film except it never got quite crazy enough to qualify. The science was clearly heavily thought out before going on paper, and while a lot of it was still sci-fabricated (I'm coining a new phrase here people) most of it wasn't so outlandish that I couldn't buy into most of it.

Okay, I have a hard time that humanity was able to evolve into trans-dimensional beings. Chances are more likely that we've inbred with another alien species for that to occur, but I'm also kind of glad that that question was never answered. This movie was, in the end, all about transcending norms and depths, and that was just another flavor added in to the punch bowl for the audience to muse upon well after the credits role.

What are your thoughts? Am I right? Am I wrong? Did you love or hate the movie? Are your reasons the same or different from mine? Let me know in the comments!