Follow your curiosity. It's a good ride. You too, dinner. I agree the original ending would have been much better and avoided several WTF moments. But even so, the means of communication Cooper employed seemed unnecessarily obscure. It seems gravity could be used to posit a more conventional if scarier communications interface.
Its worth watching. It is a physics lesson disguised as a movie, and Hawking's friend, Thorne, who was the science advisor on the film, has stated that the things they learned while making the film have inspired new scientific questions. A good way to think of it is a Batman film which inspires deeper research into human psychology. Its not a great film, though it tries to be, but if you're someone who likes a little more "meat" on your movie than your typical popcorn movie (though you can enjoy those as well), you won't regret it.
Kip Thorne? He's a friend of my step-father's, too. If he endorses it, that's all I need to know. Well, I need to know one other thing -- would it work for a 12 year old?
Endorses it? He was the science adviser, executive producer and wrote the companion book. It's very kid friendly.
there is no violence or graphic sex. but i doubt a 12 year old would understand half of it. prepare for lots of why this, why that, i'm bored, let's play minecraft, i'm bored, how long... better watch GRAVITY with the young one. very good and kinda thought provoking too but none of the metaphysical stuff.
I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey at the ripe age of 10 (at the Seattle Cinerama during its first release). Even as a 10 year old I could let the movie flow around me and answer the questions later (Clarke's Lost Worlds of 2001, not to mention his novelization). A curious 12 year old will have a fine time. I'm more worried about the adults of the world not understanding it or suggesting Gravity as good SF.
There's an f bomb in it. I think one of the thing that irks me about the reaction to this film is that people hear it's scientific and therefore they go in with huge expectations, forgetting that it's still fictional sci-fi. What the science in the movie is there for is for a sense of verisimilitude in the course of the story. But it's not a documentary, which is why I had no problem with the deviations from hard science anymore than I did the huge sense of improbability in Gravity. It's just entertainment after all, and if people on here of all places, a place full of Trekkies, can feel disappointed in the deviations from science in this, but are happy to accept deviations like transporter beams and warp drives, then they're not really being honest in their approach. Just go to it as pure entertainment. If you do then I think it's worthwhile.
I went in thinking it was pure entertainment and was annoyed they got the science wrong (see earlier posts) only to find they got it right, with several leaps of interdimensional imagination. Although use of the Westin Bonaventure for an underground launch facility was less than stellar.
Maybe people are disapponted because the makers made sure to claim that it's completely scientific. Well it's not. But the mistakes are so hard to see that for most people it probably is. What irked me most btw were how all space stations are within a few kilometers of each other. Yes, it's essential for the plot but come on. Also, the debris cloud moving so much faster and in the same orbit, knocking out comm satellites which would be 36.000 kilometers further up. And never mind the total chaos on earth a complete satellite blackout would cause... It's just a movie. I can forgive all that.
^ just in case you're not sure, she's talking about Gravity... Gravity rubbed me the wrong way as it took real space, beautifully portrayed it, and ignored the underlying physics and capabilities. They could have done both and came away with a stunning SF movie. OK maybe not Sandra Bullock in Depends...
Finally caught this and I'm kicking myself for not seeing it in the theatre. Quite possibly the best film I've seen in over a decade. The idiot nerds can fight over the science; the absolutely uplifting message about humanity's future is enough for me. I'm surprised a movie like this got made in this day and age, but then again Christopher Nolan has some pull. Not sure what film @Paladin was watching, but it wasn't this one.
@We Are Borg : No, it was that one I was watching. It just didn't gel for me. I just bought a copy on Blu-Ray, and I'll probably watch it tomorrow. Maybe my opinion will change, but I'm still chalking it up as a failure. A magnificent, ambitious failure, but a failure nonetheless. I'm certainly not pre-disposed to dislike Nolan's films. To date, I've loved or at least liked all of them. I even like Interstellar because what it does right it does so very, very right.
Finally saw it a couple days ago. Mehhhh...*wavey hand* Worth one watch. "Memento", is still my favorite Nolan.
Saw it last night at last. Gorgeous, beautiful, exciting. Liked: Visually stunning Beautiful score Wonderful performances Didn't like: Metaphysical stuff behind the bookshelf Matt Damon's crazy character trope Annoyed by: 30 years have passed on Earth and they're still driving the same truck; it's, like, 2050 or so, and all the cars are still from whatever year the film was filmed. The tacked-on happy ending.
I really liked that whole scene, although I understand the science geeks went apeshit over it. I think it was neat how they tried to represent five dimensions in a three-dimensional world. I liken that whole part of the movie to the senior's home sequence at the end of 2001 (although the bookshelf scene in Interstellar was somewhat more literal.)
I liked every aspect of the movie and it did very well visualizing the wormhole and black. Before this movie, it these images in my head were something I could fully imagine. Thanks this movie and the companion book, I have a much better grasp of them.
Also, that poor black guy waited for them in orbit for 23 years? In that tin can? With WHAT supplies? And stayed sane? Oh COME now.
He was in suspended animation part of the time. He states that he put himself in and out of it. I don't think he gave a clear statement of how long he'd been awake.
You're nuts already anyway. I heard him say he'd been in and out of sleep a couple of times. He was still old and gray and had clearly been out of the tank for years.
But how many years? We don't know. Some people appear to age faster than others. I'm significantly grayer than I was 4 years ago. I'm sure if someone who hadn't seen me in the past four years were to see me now, they'd note how much grayer I am, even they even recognized me at all.
The premise was silly because there isn't enough accessible carbon to do anything more than make Earth lush like it was during the Jurassic. Plants love that stuff.
