Interstellar (movie)

[Nephtys]

Hard sci-fi. I enjoyed it very thoroughly. Go watch it! It's like... Gravity, replacing much of the special effects scenes with a more interesting story.

Won't really say much besides I liked the starkness between the earth and space storylines, the scenario and worldbuilding, and the 'feel' of travelling to other planets in a realistic manner. Plus some serious family feels.

Spoiler and technical discussion to come after?

[FaxModem1]

I rather enjoyed it. The soundtrack kept on making me wonder, are we essentially watching the mass for the human race?

[Guardsman Bass]

I enjoyed it. It was interesting, albeit flawed.
Spoiler

1. The movie was bloated in the front and cramped at the end. The weakest part of the film was the long beginning stretch before he gets into space (about 45 minutes or so), and in general the farm scenes were the weakest parts of the film. Aside from helping to set up that the world is in catastrophe, there's no reason that Cooper even has to be a farmer - they probably could have tightened up the beginning stretch a lot and not have him become part of the mission just because he wanders into the secret NASA base shortly before the launch starts.

2. The planets were pretty damn awesome, along with the depiction of the wormhole and black hole. My favorite scene in the movie is when we first get a glimpse of the gigantic wave on the first planet, so tall that its crest is pushing against some clouds in the air. Not sure how they survive with apparently no star and only a black hole.

3. Strange ending, although I liked it, and liked that Cooper figured out that it may have been something constructed by the distant descendants of modern humans to ensure that they make it out into space. The "space colony" ending was a little neat, although they did foreshadow it with a secret base doubling as a potential space station once they figured out how to manipulate gravity (rather longshot plan).

4. Matt Damon's cameo as the crazy astronaut was great as well. They're lucky the one guy who stayed up in space during their orbit for 23 years didn't go completely crazy in the process.

Random Thought: My only real concern with the "escape into space" stories like that is that if you can build a self-contained space colony on an inhospitable world, you could probably just build one on Earth much more easily to avoid the catastrophe there while staying on a world that's much more hospitable than any alien world. Even if the "Blight" (and that's what it was, apparently, not so much climate change as I suspected) wipes out most plant life, you've still got a space colony on Earth.

[Ahriman238]

Just got back from watching with my fiance last night. I liked it for being different, she hated it for being too dark and depressing.

I do think it kind of loses the hard sf label when-
Spoiler

Cooper enters the monolith and becomes the Star Child enters the Tesseract and becomes the savior of humanity. Oh, it was foreshadowed and pulled off well enough I can't call it a deus ex machina, but I do have a pertinent question. I can accept Cooper's closed time-loop as the result of time-manipulating spacegods (who are future humanity.) But what about future humanity itself? They can only exist because of the ultra-convenient wormhole they created for humanity to save itself and allow their own existence.

The ending felt a bit pat in other places. Murphy solves the formula for manipulating gravity and suddenly space habs instead of mass die-offs? Not even colonizing distant star systems which was supposed to be the point of this joyride?

By the by, I can accept that no follow-up mission could be put together in the 20+ years. But in the 60-80 odd years it took them to slingshot Gargantua, where htey have a space habitat in Saturn orbit, no one else went through the wormhole? Shouldn't Dr. Brand find a thriving settlement, or at least a note etched into a highly visible rock?

Stealing a tiny space pod that doesn't look like it has the endurance for a twelve hour flight for a deep-space rescue mission was not the best planning either.


I feel like the movie could have been improved by dropping the murderous Dr. Mann subplot. It didn't really add that much to the story besides thirty to forty minutes. I was expecting the Dr. to be evil or crazy or otherwise a huge disappointment after the way they kept building him up, but I really didn't expect the NASA visionary to be unable to grasp the proper working of an airlock. Not the docking procedure, I'm fine with that, the problem is it doesn't occur to him that opening the airlock without a good seal is a Bad Idea, something every third-grader who wants to grow up to be an astronaut knows. And I do get that he was more than a bit crazy (in an annoying-monologuing kind of way) but that's just inexcusable.

Speaking of astronauts too dumb to have made it through middle school, let alone NASA, can we talk about Dr. Brand? Miss The-flight-recorder-is-worth-all-our-lives-and-the-certain-failure-of-our-mission. The mission on which all humanity depends. All because she's too smart to listen to the pilot and leave the thing, no matter how many times he tells her they have to go now. I hope the hour of recorded surf is helpful.

And you know where this thought came from: If everybody had an ocean, across the USA. Then everybody'd be surfing, like Californ-I-A. All I could think of for the whole sequence.


That said, don't take my carping to mean I hated the movie. The music was good, the visuals were amazing and the plot really good. All the actors gave strong performances, even Matt Damon as Captain Crazy-pants. I loved the robots, even though I thought they were stupid-looking and useless at first, TARIS grew on me. Not least because he's the funniest character in the whole damn film. Even the jokes were top-shelf, and this was no comedy, the jokes are there just to keep the audience from slitting their wrists because this is like Worm: the movie. Every twenty minutes, it gets worse and they are even more screwed than you could have imagined a minute ago.

The action sequences were super-exciting, the drama was amazing. It only really dragged at one or two points, usually with Grandpa Cooper. The recorded messages after they get back from Planet California especially hit you in the feels, and keep on hitting like a boxing combo. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie so emotionally compelling and intellectually stimulating. Even the reasoned discussions of the astronauts on where they go from here pull you into the situation (my fiance said they were very dry, so your mileage may vary.)

And there was some serious starpower in this film. Aside from all the major names, I was amused as all hell to see the guy who played President Hayes on SG-1 in a position of authority over a secret organization run out of Cheyenne Mountain.

All in all, I think this was absolutely worth the price of admission, and even the almost three hour runtime. It gets seriously dark, and then darker still, like a dozen times or so, but there is a bright light and a happy ending.

[Havok]

IMAX?

[Ace Pace]

IMAX?

After seeing it non IMAX, well, it helps.

The movie is spectactular. On all counts. The ending dragged (hooray for Hollywood endings) but basically, it's tight, interesting, complex, emotional.

I'll avoid spoiler discussions and adding all the "oh my favorite scene" and just say that I left the movie thinking, not just feeling after a joyride.

[Darwin]

Hard sci-fi.

I would not call it that. It's fantasy and maybe moral parable with the trappings and visals of hard sci-fi, much like 2001 was.

As for the IMAX question, I saw it in a dome and it was a bit overwhelming, I think the projectionist just said 'fuck it' and extended the thing over the whole thing rather than showing some restraint, the result was the edges were very distorted and the action was hard to follow. On top of that I was crammed for nearly 3 hours into a seat designed for science center 48 minute documentaries, and it wrecked me.

[NecronLord]

I would have paid good money to have every character in that replaced with a crew of TARS robots. They were awesome.

[Nephtys]

I thought the TARS robots were a very interesting flavor. Very unique design, but offset by having an extreeemely human voice and manner, yet not just being 'a guy'. Like a sociable HAL-9000 that put all it's computing into being actually charming.

The things I noticed (as an Engineer) that I found of note were:
1. The Ranger multipurpose craft has fantastic ISP and thrust, considering that a bus-sized object can come in from orbit then return to it from 1.3G surface, after being battered by hazards in fact.
2. Why does a TARS unit have aSpoiler

Spoiler

Self Destruct?

at all?
3. Endurance didn't really have a need to spin during it's coasting phase to Saturn, since the crew is suspended. The only need for the wheel section is if they were performing lab work at the destination.
4. How many launches did they put out exactly? What would have stopped them from dumping a propellant station at the destination, considering how advanced their rocketry is, and considering that Endurance only had limited delta-V to visit a few sites.
5. 2001 references all over.
6. Why would anyone play baseball like Spoiler

those kids on the ONeil style habitat cylinder at the end? Wouldn't hitting the 'other floor' be happening all the time considering how small it was?

7. Spoiler

Cooper Station must be friggin' huge if it's a space habitat that can allocate a giant chunk of space to a useless memorial/museum farmhouse and plot.

[FaxModem1]

I thought the TARS robots were a very interesting flavor. Very unique design, but offset by having an extreeemely human voice and manner, yet not just being 'a guy'. Like a sociable HAL-9000 that put all it's computing into being actually charming.

The things I noticed (as an Engineer) that I found of note were:

2. Why does a TARS unit have aSpoiler

Spoiler

Self Destruct?

at all?

Spoiler

They mention that these things used to work for the US Marines. Maybe it was to prevent enemy countries from salvaging and taking their military tech and converting it against the US government?

[K. A. Pital]

Just as a matter of opinion: Nolan has to somehow give back the three wasted hours, but he cannot, so let's just leave it at that - a director in Hollywood can usually make one good independent movie (Inception in his case, District 9 in Blomkamp's case, etc.) and then he is done.

First of all, the 'machine cannot replace man' nonsense. Second, the 'single guys are worse than family guys' nonsense. Third, the 'love saves you in space' nonsense.

Too much nonsense for a single film. The film was incredibly racist and elitist (the whole program is American-only, the rest of the world is what, dead by then?) compared to Space Odyssey that was filmed during the height of the Cold War.

Kubrick is a genius, Nolan is a mediocrity. That is why he steals everything from Kubrick, including the final 'man falls into anomaly, man conquers spacetime' plot device, except the second time with more FAMILY DRAMA (sorry, cannot appreciate) and it looks real shallow. You cannot walk into the same water twice.

The robots were the only sympathetic characters, I hated the other would-be cosmonauts who weren't really. Glaring errors (like massive waves with several hour intervals being unobservable from the air when descending over a really huge oceanic shoreline - really, you have to be fucking kidding me?!) were just icing on the cake.

The fact that no prepared infrastructure was placed in the vicinity of the exit point is even worse, considering that somehow humanity still has enough resources to build massive O'Neill cylinders some fourty+ years after the expedition.

Also, I forgot if climate change was explicitly named the reason for human extinction on Earth. Was it, or did they just go 'poor humans just ruined one biosphere so let's move them on to the next one'? Humans are absolutely loathesome in the film, and robots are the only thing making it watchable.

[Adam Reynolds]

Stas" criticisms reminded me of parts of why I like Sunshine over this in some ways. It has an international crew of true professionals and the mission is one that they always knew was likely one way, with the drama focused on the ship crew.

The issue of damage to Earth wasn't climate change, it was a blight that had destroyed all crops in something of a scaled up 1930s American dust bowl. I also agree about the almost anti-environmental message as well.

[Crossroads Inc.]

A lot of what I was going to nitpick at in terms of the movie has been said... But...

Stas was spot on in terms of harping on Nolan for trying to hard. Because thats what you could see at almost every step of the movie.. Nolan Trying WAY too hard to make this HIS "2001". An 'epic' space opera that people would go "Wow!" about and say "my mind is blow!" Except... It really really falls so..so short of this...

One thing I want to say in regards to the "blight / climate change' thing...

Long Loooooong ago when I first heard of the making of the movie... I remember hearing a Humor that the 'catalyst' for drama in the movie would be the wormhole itself. That the worm hole opening up on Earth's doorstep destabilized Earth's climate causing it to go into global chaos.

Hence, the Thing dooming Earth, would also be also be it's Salvation...

Anyone else think this could have led to a MUCH different overall tone for the movie?

[andrewgpaul]

2001, with more dialogue and fewer monkeys. I liked it. The last film I saw which tried to be a big intelligent sci-fi epic like that was Prometheus, which I didn't like. I thought the characters in Interstellar were a bit more intelligent, and it didn't seem to me like they were doing odd things out of character just to advance the plot.
Spoiler

I thought the bit about the robot's self destruct was a joke, myself, butTaxModem1's suggestion makes sense. Talking of the robots, I like how they avoided making them "evil"; after Cooper's mention of them being unstable at the beginning, and C.A.S.E. Watching Murphy's message while the Reston them were down on Mann's planet I was expecting something HAL- like, and I was pleased that didn't happen.

I assumed that Cooper Station was a stop-gap - orbit Saturn until they hear from Brand and bring it through the wormhole, rather than it being an permanent Main Street, USA IN SPAAAACE!

As for 2001, it's getting a re-release (in the UK at least).

[andrewgpaul]

2001, with more dialogue and fewer monkeys. I liked it. The last film I saw which tried to be a big intelligent sci-fi epic like that was Prometheus, which I didn't like. I thought the characters in Interstellar were a bit more intelligent, and it didn't seem to me like they were doing odd things out of character just to advance the plot.
Spoiler

I thought the bit about the robot's self destruct was a joke, myself, butTaxModem1's suggestion makes sense. Talking of the robots, I like how they avoided making them "evil"; after Cooper's mention of them being unstable at the beginning, and C.A.S.E. Watching Murphy's message while the Reston them were down on Mann's planet I was expecting something HAL- like, and I was pleased that didn't happen.

I assumed that Cooper Station was a stop-gap - orbit Saturn until they hear from Brand and bring it through the wormhole, rather than it being an permanent Main Street, USA IN SPAAAACE!

As for 2001, it's getting a re-release (in the UK at least).

[dragon]

Saw it this weekend and thought it was a pretty good movie

[fgalkin]

Interstellar is the most expensive B-movie ever. It's "Plan 9 From Outer Space," with a 165 million budget. It's like a 2001:A Space Oddysey fanfic by someone who read too much Dan Simmons. There were Voyager episodes with better storytelling than this. Hell, even Jo Jo Abrams can do better than this.

It's the inconsistency that got me. For the first half it tries to present itself as a kind of "Gravity" of the near future, all hard and realistic. Then they go through the wormhole which is also a black hole and all logic goes out the window. From the magical water planet they went on for no goddamned reason (if time passes slower there, the odds of it being developed enough to sustain life, given that the development occurs much slower?), then were able to take off from it with their magical shuttle (despite needing an invisible Saturn V to take off from Earth, and this one having 1.3g!), to the well groomed (in perfectly new clothes!) scientist dude who spent decades working on the wormhole and learning absolutely nothing ( "So, we can blow the engines out with inside air? Should we do that?" "Nah, we'll just sit here and let the black dude age another decade. Cards, anyone?"), the airlock scene (you mess up docking protocols and blow up half the ship? Was it built by the same people who made Star Trek exploding consoles), which leads them to magically being teleported back to the wormhole (did Nolan forget they were in orbit of the SECOND planet?), to, well, Love As the Fifth Dimension. It was crap. "All of it Mollari, all of it!"

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[General Zod]

It was enjoyable enough in theaters that I didn't mind the runtime. But the ending really felt like the writers write themselves I to a corner and wrote "shit, how do we manage to save the plot without killing the lead?"

[Ziggy Stardust]

I didn't mind the opening sequence. Yes, it went on a little long, but it was great world-building at the very least. They did a great job of building the world subtly without having long, boring sequences of expository dialogue explaining every last detail of the environmental disaster.

There were a few silly bits during the space exploration phase, but I didn't mind those, because I like injecting a little bit of the fantastic into an otherwise "hard" setting. And I liked the bit with Dr. Mann; it was foreshadowed fairly heavily, I suppose, but I really liked how subtly he played the craziness. In most movies like this the crazy character would be portrayed as sort of a gibbering loon. But the scene where Cooper and Mann go out walking and Mann is giving his little monologue which gets progressively creepier and crazier, followed by the wild-eyed look in Mann's eyes as he tries to escape. Again, I didn't mind that he fucked up the airlock sequence; yes, it was stupid, but he was obviously at this point supposed to be completely deranged and desperate, not to mention supremely arrogant.

Honestly, there were only three parts of the movie that really bugged me:

1) Anne Hathaway. Everything about her was awful. Why the fuck was she grinning like an idiot for half of the movie? Even when things were going to hell, she kept having a shit-eating grin on her face.

2) Love is the 5th dimension. Come the fuck on. I didn't mind the fact that Cooper was "the ghost" and all of that; I am even fine with them having a 2001-esque metaphysical vibe to it. But Anne Hathaway's whole speech about love made me roll my eyes.

3) Everything that happened starting from when Cooper was rescued after his experience in the black hole. Seriously, they just rescued a man floating out in space who has been gone for, what, 80 years or so, but has barely aged a day due to relativity, and nobody is making a big deal out of it? He would be swarmed by media and scientists and doctors. Everybody on that space station thing seemed so utterly uninterested in Cooper's existence, when it should be a monumental event; especially considering his house is a museum, and there is at least one monument to the Lazarus program of which at this point he is the only known surviving member. Speaking of his house-museum, what kind of museum has thirty TV's placed in random spots all playing the same exact clip of old people talking about farming? But nobody gave a shit that he was back; he was essentially anonymous, and they acted like they were only even providing for him because his daughter is so famous. Also, his daughter was surprisingly apathetic for him to come back, and basically just told him to fuck off again ... so he, after that whole experience, immediately manages to steal a spaceship (why no security?!) and take off looking for Anne Hathaway. Who has been alone on that planet for decades at this point, and is either dead or as crazy as Dr. Mann. Seriously, this ending was complete and utter shit.

[Paolo]

Just saw Interstellar today. My quick take as spoiler-free as possible:

Thematically, a nigh-end of the world tale that celebrates the triumph of ingenuity over nature is so rare that I'm more than willing to overlook the ecological and social conceits. I've no use for climate change inaction, but I've less use for Gaiaism.

In the depiction of physics and how it drives the plot, I actually appreciate a movie where my initial fridge logic objections are answered in ways that didn't even occur to me. From where I stand, good hard sf remains plausible while leaving the work of figuring out why as an exercise to the reader. A lot of reviewers called out possible stumbling blocks covering everything from propellant to the approach of Miller's planet to tidal forces the penultimate scene. And of course there is a lot said--much of it probably premature--about Gargantua and her system. Without going into much detail, I'd offer one bit of advice to the critics. You might find your suspension of disbelief better rewarded if you deal with depicted--visually and in dialogue--as you would sight and talk in real life. It's more fun to conclusively demonstrate a contradiction than to toss out a crude generalization, and even the best of folks flub when speaking extemporaneously.

From a sausage-making perspective, Interstellar is mind blowing contribution not only to visual arts but also to visualization of general relativity. I can't wait for the first publications to emerge from this work.

To date, I've read only one review of the movie that didn't completely disappoint (aside from Kip Thorne's book--if you want to call that a review). This piece (pulled from Google's cache) from Ikjyot Singh Kohli summarizes my view of most of the criticism Interstellar has taken on the science front.

[Paolo]

2) Love is the 5th dimension. Come the fuck on. I didn't mind the fact that Cooper was "the ghost" and all of that; I am even fine with them having a 2001-esque metaphysical vibe to it. But Anne Hathaway's whole speech about love made me roll my eyes.

Two points. Brand was (trying) to make a point about love transcending what we know about physics. I don't recall her saying "love is the fifth dimension" or anything like that. I just took it as grasping for hope. And without getting into spoilers, consider how well received that message was by other crew members. Or how Brand's desperation was "rewarded."

[Paolo]

Just as a matter of opinion: Nolan has to somehow give back the three wasted hours, but he cannot, so let's just leave it at that - a director in Hollywood can usually make one good independent movie (Inception in his case, District 9 in Blomkamp's case, etc.) and then he is done.

First of all, the 'machine cannot replace man' nonsense. Second, the 'single guys are worse than family guys' nonsense. Third, the 'love saves you in space' nonsense.

Consider how two of those points are wholly subverted in the movie. The robots come through in a clinch all the way up to the climax. And did love save anyone? No. Damn near got everyone killed. Cold, hard, gravity saved the day.

Too much nonsense for a single film. The film was incredibly racist and elitist (the whole program is American-only, the rest of the world is what, dead by then?) compared to Space Odyssey that was filmed during the height of the Cold War.

I don't know how you figure "racist." The only character on the mission with sufficient background to study the Gargantua system was Romilly. Elitist? Probably, but then again this is a world in which astronauts and scientists are hard to come by and not particularly valued. And considering the backdrop of global famine and skepticism regarding the value of spaceflight, I doubt international cooperation was high on the list of NASA's priorities.

Kubrick is a genius, Nolan is a mediocrity. That is why he steals everything from Kubrick, including the final 'man falls into anomaly, man conquers spacetime' plot device, except the second time with more FAMILY DRAMA (sorry, cannot appreciate) and it looks real shallow. You cannot walk into the same water twice.

We have tons of movies where nature conquers man for his hubris. Is it so bad we have a second one where man shapes nature for a change?

The robots were the only sympathetic characters, I hated the other would-be cosmonauts who weren't really. Glaring errors (like massive waves with several hour intervals being unobservable from the air when descending over a really huge oceanic shoreline - really, you have to be fucking kidding me?!) were just icing on the cake.

We know almost next to nothing about the shallow water dynamics on Miller's planet (another exercise for the reader). What we do know is that the Endurance crew wanted in and out as quick as possible to avoid the worst effects of a high Lorentz factor (on the order of 60,000). You have to go a considerable ways to match velocities with the planet, and for most of the maneuver it would look like a marble frozen in time. If the periods are much longer than a couple of hours, they would have to commit to losing several decades relative to parking orbit to observe them. Finally, we can't say anything about the regularity or periodicity of the waves from the information we have.

The fact that no prepared infrastructure was placed in the vicinity of the exit point is even worse, considering that somehow humanity still has enough resources to build massive O'Neill cylinders some fourty+ years after the expedition.

Are we sure about that? Lot's of stuff can happen out of view of the camera.

Also, I forgot if climate change was explicitly named the reason for human extinction on Earth. Was it, or did they just go 'poor humans just ruined one biosphere so let's move them on to the next one'? Humans are absolutely loathesome in the film, and robots are the only thing making it watchable.

Blight was the boogeyman. I've no use for the misanthropic "man can't have nice things because he pollutes" point of view. It'd be nice if we cleaned up our act, but I can live with surviving to do better with the next world.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Two points. Brand was (trying) to make a point about love transcending what we know about physics.

I know. And the way she said it was utterly retarded, especially for someone who is supposed to be a scientist. It betrayed a complete lack of understanding of basic science. It was moronic.

I don't recall her saying "love is the fifth dimension" or anything like that. I just took it as grasping for hope. And without getting into spoilers, consider how well received that message was by other crew members. Or how Brand's desperation was "rewarded."

The "love is the 5th dimension" part comes from the ending, which was made fairly explicit. Not sure what you are getting at, because the entire ending of the film VINDICATED Brand's retarded rant more than anything else.

In the depiction of physics and how it drives the plot, I actually appreciate a movie where my initial fridge logic objections are answered in ways that didn't even occur to me. From where I stand, good hard sf remains plausible while leaving the work of figuring out why as an exercise to the reader. A lot of reviewers called out possible stumbling blocks covering everything from propellant to the approach of Miller's planet to tidal forces the penultimate scene. And of course there is a lot said--much of it probably premature--about Gargantua and her system. Without going into much detail, I'd offer one bit of advice to the critics. You might find your suspension of disbelief better rewarded if you deal with depicted--visually and in dialogue--as you would sight and talk in real life. It's more fun to conclusively demonstrate a contradiction than to toss out a crude generalization, and even the best of folks flub when speaking extemporaneously.

I literally have no idea what this paragraph is supposed to convey. I don't mean this as an insult, but I've read it like 3 times and I am absolutely at a loss to guess what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that when we suspend disbelief we should pretend we are ignorant of science too, and that scientific explanations have no place in understanding film?

[Paolo]

I know. And the way she said it was utterly retarded, especially for someone who is supposed to be a scientist. It betrayed a complete lack of understanding of basic science. It was moronic.

Some 45 percent of working scientists reported believing in a personal God in 1996. "Scientist" isn't a personality and a standard issue set of sentiments they hand out with credentials.

The "love is the 5th dimension" part comes from the ending, which was made fairly explicit.

We must have seen a different movie, since I saw Spoiler

3+1 projection of a 4+1 spacetime and some Morse code. What little love had to do with it was in McConaughey's overacting.

Not sure what you are getting at, because the entire ending of the film VINDICATED Brand's retarded rant more than anything else.

Not sure how Spoiler

digging your lover's grave after marooning yourself on a planet

amounts to vindication, especially since Spoiler

the rest of mankind has apparently written you off so hard they're not even bothering to send a follow up expedition

.

I literally have no idea what this paragraph is supposed to convey. I don't mean this as an insult, but I've read it like 3 times and I am absolutely at a loss to guess what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that when we suspend disbelief we should pretend we are ignorant of science too, and that scientific explanations have no place in understanding film?

I'm saying that just about every criticism of Interstellar's scientific credibility I've seen so far is garbage. Whether born out of ignorance or simple laziness depends on the author.

[K. A. Pital]

The robots come through in a clinch all the way up to the climax.

Considering how reliable and versatile these robots were, there was absolutely no reason not to send them - instead of a bunch of jerks - to check what happened to the original explorers on the planets. Hell, you could technically have a robot for every planet: land, collect the data, go back. Miller's planet should have been excluded from the start.

And don't get me even started on the energy requirements of their weird shuttles (landing and taking off from Miller's planet, right).

I guess I should also replace racism with the extreme nationalism, though the difference between the two is hard to see when absolutely all other nations sans except USA are nonexistent, do not do anything and do not participate in space exploration at all.

Considering the fact that Earth's population was doomed (or considered to be doomed) anyway, them not spamming the genetic arks to every planet in the list (preferrably along with the first explorers) was totally unexplainable.

I'm saying that just about every criticism of Interstellar's scientific credibility I've seen so far is garbage.

So why did they need a rocket to bring the shuttle to orbit when taking off from Earth? And what are the energy requirements for the Ranger shuttle's chemical rocket engines to be able to take off from Miller's planet, mind thinking about that? That's what I call garbage.