okay fine, but I can't imagine Clarke having any new-age type of sentiment like love conquers all or free will defies the laws of physics or anything like that, when a major theme of his fiction - perhaps THE theme - is the immense scale of time and space in the universe relative to humanity. 

depicts evolution as a unilineal transcendence of corporeality achievable only by humans, and as a process by which they cohere and then merge with "the Overmind', a great "burning column like a tree of fire" which is "as much beyond life as that is above the inorganic world� (208).
It's certainly not a portrayal of evolution that Wells would endorse, and I would argue it's pretty new-agey, or perhaps more disparagingly, quasi-religious sentiment.


I'm going to stop now, honest! 

this is an awesomely detailed conversation.

Okay, I haven't read Childhood's End, but I'm familiar with the concept/premise and how similar it is to 2001 and stuff that appears elsewhere in Clarke's work. I'm basing my opinion mainly on reading his complete stories, More Than One World, which gives the impression that MANY "destinies" for humanity, or life, or consciousness, are possible in the universe - it's a thought experiment view rather than a faith view. I mean he's discussing life that could exist on Venus or in the atmosphere of Jupiter or even inside the sun, and what kind of intelligence dissimilar to us might arise in the universe - this does not at all resemble to me some anthropocentric "Love Conquers All" Oprah-style consumer copout to exactly the existential issues the fiction is trying to discuss.

Lol, there, now you look good! 

has many clunky moments, enough that it is probably my least favorite Nolan film apart form Insomnia. But that's a relative statement as it's still a 7.5-8/10 on my scale which is still an excellent film.

As Tronyn says, and this applies even more if you see the film as intended in IMAX, the imagery is an experience. Not an experience in the way 'hulk smash' was allegedly an experience in The Avengers, but you know an actual experience that is hard to describe in words but exhilarating when you are actually going through it. 

Just booked non-Imax for this evening. Sure it will still be okay, got good seats anyway. 

Is almost as woeful an understatement as the general response to Interstellar.

Just wonderful, the whole thing was a real experience. The combination of a very human story and a sci-fi epic was as good as it gets. 9.5-10/10 on my scale and I'm shocked that it isn't the same on everyone else's scale. 

Above and beyond the (in my mind, anyway) obvious highlight, such as the stunning imagery, unexpected plot turns and quality acting, it was nice to finally put my college-years personal research into higher dimensional physics to use. 

I have plenty of beef with it (mostly the 'Nolan-isms').
Regardless it's a decent film.

The only thing that bugs me to no end is the predestination paradox at the end. It's got plotholes that can be forgiven for, but this one just feels like a lazy deus ex machina for such a dramatic film. I mean, the higher dimensional poltergeist thing was a nice touch, but then trying to wrap that into this 'it was humanity all along' (how? do tell...) and the 'love' thing just is requiring too much suspension of disbelief for me. You just come out of the theater feeling like you're back in the 80s and just watched some frankensteinian lovechild of 2001 and Terminator. Okay, that might be a bit strong, but still.

But when you bring it up to people they're all like 'yeah but duuuude, string theory!' or 'bro, teleological model!' or 'anthropic principle'.

So... am I not getting something, or are people just trying to be 'deep' and 'profound' again? (like with Inception) 

Cos I can't be arsed, but something I wrote elsewhere about that bit:

The pre-ending is taken from Flatland - higher dimensional / future beings may be able to interact with us "breaking" some aspects of our spacetime, but only in limited ways due to the constraints of our spacetime and how we can perceive it. In this case it seems to be gravity that can be broken in spacetime, thus the HD/FBs can use that manipulation within a black hole (where IIRC gravity is usually a problem), but Cooper can't perceive what they are doing - exactly the same with how Murp perceived what Cooper was doing (limited communication from higher dimensions to lower). Also the HD/FBs already showed they acted outside spacetime with the wormhole. 

I get that bit, what I don't get is how that is supposed to solve the paradox... how are humans to become masters of spacetime in the first place?

It's a circular dependency issue:
Advanced humanity is a requirement to save primitive humanity from certain death and saving primitive humanity is the requirement to reach advanced humanity.

It seems to me the only logical explanation is that it's actually NOT highly evolved humans being the saviors. 

To time travel, motherfucker. 

Yeah of all the problems with that film, a "bootstrapping paradox" is not one of them IMO -- that's more like a classic component of a time travel story.

Really the only major gripe I have w/ Interstellar is that too many of the aspects were OVERexplained, especially once inside the black hole. It's nice that they figured everything out for themselves while scriptwriting, but the film would have been improved by less exposition and a more impressionistic approach in its most fantastical sections. Maybe not go "full 2001 Space Odyssey", but at least lean a bit more in that direction.

Regardless, it was a good watch! 

more impressionistic, less clarity re gravity string morse compositions in Barthes' library... the tie circular dependency lays heavy on my soul - more so than in many other films- because of the 'heaviness or 'depth' and unremitting (faux?)high-falutin 'seriousness' of the film.
A few eye rolling moments BUT so many awe struck moments too!

Also I was distracted at times by the intensity of McConaghey/Hathaway's nostrils. And the continued presence of Topher Grace. 

For five-dimensional beings, time is but another dimension just like XYZ are for us. It is even being explained for you in the film: For them, going to the future or past is just like climbing a mountain.

If you adopt this view, then everything is predetermined and there cannot be any paradox, as every point in time (like the our present) is determined by the past AND the future alike. They cannot change anything, because it's all set in stone by causality, the laws of nature, and the initial state of the universe at the big bang. Quantum uncertainty doesn't interfere with this interpretation because a) it cancels out at the macro level and b) I'm not 100% that this is true, but AFAIK uncertainty is just an artifact of things happening in the higher dimensions which we cannot perceive. In 5D, there is no uncertainty.

Anyways, this film actually contains only very small errors and deus ex machina like plot devices. It is very plausible within the framework of physics formulated in the movie (and by physicist Kip Thorne). From the visualizations of the wormhole / black hole to the tidal waves, time dilation to entering the black whole and the tesseract - it's well thought out and firmly rooted in established physics, and not just a series of plot turns for the sake of making an exciting movie.

The only major idea that bothered me is that love is supposed to be the 5th dimension, or maybe I misunderstood that. It didn't really make clear the meaning of love for the plot, or I didn't get it.

Interstellar is the best movie I have seen in the past 15 years. I was utterly blown away by this movie from the moment they launched into space to the very last images. 

 

You mispelled "black hole", therefore your entire post is invalid.

Seriously though, good post. 

at least I didn't write "black whore" 

Great post, I agree with all of that especially the last sentence. Really glad some other people are enjoying it that much. 

on the second-last paragraph of S's review:

Isn't that basically a secular, sci-fi replacement for God? if there's this invisible benevolent force that is so powerful that it can create singularities - why would it wait until we're on the brink of extinction to bother to do so? Why not just show up way back in the day and assassinate that catastrophic schizophrenic Abraham (and thus at least attempt to save our world from the curse of monotheism, though then again Muhammad and Joseph Smith clearly would have used a similar swindle anyway)?

I like the sci-fi idea of a "They" we can hardly comprehend (as in 2001, and it's no coincidence that Clarke was influenced by Lovecraft but knew more physics). But, amazing as the cinematography was, and profound as the idea of time dilation was, for me the overall concept still panders to idiots who can't even take a moment out of their pathetic, foolish lives to truly imagine what it means to be alone in an astounding but truly indifferent universe. Frankly, the message is utterly antiscientific.

"There is no hint that help will come from elsewhere, to save us from ourselves."
-Carl Sagan 

Because "They" didn't decide to wait. They can't decide anything because the entire timeline is predetermined. In this regard, the time dimension is different from our spacial dimensions because of causality - while we can freely move objects around in space, it is impossible to change things in the fourth dimension (time) due to causality. I don't know why time is special in this regard, though, and the movie doesn't give an explanation either, or I missed it.

I'm not quite sure which antiscientific message you mean in your second paragraph. Also I don't follow how the concept of the movie panders to idiots. The universe is indifferent. If you accept the idea of the predetermined timeline, then there is no benevolent force pulling strings behind the scenes. 

well I don't want to spam too much here, otherwise czg and other people whose posts tend to consist not of nerdy observations on scifi but instead of vulgar terafusion inside jokes, might criticize this (a level design forum is clearly designed for the latter, since the internet and society in general doesn't contain enough space for the former).

I'll just say FINE, I accept what you said, except that there is no reason to call it "Love"! Have you heard of "The Secret"? Nolan's movie comes dangerously close to such weak-minded nonsense, and although I freaking loved Anne Hathaway in his last movie and thought she was arguably THE highlight of it, her speech on that matter in this movie was ridiculous; no knocks on her acting, but on the writing: she wasn't given much to work with. 

Yeah, I didn't quite understand that either. It was a bit disconnected from the rest of the film. Is love the fifth dimension? Or is love an artifact of an as of yet unknown force in the force or fifth dimension? In a film that's as firmly rooted in actual physics as this one, love stands out as an unexplained phenomenon. I'm not sure I like it, but it didn't bother me too much, either.

Also, I don't usually like Anne Hathaway for reasons having to do with her face, but her acting was good in this movie. 

Was one of the few things that knocked it down to 95% for me. 

Last half hour dragged a bit, but this was easily my favourite film this year. Sort of like a cross between Black Swan, Adaptation, and Fight Club. The cast was excellent, but the writing was better, and the cinematography perhaps even better than that. Soundtrack very original. Even from the trailer it seemed like Edward Norton's character would be hilarious, but you really have no idea until you see the film. Interstellar is definitely a more important movie, and it touches on things we should all think of more. But Birdman, in its own way, was kind of profound, and entertaining as fuck. 5/5. 

Too long just like the rest. Quite good tho. The trolls were by far the best bit.