the OP should dissect the original star trek the same way. completely overlooking each and every social issue the series attempts to address and is ultimately about, again, that is science fiction. it's not about getting the science "right". How the fuck do you get the science right on shit which science has no idea about yet? you don't.

@DynaMo - If you think little of my opinion about a film, why are you in a thread I created discussing it? I happen to know more about online reviews than most people, because I've made a living writing them and publishing them. If you honestly think IMDB can't be gamed you are being a bit more than naieve.

This film was backed by Warner Bros and Sony. They spent 160M on the film and have been working continually on their marketing efforts since before either of us were born. If you were spending 160M on a product and certain review sites were great traffic sources, wouldn't you want to get them in line ahead of time? Oh right, nobody has ever tried to manipulate critics, nobody has ever launched biased review sites and nobody would bother doing any of it for a 160M film release... They only do that sort of thing when launching a new porn site, politician or restaurant.

@fred I hated interstellar because I do like good scifi, not because I dislike scifi. Bad scifi is bad scifi, it doesn't get a pass just because it's scifi. That's like saying an unfunny movie is great because it was a comedy... If it wasn't funny, it wasn't really a comedy.

because I like to argue with you. I consider you a master debater and worthy of my engaging you in convo/debate/argument. exacly opposite of thinking little of your opinion. if i thought little of it, i would in fact dismiss it without remark.

I really do appreciate that remark.

Now, if we can somehow stretch that elegant comment into a 2.5 hour poorly paced film script and ignore all science, Christopher Nolan might want to use it as the plot of his next movie :winkwink:

Wow pretty cool!


It is, see it. It's not Nolan's best movie (I liked the first Batman and The Prestige the best) but this is certainly his most ambitious. And it's a really complex story to tell too. I plan to go see it again in a week or two.


DEFINATELY see it in IMAX. Not only is the screen bigger, but some parts of the movie were filmed with real IMAX cameras. The movie also switches formats during some parts which is surprisingly interesting. And of course, there's the sound. I'm lucky in that the IMAX theatre near me plays movies like this with the volume control set to 11 - it's so freaking loud, I love it.


SPOILERS: I'd disagree. Remember, its his generation that would be the last to live on earth. It's also the son that is pushing Murph to forget about her Dad, which of course she can't do.

I offer a different take on it. SPOILERS: He was dying, and couldn't talk loudly. Murph even leaned into him to hear him clearly. When he was speaking his final words, the theatre was dead quite. Everyone was listening, carefully.

This method of getting the audience to pay attention was first used in Aliens by James Cameron. When the grunts enter the station for the first time, the audience watches the action partially through video monitors which are noisy, distorted, and crackly, making the audience squint (i.e. pay attention).


Agree completely, and LOVED this part.

SPOILERS: "When" is approximately 70 or 80 years after he left, judging by the age of Murph. But how? Who knows...

SPOILERS!!: While in the Tesseract, the Robot is telling Cooper about what it learned. Cooper is sending this data to Murph in the past via the wrist watch's second hand that is quivering back and fourth.


SPOILERS (ARGH!)!: No, not right away, but don't forget she also figured out why the books were falling, and she saw the lines in the dust, and Cooper figured out that the lines were binary and lead to Nasa / Norad. By this point, Murph knew that any other weirdness in the room might mean something. As soon as she saw the watch's second hand moving the way it was moving she knew it was important. She then spend what looked like years and years to figure it all out. It is also hinted that she was insane, and that she figured it all out by herself.


I struggled with this but only a little. Remember that Brand makes an argument that love trasncends time. You can love someone in the hear and now, and love someone even after they are dead. Weak maybe, but ok. It's plausible and makes sense for the movie. Coopers drive is his love for his family. All the levels and floors you see in the Tesseract are all his family too. Mush? Maybe, but it worked for me.

(In Inception by the way, everything that Dicaprio's character did was for the love of his family too btw).


Mmmm... well maybe, but: It's established that nothing can escape a black hole, not even light. TARS (and another scientist I think) make a point of suggesting that Quantum Data can be broadcast out. Maybe Cooper was using Quantum Entanglement to move the watch hand? Stetching, maybe but only just a little.

Bladerunner had flying cars and clones used as slaves. These concepts are a stretch for some people but for others not at all. In Star Trek TNG they had super slim laptops, touch screens, and music played by computer. All stretches of the imagination in the 80's but commonplace today.

Some movies of course get the physics completely wrong. X-wing fighters in Star Wars could never fly the way they do, but of course it doesn't matter. In Gravity, George Clooney should never have had to "let go". It doesn't matter. Good Sci-fi is good sci-fi. Like you, I hate it when they dumb things down for the audience, but sometimes if its not too dumb, I will just overlook it.

Wow that's so weird... I did't care for District 9. I thought it was long and boring. The effects were beautiful maybe. To me this was 99% social commentary and 1% sci-fi, not much more. As sci-fi movies go, Intersteller was much better. It should be compared to 2001, not District 9 I'd say...

Relentless, you know you made a *challenge my view* thread just by the title you worded: interstellar = awful, come on! you are welcoming debate re: your view with such a sensational title.

!

No doubt and as with all Art we may disagree as a matter of taste.

The gaming of reviews thought line interests me more. That isn't a matter of taste. If you ever want something positively reviewed online, set aside a few hundred grand for me and I'll prove it can be done.:pimp

I like it when someone has an opposing view to mine, well, someone with an opposing that can argue their view effectively and generally maturely. nevertheless, I like to bring my A game into a debate, but I do only tend to stick to topics that interest me, like sci-fi.

Dunno about you, but it hit me, and I was emotionally captured for some time, so, to stress it out, at first, I was about to joke that Interstellar=Armageddon / Gravity, but then I decided to give it a credit, the Numero Uno flick of the year - balanced, dynamic, brave, where a noble at heart but underestimated man would use a chance to take the risk for accomplishing a simply right aim - save his children by saving the human race.

@********** just a quick note on spoilers. I didn't mention any spoilers until after warning people early in the thread. At this point anyone reading should already have seen the spoiler warnings by now.

Films like StarWars and BladeRunner are distant future fantasy. Incorporating things like the force and sentient machines. Films like Interstellar are intended to be grounded in reality, much more like Contact and others in the genre. They are not the same thing. I don't expect a Guardians of the Galaxy to be scientifically accurate... And I didn't expect interstellar to be funny. Perhaps you are right. If you look at interstellar as a comedy it does do a nice job of making fun of science. Perhaps it fits more neatly in the scifi genre where you'd find Idiocracy. As unintentional comedy this film did have me laughing at the plot several times.

50 mile high wave!

Speaking of making the audience pay attention, there's another cool thing going on in the movie.

SPOLIERS!

A lot of attention is paid to the library and the books. If you look closely you can read the titles of the books. One of them is "Winters Tale" with the first words of the first page reading "I have been to another world, and come back. Listen to me". Time's Arrow is a story told in reverse (like "Momento")... Another book was The Stand of course..

Usually Nolan has lots and lots of detail in his movies. In Inception for example, the music of the movie is the same as the song by Edith Pilaf (I forget the name), but played much slower. In The Prestige, there are tons of hints shared with the viewer telling you what is really going on, that you do not normally see in the first viewing. I am wondering and hoping that there is more of this kind of cool stuff going on with Interstellar.

[QUOTE=Relentless;20283601]@********** just a quick note on spoilers. I didn't mention any spoilers until after warning people early in the thread. At this point anyone reading should already have seen the spoiler warnings by now.[quote]

I hate it when people spoil movies (I didn't even click this thread until after I saw the movie), so I'm just being over protective.


Trust me, I wish science-fiction movies were more scientifically accurate, and knowing Kip Thorne was involved in this movie boosted my expectations for this. At the same time, the artists behind the camera have to make creative decisions and dumb shit down sometimes, which sucks. I love Sci-fi that is grounded in reality, but I don't mind giant leaps either.

Ehhh, I believe I will be back when I watched Interstellar. No point arguing with any of you until then :1orglaugh

FYI: I love scifi's but gravity was a big disappointment

Methinks this thread is more entertaining (and accurate?) than Interstellar.

May I ask you, how did you manage no to be emotionally involved that you noticed something scientifically funny at all?

Emotionally involved with who?

The irrelevant son played by Casey Afflec?

The cold but poorly established Michael Cain character?

The guy on the ship whose only purpose in the plot was to be killed by a tidal wave like a redshirt on the Enterprise?

The black genius who had to explain really basic science to the Pilot?

The daughter who is insane/psychic/brilliant/dumb all at the same time?

John Lithgow who rides a rocking chair and offers lines of dialogue that amount to nothing?

These were all poorly established cardboard cutout costars because the main character of the film was supposed to be the Universe and Science... which is what makes it's most glaring failings to abide by known reality even more significant.

Do you know why the robot was extracting vague bits of 'quantum data' from the black hole? Because Nolan was too lazy or simply unable to bother creating any kind of plausible reason why entering a black hole would reveal information necessary to the plot.

Good scifi makes plausible assertions, builds on the known to explore the unknown, carefully constructs plot points that lead to logical conclusions that may or may not be accurate but are at least worth considering.

Bad scifi like this gets stuck in black hole sized plot errors and then burps out "Love", "Quantum Data", "Fate", or "Magic" as the vague solutions to try and fill the holes. Not only did this movie try to do that, the holes were actually too big for them to fill with special effects and metaphysical nonsense.

Nearing 500 views on this one post about the film by an inadvertent critic who saw the movie. Now ask yourself, if you had a 160M dollar movie, six months to plan ahead and a couple dozen people like me working on it... how many views and opinions might we change? How many points on IMDB ratings might we impact for opening weekend? How many extra tickets might be sold before people find out how bad the movie is... and how many sheep might actually like the movie simply because we told them they should...?

In reality, Sony/WB had more like 2 years to plan ahead and instead of dozens of people their PR Marketing Blogging and Reviews machine is likely to include hundreds of people controlling thousands of "real" accounts on sites like IMDB, MetaCritic, home spun Blogs and all the rest. In the world of marketing, human consensus often dictates reality and while reality can not be manipulated... human consensus can be manipulated much easier than many people seem to think by people who do it well... and the people who do it well happen to often be employed by the people with 160M dollar budgets :winkwink:

Yes, indeed, you were not emotionally involved. The idea of the film is not any new, rather basic and simple: when the time comes one has to put his shit together to fight for what he loves if there is a minimal chance. This is called love, emotional thing. :2 cents:

I liked it :)

I just saw it, and I do admit it is one of the best movies of 2014!

Check IMDB Score: 9.1 : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/

Yes, it's currently rated a better movie than: 2001, Blade Runner and True Romance according to IMDB lol.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/?ref_=nv_sr_1

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108399/?ref_=nv_sr_1

I wonder how that could have happened :winkwink:

Strange that the top review on IMDB is currently this one: http://www.imdb.com/user/ur50146734/...ts?ref_=tt_urv

It's a long semi-professionally written glowing review by pipoulefr. He must really love movies and be an extrodinary critic to be up voted so heavily by other IMDB accounts. I wonder why this is the First And Only review pipoulefr ever posted on IMDB about any movie. I guess he was just so moved by this one film that he suddenly decided to become an active reviewer on IMDB... and all the upvotes can easily be explained as begginer's luck.

That's much more plausible than a manufactured marketing campaign being heavily funded by people with 160M dollars at stake... Right? :1orglaugh

Ok, after the debates in this thread now I want to see this movie to see for myself. And I am not a sci fi fan, just curious if it is great or shitty seeing two different opinions here :)

Just seen it...I loved it
well acted
well directed
good twist

Me too. 'Nuff said.

Everyone else: Hate it all you want, but trying to justify or rationalize your hate for it won't change anyone elses mind (as my like for the movie won't change yours). Just enjoy the nearly 3 hours of escapism already.

Want another good movie? "Somewhere in Time". HG Wells chases Jack the Ripper into the 1970's through a time machine that runs on pure fucking magic. Or, try "Somewhere in Time" about a guy who travels back in time by pure will just to meet the girl of his dreams. Both really good movies.

SPOILER ALERT

For every movie that comes out, there will be people that like it and people that don't.

People take pleasure from different things.

Pretty much EVERYBODY who writes a review has an agenda of some sort. Be it to get views to a site or a sig, desire to be regarded as an authority by their peers, to boost the film's popularity, to dampen a film's popularity.... I could go on but you get the picture.

I have found many movies that had great reviews to be crap and I have found many movies with crap reviews that I thought were actually good.

Moral of the story? Take reviews with a pinch of salt and always make up your own mind.

Funny...Neil Degrasse Tyson..seems to enjoy it
http://www.hugecool.com/2014/11/inte...d-twitter.html

You mean the guy whose entire career is based on getting people to take an interest in science happened to like a scifi film that put some space travel concept on screen? And the fact that one of his close friends was a producer of the film didn't factor in at all I'm sure.

If you read his comments, he like some of the science in it and completely avoids the plot, pacing or directing of the film. It's as if a giant black hole swallowed his opinion of the story. :Oh crap

I'm not sure what is funnier. Arguing about the accuracy of the science involved in a sci-fi movie or gfy'ers claiming they have a 'basic understanding of science'...

For the record. If you use the term 'flick' when referring to a movie or film? You have just told everyone that nobody should listen to what you think about it.

I am not going to miss this movie! Interesting thoughts in this thread. As for your IMDB 'conspiracy' idea, Relentless, that is definitely possible.

the imdb conspiracy theory is completely preposterous.

as if either imdb doesn't scrutinize reviews to keep organized tainting of their database from happening or they are in on the bamboozle means they could not give 1 shit re: their own integrity as the premiere, go-to movie database?

right.

next, if this movie needed to propped up this way, why aren't the movies that really suck propped up this way?

I could keep going. but really an imdb conspiracy where the movie studios budget marketing dollars to pay out $100s of thousands of $$$$ to people to upload fake reviews? :1orglaugh

DynaMo, the #1 review of the film is written by an account with 0 other reviews, being upvoted by hundreds of other accounts. That doesn't seem dubious to you? Any idea how easy it would be to create a few hundred IMDB accounts and create an upvote circle-jerk among them to impact ratings and perception of a film?

Now, imagine how easy it would be with 2 years planning, 160M budget and WB/Sony backing you... :pimp

Your conspiracy is possible. Like it is possible that fans liked the movie hence they upvoted that review made by new member (every member had first reviews at some point).

You sound like conspiracy is 100% certain and genuine review is 0% possible. It is not the case. And you base that mostly on the fact that YOU did not like the movie.

Seeing it Tuesday.

I have learned one thing. Make my own choices of movies and dont trust others opinions.

No. I base the fact that I didn't like the movie on my opinion that the movie sucked.

I base my understanding of 'how reviews, ratings, upvotes, social media, and blogs work on the internet' on many years of practical experience making a living online in the niche (in mainstream and adult). There is a good reason why Mountain Dew almost ended up with a new flavor named "Hitler Did Nothing Wrong" and the Danube almost had a bridge named after Steven Colbert.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/14/...orribly-wrong/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megyeri_Bridge

If you believe the public controls perception on the internet... you are in the wrong line of work. :pimp

I love it. Watched it twice. I didn't go expecting it to be perfect and 100% factual, it's a movie, not a documentary. I went to be entertained for a few hours, which I was. I will see it again in IMAX before it comes to DVD, and then I'll buy the DVD.


Because it was better than all of those movies. :2 cents:

One of my Chinese girls waited on the movie actors tonight at her restaurant in Shanghai. Tonight is Hathaway's birthday and the cast was in China for the opening of the movie there. She said Hathway is a vegetarian, is super skinny in person and has a really loud mouth. lol

DWB you think Interstellar was a better film than 2001, Blade Runner and True Romance?
Say yes and we can move on... because if you really believe that we will never agree anyway ;)