Interstellar is defined as “occurring or situated between stars,” and it is a fitting title for a movie that wholly deals with the concepts of space travel as well as black holes. The thrilling action and tear-jerking drama combines the vast curiosity of humans to travel the depths of the unknown boundaries with their emotional and personal decisions to leave behind loved ones. Interstellar delivers on all levels of wonder and bewilderment and is a film for the ages.
Christopher Nolan, the mastermind behind such works as Inception and The Dark Knight, took his directing expertise where no man has gone before in his 2014 science fiction hit Interstellar.
The film deals with many elements of self-sacrifice and grapples with the many unknowns in space. The film is immensely thought provoking, however, as it tries to answer some of the hardest questions mankind has about space and other beings residing in it.
Interstellar takes place in a futuristic world where global warming has made weather patterns erratic and dangerous and has caused a food shortage across the nation. In an attempt to save the human race, NASA sends 12 astronauts through a black hole in the galaxy that acts as a portal to another galaxy with planets that could possibly be colonized. Of those 12 planets only three signals are sent back that show promise.
The film’s protagonist Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is hand picked by the leading NASA physicist Professor Brand (Michael Caine) to lead a small crew on a mission to explore the three planets for colonization. Cooper knows he has to go on the mission if mankind will have any chance of survival, but he grapples with the reality that he will have to leave his children behind.
Cooper’s companions throughout the expedition are fellow astronaut Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) and a robot named TARS. The group knows that time is of the essence and when mistakes are made there will be permanent damage.
The most intriguing part of Interstellar is the concept of traveling between dimensions and not being limited by time, only gravity. Before Cooper leaves his children he tells his daughter Murph that by the time he returns they might be the same age. This is due to the fact that some of the planets they explore are close enough to the black hole that time is warped and stretched.
For instance, on one of the planets they visit a giant wave of water crashes into their ship and prolongs their stay on the planet for a few hours and during this time 23 years on earth pass.
There’s also the scene in which Cooper is launched headfirst into the black hole and trapped in an infinite tesseract in which he can see his own universe and keep watch over his daughter and his past self and try to warn them about the decisions they have yet to make.
Overall, the whole movie is incredible from the story line and the breathtaking scenery throughout. Each and every scene of the planets and stars captures the natural beauty of space.
Since Neil Armstrong first landed on the moon in 1969, we have strived to take a step farther into our own galaxy. With privately funded companies like SpaceX continuing to make progress towards sending humans to mars, the science-fiction movies may no longer be so fictional.
However, for the time being the concept of intergalactic travel will, unfortunately, have to be left to Hollywood.