Interstellar (2014)

Rating: 4/4

Spoiler-free review:

Blame it on the medium if you are not too enamored by Interstellar. Because, what can do complete justice to this script is not a motion picture - it is black board and chalk and mathematics. Given the limitations, lesser directors would have opted for dumbing-down of the script - nothing wrong with the approach, of course - but director Christopher Nolan, with his trademark relish in puzzling audiences, opts otherwise.

To his credit, Nolan does sprinkle his narrative throughout with short tutorials on relativity, mostly as quick verbal exchanges between the protagonists, before a related event or a consequence transpires on-screen. What he does not do is wait for us laggers in the audience to catch up or collect our thoughts - 3 hours simply isn't long enough for such "breaks", what with at least 4 well-developed characters, dense and layered narrative, and of course, the requisite "money" shots.

There are a few innovative thrill-sequences, one of which goes extreme in exhilaration and spectacle, the likes of which were seen only in Gravity(2013). But thats about it. Nolan has instead chosen to spend the bulk of his money in generating awe: the panoramic views of cosmos, the elegant slowness of its participants and the artistic rendering of cosmic events that are as yet theorized but never perceived, are smile- and glow-inducing. Or maybe not, for those expecting more thrills.


The movie does presume at least familiarity, if not understanding, of gravity and relativity. So, here's a little primer for the future audience:

1. Spinning in space :
Space stations spin like a wheel to create artificial gravity for people inside it. People standing inside along the spokes of this imaginary wheel, find the centrifugal force pushing them to the periphery similar to gravity on Earth.

2. Fly-by:
 Spacecrafts save fuel by utilizing a planet's gravity to "sling-shot" themselves: they fly close enough to a planet to come under its gravitational influence and literally fall into the planet at an angle(not towards the center of planet). This fall accelerates the spacecraft free of charge.
The resultant velocity is enough to push it out of gravitational influence and continue towards its destination with increased speed. The law of momentum still applies here: The gain in momentum of spacecraft equals the loss in momentum of planet. So, the planet itself loses a billionth/trillionth of its velocity.

3. Time:
It has been experimentally observed (by Michelson-Morley,1887) that speed of light (c) remains same irrespective of the observer's velocity i.e., say 'A' measures while running at a million miles/sec, and 'B' measures while at rest; the experiment proved that they would both calculate 'c' to be the exact same value. This is surprising because A's relative velocity should have made a difference. Two decades later, a clerk in a patent office (guess who) explained this baffling phenomenon: the observed speeds were same because the times were different. Simply put, each of us, occupying individual spaces, have individual time. It is because that these individual times always align, we wrongly assume one single and absolute time, when in fact time is relative. In our example, A's time(t) was slower relative to B's time(T); meaning, 1 sec of A's time is worth many in B's time. An interesting side-effect of this is, A ages in t(slower time) while B ages in T(faster time).

(An application in real world: Cruise missiles moving at high speeds and targeting over long distances never calculate their detonation times based on their on-board clocks, as they run slower than their on-ground counterparts)

4. Worm-hole:
A 'bend' in space that causes overlap in 2 different spaces. Theoretically, it allows shortcuts between distant spaces. Easier still, imagine it as a U-turn that allows jumping between start and end points. (Sure, you can still traverse the entire 'U' and reach the other end a trillion years from now, if that's your thing)

5. Space-time continuum:
Simply called space-time, this is an extension to the 3-dimensional space that we understand. Now that Einstein theoretically proved that every 3-D point in space has its own time, it turned out that, mathematically speaking, we needed 4-D co-ordinates whenever time calculation was involved too.

6. N-dimensions:
Scientists have theorized and laid mathematical foundations for solving problems beyond 4-Dimensions. What those new dimensions may turn out to be is anybody's guess. Unfortunately for us, waiting and watching wouldn't really work. It could be eons before we evolve the intellect to identify the new dimensions.

Most of the science above is lifted from Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time and Arthur C.Clarke's 2001:A Space Odyssey and Youtube.


!!!!!!!!  Spoilers follow !!!!!!!!!!!

Explaining The Ending:

1. Cooper goes into the black hole to get data needed to solve the problem of getting people out of Earth.
2. The inside of the black hole turns out to be 5-D(the script consultant, Kip Thorne, is a theoretical physicist. I am guessing that he's got enough theory to back this)
3. 5-D is, obviously, more than just 4-D space-time: it is in fact space-timeless. It has every moment (i.e. every space-time event) occurring simultaneously. Beginning and End have no meaning here.
4. He gets the requisite data with the help of LARS, but he cannot carry the data back to Earth by retracing his steps (he'd be too late, remember?)
5. So he sends it as a binary code to his daughter using Gravity, the one force that is unbounded by and can act across time.
6. In all of this Cooper is only a relay for information from inside of the black-hole to his daughter. His presence is required because only he has the 'connection' (read Love) to act as relay to his daughter (Frankly, this Love facilitating things seemed pretty forced and a little botched)
7. Back on earth, Murph gets enough data for their first jump to an Elysium'esqe home near Saturn, their first milestone on their way to their second home planet (where the cute Dr.Brand is busy making it habitable)
8.  The first step to all of this is the creation and "placing" of a worm-hole within human reach and human time. This was done by those super-humans in the future (who do not appear in the movie) who evolved from normal humans and owe their existence to Cooper's daughter(Murph) - a case of "end providing for the means".

9. What's the deal with Murphy's law(whatever can happen WILL happen)?
Super-humans(from future) made sure that super-humans WILL exist, with Murph Cooper's help. That's pretty Murphy, isn't it?