Interstellar (2014)

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Zzulu: May 15, 2009; (â°ËvËâ°)

ACoolT5 posted:

I posted this on Reddit a while back, thought some of you might want the whole thing.

Plot summary of the 2008 script for those wondering. WARNING: POTENTIALLY VERY SPOILER INTENSIVE.

Note: Cooper is the main protagonist of the story, this is Matt Mcconaughey's character.

The story starts of with earth having been decimated by war and famine. A disease has killed off most of the fruit and vegetation, except for corn. Almost all of the animal life has been killed by people after the famine began. All pre existing world governments have appeared to have crumbled with a few small exceptions such as the Republic of Texas.

A space probe falls from the sky one night and Cooper, who is known for his technical prowess in a world that no longer needs it, is called in by a farmer who finds it. Cooper takes it home in hopes of salvaging some of the parts. He is able to take an image off of it which appears to be an ice planet of some sort. The probe then starts to make a scream like noise and won't stop unless its carried in a western direction towards California. Cooper and his son Murph go in the direction the probe takes them until they reach a hidden industrial base which contains what appears to be the last remnants of NASA. Cooper and his son are detained for the sake of trying to save a confidential mission.

Brand is a young female scientist whose main drive in life is to make sure their mission succeeds. Cooper asks just what the hell is going on. Brand and her father show him that the disease that is causing the famine is evolving and will eventually destroy the corn crop as well, effectively killing off the human race. It is inevitable at this point. They have discovered a worm hole near the earth that is very stable and appears to be designed rather than a random event in the universe. This is what the probe came from. They had been sending out probes for years, but this is the first one to come back and appears to have found an inhabitable planet with oxygen and water.

Cooper is asked to join the mission as he has proven himself to be a very resourceful and intelligent person in a world with few such people. Cooper gives his son Murph his watch as a promise that he will be back to get it. He says goodbye to Murph his other son Tom. Cooper and the rest of the team (of which includes Brand and a rather humorous robot marine called Tars) head into space and pass through the wormhole. While in the wormhole they see what can only be described as gravity beings which are able to warp space effortlessly. They play with the members of the team, contorting them into grotesque shapes, but it does not hurt them. Once on the other side of the wormhole, the team plants a relay so that they are able to talk to people on earth.

The solar system they are now in features two gigantic blackholes that they will use to slingshot themselves to the planet. However things go awry and the ship is sucked into orbit around one of the black holes. The ship very nearly approaches the speed of light as it is speeding round and round. Tars is blasted into space saving the ship from destruction and setting it free from the gravity of the black hole. They arrive at the new planet and detect the signals of all the other probes that were sent out.

The team goes to the planet surface and digs where the probe reading is coming from. They discover a Chinese outpost has already been built, but it is now abandoned. While searching the outpost they find that the entire crew has been killed from radiation poisoning as there is a Neutron star in the system that was being blocked by the black hole for 20 hours at a time. As the neutron star is about to dawn on the planet, the crew scrambles to find a way to hide from it as it will kill them as well. They find the Chinese have dug a tunnel in the ice in an attempt to shield themselves. The crew digs deeper and finds an open MASSIVE cave filled with Oxygen and Water.

Brand is adamant that this discovery is part of a plan by whomever built the wormhole to save humanity from extinction. They see that the interior of the cave is covered by a colony like lifeform that has no discernible stationary form. This lifeform soaks up the Neutron star's radiation, thus shielding them from certain death.

Now here is where things get a bit weird.

The crew finds a large Chinese colony outpost built for hundreds of people. This was built by the robots sent on the initial mission, but since the crew did not survive, the robots kept building and fulfilling their original plan. Chinese robots detain the crew and hold them in their colony. The crew then discovers that there was another Chinese mission that explored the rest of the system and they found what they described as a "treasure". The reason for them exploring the rest of the system is because of a smaller blackhole working it's way through the system that will eventually destroy the ice planet. The crew also finds a gravity device built by the Chinese that was intended to move the black hole. However, Case, the mission leader ,and also a robot, decides this device would be better suited to move the whole human race elsewhere without the aide of the wormhole or the ice planet.

They attempt to leave with the device, but the Chinese robots won't let them. A fight ensues and Case destroys a few of them and eventually wins. They leave the surface with this new device and a sample of the lifeform previously discovered in order to keep it from extinction as well. On board the main ship, they attempt to contact Earth but they get no answer. Brand then informs Cooper of the reason for this. When they were caught in the black hole's gravity, they were trapped outside of time and are now 47 years into the future. Cooper is able to contact the relay and receives several years' worth of messages from his sons.

Deciding now is the time to go home and see what is left of the human race, the ship is about to set course for home. But it is revealed that one of Chinese robots switched out his control module into Case's body and sabotages this attempt. The ship is caught into the gravitational pull of the black hole and the crew is able to watch as time fast forwards exponentially. The small black hole destroys the ice planet and the wormhole is swallowed up by one of the bigger black holes. They are able to fire their propulsion system and escape the black hole once again, but now it is 200 - 250 years into the future. Humanity is almost certainly extinct and three humans are all that is left. In a last ditch effort to save themselves, the remaining crew of Cooper, Bran, and Doyle, decide to make way for the place in the system where the Chinese said they found a "treasure".

Now here is where things get REALLY weird.

They find a second wormhole and travel through. This time they are in what can only be described as pure nothing. They are in this nothing for days. While in the void, Cooper watches all the videos his sons sent him. The crops have all died and humanity is slowly dying by the time the last transmission is made. Then the wormhole gravity beings they found earlier are once again inside their ship. The beings drag the ship to a massive and super technologically advanced space station in the void. Below them is a view of the universe. They are outside of space/time at this point. Tars greets them much to their surprise. It is revealed he went there after being blown into space and has been cataloging all the advanced technology for the past 300 years. Above them is a series of thousands of black holes that lead to even more destinations. Tars tells the group that the Chinese built this space station over a period of 4,000 years. However, they only used one black hole. Cooper looks at which one it is, and it appears to be a time warp back to earth before their launch even took place.

Brand decides she wants to explore the universe and uses one of the Chinese advanced space ships and goes off through a random wormhole. Doyle and Cooper get in another that has been prepped for travel through the wormhole. However, on the way to the wormhole, Cooper notices that a probe is strapped in and it is the exact same one he found before they left. He implores Doyle to stop as this ship is going to be destroyed and the probe will be the only thing left. Doyle doesn't listen but keeps going. Cooper uploads the schematics for the gravity device to the probe and ejects. The ship goes through the wormhole and is destroyed. All but the probe. Cooper then resigns himself to the fact that he is one of the last two humans alive, but elects to go through a wormhole to Earth as it exists 300 years after he left it in an attempt to save what humanity might possibly be left.

A flashback occurs that shows that Murphy looked through the contents of the probe many years after his father left. HE finds the gravity device schematics and attempts to build it. Fast forward more years, Murph's daughter is able to build it but destroys a barn in the process. Back to the present day: Cooper lands on the now barren earth and decides to let the lifeform from the ice planet go. It begins to thrive on it's new planet, which has been turned into a frozen tundra. Cooper now realizes that was the plan all along from the gravity beings. Not to save humanity, but this other creature. Cooper decides to find a place to die a quiet death and falls asleep in the snow storm.

Cooper wakes up in a hospital. It is revealed he is in a space station named for one of his descendants. Coopers great great grandson, who is now 80, gives him his watch back. The new government sets Cooper up a farm on the new space station, but he becomes bored. He grabs Tars and hijacks a space ship from the dock and goes into the black void for another adventure.

kind of hoping this is what happens now

# ? May 18, 2014 19:11

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 19:07

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

It seems like they have changed at least some of the things in that draft based on what we've seen in the trailer.

# ? May 18, 2014 19:50

SALT CURES HAM: Jan 4, 2011

If it doesn't have any kind of riff on this image I'm gonna be mildly disappointed.

# ? May 18, 2014 21:26

Pierson: Oct 31, 2004; College Slice

SALT CURES HAM posted:

If it doesn't have any kind of riff on this image I'm gonna be mildly disappointed.

For those who don't want to try and google it, that's a scene from the anime Gunbuster, an old 90s sci-fi miniseries that also dealt with humans traveling through space at near-light speeds, and how relativity could gently caress up a person's life and relationships. It suffers from severe mood whiplash for the first couple of episodes and has some questionable scenes, but has some great scenes and setpieces, and a legitimately amazing finale. Like the Forever War, if training to fight aliens took place at an all-girl's gym meet before the heroes are shipped off to war.

Have any other movies dealt with space travel and time dilation? It's like time travel's smarter-but-dorkier relative who sits in back while his big brother gets all the attention.

# ? May 18, 2014 21:43

SALT CURES HAM: Jan 4, 2011

Pierson posted:

For those who don't want to try and google it, that's a scene from the anime Gunbuster, an old 90s sci-fi miniseries that also dealt with humans traveling through space at near-light speeds, and how relativity could gently caress up a person's life and relationships. It suffers from severe mood whiplash for the first couple of episodes and has some questionable scenes, but has some great scenes and setpieces, and a legitimately amazing finale. Like the Forever War, if training to fight aliens took place at an all-girl's gym meet before the heroes are shipped off to war.

To be more specific (since I was deliberately being vague so nobody who didn't recognize it would get spoiled), (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD) that picture is literally the last shot of the miniseries. In the last episode, the heroes basically go on a suicide mission to destroy the Space Monsters that are threatening humanity, and due to time dilation they come back thousands of years later to what looks like a dead Earth, and assume they didn't make it in time... then the city lights come up to spell the phrase "WELCOME HOME" in Japanese. Even without context, it's an incredibly powerful image, but with context, I'd say it makes more grown men cry than just about any other similar thing I've seen.

# ? May 18, 2014 21:57

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

WarLocke posted:

How would you do a sequel to Event Horizon? I thought the ending was perfectly ambiguous.

I like the joke that Warhammer 40K is the far-futre sequel to Event Horizon.

second-hand smegma posted:

I really wanted to like Event Horizon, but all I took away from it was this classic gem of 90s stereotyping. The rest of the movie is a total blur.

I'm not sure I'd call it that, because that's more of an inversion of the "Black Guy Dies In Sci-Fi". Any other film, he would be dead the moment the Lewis and Clark exploded. His appearance even saves the day by distracting blind Sam Neill with the bolt gun into firing it into the windscreen, causing him to get vented out of the ship.

# ? May 18, 2014 21:59

Al Cu Ad Solte: Nov 30, 2005; Searching for
a righteous cause

Pierson posted:

Have any other movies dealt with space travel and time dilation? It's like time travel's smarter-but-dorkier relative who sits in back while his big brother gets all the attention.

Not a movie, but Poul Anderson's novel Tau Zero is my favourite thing about this. A group of travelers on a craft powered by a Bussard ramjet travel across space. They pass through a nebula and the device gets damaged, so it gradually picks up speed until billions of years are passing outside the ship. It's pretty great.

# ? May 18, 2014 23:07

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

Pierson posted:

Have any other movies dealt with space travel and time dilation? It's like time travel's smarter-but-dorkier relative who sits in back while his big brother gets all the attention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjuyXR5by2s

# ? May 18, 2014 23:24

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

Al Cu Ad Solte posted:

Not a movie

I think there was a distinction to be had. Time dilation has been covered very much so in science fiction literature before.

As for a film that slightly tackles it, it's a plot point of Flight Of The Navigator. The lead character is a boy taken as a specimen into a spaceship in 1978, was taken to an alien planet and examined and experimented on by alien scientists, both the journey and exam taking two hours relative time, then reappearing on Earth in 1986. His family is now older and, thinking of him as a missing person and probably dead, moved away from their home.

# ? May 18, 2014 23:29

Prolonged Panorama: Dec 21, 2007; Holy hookrat Sally smoking crack in the alley!

"Oops we traveled too fast and time dilated ourselves in to the far future" is the start of Planet of the Apes.

# ? May 19, 2014 01:56

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

Time Dilation is basically a modern form of the cryogenic craze so anything where you freeze yourself for years could theoretically apply.

# ? May 19, 2014 02:00

Xenomrph: Dec 9, 2005; AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill

WarLocke posted:

How would you do a sequel to Event Horizon? I thought the ending was perfectly ambiguous.

(Back half of) the Event Horizon comes back, Sam Neill (and Lawrence Fishburne if you want) gently caress with another salvage crew, maybe we get more glimpses of where the ship went, etc.

Event Horizon is on my dream list of movies I'd love to see the director's cut of. Paul WS Anderson mentioned at SDCC a couple years back that he'd actually come across a complete cut of the movie and was interested in releasing a director's cut at some point, too.

# ? May 19, 2014 03:55

glasnost toyboy: May 29, 2009

Pierson posted:

Have any other movies dealt with space travel and time dilation? It's like time travel's smarter-but-dorkier relative who sits in back while his big brother gets all the attention.

Contact? Heh.

# ? May 19, 2014 13:27

whatever7: Jul 26, 2001; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

This is my impression without any spoiler after the first real trailer: There are way too much plots in the movie before the space mission. It's going to take up at lease 1 hr to 90 min of the movie. This is bad. This is probably Contact bad. I personally hate contact, mostly for how they portrait the alien. I don't think this movie will live up to Nolan's best, which in my opinion is Inception.

And the "monster" as far as I can tell is climic change/environmental disaster, so the space mission is either going to the past to prevent it or going to an alternate earth to prevent it (like Neal Stephenson's Anathem but way less cool).

# ? May 19, 2014 14:28

Zzulu: May 15, 2009; (â°ËvËâ°)

Event Horizon had really crazy and pretty cool concepts going for it. (HELL IN SPACE ALSO SAM NEILL) but overall it was a pretty flawed movie. I'd love to see a sequel or see it remade in a nice way

# ? May 19, 2014 21:47

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

glasnost toyboy posted:

Contact? Heh.

Contact is almost an inverted time dilation scenario in everything is reversed the trip takes 18 hours relative to Arroway's voyage but takes seconds as perceived from Earth.

Young Freud fucked around with this message at 00:59 on May 20, 2014

# ? May 20, 2014 00:57

Robotnik Nudes: Jul 8, 2013

whatever7 posted:

This is my impression without any spoiler after the first real trailer: There are way too much plots in the movie before the space mission. It's going to take up at lease 1 hr to 90 min of the movie. This is bad. This is probably Contact bad. I personally hate contact, mostly for how they portrait the alien. I don't think this movie will live up to Nolan's best, which in my opinion is Inception.

And the "monster" as far as I can tell is climic change/environmental disaster, so the space mission is either going to the past to prevent it or going to an alternate earth to prevent it (like Neal Stephenson's Anathem but way less cool).

This is a wonderful parody of how goons post about trailers. 5/5

# ? May 20, 2014 02:37

achillesforever6: Apr 23, 2012; psst you wanna do a communism?

Pierson posted:

Have any other movies dealt with space travel and time dilation? It's like time travel's smarter-but-dorkier relative who sits in back while his big brother gets all the attention.

Sphere kind of?

# ? May 20, 2014 02:43

Detective No. 27: Jun 7, 2006

This movie looks like a big budget extended music video for Queen's '39. I hope it ends up in the soundtrack somewhere.

# ? May 20, 2014 03:05

Rhyno: Mar 22, 2003; Can't post for 10 years!

Man, dude can narrate like a mother-fucker.

# ? May 20, 2014 03:40

GeekyManatee: Jul 12, 2011

Perhaps it's because I went into that trailer with previous knowledge about the movie (from Nolan interviews), but I'm really appreciative of the ambiguity. So I wasn't unsatisfied or left feeling confused or empty handed. Like a few others have pointed out, I am hoping that too much time isn't spent on the story pre-launch into space. However, I do like how the trailer is focused on that because it's leaving everything post-wormhole a mystery. Personally, I wouldn't want to see anything from that point on in the trailers because of how absolutely mind blowing it'd be to sit in that theater on opening night and not know what in the world to expect. Which is exactly what the characters in the film are presumably feeling as well; they've no clue what awaits them. It'd be a very strong move, to me, for the production company or whoever edits together the trailers to keep it that way and only give vague hints up until the film's release. Instead focusing on the character's motivations and the reason for the journey.

# ? May 20, 2014 08:12

Doflamingo: Sep 20, 2006

Trailer didn't impress me at all but Memento, The Prestige and Inception are all amazing films so there's no doubt in mind Nolan will deliver once again. Just need to make some room for that poster because, gently caress, that's a nice looking poster!

# ? May 20, 2014 12:25

Happy_Misanthrope: Aug 3, 2007; "I wanted to kill you, go to your funeral, and anyone who showed up to mourn you, I wanted to kill them too."

There was a discussion video from the videogames site IGN dissecting this linked from the trailer which I checked out as I hate myself, and they mentioned that they've 'heard' that most of what happens in the trailer is from the first 15 minutes of the film. So concerns that half of the film will be spent establishing the relationships may be unfounded.

Then again, they also stated when the warp bubble was shown "That's clearly the planet they're traveling towards"...so uh, yeah.

My god though, the music. Best part of it.

Edit: Sucks that only fantastical parts of the trailer are the ones involving space:

Happy_Misanthrope fucked around with this message at 19:17 on May 20, 2014

# ? May 20, 2014 15:46

Arkane: Dec 19, 2006; by R. Guyovich

Pretty decent chance the movie starts in space or something akin to it. Nolan loves putting exciting poo poo in his first scene, and both Inception & The Prestige started non-linearly. I'd say the chance of the movie starting slow isn't very high.

Based on the trailer it also seems like we're perhaps headed for alternate dimensions, given the way that Cooper re-frames Murphy's Law from the standard "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong" to "anything that can happen, will happen."

# ? May 20, 2014 16:54

Kawabata: Apr 20, 2014; You plebians just don't know what epic literature is. You should try reading Stephanie Meyer, E.L. James, Dan Brown, or Ayn Rand.

whatever7 posted:

This is my impression without any spoiler after the first real trailer: There are way too much plots in the movie before the space mission. It's going to take up at lease 1 hr to 90 min of the movie. This is bad. This is probably Contact bad. I personally hate contact, mostly for how they portrait the alien. I don't think this movie will live up to Nolan's best, which in my opinion is Inception.

And the "monster" as far as I can tell is climic change/environmental disaster, so the space mission is either going to the past to prevent it or going to an alternate earth to prevent it (like Neal Stephenson's Anathem but way less cool).

You know, when I watch movies like Elysium or Man of Steel where there's literally 40 consecutive minutes of dumb action without any character development whatsoever, I always wonder "who likes this? wouldn't you rather have 15-20 minutes of meaningful action after a well conceived story that makes you care about the characters?".

Trailer looked amazing.

# ? May 21, 2014 20:15

Drunk in Space: Dec 1, 2009

What's up with them being immersed in liquid (water?) in the pods? The first stage of a cryogenic process, or something else?

# ? May 22, 2014 00:25

Robotnik Nudes: Jul 8, 2013

Hot Sexy Jupiter posted:

What's up with them being immersed in liquid (water?) in the pods? The first stage of a cryogenic process, or something else?

It's because (Nobody knows the movie isn't out yet)

# ? May 22, 2014 00:26

MadDogMike: Apr 9, 2008; Cute but fanged

Hot Sexy Jupiter posted:

What's up with them being immersed in liquid (water?) in the pods? The first stage of a cryogenic process, or something else?

Wild guessing here, but either cryogenics or just acceleration protection; liquid immersion helps protect from high G-forces (basically spreads out the force of acceleration across the whole body evenly if I understand right). Either one makes sense since it appears they head out into the outer solar system to find the thing, so they're gonna take a long time and/or have to take some pretty significant acceleration to get there quickly.

# ? May 22, 2014 01:52

Kingtheninja: Jul 29, 2004; "You're the best looking guy here."

Yeah I'd guess it's more acceleration protection than anything. They do the same thing in Even Horizon.

# ? May 22, 2014 01:59

asecondduck: Feb 18, 2011; by Nyc_Tattoo

Happy_Misanthrope posted:

There was a discussion video from the videogames site IGN dissecting this linked from the trailer which I checked out as I hate myself, and they mentioned that they've 'heard' that most of what happens in the trailer is from the first 15 minutes of the film. So concerns that half of the film will be spent establishing the relationships may be unfounded.

They're probably 'heard' that from the leaked 2008 draft of the script, which gets the ball rolling decently fast.

In fact, if that draft is anywhere near close to the final product they probably don't have much more that they could put in a trailer at this point, since there's gonna be a lot of CGI work done.

# ? May 22, 2014 06:20

funny way to spell: Nov 4, 2012

Geno posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSWdZVtXT7E

here...

we...

GO!

"It's an Indian surveillance drone! Its solar sails power an entire farm!"

Wait, WHAT?

Okay since when does a surveillance drone need to power a loving farm? Why?

And how is that even supposed to work? I mean I know this is the future and all, but look at this thing. Does that even look like something that can power a farm? And how does it do it, remotely?

Also, which farm is it powering, the American farm? So this is apparently an INDIAN surveillance drone that flies around powering AMERICAN farms instead of doing any actual surveillance?

# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:01

GonSmithe: Apr 25, 2010; Perhaps it's in the nature of television. Just waves in space.

about_face posted:

"It's an Indian surveillance drone! Its solar sails power an entire farm!"

Wait, WHAT?

Okay since when does a surveillance drone need to power a loving farm? Why?

And how is that even supposed to work? I mean I know this is the future and all, but look at this thing. Does that even look like something that can power a farm? And how does it do it, remotely?

Also, which farm is it powering, the American farm? So this is apparently an INDIAN surveillance drone that flies around powering AMERICAN farms instead of doing any actual surveillance?

Please continue to explain to me how the future technology works/should work.

# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:08

Doomy: Oct 19, 2004

I figured that he meant the solar cells on the drone's wings could be used to power a whole farm.

There was that one NASA solar powered airplane that flew around for a very long period of time using solar cell covered wings.

# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:11

funny way to spell: Nov 4, 2012

GonSmithe posted:

Please continue to explain to me how the future technology works/should work.

The thing is, remote power supply isn't a sci-fi thing, they're genuinely doing it these days. Admittedly at tiny distances, but they're hoping to be better at it sooner or later and I have no issue with sci-fi using that.

What annoys me about it is that apparently the solar sails power both the drone's constant movement AND the farm.

# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:17

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

about_face posted:

What annoys me about it is that apparently the solar sails power both the drone's constant movement AND the farm.

Who says the energy captured can't do that?

# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:38

funny way to spell: Nov 4, 2012

Josh Lyman posted:

Who says the energy captured can't do that?

Solar power is simply not a reliable source of energy. You can trust me on this, I wrote my dissertation on the subject.

# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:43

GonSmithe: Apr 25, 2010; Perhaps it's in the nature of television. Just waves in space.

about_face posted:

Solar power is simply not a reliable source of energy. You can trust me on this, I wrote my dissertation on the subject.

Okay, now please write me a dissertation on how the sun operates in this movie and the exact future technology they are using so I can know for sure that the gizmos in a sci-fi film do not work properly. Thanks.

# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:44

Steve Yun: Aug 7, 2003; I'm a parasitic landlord that needs to get a job instead of stealing worker's money. Make sure to remind me when I post.; Soiled Meat

I have a PhD in how the science in science fiction movies works!

# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:52

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

about_face posted:

Solar power is simply not a reliable source of energy. You can trust me on this, I wrote my dissertation on the subject.

There are these things called batteries...

# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:56

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 19:07

Detective No. 27: Jun 7, 2006

Doesn't the sun usually come out like... every day?

# ? Jul 13, 2014 23:57

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