Stunning insight Into The Future - A Masterpiece With A Few Irritating Flaws

Rating: 10/10 (1 July 2016)

Very appropriately, there are some wonderful nods here to Arthur C. Clarke's and Stanley Kubrick's groundbreaking 1968 film, "2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY". "INTERSTELLAR" is truly the next chapter in the exploration of the future begun by that movie and it parallels "2001" its use of powerful metaphorical imagery along with meaningful technical content. I heard so much about this film being vetted by the top physicists that I actually expected it to have its science fully together. So let's begin with a basic correction: "Time" is NOT the "4th dimension"; the "4th dimension" is NOT "Time". Time has been clearly perceived from the emergence of conscious living beings - no one was aware of the 4th dimension until Einstein proposed its existence in the 1920s. To be clear, our sense of time is a direct result of our universal, unidirectional passage through that elusive 4th dimension. But time is merely a subjective artifact - one clearly perceivable to beings that can only directly perceive 3 dimensions. So, okay - in a movie so deeply concerned with the 4th dimension, would it have been so hard to take a moment to finally clear up that blurred distinction? Another scientific slip: the dialogue presents the creatures that experience a 5-dimensional existence as if they somehow possess the 5th dimension. No - they don't have a dimension that applies only to them. That 5th dimension, like all dimensions, should be presented as universal and ever-present. They, unlike ourselves, simply are able to perceive and presumably to operate in it. Aargh! How long are we going to have to wait for a another film like "2001" that really is written with a full understanding of how the space-time continuum really operates? I also have a more mundane complaint. There is a vast difference between a "great pilot" and a "mission commander". I would have replaced the opening scenes with some actual precision flying AND a demonstration of decisive thinking and outstanding leadership ability. All the agricultural exposition could have been accomplished with a bit of dialogue and/or some on-screen text of some kind. But the film really shifts into high gear with the arrival on other planets. You really FEEL the remoteness and novelty of the other worlds. "INTERSTELLAR" probes the supremely critical question of the future of humanity: Are humans capable of facing the daunting challenges of making our move out into the universe? The movie does an extraordinary job of taking on this colossal question, going much farther than any other work that I know of. And for me, the movie makes the actual answer supremely clear: "Absolutely not." I'm not sure that's really a spoiler because, though there may be one character in the film who agrees with me on this, it's not quite the conclusion of the movie itself. Some of the dialogue on this subject is so far beyond brilliant that I can't begin to express how deeply it struck me. This makes it a great work and worthy of 10 stars in spite of all my criticisms.