SPOILER ALERT!!!
10 Things Wrong With Interstellar
In many ways, Interstellar is a Greatest Hits of Nolan’s very worst instincts as a writer and a director, and while those overwhelmed by the narrative heft and audacity of his vision may be prepared to just go along with it, it does create an experience that’s frequently as frustrating as it is awe-inspiring.
Perhaps no other movie this year has been as simultaneously fascinating and infuriatingly flawed in so many aspects, and as such even those who weren’t so hot on it will likely find themselves going back for a second viewing in order to pick at more of the detail.
Having meditated on Nolan’s trippy sci-fi, here are 15 things wrong with Interstellar, 15 sticking points that just can’t be ignored no matter how pretty the movie looks or how thought-provoking it otherwise might be.
10.That Damn Dylan Thomas Poem
Ever since the first Interstellar trailer dropped that featured Dylan Thomas’ famous poem “Do not go gentle into that good night”, there has been a certain skepticism online that the poetry reading comes across as a little too grandiose and precious.
Unsurprisingly, this feeling transpires through to the final movie as well. While it may have been tolerable had the poem just been used once (its use as the Endurance launches isn’t so bad), but to hear Michael Caine repeat it, have Matt Damon recite it later on and see it written on a plaque at the end of the movie just hits viewers over the head with its lyrical philosophy.
Imagine if that Tale of Two Cities quote from The Dark Knight Rises had been repeated three or four times over the course of the movie: it would have diluted the emotional impact of its ultimate use, and that’s exactly what happens in Interstellar. By the third time a character starts reciting Thomas’ masterwork, there’s nothing left to do but roll your eyes.
It probably doesn’t help that John Cena recently performed a reading of it for a WWE 2K15 advert, so there’s that, too…
9. Adult Murph Is Totally One-Note
It’s immensely disappointing that Nolan hired the brilliant Jessica Chastain to play such a one-note character in adult Murph. Twenty-plus years later, Murph is still deeply traumatised by her father’s
It’s like Murph is stuck in a state of arrested development, perpetually sulking at her dad like she would as a child, when human beings don’t really behave like that in real life. Over time, the anger would fade, she would get on with her life and that would be that (it’s not like she was abused or something, jeez). For her to hold a grudge for so long seems laughably unrealistic, especially the unappreciative, simplistic manner in which she moans about it.
Despite Chastain’s efforts to make it ring true, the character is poorly written and ultimately quite annoying.
8. Awful Sound Mixing
Early reviews for Interstellar from IMAX screenings complained about the movie’s problematic sound mix, which amps up Hans Zimmer’s organ-based score, drowning out a lot of the dialogue in the process. Now that the movie is out in the wild, however, it’s become clear that even regular theatrical screenings are suffering with the same issue, one that has plagued many of Nolan’s films in the past.
The real problem isn’t with missing an occasional quip or line of throwaway dialogue, but that seemingly important discussions are also occasionally overwhelmed by the score, which given the already complex nature of the movie, is an annoying and rather bone-headed decision by the director.
Someone needs to ask Nolan who he insists on mixing his movies in such a radical, sketchy fashion, because it doesn’t do his work any favours at all.
7. Brand’s Emotional State
Nolan is often criticised for writing poor female characters, and Interstellar has two more egregious examples: the aforementioned adult Murph and Cooper’s fellow shipmate Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway). Though she initially seems like a sharp counter-point to Cooper, she plays her true hand soon thereafter when the crew are deciding which planet to fly to second: Mann or Edmunds.
Brand argues strongly for Edmunds despite Cooper believing Mann to be the more likely prospect, before he forces her to reveal that she’s in love with the scientist Edmunds, hence affecting her decision to want to go to his planet first. It’s a silly moment that reduces Brand’s character to a cliched “overly emotional female” stereotype, all the more difficult to believe given that these people are professional scientists and engineers, and should therefore appreciate the importance of keeping emotion out of the equation in favour of saving humanity.
It’s a cringe-worthy moment that at least subsides rather quickly. Still, it permanently stains Brand as a character, and she’s never really likeable from that point on.
6. Bad Dialogue
It’s a Christopher Nolan film so it’s inevitably going to have some poor dialogue, though the lack of police officers throughout ensures viewers at least don’t have to contend with the corny quips that plagued the Dark Knight saga. While most of Nolan’s previous movies are jam-packed full of memorable, quotable dialogue, the same isn’t really true here: perhaps it’s the scientific rigour of the piece, but there just aren’t a lot of great lines worth remembering.
Then there are occasional instances of truly, laughably bad dialogue, the most blatant of which is an exchange between TARS and Cooper. TARS tells him of a particular action later in the movie, “It’s not possible!”, to which Cooper replies, “No, it’s necessary.” It’s clearly meant to sound bada** but just turns out eye-rollingly cornball in the end, a dumb line that should have been cut completely.
It’s a Christopher Nolan film so it’s inevitably going to have some poor dialogue, though the lack of police officers throughout ensures viewers at least don’t have to contend with the corny quips that plagued the Dark Knight saga. While most of Nolan’s previous movies are jam-packed full of memorable, quotable dialogue, the same isn’t really true here: perhaps it’s the scientific rigour of the piece, but there just aren’t a lot of great lines worth remembering.
5. Poor Pacing
With Interstellar running in at just shy of three hours, it shouldn’t be surprising that the movie suffers from pacing issues. Though the director is accustomed to directing lengthy films (after all, Interstellar is just 4 minutes longer than The Dark Knight Rises), the pacing in Interstellar feels all over the place.
For starters, though the movie begins well by taking its time establishing a sense of place, once Cooper discovers the binary code, the film cranks into gears and rushes through the launch, never really explaining why Cooper has to rush off rather than wait things out with Murph and detail to her properly why he has to leave. It’s not exactly like the launch can’t wait another hour or so, is it?
Then the movie gets weighed down throughout by several lengthy docking sequences that drag on and on, and the whole Matt Damon subplot (which will be mentioned more in a moment) feels pretty needless. In short, there’s a better 130-140 minute movie in here, though Nolan could definitely do with fleshing out the pre-launch scenes with Murph and Cooper a little more.
4. The Central Dilemma Is Totally Unconvincing
The dilemma at the center of Interstellar is that Cooper has to leave to save humanity without any indication of when he will return. The time dilation gimmick means that Cooper may never see his children again, and he is haunted throughout by the promise he made to Murph to return one day, something he remains dead set on doing.
The movie’s trailers sell the film on a line from Brand to Cooper, that “You might have to choose between seeing your children again and saving the human race”, but really, is this much of a choice at all? It would suck to never see your family again, but when the entirety of humanity is at stake, is there really any dilemma to speak of? Surely most people would agree that it’s worth never seeing your family again to keep humanity going?
Though it may well be commenting on the fact that people don’t tend to care much about things that happen outside of their own lifespans, it paints scientists and engineers as uncharacteristically emotional, overwrought people (combined with Brand’s aforementioned weakness), when they’re much more likely to be level-headed and appreciate the utilitarian value of saving humanity.
Your average person might not, but then Cooper is not an average person: he is a smart man, a pilot and an engineer, and in reality, this probably wouldn’t be a decision he would agonise over, even if it would hurt to never see his kids again.
Basically, Nolan vastly oversells something that isn’t much of a dilemma in the first place, just as he did in The Dark Knight (the civilians would have blown the prisoner ship sky high in an instant) and Inception (when Cobb could just fly the kids to another country, where are the stakes?).
3. Brand’s “Love” Monologue
Alongside the Dylan Thomas poetry, another issue that became apparent in the trailers is the prevalence of love as a theme in the movie. As soon as Brand uttered the line “love is the one thing that transcends time and space”, some were skeptical that Nolan might be cooking up a rigorous sci-fi with a needlessly gooey center.
And it turned out they were right, because this cringe-worthy line reads even worse in the final movie. Brand has a lengthy monologue about the power of love as a universal force that humanity perhaps doesn’t understand yet, a force as powerful as gravity, and unless you’re the sentimental type, it’s pretty hard to buy into, more likely to elicit groans and laughter rather than swoons.
Given the self-serious, hard-science nature of the movie, throwing a premise like this into the mix feels clunky and awkward, and the film would be better off without it.
2. The Matt Damon Segment Is Forced, Pointless & Overlong
If there’s any part of Interstellar that feels utterly superfluous, it’s the subplot on planet Mann, where the crew discover Dr. Mann (Matt Damon) in stasis. They soon enough learn that Mann exaggerated the viability of his planet simply so that he could be rescued, leading to a fight between Cooper and Mann which nearly results in Cooper’s death. When Mann steals one of their ships and attempts to dock it into the Endurance, he ends up being exploded by depressurisation, and Cooper and co. proceed to the third and final planet.
It’s already predictable enough that, with three planets to explore, the first two are obviously going to be a bust, but did Nolan really need to force Damon’s character to be an antagonist, as if the stakes weren’t already high enough? The fight between Mann and Cooper in addition looks incredibly silly, especially the little headbutting battle they have with their helmets, and on the whole, it seems like the movie would fare better with this surprisingly lengthy subplot (lasting around half an hour) cut out completely.
It’s no criticism to Damon, of course, who is always a welcome presence in pretty much any movie, but he isn’t given a character befitting of his vast talents at all.
1. The Ending
And finally, there’s the ending, a mix of wild convenience, nonsense and lingering questions that don’t really prove satisfying at all. Firstly, Cooper is rescued from outside of the wormhole by a NASA vessel with just a few minutes of oxygen left. Even acknowledging that this may have been intentional on the part of the advanced future humans, it’s still an immense contrivance, a deus ex machina that lets Cooper get out too easily.
Then there’s cringe-worthy, tonally misjudged scene in which adult Murph finally works out the gravity equation, leading to her screaming “Eureka!” numerous times while throwing her scientific papers into the air and kissing Topher Grace. Eeek.
Then Cooper finally makes it back and has a tender reunion with Murphy (now about 80 and played by the wonderful Ellen Burstyn), but the meeting lasts about a minute before Murphy tells him to leave and find Amelia. So, that was it? They don’t get to hang out and catch up? He made all this effort to keep his last promise and she basically wasn’t that bothered in the end?
And then there’s the fact that, until Cooper finds her, Amelia has been left to raise presumably several hundred children all on her own, which sounds like a fate worse than death.
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What did you make of Interstellar? Get debating in the comments!
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Source// Warner Bros. Pictures/Paramount Pictures
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Source// Warner Bros. Pictures/Paramount Pictures
