An Homage to 2001

Okay. I know Interstellar is almost out of theaters.  I almost went just a few days after it opened, but I just couldn't get psyched up for a long movie.  I'd also seen a couple of posts from folks that loved it, and a couple of folks that hated it.  Christopher Nolan is not known for his deep movies because most people think of the most recent Batman series.  Few folks seem to recall that he also did Inception and, a personal favorite, Momento.  So that said, I was pleased to see a truly hard core science fiction movie.  Yes, it is a bit long.  Yes, it is complicated.  Yes, there  is the time paradox problem.  Interstellar is at its core, however, hard SciFi.

And it is good hard SciFi.

There are plenty of good sites that will help you understand the complex last act of the movie, so I am not going to go into it here.   And since it is almost out of the theaters, I am not going to spend a long time on a review.  I am going to say the film is well acted and tight in its main and subplots which are all intertwined into one overarching idea.  We need to go to space.  There are a few interesting side comments such as a school's curriculum being rewritten so that the moon landing is taught as the silly conspiracy theory that's been around for years.  It discusses a dying Earth without using the words "climate change" or "global warming." It is also clear that is why the planet is dying.

The movie is epic in scale and clearly an homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Matthew McConaughey as protagonist,  Cooper, is the explorer in the spirit of Dave Bowman.  Cooper, in a sense, becomes the Starchild that Bowman became in 2001.  At its core, Interstellar is an apocalyptic movie with a hopeful ending.  As Cooper says, "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."  In 2001, Bowman announces as he enters his own wormhole, "My God - it's full of stars."  Later as the Starchild in 2010 he announces, "I understand how you feel. You see, it's all very clear to me now. The whole thing. It's wonderful."  The parallels and tribute to Interstellar's game changing predecessor 2001 are clear.  Interstellar also maintains its own clean structure and themes without becoming a remake.  It is a movie worthy of its audience.

Maybe, Interstellar will get us to look at the stars.