Interstellar

***Interstellar*** is a 2014 British-American epic science fiction film directed, co-written and co-produced by Christopher Nolan for his 9th film. It stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, Matt Damon, and Michael Caine. The film was produced by Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures, Syncopy, and Lynda Obst Productions. It premiered in TCL Chinese Theatre on October 26, 2014, and had a limited release in North America (United States and Canada) on November 5, with a wide release on November 7 in the United States and United Kingdom.

## Plot

In 2067, in Earth's future, a global crop blight and second Dust Bowl are slowly rendering the planet uninhabitable. Professor Brand (Michael Caine), a brilliant NASA physicist, is working on plans to save mankind by transporting Earth's population to a new home via a wormhole. But first, Brand must send former NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and a team of researchers through the wormhole and across the galaxy to find out which of three planets could be mankind's new home.

## Why It's ***STELLAR***

1. The premise of finding a new planet before the whole Earth becomes uninhabitable is very original, and it was executed very well, in addition, the film was inspired of a real-life events from the 1930's Dust Bowl.
2. Amazing performances from Matthew McConaughey, making it look like he is originally a farmer before he became an astronaut. What's more, he sounds perfectly better.
3. Fictional planet themes like a water-land and winter-like planet were well created, making it look incredibly realistic.
4. Amazing visual, and CGI effects for Endurance, making the whole CGI effects look incredibly real for the time.
5. The screenplay is well written.
6. Much like *Gravity*, the cinematography is *incredibly* breathtaking and extremely dazzling, making it look you like you're on a strange planet in a different universe, even in outer space.
7. Lots of epic, and thriller scenes throughout, such as a scene where they landed on a water planet and tried to escape from the tallest water wave.
8. The pacing is excellent. Despite being at a runtime of 169 minutes (longer from Christopher Nolan movie it is), there are no scenes felt too boring or too fast.
9. The long, empty shot of the crew drifting past Saturn. Even though they're all still alive at that point, there is still such a profound sense of isolation and insignificance—and they still have so far to go. There is just enough time on this shot to allow all this to sink in. Now that is filmmaking. Special mention should go to the segment where they impose ambient noise from a thunderstorm against the image of the ship flying by Saturn. Blending powerful sounds of nature with the majesty of the cosmos. Genius Bonus: There actually are massive Earth-sized thunderstorms happening within Saturn.
10. Aside from Matthew McConaughey, the other actors like Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, etc. have great acting.
11. Excellent direction by Christopher Nolan as always.
12. Incredible, sweeping and highly emotional score by Hans Zimmer, which is absolutely relaxing to listen too.
	* The music that plays during the climactic scene where Cooper docks with the Endurance after Dr. Mann blows part of it up is nothing short of jaw-dropping, using a powerful mix of electronic, traditional sci-fi music and an epic church organ (the organ was playing at full blast, meaning so much air was being forced out of the pipes that you can hear the church shaking on the soundtrack), the latter of which goes a long way towards establishing the cosmos as a reverent, awe-inspiring place. This baby wasn't Oscar-nominated for nothing! The use of a church organ was fully intended, as Zimmer wanted to evoke the feelings of the classical tracks used in 2001: A Space Odyssey, such as Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra. Compare the ending of that piece to the organ chord played at key moments throughout the Interstellar soundtrack. Similarly, compare the opening music of Koyaanisqatsi, a film with similar themes of technology and the environment, to the recurring organ line from "No Time for Caution."
	* The part of the score that plays over the final scenes of the film, during its hopeful Bittersweet Ending. The story up until then was often engulfed in a fairly dark and pensive atmosphere, bordering on hopelessness at times. The increasingly majestic musical crescendo at the end turns things around. Much had to be sacrificed, but ultimately... Earth life and humanity survived, receiving a second chance. Made even better by the score going hand in hand with Murph's contemplation on what Amelia Brand must be going through right now, as the first colonist and founder of what might become a new human civilisation. All of that interspersed with a montage of scenes showing Brand doing her best on the new homeworld and Cooper and TARS preparing for another voyage, confident and happy this time that humanity has a future.
	* There's a small piece of music that plays while Dr. Mann is showing the Endurance crew his world that epitomizes the wonder of exploring an alien planet.
	* The score for the scene on Miller's planet, titled "Mountains", and its extended version, "Tick-Tock". It starts very low key and quiet, with a constant ticking clock motif subtly reminding the viewer of the time dilation effect present on the planet. It slowly builds in intensity as the crew discovers the truth, to the point where it swells when the wave looms above them before crashing down, bringing home how small and insignificant they seem and how easily bested they are by the inhospitable elements. It has a tragic sense of majesty and helps make real the challenges the human race will face when exploring the galaxy.
	* Four letters; S.T.A.Y. This piece is heartrending and unfathomably alien all at once, using only a repeating two-note tone, some ambience, and little bit of droning to get across the sheer loneliness and sadness of Cooper's situation while trapped in the Tesseract. He's trying so hard to talk to Murph through time, banging on the temporal strings and inadvertently becoming her "ghost" when she was a kid only to break down when he sees himself leaving to go on the mission. He so desperately wants to stop himself, to convince his past self to stay with Murph, but he know he can't. His breaking down into a sobbing wreck is really the only justifiable reaction to all of this, and the song only accentuates his despair.
13. It does the fantastic choice for its scientific accuracy and portrayal of theoretical astrophysics from many astronomers.
14. These quotes:
	* "**Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.**"
	* "**We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.**"
	* "**Mankind’s next step will be our greatest.**"
15. The ending is really sad as older Murphy dies in hospital by Cooper's arms where Cooper and TARS take a spacecraft to fly back through the wormhole to Edmunds' planet, where Brand, after burying the deceased Edmunds, prepares a base for future human colonization on the breathable and life-supporting planet.
16. A very creative plot twist that Cooper sacrifices himself to ensure Plan B, and caught in the black hole's gravitational pull, but instead of dying, ejects from his ship, he landed, as previously mentioned, inside The Tesseract (aka the wormhole's gravitational singularity).
17. It started the film career of Timothée Chalamet, alongside *Men, Women & Children*.

## Reception

*Interstellar* received positive reviews from critics as well as universal acclaim from audiences for its screenplay, direction, themes, visual effects, musical score, emotional depth, acting, and ambition. It has also received praise from many astronomers for its scientific accuracy and portrayal of theoretical astrophysics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 72% approval rating based on 360 reviews, with an average rating of 7.07/10 and audience score has an 86% with an average rating of 4.15/5. The website's critics consensus reads, "*Interstellar* represents more of the thrilling, thought-provoking, and visually resplendent filmmaking moviegoers have come to expect from writer-director Christopher Nolan, even if its intellectual reach somewhat exceeds its grasp.". Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100 based on 46 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews", and audiences score has 8.5/10. On IMDb, the film has 8.6/10 score. For Letterboxd, the film collected 4.2/5 user score.

## Trivia

* This was the first Christopher Nolan film not to be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures (while they do in international) since *The Prestige*.
* Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain later gives performance of Mark Watney and Melissa Lewis from *The Martian*.
* Stephen Spielberg was originally going to be directed Interstellar, but after Spielberg moved his production studio DreamWorks from Paramount to Walt Disney Studios in 2009, Paramount needed a new director for *Interstellar*. Jonathan Nolan recommended his brother Christopher, who joined the project in 2012.
* This was the last film from Warner Bros. Pictures to be produced by Legendary Pictures as Legendary Pictures decided to produced films from Universal Pictures, until *Kong: Skull Island*, even though the deal was continued for Universal Pictures films.
* The wormhole explanation using paper and pen is exactly the same as it appears in *Event Horizon* (1997).

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## External Links

* Template:IMDb
* Template:Rotten Tomatoes
* Template:Metacritic