Christopher Nolan - Interstellar
Discussion
JustinP1 said:
I watched this for a second time, at the home of a friend, a real cinema buff who'd not seen it before.
When I say 'cinema buff', it was projected with a £6000 4K projector onto a 12ft wide screen, with about £50k of 7.1 speakers and amplification.
He's into his techie stuff so I warned him about what I saw and heard at the IMAX, that was low dialogue levels and distortion on louder sections.
It looked and sounded amazing. The low dialogue levels were gone, and there was absolutely no distortion, and could actually hear what was going on. During the loud sections there was a lot of bass rumble, and whilst this was astonishingly resolved with the organ crescendos and score over the top, at the IMAX, it clearly couldn't cut it with the complexity of the audio.
As for the film, I enjoyed it as much a second time, and picked up a couple of things I'd missed before. To me, this film has the lot. A clever idea, a mind challenging concept, emotional empathy with the characters, superbly shot and sounding great. On the second watching even the 'love' concept made me wince less on second watching it made more sense the point that was being made.
Is it a perfect film? No.
But, it is a masterpiece, albeit a slightly flawed one.
I am unsure if its a shame that a film requires such a set up to be received properly. When I say 'cinema buff', it was projected with a £6000 4K projector onto a 12ft wide screen, with about £50k of 7.1 speakers and amplification.
He's into his techie stuff so I warned him about what I saw and heard at the IMAX, that was low dialogue levels and distortion on louder sections.
It looked and sounded amazing. The low dialogue levels were gone, and there was absolutely no distortion, and could actually hear what was going on. During the loud sections there was a lot of bass rumble, and whilst this was astonishingly resolved with the organ crescendos and score over the top, at the IMAX, it clearly couldn't cut it with the complexity of the audio.
As for the film, I enjoyed it as much a second time, and picked up a couple of things I'd missed before. To me, this film has the lot. A clever idea, a mind challenging concept, emotional empathy with the characters, superbly shot and sounding great. On the second watching even the 'love' concept made me wince less on second watching it made more sense the point that was being made.
Is it a perfect film? No.
But, it is a masterpiece, albeit a slightly flawed one.
I watched it originally in the cinema (on a bigger screen with a more expensive sound system
) and i didnt hear the mumbling many alluded to. I then watched it in my home theatre (8 ft screen and 7.1
) and I still found it....boring.Is it a masterpiece? I must disagree.
The editing is horrific - too many vital, story bedding scenes cut short:
- go to NASA, fly next day. In fact lets spend more time at a baseball game watching a dust storm.
- see daughter, spend 10 mins, go off for a root.
- most exciting scene on a planet? Done in 2 minutes.
And then the many same shots of the outside of the spaceship which at the end started to look like a model.
It had such a great premise but the final execution was flawed.
tom2019 said:
I thought the film was ok.
It seemed to go on for a long time but not actually explain any detail about anything.
How did the earth become the way it was, a little 5 minute explanation would of been good.
Contact is still the best space / time travel movie for me.
The film presumes that the viewer has some background knowledge i science and prefers not spell out every last detail.It seemed to go on for a long time but not actually explain any detail about anything.
How did the earth become the way it was, a little 5 minute explanation would of been good.
Contact is still the best space / time travel movie for me.
How's this for a possibility - commercial farming has moved onto wide scale GM farming with little genetic variation and non propagation. The ideal pathogen takes hold and wipes out swathes of crops and results in social and economic meltdown. Thisisn't helped by the further uses of GM monoculture that just makes the issue worse.
The dust bowls hark back to the era of the Great Depression and there are suggestions that the intensive farming has exhausted the land, rather like the time before crop rotations...
Pommygranite said:
Is it a masterpiece? I must disagree.
The editing is horrific - too many vital, story bedding scenes cut short:
- go to NASA, fly next day. In fact lets spend more time at a baseball game watching a dust storm.
- see daughter, spend 10 mins, go off for a root.
- most exciting scene on a planet? Done in 2 minutes.
I think you have to be relative here. No pun intended... The editing is horrific - too many vital, story bedding scenes cut short:
- go to NASA, fly next day. In fact lets spend more time at a baseball game watching a dust storm.
- see daughter, spend 10 mins, go off for a root.
- most exciting scene on a planet? Done in 2 minutes.
Nolan's been given a nine figure budget for an original scripted film (not a biopic or comic spin off) with no merchandising potential and no chance of a sequel.
He's delivered a 2 hour 50 minute sci-fi film which forces even the casual viewer to come to understand theoretical physics.
In a world of film where Michael Bay can fire out another Transformers and spend that same budget and have the most memorable or emotional scenes based on a zoom into a woman's ass, and the lead characters are Happy Meal toys, Interstellar is extraordinary in scope and delivery.
For that, I can overlook what are minor flaws in the bigger picture. If you have a look at the trailer, there's a view of Murph watching a rocket launch. Maybe there was another 30 minutes that simply had to be compromised upon. That said, for the reasons above, this is anything but a compromised film.
Edited by JustinP1 on Wednesday 8th April 00:59
JustinP1 said:
He's delivered a 2 hour 50 minute sci-fi film which forces even the casual viewer to come to understand theoretical physics.
Only if they stayed awake.You mean that hokum about black holes and other dimensions through which messages can be sent? A convenient plot device, not an explanation of theoretical physics!
Don't you mean theoretical ASTROphysiscs anyway?
JustinP1 said:
Pommygranite said:
Is it a masterpiece? I must disagree.
The editing is horrific - too many vital, story bedding scenes cut short:
- go to NASA, fly next day. In fact lets spend more time at a baseball game watching a dust storm.
- see daughter, spend 10 mins, go off for a root.
- most exciting scene on a planet? Done in 2 minutes.
I think you have to be relative here. No pun intended... The editing is horrific - too many vital, story bedding scenes cut short:
- go to NASA, fly next day. In fact lets spend more time at a baseball game watching a dust storm.
- see daughter, spend 10 mins, go off for a root.
- most exciting scene on a planet? Done in 2 minutes.
Nolan's been given a nine figure budget for an original scripted film (not a biopic or comic spin off) with no merchandising potential and no chance of a sequel.
He's delivered a 2 hour 50 minute sci-fi film which forces even the casual viewer to come to understand theoretical physics.
In a world of film where Michael Bay can fire out another Transformers and spend that same budget and have the most memorable or emotional scenes based on a zoom into a woman's ass, and the lead characters are Happy Meal toys, Interstellar is extraordinary in scope and delivery.
For that, I can overlook what are minor flaws in the bigger picture. If you have a look at the trailer, there's a view of Murph watching a rocket launch. Maybe there was another 30 minutes that simply had to be compromised upon. That said, for the reasons above, this is anything but a compromised film.
Edited by JustinP1 on Wednesday 8th April 00:59
I wonder if there will be a 3½ hour version on home media which adds back in some deleted scenes and possibly recuts the priority of others. I hope so. I'd go for that.
Pommygranite said:
The editing is horrific - too many vital, story bedding scenes cut short:
- go to NASA, fly next day. In fact lets spend more time at a baseball game watching a dust storm.
- see daughter, spend 10 mins, go off for a root.
- most exciting scene on a planet? Done in 2 minutes.
I slept on what you said, and remembered that the one thing that hit home on second viewing was how 'unflabby' the first 45 minutes, the 'background' was. Every sentence had a 'point' to it. - go to NASA, fly next day. In fact lets spend more time at a baseball game watching a dust storm.
- see daughter, spend 10 mins, go off for a root.
- most exciting scene on a planet? Done in 2 minutes.
My yardstick for good sci-fi is that the viewer can understand the 'world' in which the story inhabits through signifiers. Blade Runner is a good example. Take 3 scenes from the setup, and see what is being transposed to the viewer. This is just what I can remember:
Drive to the parent's evening:
Flat tyre. A 'patch' is needed, but missing. Clearly a spare tyre is a rare luxury.
See an Indian drone, looking for resources, been flying for at least a decade. Despite the today looking houses and cars, this puts us decades in the future. India is a superpower, and was 10 years ago. Also, technology has moved on significantly.
Murph asks why rip it apart, Dad confirms the need to reuse and adapt resources. Specifically for unmanned large farming equipment, showing the technological status, as well as confirming ultra-intensive efficient farming taking place.
The parent's evening: Clearly, this scene has nothing to do with the boy, but every sentence explains about the current culture and context of almost reversing the world to self sufficiency as oppose to engineering and exploration.
The baseball game. From memory, this was 60 seconds, but we get all this:
Grandpa says popcorn at baseball isn't right and he wants an impossible hot dog. Clearly meats have been phased out through being inefficient use of resources for corn which is more plentiful.
Grandpa points towards a sign saying 'The world famous New York Yankees' and says that it's a completely different team. This shows that the world crisis is so bad that professional sport is a thing of the past, and the Yankees only exist as some kind of semi-pro exhibition team touring around keeping spirits up.
Yankee looks up - there's a dust storm, and a siren. If there's a siren, it shows this emergency happens all the time. People know their drills like clockwork. This shows the urgency of the situation, and how it effects ordinary people. They get home, and the first thing is noticing the dust falling on the bedroom floor - the background ends and the film starts.
We didn't see Mahogany retraining to be an astronaut - but that would have added nothing. An A-Team/Rocky montage with backing music would be a waste of time. The script IMHO was as tight as it could be.
A lot can be said about the film, but not a lot happens is not one IMHO. Nearly three hours flew by for me with hardly a thought of what the time was. If you compare that to 2001 for example, there's periods where tens of minutes go by without a word being uttered.
Edited by JustinP1 on Thursday 9th April 00:06
If you have get the Blu Ray I suggest you watch the special features disk, its amazing to see how much thought and real science went into making this movie. This disk must be nearly 3 hours long as well. One of the most fascinating things was that they used a renowned astro physicist to produce a mathematical model of how a black hole would work; they then incorporated his maths into the CGI program to produce the imagery. As I said it was even better than the movie
As a side bar I think TARS is probably the best robot I have seen in forever
As a side bar I think TARS is probably the best robot I have seen in forever
JustinP1 said:
I slept on what you said, and remembered that the one thing that hit home on second viewing was how 'unflabby' the first 45 minutes, the 'background' was. Every sentence had a 'point' to it.
My yardstick for good sci-fi is that the viewer can understand the 'world' in which the story inhabits through signifiers. Blade Runner is a good example. Take 3 scenes from the setup, and see what is being transposed to the viewer. This is just what I can remember:
Drive to the parent's evening:
Flat tyre. A 'patch' is needed, but missing. Clearly a spare tyre is a rare luxury.
See an Indian drone, looking for resources, been flying for at least a decade. Despite the today looking houses and cars, this puts us decades in the future. India is a superpower, and was 10 years ago. Also, technology has moved on significantly.
Murph asks why rip it apart, Dad confirms the need to reuse and adapt resources. Specifically for unmanned large farming equipment, showing the technological status, as well as confirming ultra-intensive efficient farming taking place.
The parent's evening: Clearly, this scene has nothing to do with the boy, but every sentence explains about the current culture and context of almost reversing the world to self sufficiency as oppose to engineering and exploration.
The baseball game. From memory, this was 60 seconds, but we get all this:
Grandpa says popcorn at baseball isn't right and he wants an impossible hot dog. Clearly meats have been phased out through being inefficient use of resources for corn which is more plentiful.
Grandpa points towards a sign saying 'The world famous New York Yankees' and says that it's a completely different team. This shows that the world crisis is so bad that professional sport is a thing of the past, and the Yankees only exist as some kind of semi-pro exhibition team touring around keeping spirits up.
Yankee looks up - there's a dust storm, and a siren. If there's a siren, it shows this emergency happens all the time. People know their drills like clockwork. This shows the urgency of the situation, and how it effects ordinary people. They get home, and the first thing is noticing the dust falling on the bedroom floor - the background ends and the film starts.
We didn't see Mahogany retraining to be an astronaut - but that would have added nothing. An A-Team/Rocky montage with backing music would be a waste of time. The script IMHO was as tight as it could be.
A lot can be said about the film, but not a lot happens is not one IMHO. Nearly three hours flew by for me with hardly a thought of what the time was. If you compare that to 2001 for example, there's periods where tens of minutes go by without a word being uttered.
I agree, you start somewhat disorientated with the faces/tv in the farmhouse museum, but then it leads you in nicely, good to not be treated like a moronic 8 year old for once.My yardstick for good sci-fi is that the viewer can understand the 'world' in which the story inhabits through signifiers. Blade Runner is a good example. Take 3 scenes from the setup, and see what is being transposed to the viewer. This is just what I can remember:
Drive to the parent's evening:
Flat tyre. A 'patch' is needed, but missing. Clearly a spare tyre is a rare luxury.
See an Indian drone, looking for resources, been flying for at least a decade. Despite the today looking houses and cars, this puts us decades in the future. India is a superpower, and was 10 years ago. Also, technology has moved on significantly.
Murph asks why rip it apart, Dad confirms the need to reuse and adapt resources. Specifically for unmanned large farming equipment, showing the technological status, as well as confirming ultra-intensive efficient farming taking place.
The parent's evening: Clearly, this scene has nothing to do with the boy, but every sentence explains about the current culture and context of almost reversing the world to self sufficiency as oppose to engineering and exploration.
The baseball game. From memory, this was 60 seconds, but we get all this:
Grandpa says popcorn at baseball isn't right and he wants an impossible hot dog. Clearly meats have been phased out through being inefficient use of resources for corn which is more plentiful.
Grandpa points towards a sign saying 'The world famous New York Yankees' and says that it's a completely different team. This shows that the world crisis is so bad that professional sport is a thing of the past, and the Yankees only exist as some kind of semi-pro exhibition team touring around keeping spirits up.
Yankee looks up - there's a dust storm, and a siren. If there's a siren, it shows this emergency happens all the time. People know their drills like clockwork. This shows the urgency of the situation, and how it effects ordinary people. They get home, and the first thing is noticing the dust falling on the bedroom floor - the background ends and the film starts.
We didn't see Mahogany retraining to be an astronaut - but that would have added nothing. An A-Team/Rocky montage with backing music would be a waste of time. The script IMHO was as tight as it could be.
A lot can be said about the film, but not a lot happens is not one IMHO. Nearly three hours flew by for me with hardly a thought of what the time was. If you compare that to 2001 for example, there's periods where tens of minutes go by without a word being uttered.
Streetrod said:
As a side bar I think TARS is probably the best robot I have seen in forever
Yeah for sure, A genuinely helpful and good AI robot, for some reason most of Hollywood cant seem to grasp that we could actually build helpful devices without them going crazy and killing people...I watched this in the cinema when it was released and have just gone and purchased the Blu Ray so will be interesting to see it on a smaller screen later.
Like Justin P1, for me the three hours passed in minutes - I was totally engrossed. I also like the fact that I had to think a fair bit and had questions when I came out; some of which I can clarify through reading and some which will come clear on further viewing and looking at the special features disc.
I stated above that TARS is possibly one of the best screen robots we've had so agree with the above. Not only the 'character' but also the ingenious way in which it moved.
All in all it's thought provoking with a a great mix of action and science thrown in.
Like Justin P1, for me the three hours passed in minutes - I was totally engrossed. I also like the fact that I had to think a fair bit and had questions when I came out; some of which I can clarify through reading and some which will come clear on further viewing and looking at the special features disc.
I stated above that TARS is possibly one of the best screen robots we've had so agree with the above. Not only the 'character' but also the ingenious way in which it moved.
All in all it's thought provoking with a a great mix of action and science thrown in.
t and boring but the way it moved was exceptionally thought out. 
I've just watched the Special Features Disc (full film tonight 
) and it's a great watch.
The science from Kip Thorme and others is truly fascinating and the depth of detail that they went to, such as using his black hole equations to create algorithms to plug into the CGI computers, is really incredible.
I see there is now a book from Kip - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Science-Interstellar-K...
And this is really interesting on how they created the black hole for the film: http://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interste...
I specifically like this, "Some individual frames took up to 100 hours to render, the computation overtaxed by the bendy bits of distortion caused by an Einsteinian effect called gravitational lensing. In the end the movie brushed up against 800 terabytes of data. “I thought we might cross the petabyte threshold on this one.”
) and it's a great watch.The science from Kip Thorme and others is truly fascinating and the depth of detail that they went to, such as using his black hole equations to create algorithms to plug into the CGI computers, is really incredible.
I see there is now a book from Kip - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Science-Interstellar-K...
And this is really interesting on how they created the black hole for the film: http://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interste...
I specifically like this, "Some individual frames took up to 100 hours to render, the computation overtaxed by the bendy bits of distortion caused by an Einsteinian effect called gravitational lensing. In the end the movie brushed up against 800 terabytes of data. “I thought we might cross the petabyte threshold on this one.”
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 10th April 15:42
Pommygranite said:
JustinP1 said:
I watched this for a second time, at the home of a friend, a real cinema buff who'd not seen it before.
When I say 'cinema buff', it was projected with a £6000 4K projector onto a 12ft wide screen, with about £50k of 7.1 speakers and amplification.
He's into his techie stuff so I warned him about what I saw and heard at the IMAX, that was low dialogue levels and distortion on louder sections.
It looked and sounded amazing. The low dialogue levels were gone, and there was absolutely no distortion, and could actually hear what was going on. During the loud sections there was a lot of bass rumble, and whilst this was astonishingly resolved with the organ crescendos and score over the top, at the IMAX, it clearly couldn't cut it with the complexity of the audio.
As for the film, I enjoyed it as much a second time, and picked up a couple of things I'd missed before. To me, this film has the lot. A clever idea, a mind challenging concept, emotional empathy with the characters, superbly shot and sounding great. On the second watching even the 'love' concept made me wince less on second watching it made more sense the point that was being made.
Is it a perfect film? No.
But, it is a masterpiece, albeit a slightly flawed one.
I am unsure if its a shame that a film requires such a set up to be received properly. When I say 'cinema buff', it was projected with a £6000 4K projector onto a 12ft wide screen, with about £50k of 7.1 speakers and amplification.
He's into his techie stuff so I warned him about what I saw and heard at the IMAX, that was low dialogue levels and distortion on louder sections.
It looked and sounded amazing. The low dialogue levels were gone, and there was absolutely no distortion, and could actually hear what was going on. During the loud sections there was a lot of bass rumble, and whilst this was astonishingly resolved with the organ crescendos and score over the top, at the IMAX, it clearly couldn't cut it with the complexity of the audio.
As for the film, I enjoyed it as much a second time, and picked up a couple of things I'd missed before. To me, this film has the lot. A clever idea, a mind challenging concept, emotional empathy with the characters, superbly shot and sounding great. On the second watching even the 'love' concept made me wince less on second watching it made more sense the point that was being made.
Is it a perfect film? No.
But, it is a masterpiece, albeit a slightly flawed one.
I watched it originally in the cinema (on a bigger screen with a more expensive sound system
) and i didnt hear the mumbling many alluded to. I then watched it in my home theatre (8 ft screen and 7.1
) and I still found it....boring.Is it a masterpiece? I must disagree.
The editing is horrific - too many vital, story bedding scenes cut short:
- go to NASA, fly next day. In fact lets spend more time at a baseball game watching a dust storm.
- see daughter, spend 10 mins, go off for a root.
- most exciting scene on a planet? Done in 2 minutes.
And then the many same shots of the outside of the spaceship which at the end started to look like a model.
It had such a great premise but the final execution was flawed.
For example only on this second, more critical viewing did I notice what was going on with the aspect ratio. A quick google confirms that it was deliberate.
The last film I saw where aspect ratio was used as an almost-subliminal device in such a masterful way was Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim. I'm going to ignore Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel as it's arsing around with aspect ratio was cack-handed. But then, I suppose it needed to be obvious given its role in that particular film.
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