Sunday, January 17, 2016

A discussion of Interstellar

It has been years since I contributed to this blog. Here is a attempt to get going again.

I have so many things to post but few of public value. Just want to write.

On Interstellar...

Watched this movie with my wife and son, and for him it was the first time. I really enjoyed this movie and found the soundtrack mix really interesting, though a little frustrating a few times when the dialog was so low. When the movie came out, Christopher Nolan said the mix of lower dialogue and more dominant music was a choice and I think I understand.

Certainly I thought the sound mix and score choices were a good fit, though it did leave me fiddling with my my receiver settings. It was not only the mix but also the unusual heavy tones Zimmer laid out on the soundtrack which were more "sounds" than "music".

On to a few plot questions...(spoilers inherent):

On Miller's planet, there was an extreme time dilation effect, despite the gravity being only 1.3x earth. I did some research and it suggested that the gravity of the planet in orbit relative to the black hole it orbited was offset by the velocity of orbit or something.  I am not sure if that makes sense but for dramatic reasons I'll accept it. Certainly this was the most dramatic demonstration of the effect and it makes for the most impactful and significant part of the movie and set up the scale of challenges to come. 

Another choice was to communicate through the watch, near the end of the movie. I assume that is how Cooper relayed whatever insights they needed to solve the problem of gravity....certainly seems like it must have been intricate. I also wonder why Murphy knew the message was for her, from her Dad...it was never clear how that came about.

I had a few other nitpicks about biospheres (if they could make a spaceship without blight why not a biosphere?) and why did the watch have the signal even when Murphy was back at NASA, how could it be future "us" that saved current us (paradox) unless we had outside help (a possibility the script does not exclude).

Altogether, I though it was impactful and effective, and a worthwhile journey.

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