I read Phil Plait’s criticisms. Now I hate Phil Plait even more. He’s an idiot. Did he even watch the movie? Some of his criticisms are actually explained within the movie, yet he’s too busy getting worked up into a froth that he doesn’t even realize it.
Phil Plait: a guy who will take two pages to explain why the American flag fluttered on an airless moon, yet can’t understand why Superman’s cape flutters in space.
Nevermind. I was skimming through the spoiler boxes and missed a few details.
I loved it. There is way too much over analyzing in this thread. It’s a movie. I bet half the science bashers in this thread liked Star Trek.
Regardless, as entertainment it’s a wonderful ride. I even thought the music added a lot to the experience.
OK, so they had the greatest living theoretical physicist in the world as a science advisor… but did they listen to him?
This. Definitely a great ride! The music was so good, I didn’t even hear it.
I wish I’d seen that thread at the time - I have numerous comments to make about Star Trek: Into Darkness, almost all of them negative.
Heh, why am I saying “almost”…
Too long, too draggy in parts, overwrought, sound, yes, what the hell was wrong with the sound people on this one? I was disappointed.
So…how was Jar Jar Binks?
I did enjoy it, but definitely had a few eye-rolly moments. There was something so Hollywood ridiculous about the moment when they opened up Mann’s hibernation station sarcophagus whatever you call it. I expected Cooper to reverently whisper “Holy shit, you guys…it’s MATT DAMON!”.
I do agree that the music was overbearing at times, or at least very obviously intended to manipulate emotions. I can’t imagine anyone not having a feeling of suspicious foreboding whenever we were in Mann’s presence, due to the “ominous double-crosser” soundtrack.
I get it that Brand’s objective was to retrieve the important lost data on the wet planet, but having the robot fricking run back and carry her to safety was cringeworthy. Meanwhile, Doyle stands there with his hunky beard and…SPLASSSSHHHH buh bye.
I also wondered about a certain reunion close to the end (sorry, don’t know how to hide spoilers). Did NOBODY else in that room know who he was? That seemed unlikely.
Despite my nitpicks, I did enjoy it. Not quite Inception, but definitely interesting and enjoyable.
I came very close to not going because of the length of the movie. I rarely enjoy movies that long. I did go and I loved it. I was caught up in the very emotional story to the point that most of the flaws (and there were flaws) simply flew under the radar.
One problem with the movie that did stay with me was the sound, which occasionally obscured the dialogue. In some movies (say a Transformers movie) this is not a problem because nobody cares about the dialogue, but in this movie I desperately wanted to hear everything. There were points in the movie where it made me angry, but I got over it.
They may have recognized him, but they didn’t know him. And the person they *did *know was dying - I’d think they’d be focusing on that.
I’m not sure what you meant by that link, White SIFL. Unless you’re calling me the greatest living theoretical physicist, or something? And I should make it clear that I was pretty unimpressed with Star Trek: Into Darkness.
I should also make it clear that when I referred to Thorne as the greatest living theoretical physicist in the world, I was not speaking hyperbolecly. It is of course a debateable point, but I really do think he’s the greatest. And add to that that wormholes are something of a specialty of his.
Does anyone have a link to Thorne’s own opinion of the finished movie?
One thing I’m confused about is the wormhole. I thought the whole notion of friendly aliens (as opposed to future humans) was based on the idea that wormholes don’t happen spontaneously. So where did it come from?
It’s a relief to me that so many of you had trouble understanding the dialog. I was worried that I was losing my hearing. At least I was always able to tell what was going on despite not understanding every word.
After reading this thread I’ve changed my mind about some things. I now see that the plot makes more sense than I had originally thought. I still think the movie has flaws - what bothered me most was the sentimentality. I also think
the whole business with the time loop was unnecessary. Why did the future humans have to use Cooper to send a message to the past? Why couldn’t they do it themselves? The real reason is that the writers wanted an emotional hook.
Here’s a question: have time loops become a cliche in science fiction stories?
I’d also have liked more explanation about what the big discovery entailed and what it made possible (other than the broad explanation that it saved humanity).
I still don’t understand all the surprise when they land on the watery time-dilated planet. They knew there was a huge time differential, so even if the first explorer had landed there years before (from their perspective), she’d only have had a few minutes to gather data (from her perspective), so whatever information she could have transmitted about the planet would be sharply limited anyway, so much so that sending a second landing party would be premature at best.
Also, I lost all patience with the emotional subplot when I realized his daughter, who was all hyper-upset when he left, apparently stayed upset for two years while he travelled to Saturn, hence she didn’t record a message that he could view after waking from hibernation. That strains my acceptance of adolescent-girl drama-queening to the point where I just didn’t care if she ever got over it or not.
Of course, I don’t have children, so perhaps I’m lacking certain parameters for judgement.
I enjoyed it quite a bit. I’d say 90% great, 10% boring. The main thing I didn’t understand: How did dying Murphy know that Anne Hathaway was missing? Cooper would have had to tell someone about that, then that person would have had to tell old Murphy before she talked to him. And if everyone somehow did know that Anne Hathaway was still out there missing, why didn’t anyone go looking for her already?
Tars and Case were far too dextrous for their geometry.
[QUOTE=Jeff Lichtman]
the fact that the apparent effect of falling into a black hole is to make you magically appear in your daughter’s bedroom
[/QUOTE]
It brings Peeping Tomism into a whole new…dimension.
[QUOTE=Shawn1767]
What they experienced was only a couple of hours based on their frame of reference. In another frame of reference, 23 years had passed.
[/QUOTE]
What a great way to commit murder. Just have a sleepover on a planet near a black hole. When you wake up, the person you want dead, is dead. Not very practical or efficient (the people you care about would be dead too, and it’s not very easy getting to such a planet), but it’s pretty much not actionable in court.
[QUOTE=diggerwam ]
…but the sentimental parts just didn’t hit me like they were designed to.
[/QUOTE]
You mean that 40 second scene wherein Cooper saw his daughter for the first time since she was 10 (~80 years), felt so emotionally overwhelmed that he gripped her hand, joked about farming, and left, ostensibly never to see her again, while being ignored by all of his other descendants (several generations), didn’t tug at your heart strings? You must be a cold, steel-hearted individual.
[QUOTE=harmonicamoon]
The music was so good, I didn’t even hear it.
[/QUOTE]
Either this is a whoosh or I apologize for appearing to badger someone who has lost the ability to hear. The music, especially viewing IMAX, was obnoxiously loud in many scenes, and not even good music, just creepy, annoying, organ-sounding crap. IMHO, non-diegetic music is supposed to be a subtle element, inserted to enhance the aesthetic and emotional value of a scene, not overwhelm a scene with its nauseating influence, greatly distracting from the narrative.
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
I still don’t understand all the surprise when they land on the watery time-dilated planet. They knew there was a huge time differential, so even if the first explorer had landed there years before (from their perspective), she’d only have had a few minutes to gather data (from her perspective), so whatever information she could have transmitted about the planet would be sharply limited anyway, so much so that sending a second landing party would be premature at best.
[/QUOTE]
Right. Cooper even wondered how all of the wreckage was still centralized and Brand said that Miller had landed just hours ago and had died just minutes ago. Mr. Brand said earlier in the film that they had been 10 years gone from their mission. Including the ~2 years it took Cooper to get to Miller’s planet, 12 years had elapsed, less than two hours for Miller. How much useful data could she have collected in that time? Cooper’s generation would likely be dead before any useful data could be obtained, and it amazes me that no one reasoned that out.
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Also, I lost all patience with the emotional subplot when I realized his daughter, who was all hyper-upset when he left, apparently stayed upset for two years while he travelled to Saturn, hence she didn’t record a message that he could view after waking from hibernation. That strains my acceptance of adolescent-girl drama-queening to the point where I just didn’t care if she ever got over it or not.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know, humans generally retain the same emotions from 10 to 12. It’s not that great of a leap in terms of psychological maturity. I was more concerned by her anger when she was a reasoned 30-year-old. But then she actually did start attempting to communicate with her father and only abandoned that when she believed that her father abandoned her.
I don’t usually get taken by “gotcha” moments in movies, the ones rife in horror films: AH!!! (with accompanying shrill music), but this movie has a moment that literally jolted me (and drew many gasps from the audience). I know you know which one. Very good film making there.
My biggest nit-pick is that essentially in the frame of two scenes, Cooper goes from mundane farmer to stumbling into a NASA operation to launching into space on a multi-galaxy quest with an indeterminable time-frame. That’s PDQ for such an ambitious endeavor. What was it, one or two days from the NASA fence to Endurance? Ok.
Overall, this movie’s objective was not to accurately portray science (after all, the science was just a vehicle) but to be entertaining enough to make money. It is and will.
Was that Andy Garcia as one of Cooper’s descendants in the end (the one most prominent in the scene)?
Yeah, this sticks in my craw, too. It’s at least partially related to theology, IMHO. If these beings are so fucking powerful and influential (omnipotent, if you will), why don’t they just hand wave a solution to the problem they want to solve that would take mere seconds instead of microconducting the extensive and convoluted orchestra that it takes for the humans to accomplish such a thing? Are they trying to teach us a lesson? Why not just download the lesson into our brain and forgo all of the involved interim?
Yeah, this. I wasn’t surprised at all, and I really would have liked to be.
I saw it in IMAX, and urge any of you who are in range to pay a few extra dollars to do so, too. It was quite an experience, and a spectacle surpassed only by Avatar (cheesy movie, fantastic spectacle in IMAX 3D). The rumbly bass-line did muffle a few lines, but nothing that seemed important.
