A little over a week ago, the first real, full-length trailer for
Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar emerged on the internet, giving us more than
just a tease on what is to me the most anticipated film of the year.
There is no question about the fact that Christopher Nolan
approaches the art of film making in a wholly ambitious way, both visually,
promoting IMAX cameras and designing beautiful architecture, as well as
conceptually, incorporating complex ideas and themes that deal with the psyche,
the external universe, and relationships between the two.
And after finally finishing off the Batman films, on a rather weak
note, in my opinion, it looks like he’s going all out with his customary ideas
and tropes in this next one. But there’s
much more than what meets the trained eye.
I've been really excited for this film, ever since I heard it was
supposed to be scientifically accurate;
two of my favourite things were going to coalesce—film and astrophysics. And I had the comfort of knowing it was in good hands when Nolan took over the project.
two of my favourite things were going to coalesce—film and astrophysics. And I had the comfort of knowing it was in good hands when Nolan took over the project.
And Interstellar looks good.
Alright, so a lot of the trailer is exposition, but I’m not complaining. Cooper, our protagonist, played by
Matthew McConaughey, enters a room and proceeds to engage in a discussion with an official looking guy who seems to be part of the behemoth of a pioneering project Cooper is eventually convinced to take part in. We learn that Cooper is an engineer and a trained pilot, maybe THE pilot. Official guy bluntly tells us that the world ‘doesn't need any more engineers. We didn't run out of planes and television sets. We ran out of food’. As we've known for a while, the plot will concern our search for food out there, in the cosmos. Exactly how we ran out of the food isn't a question that's been answered yet, but we see hints of some form of natural destruction, remnants of a sandstorm, perhaps. We get a shot of a baseball game about to be interrupted by what really looks like a sandstorm, and we see Cooper's fields engulfed in flames.
Cooper's
daughter is an adult in that last shot, which means for some reason, the situation's
possibly gotten even worse after he left.
We even see a rugged looking guy who could very well be his son.
Alright, I think I'm moving too fast.
Let's back up a bit.
 |
| Cooper talks to niceish official looking guy |
The exposition is interspersed with glimpses of everything else
the film seems to be offering. A lot of
it is visual, but I’d like to turn to the dialogue first. Cooper pins his tardiness on a flat tire, but
the very next shot shows us what could possibly be the real cause—the
appearance of a surveillance drone in his farm.
Although trailers of Chris Nolan films are often deceptive with
narrative, this seems to be in line with how Nolan uses understatement as
humour, which I really like, by the way.
I've read numerous diatribes on Nolan’s films being humourless, but I've
always liked his kind of humour. It's
smart, it's subtle, and it doesn't detract from the drama. But I digress.
Cooper's son makes a little quip about Murphy's Law. It turns out that Cooper named his daughter,
Murph, after it. If someone did that in
real life they'd seem like a pseudo-intellectual prick, but this guy's an
engineer, a pilot, and now an astronaut.
Why is he on a farm again? Maybe
we'll get some backstory. It’s certainly
Nolan’s forte, the whole fractured male psyche thing.
The film might use a non-linear narrative to explain events. However, I don’t think it’ll dwell too much
on Cooper’s past. And here's why:
I think the film will already be too concerned with timelines to deal with an
individual's past. Somehow, Cooper's
past will tie into Nolan's philosophical musings—‘Murphy's Law doesn't mean
that something bad will happen. It means that whatever can happen will happen’, but it won’t be Coop's real motivating
factor, nor will it keep incessantly slapping us in the face.
The reference to Murphy's Law might be pretty blatant foreshadowing for something, but we’ll get to that a
little later.
 |
Murph asks Cooper about her name
Notice the pencil in Murph's hair.
Any ideas on what we can deduce about her character from that? |
Cooper is portrayed as the man who will go out there to save not
just his kids, but humankind. An
exchange with Michael Caine's character shows us that although Caine's
character tries to use Coop's kids as incentive to convince him to go foraging for food, he already considers the journey for the sake of
humanity. This man, unlike Nolan's other
male protagonists, is not someone who has lost everything or almost
everything. This is a man who has
perhaps lost some things, but is willing to leave his most precious possessions
in an endeavor to save them and everyone else.
Maybe his past will explain why he's on a farm and what happened to his
wife (who seems to have willingly agreed to name her daughter Murph, or even
thought it up herself; notice Cooper say ‘we didn't’, emphasis on 'we', when
Murph inquires about the reasoning behind her name). But as we might potentially be dealing with
two timelines already (we see Murph as an adult, played by Jessica Chastain),
it might be a bit of a squeeze.
 |
| -'I've got kids, professor' -'Get out there and save them.' |
I’ll be
happy this time if the film focuses more on collective endeavors and wants and
needs instead of the events of the life of an individual. Michael Caine’s character said it himself—‘We
need to stop thinking as individuals, and start thinking as a species’. I think the film will focus less on the
questions the individual faces about his psyche and the subjectivity of the
world, and more on the questions the individual is faced with regarding himself
as the subject with respect to the objective outside. I think the outside will be less subjective
than we've seen in Nolan’s previous films, barring the Batman films.
Now, you remember how he mentions Murphy’s Law?
Well, Murphy’s Law does
originally state that ‘anything that can go wrong will go wrong’. What it means is that anything that can go
wrong will go wrong if given enough time.
Think about it this way:
A guy is confronted by five identical buttons. Four buttons will open doors to four different sizes of watermelons. Unless there are kids reading this. In which case, the doors lead to hookers. The fifth button opens a door from which a dog scampers out and defecates on his shoes. The man doesn't know which button leads to which outcome. Hence, the man has a 1/5 chance of being pooped on. Now, assuming that the hookers are STD-free, the poop-button can be seen as the ‘thing going wrong’ button. After every press of a button, the dog and the hookers are all randomly shuffled between doors, without the man knowing what their positions are. He continues to press buttons randomly, and after he’s done this a large number of times, he’ll need new shoes. He will have pressed the poop-button roughly 1/5 the number of times. Now, since there are only five buttons, there’s going to be a lot of poop accumulated at his feet, but if there were hundreds or thousands of buttons, only one of them being the poop-button, the likelihood of poop decreases. But that doesn't mean it’s impossible. If the guy keeps going for it more than a thousand times, he will be pooped on, eventually. If he goes for it an infinite number of times, he will actually be pooped on an infinite number of times. We’d be dealing with different kinds of infinities, but that’s a discussion for another day.
What’s even more relevant is that since all the other buttons all give different hookers, the probability of getting any particular hooker is the same as the probability of getting shat upon.
Thus, Murphy’s Law is extended to ‘anything that can happen will happen, if given enough time’. Realistically, every single event cannot occur, so the law focuses on the negative in an effort to poke fun at the pessimistic human mind. In this case, there is, in fact, only one negative.
And this is only one of many ways to look at the ‘law’.
I guess you could draw an association between the mention of the law and the bit where we hear Murph speaking to her father later—
‘I don’t know when you’re coming back’
‘I’m coming back’, Coop replies. It doesn't matter when he’s coming back. What matters is that he is coming back. This certainly reinforces the idea of ‘thinking as a species’, since what Coop seems to be implying is that, according to Murphy’s Law, he will return to save the human species, whether it is during his daughter’s lifespan or not. And we do see the astronauts go into some form of cryostasis.
Then again, this is something pretty bleak to say to your child. And we must remember that although film is a medium where we can present larger than life ideas, a large part of the audience will not be satisfied with, will not be emotionally gratified by the experience unless they are attached to the characters and are rewarded for this attachment.
To some extent, it has to be about the people. And despite all the different ways a film can shake people with the devices that are loss and destruction, Chris Nolan’s films have arguably been getting progressively optimistic. His characters have been achieving very real, permanent catharses.
It can be argued, though, that unlike his last two films, Inception and
The Dark Knight Rises, this isn't a summer movie. It’s a November movie, which might very well mean that it aims to be that flawless confluence of Oscar-bait and large-scale blockbuster. Although I seriously doubt that Christopher Nolan makes films to bag Oscars, this might just be Nolan’s Spielberg film. Or better yet, it might be a Return of the King. It feels like Nolan will venture into uncharted territory here, meaning we can’t know for certain what Cooper meant, we can’t know when he’s returning. I've heard some people speculate that the film will concern multiple universes, but I don’t think this is the case. I get that the mention of Murphy’s Law opens many doors to how we can explore the idea of the multiverse, but I think wormholes and interstellar travel will be enough. Something else that should be out of the question is alternate timelines.
I just watched X-Men: Days of Future Past, a movie where you don’t just suspend your disbelief, you roll it up into a little blob of reason and hurl it straight out the cinema. That being said, Days of Future Past was an emotionally gripping, intensively thought-provoking and visually spectacular film, so don’t get me wrong.
I think Interstellar, however, will concern itself with real science, like we’ve been told to expect, and I say this because Kip Thorne acted as consultant on the film.
No, we have no observational evidence for wormholes, but we do have a sturdy theoretical premise for them.
So, interstellar travel? Yes. Time travel? Possibly. Multiple universes? Doubt it.
Alternate timelines? No.
A guy is confronted by five identical buttons. Four buttons will open doors to four different sizes of watermelons. Unless there are kids reading this. In which case, the doors lead to hookers. The fifth button opens a door from which a dog scampers out and defecates on his shoes. The man doesn't know which button leads to which outcome. Hence, the man has a 1/5 chance of being pooped on. Now, assuming that the hookers are STD-free, the poop-button can be seen as the ‘thing going wrong’ button. After every press of a button, the dog and the hookers are all randomly shuffled between doors, without the man knowing what their positions are. He continues to press buttons randomly, and after he’s done this a large number of times, he’ll need new shoes. He will have pressed the poop-button roughly 1/5 the number of times. Now, since there are only five buttons, there’s going to be a lot of poop accumulated at his feet, but if there were hundreds or thousands of buttons, only one of them being the poop-button, the likelihood of poop decreases. But that doesn't mean it’s impossible. If the guy keeps going for it more than a thousand times, he will be pooped on, eventually. If he goes for it an infinite number of times, he will actually be pooped on an infinite number of times. We’d be dealing with different kinds of infinities, but that’s a discussion for another day.
What’s even more relevant is that since all the other buttons all give different hookers, the probability of getting any particular hooker is the same as the probability of getting shat upon.
Thus, Murphy’s Law is extended to ‘anything that can happen will happen, if given enough time’. Realistically, every single event cannot occur, so the law focuses on the negative in an effort to poke fun at the pessimistic human mind. In this case, there is, in fact, only one negative.
And this is only one of many ways to look at the ‘law’.
I guess you could draw an association between the mention of the law and the bit where we hear Murph speaking to her father later—
‘I don’t know when you’re coming back’
‘I’m coming back’, Coop replies. It doesn't matter when he’s coming back. What matters is that he is coming back. This certainly reinforces the idea of ‘thinking as a species’, since what Coop seems to be implying is that, according to Murphy’s Law, he will return to save the human species, whether it is during his daughter’s lifespan or not. And we do see the astronauts go into some form of cryostasis.
Then again, this is something pretty bleak to say to your child. And we must remember that although film is a medium where we can present larger than life ideas, a large part of the audience will not be satisfied with, will not be emotionally gratified by the experience unless they are attached to the characters and are rewarded for this attachment.
To some extent, it has to be about the people. And despite all the different ways a film can shake people with the devices that are loss and destruction, Chris Nolan’s films have arguably been getting progressively optimistic. His characters have been achieving very real, permanent catharses.
It can be argued, though, that unlike his last two films, Inception and
The Dark Knight Rises, this isn't a summer movie. It’s a November movie, which might very well mean that it aims to be that flawless confluence of Oscar-bait and large-scale blockbuster. Although I seriously doubt that Christopher Nolan makes films to bag Oscars, this might just be Nolan’s Spielberg film. Or better yet, it might be a Return of the King. It feels like Nolan will venture into uncharted territory here, meaning we can’t know for certain what Cooper meant, we can’t know when he’s returning. I've heard some people speculate that the film will concern multiple universes, but I don’t think this is the case. I get that the mention of Murphy’s Law opens many doors to how we can explore the idea of the multiverse, but I think wormholes and interstellar travel will be enough. Something else that should be out of the question is alternate timelines.
I just watched X-Men: Days of Future Past, a movie where you don’t just suspend your disbelief, you roll it up into a little blob of reason and hurl it straight out the cinema. That being said, Days of Future Past was an emotionally gripping, intensively thought-provoking and visually spectacular film, so don’t get me wrong.
I think Interstellar, however, will concern itself with real science, like we’ve been told to expect, and I say this because Kip Thorne acted as consultant on the film.
No, we have no observational evidence for wormholes, but we do have a sturdy theoretical premise for them.
So, interstellar travel? Yes. Time travel? Possibly. Multiple universes? Doubt it.
Alternate timelines? No.
Now, for the specific images. The
shuttle we see instantly reminds me of the Space Station V from
2001: A Space Odyssey, mainly because of the rotating wheel structure, but also because of the lighting and what looks like from afar as slow, deliberate pirouetting in space. I could almost hear The Blue Danube in the depths of my ears if it wasn’t for Hans Zimmer’s continuous crescendo calling me back to the trailer.
2001: A Space Odyssey, mainly because of the rotating wheel structure, but also because of the lighting and what looks like from afar as slow, deliberate pirouetting in space. I could almost hear The Blue Danube in the depths of my ears if it wasn’t for Hans Zimmer’s continuous crescendo calling me back to the trailer.
The spacecraft from Interstellar on top, compared with the Space Station V from 2001
The shot where we see the spacecraft against the backdrop of Saturn’s gorgeous
rings takes me back to Bowman’s arrival at Jupiter in the fourth act of
Kubrick’s film.
 |
| The Saturn shot. The tiny little spacecraft in front of the rings really puts things into perspective. Or so you'd think. We haven't even left our solar system yet. |
These are very Kubrickian images, if you will. It’s no secret that Nolan’s always been a
huge Stanley Kubrick fan, and it shows very clearly here.
Viewers
need not worry, however, about him becoming a fanboy.
Nolan’s film will significantly distance itself from Kubrick, I think,
firstly, because this voyage moves far beyond just Jupiter, far beyond our own
solar system, into the reaches of the galaxy, secondly because it's a little more grounded in real science, making it a tad bit more realistic, and thirdly, the film will have
a more definite, coherent and cohesive narrative. As with Nolan’s usual films, Interstellar will inquire and
contemplate, but it won’t lose its narrative, and our protagonist will always
remain in one physical form. As much as
I love Kubrick, I can understand why so many people whine about 2001.
It’s three slow-paced, potentially boring acts of people talking and
discussing things, followed by a total acid trip that seemingly just leaves you
in the dark, and that’s it. The film
ends. In Nolan’s film, no matter how
much we and our protagonist encounter, absorb and retain from the universe, no
one is going to be turning into a superbaby.
We see Cooper hugging his son one last time, before he tearfully watches him leave.
We see ignition, and the shot
of the spacecraft finally leaving as Murph and Lithgow hold hands, as we saw in
the teaser.
We get glimpses inside the
spacecraft, into weightlessness, which harkens back to the time Nolan constructed a
giant rotating corridor in Inception
to show the constantly altering direction of gravity. I’m excited to see how practical effects are
used in this one.
We also see Anne
Hathaway, just for a brief moment.
We
see at least two astronauts being submerged into their sleep.
We see what looks like Coop’s kids on the back of a truck
like refugees.
We see the spacecraft
approaching what could possibly be a wormhole, giving us a spectacular image
that gives us the sheer scope of the voyage.
The spacecraft twirls somewhere in the middle like a pale grey dot, and the gravitational lensing just makes it look really bloody cool.
We are taken by a sense of uncertainty while
Cooper bids his last adieu to Murph—‘I love you… Forever’. The trailer, at this point, uses pathos to
really immerse us and make us aware of what’s at stake, with all the tears and
the music. And hell, when Zimmer said he
was getting rid of the brass horns and the big drums that were leftover from
Inception and the Batman films, he meant it.
After constantly being subject to all those
‘BRRRHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH’s in every other action, superhero and
drama film in the past couple of years, it’s finally time to move on. Zimmer himself reused the horns to communicate a
sense of weight in drama sometimes, like in 12
Years a Slave. But it looks like
we’re getting something fresh, despite the usual Zimmer-blockbuster feel to
it. We’ll see when it comes, I guess.
The final shot of the trailer is the spacecraft disappearing into the wormhole, as we hear Cooper’s voice one last time over the title, whispering ‘I’m coming back’.
The final shot of the trailer is the spacecraft disappearing into the wormhole, as we hear Cooper’s voice one last time over the title, whispering ‘I’m coming back’.
Maybe the ‘I’m coming back’ is a
recurring idea here. Maybe this search
for sustenance is, in fact, him
‘coming back’. Maybe his past does
matter. Maybe I was wrong about
everything I said. Maybe a bunch of complications will arise and everyone will be forced to participate in a giant interstellar orgy (probably not, though).
At this point, most
of it is speculation, but I’m sure there are
people out there who are connecting the dots better than I am, so what do you
think?
Give me your opinions, let me know here what you think this movie will ultimately turn out to be; I'm really interested to know because I can't wait for this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment