Interstellar (movie)

[Paolo]

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.

Except one. Paranoid distrust of leaving to robots decisions critical to civilization's survival (i.e., deciding whether to broadcast the "hey, the water's fine" message). Not saying that's a good justification, but it's a plausible one from the perspective of an ass-covering bureaucrat.

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

Which one? The fact we see craft with sufficient propellant to take off and land multiple times from worlds with surface gravity comparable to or exceeding Earth's, or the the Lorentz factor of 60,000 required to match velocities with Miller's planet in the first place? If the latter, Kip Thorne already tackles the latter in his book without resorting to magic propellant: he proposes that Cooper used gravitational slingshots around a few intermediate mass black holes in the Gargantua system. If the former, I'd like a few more specifics.

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.

The US barely participates in space exploration by the time of the Endurance mission, with NASA reduced to working in secret under Cheyenne Mountain.

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.

You could say the same about the planetary chauvinism underlying the entire operation, but then again that's not entirely alien from our own experience in setting public space exploration priorities.

So why did they need a rocket to bring the shuttle to orbit when taking off from Earth?

To max out the propellant profile for the mission? You could ask that question any number of ways. Why didn't they top off in orbit? Why didn't they set up gas stations on the other side of the wormhole? These aren't scientific objections, they're criticisms of mission planning and preparation taken in the decades leading up to the mission.

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.

With or without the massive Lorentz factor? With, again see Chapter 7 of Kip Thorne's book. Without, what's the problem?

[FaxModem1]

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.

This is at least partially explained in that Cooper, when first being interrogated by one of the robots, comments on how they were taken out of the Marines for being a mite twitchy and unreliable when it came to making decisions. Keep in mind, the robots in the film make no proactive decisions, and are entirely reactive. Once given an order, they do it with gusto, but before then, they just stand there following previous orders until corrected. Otherwise, Anne Hathaway's character would have been scooped up earlier by the robots once they realized a giant tidal wave was coming.

[K. A. Pital]

Except one. Paranoid distrust of leaving to robots decisions critical to civilization's survival (i.e., deciding whether to broadcast the "hey, the water's fine" message). Not saying that's a good justification, but it's a plausible one from the perspective of an ass-covering bureaucrat.

Implausible that they would have even allowed a broadcast system that lets ships broadcast "please land" within 15 minutes from landing, like on Miller's planet. Considering the risks of total failure, the 'please land' broadcast should only become available several hours or even days after the explorers land.

Which one? The fact we see craft with sufficient propellant to take off and land multiple times from worlds with surface gravity comparable to or exceeding Earth's, or the the Lorentz factor of 60,000 required to match velocities with Miller's planet in the first place? If the latter, Kip Thorne already tackles the latter in his book without resorting to magic propellant: he proposes that Cooper used gravitational slingshots around a few intermediate mass black holes in the Gargantua system. If the former, I'd like a few more specifics.

The shuttle is a perfect SSTO if it can take off a planet with gravity 30% higher than normal, and it would have been used to assemble ships in orbit (could also have had the Endurance and other exploration craft built much larger). That is clear for point 1. There's no need for chemical rockets any more. As for Kip Thorne's attempts at rationalizing the unreal maneuvers which were caused by the dumb fuck who wrote the script, I really respect Kip for trying so hard, but seriously, 'more black holes' just to explain a movie fuckup?

The US barely participates in space exploration by the time of the Endurance mission, with NASA reduced to working in secret under Cheyenne Mountain.

All other nations are not doing anything either, and are most likely dead as their fate doesn't even warrant a single shot in the film. Compare this with Space Odissey that was filmed at the height of the Cold War. It is insulting that the stories become so insulated from the rest of the world that 'America in space' is pretty much the only thing that is ever being filmed.

You could say the same about the planetary chauvinism underlying the entire operation, but then again that's not entirely alien from our own experience in setting public space exploration priorities.

I could say that, but it seems that the chief of the operation was fully aware the genetic arks were the only chance at survival. Making it so slim is simply stupid in his reference frame... as it is in the viewers'.

To max out the propellant profile for the mission? You could ask that question any number of ways. Why didn't they top off in orbit? Why didn't they set up gas stations on the other side of the wormhole? These aren't scientific objections, they're criticisms of mission planning and preparation taken in the decades leading up to the mission.

Pretty much: the gas station question has been raised by many viewers, not just me. Why the hell they don't use the technology for their crazy planet-takeoff shuttles as SSTOs to assemble massively huge spaceships in Earth orbit? There's no explanation there either. Not a single satisfactory one, at least.

[Paolo]

Implausible that they would have even allowed a broadcast system that lets ships broadcast "please land" within 15 minutes from landing, like on Miller's planet. Considering the risks of total failure, the 'please land' broadcast should only become available several hours or even days after the explorers land.

Not so implausible, again considering the huge Lorentz factors involved and the desire for answers as soon as possible within Earth's proper time. Haste makes waste and ticking time bombs and all that.

The shuttle is a perfect SSTO if it can take off a planet with gravity 30% higher than normal, and it would have been used to assemble ships in orbit (could also have had the Endurance and other exploration craft built much larger). That is clear for point 1. There's no need for chemical rockets any more.

Unless there are political and social problems using a particular engine (say one that detonates nuclear bombs in your rear view) from certain launch sites (like on your home world that has been seized by back to the dirt craziness).

As for Kip Thorne's attempts at rationalizing the unreal maneuvers which were caused by the dumb fuck who wrote the script, I really respect Kip for trying so hard, but seriously, 'more black holes' just to explain a movie fuckup?

A key point of the plot was always going to rely on high Lorentz factor maneuvering regardless of the setup. In Chapter 7, Thorne notes that these issues were raised during production. The compromise was the slingshot dialogue, although Cooper says "neutron star" due to Nolan's view that the audience is too stupid. Fine, but unless I have to assume that every word that comes out of a character's mouth is the unvarnished, infallible word of God then I have no problem imagining Gargantua's system with a few more IMBHs and Cooper as capable of a flub or two. After all, power of love and all that.

I could say that, but it seems that the chief of the operation was fully aware the genetic arks were the only chance at survival. Making it so slim is simply stupid in his reference frame... as it is in the viewers'.

What Brand was fully aware of and what he could sell to the folks funding these missions are two different things. Apparently even in Cooper's time, the Senate Launch System still has to fly. Again, you also have engineering constraints (the number of worlds the Endurance could visit before needing to tank) as well as a ticking time bomb placing a hard limit on the amount of time you have to overcome them.

Pretty much: the gas station question has been raised by many viewers, not just me. Why the hell they don't use the technology for their crazy planet-takeoff shuttles as SSTOs to assemble massively huge spaceships in Earth orbit? There's no explanation there either. Not a single satisfactory one, at least.

Perhaps the Rangers and Landers get to orbit via some sort of nuclear pulse propulsion, the use of which would be politically and socially unacceptable on Earth as well as detrimental to NASA's secretive operation. There's one, though your mileage may vary on how satisfactory it may be. I think it's pretty stupid to build expensive heavy lifters or send manned expeditions to Mars, yet I accept that the US is actually spending money on both.

[Ziggy Stardust]

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.

First of all, this poll is completely worthless, because it only defines "scientists" as members of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, which isn't actually a stringent requirement. It doesn't actually tell us anything about the people who were polled at all, and it doesn't even give us a good idea of what their beliefs are because the questions are vague.

Second of all, this poll is irrelevant, because you spectacularly missed the point. I have no issue with scientists having spiritual or religious sentiments. Generally, these tend to take the form of agnosticism in the scientific community: abstractly believing in the possibility of a spiritual being, but in such a way that doesn't interfere with material understandings of the world. You don't find Young Earth Creationists in scientific disciplines, for example. My problem is the fact that Anne Hathaway's character seemed to lack fundamental understandings of biology or physics, despite the fact that her character is a fucking scientists being blasted into outer space.

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.

So did you watch the end of it on mute and completely ignore all of the explicit dialogue about how "they" chose Cooper's character to save the world because of his strong relationship with his daughter? You seemed to have missed the entire point of that scene. Hell, even the Morse code was an incredible minor part of that scene, it was just the mechanism of communication, not the overarching theme. Also, no idea why you are using "3+1" and "4+1" here.

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

.

You don't seem to understand the meaning of the word "vindication". The entire point of the end of the movie was that Anne Hathaway's character was RIGHT about her notion of love transcending space and time. It was made really fucking explicit. The fact that her lover is dead is completely irrelevant to the broad thematic strokes of the film. Also, again, you seemed to have either not been paying attention or are really bad at reading subtext, because the movie was also pretty clear at the end that Anne Hathaway was going to be rescued by Cooper, and that the planet she was on would become humanity's new home.

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.

[/quote][/quote]

Um ... okay. That's a strange claim to make about a movie that isn't even really trying to be a hard sci-fi. This is like saying every criticism of Star War's scientific credibility is garbage. Unless you actually think that the inside of a black hole is just Matthew McConaughay's bookshelf.

[Paolo]

First of all, this poll is completely worthless, because it only defines "scientists" as members of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, which isn't actually a stringent requirement

If by "define" you mean it draws a random sample from the world's largest general scientific society, then yes...that's how scientist is defined. However, I was referring to the 1996 Larson study. By the way. Correction. 40 percent, not 42 percent, expressed belief in a personal God.

Not sure why you think that makes the sample worthless, beyond your personal opinion, or what measure you're using for "stringency."

It doesn't actually tell us anything about the people who were polled at all, and it doesn't even give us a good idea of what their beliefs are because the questions are vague.

You've defined "scientist" as someone who would never say something as "utterly retarded" as what Brand did about love. I've provided evidence that large fraction of scientists profess belief in a personal God. Is that not at least as ridiculous as anything Brand spouted in Interstellar?

Second of all, this poll is irrelevant, because you spectacularly missed the point. I have no issue with scientists having spiritual or religious sentiments.

That wasn't my point. My issue was with your argument that it's unbelievable that Brand would say some of the things she said about love. I'd say that the capacity of working scientists to believe in things like personal Gods, for example, suggests your incredulity about Brand's characterization is misplaced.

So did you watch the end of it on mute and completely ignore all of the explicit dialogue about how "they" chose Cooper's character to save the world because of his strong relationship with his daughter?

I do admit to filtering out psychobabble. I wasn't terribly concerned with the mechanics of the tesseract's user interface; I was more impressed with its fairly accurate portrayal.

You seemed to have missed the entire point of that scene. Hell, even the Morse code was an incredible minor part of that scene, it was just the mechanism of communication, not the overarching theme.

Thematically, your mileage may vary. But I'm far more interested in whether the scene is plausible.

Also, no idea why you are using "3+1" and "4+1" here.

To describe what I saw.

You don't seem to understand the meaning of the word "vindication". The entire point of the end of the movie was that Anne Hathaway's character was RIGHT about her notion of love transcending space and time.

I definitely didn't take that away from the movie. Precisely because her lover is dead and she's marooned.

it was made really fucking explicit. The fact that her lover is dead is completely irrelevant to the broad thematic strokes of the film. Also, again, you seemed to have either not been paying attention or are really bad at reading subtext, because the movie was also pretty clear at the end that Anne Hathaway was going to be rescued by Cooper, and that the planet she was on would become humanity's new home.

I think you're confusing fan shipping with the actual story. Why precisely should anyone assume that Cooper and Brand have a thing going on?

Um ... okay. That's a strange claim to make about a movie that isn't even really trying to be a hard sci-fi.

Yeah, I guess a movie that actually results in pioneering GR visualization work isn't really trying to be hard sf. Give me a break.

This is like saying every criticism of Star War's scientific credibility is garbage. Unless you actually think that the inside of a black hole is just Matthew McConaughay's bookshelf.

Why would anyone with even a slightest sense of common sense, let alone scale, think the inside of a black hole is just Cooper's bookshelf?

[Nephtys]

"Love" in Anne Hathaway's explanation is incredibly poorly articulated. One would assume, based on her wording, that 'love' is some sort of superluminal magic signal. When what I felt she meant actually (and it would seem the movie meant) is that love is a means where you can predict or guess someone's actions, conclusions and feelings based on how much you know and trust them, even in an information vacuum. So this is why Cooper knows his daughter would come back to the room, and how he could put a message in an item of sentimental value for her.

[Paolo]

"Love" in Anne Hathaway's explanation is incredibly poorly articulated.

And she's called on it by Cooper, who then makes the call not to heed her hunch and proceed to Mann's planet.

So this is why Cooper knows his daughter would come back to the room, and how he could put a message in an item of sentimental value for her.

He's apparently using some sort of emotionally driven search engine, and really doesn't have that much to lose at this point.

The whole love business makes for compelling narrative, but it's not incumbent on the viewer to adopt a literary conceit as physical reality in order to suspend disbelief. One of the first SD articles I read was How to Analyze Sci-Fi. Can I plausibly imagine characters like Brand and Cooper, and a sequence of events that might make this particular narrative interesting to tell? Sure. I don't have to buy into "love transcends space and time" or whatever that's supposed to mean. Hell, under at least one interpretation of the ending I could find this wishy-washy new age sentimentalism utterly refuted. But where it concerns the physical plausibility of what's depicted, that's besides the point.

[K. A. Pital]

Not so implausible, again considering the huge Lorentz factors involved and the desire for answers as soon as possible within Earth's proper time. Haste makes waste and ticking time bombs and all that.

If it is such a huge deal, then why no genetic ark spam?

Unless there are political and social problems using a particular engine (say one that detonates nuclear bombs in your rear view) from certain launch sites (like on your home world that has been seized by back to the dirt craziness).

Um... actually, no: NASA operates in secret and most of humanity knows shit, but NASA and the elite know Earth is doomed, so short-term pollution is irrelevant.

After all, power of love and all that.

More like the power of bullshit.

What Brand was fully aware of and what he could sell to the folks funding these missions are two different things. Apparently even in Cooper's time, the Senate Launch System still has to fly. Again, you also have engineering constraints (the number of worlds the Endurance could visit before needing to tank) as well as a ticking time bomb placing a hard limit on the amount of time you have to overcome them.

There are no real engineering constraints given they had resources for space habitats! Constructing just one space habitat is like building thousands of Endurances; one more, one less... or some drones more - all the same.

Perhaps the Rangers and Landers get to orbit via some sort of nuclear pulse propulsion, the use of which would be politically and socially unacceptable on Earth as well as detrimental to NASA's secretive operation. There's one, though your mileage may vary on how satisfactory it may be. I think it's pretty stupid to build expensive heavy lifters or send manned expeditions to Mars, yet I accept that the US is actually spending money on both.

Except the film's own companion materials seem to say the shuttles have chemical propulsion. Alas, it is also irrelevant if Earth is poisoned as it is anyway completely and utterly doomed, and launching them somewhere in the desert would be perfectly secret and acceptable.

[Paolo]

If it is such a huge deal, then why no genetic ark spam?

Professor Brand played Plan B pretty close to the chest, and sold Cooper on the mission with the false promise of solving the main obstacle to clearing Plan A. Given enough heads-in-the-sand behavior from the folks pulling the purse strings, it's quite plausible that Plan B would have never taken off as anything more than a side show.

Um... actually, no: NASA operates in secret and most of humanity knows shit, but NASA and the elite know Earth is doomed, so short-term pollution is irrelevant.

Short term pollution is irrelevant to the ecological interests that have dominated society and politics so severely that the farmer is now king? People might notice nukes going off in the upper atmosphere and start asking questions.

More like the power of bullshit.

Human beings spouting bullshit. Seems credible to me.

Except the film's own companion materials seem to say the shuttles have chemical propulsion.

If they have chemical propulsion, then its something with thrust and Isp that approaches what you'd expect from some sort of nuclear engine. I'm using this as a set of guide lines for picking apart the film's plausibility; so I guess you could simply say the companion material is either wrong or woefully incomplete.

Alas, it is also irrelevant if Earth is poisoned as it is anyway completely and utterly doomed, and launching them somewhere in the desert would be perfectly secret and acceptable.

I would love to know how you could guarantee "perfectly secret and acceptable" above ground nuclear detonations. As for the Earth's situation, NASA and the American government still have to contend with a population that knows nothing of the sort.

[Paolo]

There are no real engineering constraints given they had resources for space habitats! Constructing just one space habitat is like building thousands of Endurances; one more, one less... or some drones more - all the same.

Many decades after TARS and Cooper collect and transmit the quantum data.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Not sure why you think that makes the sample worthless, beyond your personal opinion, or what measure you're using for "stringency."

I'm really not sure why I have to keep spelling things out for you. Since apparently your reading comprehension is fucking awful, I am going to be very explicit:

1) The questions were vague, and don't actually give us any specific idea as to what the people involve actually believe. Believe it or not, "religion" and "spirituality" are subjective concepts that vary wildly from person to person, and something as vague as "do you believe in God" is, shockingly, not a terribly accurate arbiter of a person's actual beliefs. Do you not understand the difference between a Mormon and an agnostic?

2) The study sample was members of the AAAS. Believe it or not, membership of the AAAS does not make you a scientist. Membership in that society tells us absolutely nothing about the profession of the individual in question. Members of the AAAS are from a very wide variety of fields. I personally have no interest in conflating, for example, behavioral psychologists with particle physicists by blandly grouping them together as scientists. Do you understand the difference between a psychologist and physicist, or between any other scientific disciplines?

You've defined "scientist" as someone who would never say something as "utterly retarded" as what Brand did about love.

I didn't define scientist as anything. That you are so utterly incapable of understanding the English language is not my concern.

I've provided evidence that large fraction of scientists profess belief in a personal God. Is that not at least as ridiculous as anything Brand spouted in Interstellar?

Don't think I don't notice the selective quoting of my last post, by the way. So, again, you provided a poll that is completely worthless and irrelevant to this discussion because it doesn't actually gives us any useful information except that if you draw a large sample of people from a wide variety of disciplines and ask them vague "yes or no" questions, about half of them will answer yes. Good fucking job. And I already explained why belief in God is not comparable to the statements I was criticizing Brand for making, a point which you ignored and I feel no need to restate.

I'd say that the capacity of working scientists to believe in things like personal Gods, for example, suggests your incredulity about Brand's characterization is misplaced.

And I would say you should not selectively quote my post and pretend to ignore the part of my post where I clearly explained the difference you are incapable of grasping.

I do admit to filtering out psychobabble.

Then why are you being so overly defensive about this stuff? Are you Christopher Nolan or something? You made a blanket statement insulting the intelligence of everyone who dared question the veracity of "Interstellar", and now you basically admit you are moving the goalposts and intentionally ignoring the parts of the movie that aren't accurate. If you selectively filter out stuff you can't justify, it becomes a lot easier to adopt a certain position, doesn't it?

Thematically, your mileage may vary. But I'm far more interested in whether the scene is plausible.

Which is easy to do when you, as you just admitted above, selectively filter out the stuff you can't personally justify. That's not being scientifically rigorous, that's being blatantly dishonest.

To describe what I saw.

The numbers 4 and 5 aren't good enough for you? Were you seriously unable to grasp the intention of my question, or are you being intentionally obtuse about this?

I definitely didn't take that away from the movie. Precisely because her lover is dead and she's marooned.

Again, you don't seem to understand the meaning of the word "vindication." And for the second time you've selectively ignored something I made explicit in my previous post so you can continue being an idiot. For the THIRD FUCKING TIME, the fact that her lover is dead is completely irrelevant to what we are talking about. Seriously, is English not your first language or something? Because you are showing a remarkably frustrating skill at not understanding a single god-damned thing people are telling you in this thread. Brand's theory was vindicated because it was CORRECT; the love between Cooper and his daughter, as made incredibly explicit in the film, transcended space and time, and was the key to saving humanity. This isn't that fucking difficult, especially since the movie says this outright.

I don't want to have to repeat this for a 3rd time; it's fine if you disagree with me, but it's NOT acceptable for you to blatantly ignore me.

I think you're confusing fan shipping with the actual story. Why precisely should anyone assume that Cooper and Brand have a thing going on?

I never said they did. So far as I can tell, nobody has implied that they did. I don't even understand where you are getting this idea from. But it is rapidly becoming clear that you have the reading comprehension of a baboon, and that you were too busy masturbating to the admittedly impressive visual image of the tesseract to actually pay attention to anything that happened in the last 20 minutes of the movie.

Yeah, I guess a movie that actually results in pioneering GR visualization work isn't really trying to be hard sf. Give me a break.

What in the flying fuck does GR visualization have to do with whether or not it is hard sci-fi? Do you understand what "hard sci-fi" is? And besides, this is a pretty audacious claim for you to make, considering you already admitted that you intentionally ignore the parts that aren't hard sci-fi. Here, I'll quote it again, since you have shown that you are far too dense to understand even the most explicit points:

I do admit to filtering out psychobabble.

Why would anyone with even a slightest sense of common sense, let alone scale, think the inside of a black hole is just Cooper's bookshelf?

Not only are you terrible at reading comprehension and deliberately dishonest, but you also completely and utterly lack the ability to take a joke.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Oh, I just noticed this you posted in response to someone else:

The whole love business makes for compelling narrative, but it's not incumbent on the viewer to adopt a literary conceit as physical reality in order to suspend disbelief.

But that also doesn't remove the right to criticize a conceit we find ridiculous enough that it detracts from the quality of the narrative. That's the point I made that you seemed to take so much umbrage with that you are twisting yourself into all sorts of positions to try and awkwardly justify the ridiculous claims Brand made.

Can I plausibly imagine characters like Brand and Cooper, and a sequence of events that might make this particular narrative interesting to tell? Sure. I don't have to buy into "love transcends space and time" or whatever that's supposed to mean. Hell, under at least one interpretation of the ending I could find this wishy-washy new age sentimentalism utterly refuted. But where it concerns the physical plausibility of what's depicted, that's besides the point.

Do you really not understand the difference between suspension of disbelief and physical plausibility? Hyperdrive in Star Wars is physically impossible according to everything we currently understand about physics; that doesn't mean you can't suspend disbelief and accept that it exists. That's the entire god-damned point of fiction, to immerse yourself in that way. But it's the absolutely height of arrogance and stupidity to use suspension of disbelief as a shield against any and all criticisms of a movie as you are doing.

YOU were the one that made a blanket statement insulting the intelligence of everyone that dared question aspects of "Interstellar." It's right there are the bottom of page 1 for everyone to see. You then have to justify the scientific accuracy of the movie. You can't make vague appeals to suspension of disbelief WHEN YOU EXPLICITLY ARGUED THAT NO SUCH SUSPENSION IS NECESSARY.

[Paolo]

But that also doesn't remove the right to criticize a conceit we find ridiculous enough that it detracts from the quality of the narrative.

I don't think it detracts from the quality of the narrative. I favor Brand's earnest pronouncement after facing death, if for no other reason than it is deliciously subverted by her companions during and events afterwards.

That's the point I made that you seemed to take so much umbrage with that you are twisting yourself into all sorts of positions to try and awkwardly justify the ridiculous claims Brand made.

You must be confusing me with someone else. I've made no attempt to this one piece of monologue in a couple hours worth of film.

Do you really not understand the difference between suspension of disbelief and physical plausibility?

I understand suspension of disbelief to mean withholding of judgment on plausibility until you can demonstrate otherwise.

Hyperdrive in Star Wars is physically impossible according to everything we currently understand about physics; that doesn't mean you can't suspend disbelief and accept that it exists. That's the entire god-damned point of fiction, to immerse yourself in that way.

Agreed, but isn't half the fun of suspending disbelief actually showing the work? I know I don't find it satisfying to shout "Bullshit! Spaghettification!" at a screen and call it a day.

But it's the absolutely height of arrogance and stupidity to use suspension of disbelief as a shield against any and all criticisms of a movie as you are doing.

Certainly, if you don't bother to show the work. Of course, that can't be said in this case.

YOU were the one that made a blanket statement insulting the intelligence of everyone that dared question aspects of "Interstellar."

I raised a question of incredulity born of ignorance, not intelligence. I also propose that some of the critics (i.e., Phil Plait) were simply lazy. Clearly Plait has the background to show his work.

It's right there are the bottom of page 1 for everyone to see. You then have to justify the scientific accuracy of the movie.

Agreed. And I have. Very specifically. Of the ones contested here, I addressed objections pertaining to the the Endurance mission profile (slingshots around IMBHs) and the SSTO issue (nuclear pulse propulsion). I've also spent a fair amount of time on a (in my view) minor thematic point. If you have other objections, raise'em. Just be prepared to show your work.

[Paolo]

I'm really not sure why I have to keep spelling things out for you. Since apparently your reading comprehension is fucking awful...

Because you're not being very clear.

I am going to be very explicit:

About time.

1) The questions were vague, and don't actually give us any specific idea as to what the people involve actually believe. Believe it or not, "religion" and "spirituality" are subjective concepts that vary wildly from person to person, and something as vague as "do you believe in God" is, shockingly, not a terribly accurate arbiter of a person's actual beliefs. Do you not understand the difference between a Mormon and an agnostic?

The Pew survey question was as follows (I don't have the Larson survey question):

"Which of the following statements comes closest to your belief about God?"

The respondents are asked to pick one of four options:
1. I believe in God
2. I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in a universal spirit or higher power
3. 1 I don’t believe in either
4. No answer/Don’t know/Refused (VOL.) 1

It is unclear precisely what you find vague about these answers, or why you believe the respondents were unlikely to understand them. That's irrelevant; certainly *some* respondents understood the questions, which belies your ridiculous characterization of scientists as people incapable of holding irrational beliefs.

2) The study sample was members of the AAAS. Believe it or not, membership of the AAAS does not make you a scientist. Membership in that society tells us absolutely nothing about the profession of the individual in question. Members of the AAAS are from a very wide variety of fields. I personally have no interest in conflating, for example, behavioral psychologists with particle physicists by blandly grouping them together as scientists. Do you understand the difference between a psychologist and physicist, or between any other scientific disciplines?

I'm uncertain as to what field delineation has to do with the notion of the plausibility of some scientists holding irrational beliefs.

I didn't define scientist as anything. That you are so utterly incapable of understanding the English language is not my concern.

Sure you did. And I quote:

"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."

This is what we've been arguing about. I pointed out survey evidence of significant numbers of scientists holding equally if not exceedingly more ridiculous beliefs.

Don't think I don't notice the selective quoting of my last post, by the way. So, again, you provided a poll that is completely worthless and irrelevant to this discussion because it doesn't actually gives us any useful information except that if you draw a large sample of people from a wide variety of disciplines and ask them vague "yes or no" questions, about half of them will answer yes.

Wasn't a "yes/no" question. Again, you might actually bother looking at the survey.

Good fucking job. And I already explained why belief in God is not comparable to the statements I was criticizing Brand for making, a point which you ignored and I feel no need to restate.

No one cares. The issue is with scientists who believe in a *personal God*. A giant spaghetti monster.

Then why are you being so overly defensive about this stuff?

Because you're wrong, and because this discussion is interesting.

If you selectively filter out stuff you can't justify, it becomes a lot easier to adopt a certain position, doesn't it?

The psychobabble has nothing to do with my position. I've not commented on the user interface except to point out that's what it is.

The numbers 4 and 5 aren't good enough for you? Were you seriously unable to grasp the intention of my question, or are you being intentionally obtuse about this?

The conventions 3+1 and 4+1 aren't good enough for you? If you have a question, ask it.

For the THIRD FUCKING TIME, the fact that her lover is dead is completely irrelevant to what we are talking about.

Repeating yourself does not make something so.

Brand's theory was vindicated because it was CORRECT; the love between Cooper and his daughter, as made incredibly explicit in the film, transcended space and time, and was the key to saving humanity.

Cooper's love didn't "transcend space and time." Nothing transcended anything. Cooper, with the help of the technology of the tesseract, made some books fall.

This isn't that fucking difficult, especially since the movie says this outright.

Quote, please?

I don't want to have to repeat this for a 3rd time; it's fine if you disagree with me, but it's NOT acceptable for you to blatantly ignore me.

Fourth time, according to you, but in reality you've yet to even make the case.

I never said they did.

And I quote:

"Also, again, you seemed to have either not been paying attention or are really bad at reading subtext, because the movie was also pretty clear at the end that Anne Hathaway was going to be rescued by Cooper, and that the planet she was on would become humanity's new home."

What in the flying fuck does GR visualization have to do with whether or not it is hard sci-fi?

You have the most credible depiction of a worm hole and a black hole in the history if fiction. That's what.

Not only are you terrible at reading comprehension and deliberately dishonest, but you also completely and utterly lack the ability to take a joke.

You might consider you suck at telling them. You raised this point while addressing scientific implausibility in other media (Star Wars). I gather you mean to argue that suspension of disbelief would require the audience to believe the inside of the BH, therefore, is Cooper's bookshelf. Despite all the evidence that they are actually inside some sort of artificial construct.

[K. A. Pital]

Professor Brand played Plan B pretty close to the chest, and sold Cooper on the mission with the false promise of solving the main obstacle to clearing Plan A. Given enough heads-in-the-sand behavior from the folks pulling the purse strings, it's quite plausible that Plan B would have never taken off as anything more than a side show.

Plan B required only a fraction of their resources to succeed. Remember, their intellectual and material resources are actually degrading every year, too.

Short term pollution is irrelevant to the ecological interests that have dominated society and politics so severely that the farmer is now king? People might notice nukes going off in the upper atmosphere and start asking questions.

Absolutely irrelevant as Earth is doomed and the elite knows that. The 'people' are gullible fools in the film, which can be made to believe the Moon landings were a hoax with extreme ease. You could sell them literally any bullshit and they would have bought it. In fact, there's no indication of an Orion-type drive being present on any of the shuttles. It looks like rocket or direct-flow engines, and when it looks like a duck...

If they have chemical propulsion, then its something with thrust and Isp that approaches what you'd expect from some sort of nuclear engine.

Which, again, does not explain how it happens. Did you even do any calculations?

I would love to know how you could guarantee "perfectly secret and acceptable" above ground nuclear detonations. As for the Earth's situation, NASA and the American government still have to contend with a population that knows nothing of the sort.

Except the engines on the shuttles do not look as if there's anything involving nuclear detonations going on. They look like rockets. Which they are. The population can be made to believe absolutely anything given the film makes the whole population farmers and that would also mean being terribly dumb and believing any bullshit coming out from the government.

[Siege]

I just got around to watching Interstellar in glorious IMAX (the way God and Chris Nolan intended), and I loved every second of it. I find a lot of the criticism in this thread extremely overblown, but it's a movie so I suppose it either floats your boat or it does not.

One point though:

There's no need for chemical rockets any more.

No technical need. But NASA was reduced to working in secret because they 'refused to drop bombs on poor people'. To me this indicates: 1) the polling booth reality was that it was impossible to be seen to support throwing money at space research, 2) yet clearly someone in government recognized the value in Brand's work, hence why NASA actually still existed and had considerable resources to work with (enough to build a space station on the ground, even).

In other words, the government wanted this mission to happen. That's why they actually had the shuttles to begin with (even though that program was supposed to have been cancelled years ago, after Cooper's crash). They just couldn't be seen to support it, even though they clearly did for decades, in secret. If those shuttles suddenly appeared in the sky people would ask where they came from, and the answer to that question would blow the lid off the fact that the government has been pumping who knows how many increasingly scarce resources into a long shot for the survival of the species. That's simultaneously political suicide, and also a cause for the sort of panic they explicitly said they were trying to avoid.

Meanwhile a big dumb conventional rocket might just be something they still had left sitting in a silo, or could be sold as military rearmament, or something else more palatable to the public. Seems pretty clear cut to me.

[Patroklos]

Finally saw this and I liked it a lot. One big thing that bothered me and one comment based on the thread discussion:

Why did Mann have to kill Cooper? The reason given is Cooper was going to take the ship back which would have kept him stranded on the planet he knew was dead. However, eventually he was going to have to tell the others he was a liar if he expected them to go to the third planet so he could save himself. Sure he could have killed them to but I never got the impression he wanted to abandon the actual mission, just that he wanted to be alive himself too, and I don't see how he could be expected to accomplish that when he isn't trained on any of the nitty gritty of that.

So what would have happened if he had said "Hey Cooper, I am a coward and an asshole and lied. This planet is dead and I falsified the broadcast to get you hear to rescue me." Would Cooper have said fuck it I am still going back to earth with the ship anway even though he knows humanity still doesn't have a home? That won't do his family any good, though I guess he had the message about Plan A being a hoax by then so maybe. I don't think so. I assume he would have no choice but to continue on to the third planet. So would the rest of the Endurance's crew. Would they have vindictively left Mann behind when they did that, a scientist that despite his personal failings has been praised the whole movie as a genius? I doubt it, people like him are in short supply and would be valuable to the founding of the actual colony on the third planet.

It struck me as hamfisted. The human drama about a great man coming up short is an obvious and attractive theme even if they spoiled it by over praising him so much we could see it from a mile away. Unfortunately his motives just were not logical and I would have preferred a calculating dark logic rather than what this has to boil down to: Mann went mad.

On why NASA was secret and whatnot. I didn't get the impression that NASA was in hiding just because it was not publically popular, but because it was illegal based on the worldwide situation. We are told there has been a large starvation event with all the "only so many people left thing" and a large war or some sort is hinted at with the "NASA refused to bomb starving people" bit. Then we are told there are no more militaries. If the world is dealing with planet wide calamity that at some point and for some period went into armed conflict and global famine I would expect the OPPOSITE of militaries being disbanded to be the case. Unless there was some grand peace that led to the world united in purpose. A world where science and engineering outside food generation is apparently uniformly suppressed in favor of a unified goal. I can see that peace being precarious and quite strictly enforced and the rest of the world frowning heavily on any nation squandering resources on pie in the sky space projects, perhaps reigniting said wars and thus famines?

Just my thought.

[Zeropoint]

Mann didn't have to kill Cooper. The thing is, Mann was a ways past thinking rationally.

*** SPOILERS FOLLOW ***
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Re: TARS and the self-destruct:
I thought it was fairly clear that TARS was only joking about the self destruct sequence, given that A) he started it right after having his humor level set, and B) he stopped immediately after having his humor level lowered.

Re: the power of love as a physical force:
My reading of the climactic scene in the tesseract was that the only advantages that love gave to Cooper were the motivation to figure things out and keep himself together, and the ability to anticipate his daughter's actions. Everything else he did there was simply operating the systems that the "bulk beings" had provided. Brand's speculations about love as a physical force didn't come across to me as something that the audience was expected to believe to be true about the movie world.

[Tychu]

I finally went and saw the film. Now before anyone complains that I'm covering topics already talked abou I want to give my first viewing opinions. I promise to read the thread after.

First, my only real problem is in the beginning. If we ReALLy REALLY faked the moon landing, the Russians would have called us out on it. Instead of sitting and waiting for bankruptcy from 1969-1991 they would have sent a probe.

Secondly, I like how they made the "droids" as much unlike humans as they could besides the voice. Pretty much explicitly telling us "danger will not come from the computers"!

Thirdly, I like the little "A New Hope" Cooper and TARS had at the end with "you want another"? Good ol TAR-2.

Fourthly (sic?), I liked the Mass Effect (1) look to the suits. Good Tailors before the series catered to the general public.

[Tychu]

As for the teseract, I'm pretty sure Cooper says that it has nothing to do with love or God, but rather than human emotion. We hear TARS asking "what good will this do"? And Cooper being persistent. While Hathaway was going on about love, I had an internal debate on whether love was blinding her or guiding her, but I never had the feeling that we were suppose to get a sense that love was a sentient or physical force.

As for the people with criticism about why isn't there massive fleets of colony ships I guess they missed he lines "The military gave us what was left" or "the government cut our funding". It's kind of like how we sent out Space Lab. A space station put together with old Saturn Vs and Apollo equipment. NASA funding was down in the 1970s and didn't allow NASA to make new stuff.

As for the criticism looking for an International crew. Who knows what the status of other nations are? They could have been wiped out by some war we didn't see, or are to busy with their own blithe or their own space program. What you really have to ask yourself is: Where are the other nations in Terminator? Why aren't they helping the United States? See, works both ways

[Adam Reynolds]

As for the criticism looking for an International crew. Who knows what the status of other nations are? They could have been wiped out by some war we didn't see, or are to busy with their own blithe or their own space program. What you really have to ask yourself is: Where are the other nations in Terminator? Why aren't they helping the United States? See, works both ways

For the setting of Terminator* it would make far more sense that there would not be contact with outside nations given the level of destruction. After a full on nuclear war it would be difficult to move anywhere, especially in the face of robotic oppression. While this is obviously also partially the case in Interstellar, the issue here is that they still had the resources to go into space and thus in that context it would make sense to take resources from everywhere possible. In general in a situation like this it would make the most sense to pool resources, rather than for each nation to have their own space program. It is a criticism of the idea that the heroic Americans will always save the day.

Even if there weren't an explanation for Terminator, stating that other movies had done the same thing doesn't excuse this one. How does the fact that it "works both ways" have any significance? When feminists criticize the lack of notable women in a particular movie, is it a good defense to claim that this is also true of any other movie?

*More recently, The Hunger Games also has this issue, though it's not as if that series actually make much sense from a worldbuilding perspective anyway.

[Tychu]

I agree with you the Hunger Games.

Here's what I thought about the things we don't really see in Interstellar. Mind you it's my opinion and speculative.

In the beginning of the movie we see the "family" take down a drone that usually flys around in the upper atmosphere. When Murph asks "why was it flying so low"? Cooper explains that after the Indians stopped giving them commands they just stayed up there. So it seems the Indian space program is gone.

Now as for political cooperation, the two likely countries that the US will work with first are Mexico and Canada. Thanks to NAFTA, Mexican agriculture is fully dependent on American Agricorps. Canada has a shorter growing season so they are probably worrying about themselves. In our world the United States puts a significant share of extra food stuffs in the world food stores. As of typing this it also occurred to me that maybe (like we do with Mad Cow Disease) the other countries wheat, due to blithe fear.

In the scene with the teachers, he teacher mentioned that "federal textbooks were replaced with 'our own'". So either education departments are powerful now or he United States went back to a more Confederation set-up. For people looking to just fend for themselves I have a feeling that they may not like a weakened Central Government talking to other nations.

I also took the ending in a way that the "few" Americans that left and were on the station said "fuck the rest of the world". Rather than "America saves the day"!

[The Romulan Republic]

Once America figured out how to do it, they could pass that knowledge on to other countries. Unless America was the only country left in the world with the capability to do something like that, others might be able to pull it off. If America kept the knowledge to itself, that would be utterly dickish. But not necessarily unrealistic. Such a desperate situation would drive people to extreme ruthlessness and the temptation to be the last nation left standing, the undisputed rulers of humanity, would be tempting to some. But that's a more cynical end than this film was aiming for.

Edit: Regardless, it should have been addressed in the film.

[Patroklos]

Who says that was the only station (I believe we are told/shown its not. I don't remembe./)? If there are multiple stations it makes sense they would try to make the societies the inhabit them as homogeneous as possible, lifted wholesale from existing groups to keep order as easily as possible.