That tears it. Christopher Nolan may be just a bit of a pretentious douche. I didn't care for his snarky remark about how "real" movies don't do those extra credit scenes, obviously a shot at marvel. A stylistic difference, Mr. Nolan, you don't have to be a jerk about it. That said, the man does have his own style and way of doing things. And given his dual track record of critical acclaim and box office domination, you can't exactly dismiss his opinion, though you may disagree. He is one of the auteurs on the modern Hollywood scene who not only is a master of modern film technology and techniques, but he is a storyteller supreme with his own style and approach. In Nolan's case, he likes to tell tales of humans probing the edges of knowledge and perception. Be it our own memories (Memento), dreamscapes (Inception), the fraying edges of civilization (his Batman/Dark Knight trilogy) or deep space (Interstellar), he is about going "out there" to peer deep inside the human heart.
Nothing new about things, it is well known he has a fascination with technology and human know how and most of his films feature this aspect of humanity in one way or another. In this case, he sets up the scientific as the existential crisis of an Earth gone sour. Our world's life supporting systems seem to be breaking down. No one is sure why, but the food plants we rely on are going extinct and the atmosphere is becoming more and more problematic. As the nations of the world go more and more into survival mode, energy and resources are spent mostly on food production. There are no more militaries and space exploration is taught as fiction to school children.
Cooper (Matthew Mcconaughey) is a former engineer and test pilot turned farmer who is disturbed by this turn in education. His son, Tom, has been written out of college and will likely run the family farm on down the line. His daughter, Murphy, is brilliant and headstrong, causing fits with the school and her fascination with science and space (again, being taught as a fiction to kids). Murphy also tells tales of weird activity in her room, calling it her ghost. One day, the "ghost" leaves a message in the dust in Murphy's room that she and Cooper interpret as map coordinates. They follow them and find a fenced off compound. It turns out, they have located the new headquarters of NASA, now a tiny, secretly funded organization seeking an escape for humanity from their current global dilemma. The apparent escape hatch? A wormhole, apparently artificial in origin and leading to a potentially life supporting world or worlds on the other side. NASA needs a hotshot pilot and invite Cooper on the mission. After some soul searching, Cooper accepts, though the parting from his family, especially Murphy, isn't easy, and it wears at his soul as Cooper and his crew plunge through the wormhole and stare into the dark abyss of a black hole on the other side.
Through wormhole. Onto the edge of a black hole. And to the surface of alien worlds. Dealing with strange environments and the twisty, bendy effects of space-time in extreme environments. Further, throw in an unknown intelligence working behind the scenes, our four astronauts are put to the test in trying to puzzle out their circumstances and save those they left behind.
You have all that AND cute robots who are smart alecks yet not cloying and annoying.
This is a big, space bound epic. Lots of science yet not at all lacking a human heart. It aspires to the big picture, but never forgets about that which drives us to push these barriers in the first place.
Interstellar is stellar. If you like big, smart, heartfelt space epics, this is a must see film
So...boldly go.
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