 |
| Visit and join our new Facebook page! |
Anyway, so I saw Christopher
Nolan's new film Interstellar last night and that seemed to have some science
in it. To summarise it in a spoiler free way, I'd say that it starts in the not too distant
future in which all our food has died and all we're left with is corn. Beyond
the novelty of knowing that sweetcorn can leave my body in the exact same
condition that it entered,
I'd say that I hate this food and so would have no interest in living in these
conditions. It seems that humanity agrees and so before we starve ourselves into
extinction, Matthew McConaughey stumbles upon a top secret space mission which
aims to find us a new planet to call home. So in essence, I suppose this film is kind of like an
intergalactic adaptation of Channel 4's Relocation, Relocation, Relocation. Anyway, so the plan is to blast a
rocket through a wormhole where we'll be taken to a new galaxy with three
possible planets to lay our collective hat. I guess that's all I can say really
without giving stuff away. The only other thing to mention is that McConaughey
has some kids which he's left behind and that he's desperate to return to. I
think this film was meant to be a love letter to Nolan's own children however
for me it just highlighted the benefits of having no attachments. I might one
day be found rotting in my home after having been dead for several months but
before then at least I can stay out as late as I'd like without having to
worry.
So, I guess it's first thing
first and we should address whether or not the film is actually any good. I
mean, it's kind of
obvious that it's going to be,
surely though? There are basically two kinds of people in this world which are
those who love Christopher Nolan's films and those who lie due to a desperate
need for attention. Interstellar is by no means perfect but for its sheer ambition, I think it should be at the
very least admired. It isn't based on a pre-existing brand, it doesn't intend
to set up a franchise and it's a big budget movie that assumes the audience
isn't a bunch of dribbling, brain dead fucknuggets. I mean, you could obviously say the
same about Inception too which just goes to show that perhaps this Nolan man
does deserve the praise that's heaped on him. It's been fourteen years since
his first proper film was released and in that time he's made several original
large budget movies, introduced a level of realism to blockbusters that is now
copied by fucking everybody and re-defined how we view two ancient icons of
pop-culture with both Batman and Michael Caine. Although to be fair to Bruce
Wayne, I don't think
he's been using his newly gained popularity to engage in his hobby of tax
avoidance.
Originally, Interstellar was being set
up as a film for Spielberg which is interesting considering this fits so neatly
into Nolan's filmography. Like Inception, Batman, and Memento, the thrust of the main characters motivation
comes from a love of their family. McConaughey hasn't gone into space because
he wants to save the world but instead because he wants to save his children.
Rather how Lenny in Memento wasn't on his mission for fun but for the similarly
sentimental reason of wanting to get revenge on the callous bastards that raped
and murdered his wife. It's sweet what people will do for family! Interstellar
also deals with the concept of time which has been an obvious element of most
of his other films. However here it is a part of the story as opposed to the
structure of the narrative. In fact, there are scenes in which time is played out with people
experiencing it at different speeds which is reminiscent of that moment in
Inception when the bus falls off a bridge as its passengers piss about for
hours in their heads. As well as these though, the film features more practical elements such
as the design of the spaceship which also bears a passing resemblance to that
giant black hover-scab
that Batman flies about in in The Dark Knight Rises. I won't give too much away
but there's also a scene near the end where a world folds in on itself which
isn't unlike that scene from Inception where Ellen Page and DiCaprio start
walking up walls like a couple of massive city-benders.
Having
said all of that, I
don't think it's Nolan's best film by a long shot. Perhaps this is just me but
for some reason I found it difficult to connect to on an emotional level. It's
not that the film is filled with a Kubrickian coldness despite the obvious
influence of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In fact, if anything, Interstellar is a love letter to both humanity
and our human emotions. Nor is it that my childless self can't empathise with
the plight of a man who is desperate to save his kids from a slow and grim
death. I actually don't know what the problem was really... Perhaps it was how
humourless it was? Or maybe it's that anybody with half a brain can work out
the ending from the first thirty minutes thus removing some degree of tension.
Will their mission be a success? I don't know but there might be a clue in
those talking heads that we're treated to. Is the young girl being given
messages from a ghost? Well,
either it's a ghost which would be pretty fucking random or perhaps it's
something else that would tie the narrative up in a slightly neater way.
Oh, although, when I say you can work out
the ending, I mean that
in the broadest possible of ways. I don't think anybody could expect some of
the mad shit that takes place as McConaughey adventures into the dark arsehole of nowhere.
This, I suppose, is where all the science
comes into it for me with physicist
Kip Thorne being heavily involved in both the conception of the film and in
keeping the story vaguely based in the realms of what's theoretically possible. As mentioned earlier, I know very little about
science and I don't care how true something is so long as it works within the
context of the film. Is The Phantom Menace a bad film because it deviates from
what we know is possible? No, it's shit because George Lucas has the writing
skills of a rotten turnip that a dyslexic farmer once used as a butt plug. Do I
believe the things that I'm seeing in Interstellar? Sure I do! I even believed that the
entire Gotham police
force could get stuck in the sewers in The Dark Knight Rises and that's clearly bullshit. Whether
it's based on fact or not,
Nolan has an inbuilt skill of grounding farfetched ideas in a believable
reality. Like I say, the end of this film is about as mental as having a snooty
hedgehog for a dick but I still buy into it.
The
problem for me with the ending is that again, for some reason, I couldn't quite connect to it. I was impressed
with it and I loved the originality of where Nolan had decided to go. But I was
hoping for something that would make me feel how I did during the fireball
conclusions of both Sunshine and The Fountain. The whole thing is very
impressive, however I
just never felt overwhelmed by it. Maybe this was just me though. As mentioned, I can't think of any reason
that I shouldn't have been and so maybe the rest of you were gushing into the
aisles. Oh, and whilst
we're on the issues, I
also think that perhaps it wasn't the wisest of moves to keep the camera mostly
confined to the cockpit of the ship. For the bulk of the film, we only see planets and the
like through windows which I presume was to keep us seeing things through the
eyes of the main character. However, for me,
this just slightly tainted the epic-ness of the film. Wanting me to experience
space travel through the point of view of the astronaut is fine but if I was in
that rocket I'd have my face pressed so far up against that glass I'd probably
turn my nose into a permanent fucking
snout.
Other
than that though, I
have no complaints and genuinely did love the film. Some people have been
moaning about the sound quality but beyond the fact that there was way too much
fucking music, I can't
say it bothered me. The best sci-fi films are about something
and there's no denying that this has more to say than a pissed up bus-stop nutter with a
megaphone. On the surface,
Interstellar might borrow from such classy movies as 2001, The Right Stuff and
Alien, but what's interesting is how much it owes to Event Horizon too. Both
films deal with worm holes, feature a character who’s gone mental and even explain their plot by
stabbing a pen through a piece of paper. I'm hoping that the paper thing is
just a standard way of explaining the nature of space travel though because I
really don't think that I can live in a world where Christopher Nolan is
stealing from Paul Wanky Shit Anderson. Is Interstellar worth your money and
three hours of your
life? Well, enough of
you wankers paid to see Transformers: Age Of Extinction so I'd say yes if only
to rebalance the purity of your soul. It's not Nolan's best film but that's
like shagging a group of high-class porn stars and then moaning that the last
one didn't seem too
into you. Maybe not,
but when the alternative is a grotty hole in a public toilet, the criticism doesn't seem
too much of an issue.
Is this film brilliant because of how scientifically accurate it is? No. It's
brilliant because it has ambition and aspirations. Even a lesser Nolan film is
a shining angel of
light when compared to the bulk of the shit-stained vermin that it looks down
on. So yeah... thanks for reading, motherfuckers,
and see you next time.
You can visit the blog picture artist at _Moriendus_
No comments :
Post a Comment