Interstellar

[drone on]

Anyone seen this yet?  Opinions wanted....haven't seen it yet myself.

[Altus]

From what I've read, it doesn't devolve to just guns and explosions, and has been compared to Robert Zemeckis' Contact. Yay!
I've also read it's heavy on exposition, which is a problem for some. That doesn't bother me though. I'll be seeing it in a few weeks once the crowds die down.

[Ein Sophistry]

Just saw this tonight. A very, very ambitious movie. There's a lot of cool stuff happening, but its reach definitely sometimes exceeds its grasp (in a way, this is somewhat thematically appropriate). Plenty of fantastic set pieces and a good amount of compelling drama, but things tended to get cringe-worthy pretty quickly whenever anyone started talking "science." I'm a pretty huge science nerd, so these moments took me out of the film. I should definitely say that I think most of you will be pleasantly surprised with Zimmer's score. Refreshingly different from the bombast for which he's famous. Possibly my favorite work of his since The Thin Red Line.

[Altus]

Possibly my favorite work of his since The Thin Red Line.

!!!
Hearing this excites me. Thin Red Line is certainly my favourite from Zimmer as well.

[APK]

It's a long, slowly developing movie. A bit of a 2001 mood in places. Don't expect non-stop action. Yep, overlook the science and just enjoy the mood, characters, sets and cinematography.
We enjoyed it.

[El culto]

Possibly my favorite work of his since The Thin Red Line.

!!!
Hearing this excites me. Thin Red Line is certainly my favourite from Zimmer as well.

+1 Here the same 

[Dave Michuda]

I saw Interstellar over the weekend & enjoyed it very much.  Not my favorite movie of the year, that would be Boyhood, but it sure was an excellent ride.

It's a bit long, probably could have cut 20-30 minutes from it.  I love the big, grand scale of the film.  The score, while maybe not as bombastic as usual for Zimmer, is still very intense at times.  The volume in the theater I was in was just on the edge of too loud.  Overall I liked the score.

[drone on]

Saw it and it was awesome.  If you liked Contact and 2001 you will like this.  Concerning the music:  it was better than the overdramatized drivel these blockbusters usually employ, but I didn't notice much about it.   You know I really can't understand why some of these sci-fi projects don't use electronic space music.  A perfect one would be Redshift.  Their music is big and cosmic, alternating between bombastic sequencer to symphonic to atmospheric drone.  I could see a whole film being scored  to this music, and it would fit so much better than some boring classical music which is totally generic (and I don't mean 2001 because that music was perfect and not generic).

What is some ambient electronic music you'd like to see in a film?

[jdh]

Saw it yesterday.It was mediocre at best,5/10.There have been many comparisons with 2001.Kubrick would be turning in his grave. 50 years later,2001 is still a reference.In about a year,this film will be more or less forgotten. I really wonder what passes for culture now.Was it entertaining,sort of yes.Did it say anything,no. Music was OK,a bit cloying.Good point Drone on.Blockbusters use the same 2 or 3 composers for everything.You think a sci-fi pic would use more electronic based music like the film Under the Skin but it will never happen.

Anne Hathaway-Every scene she looked like she stepped out of a Vogue photo shoot.Do they have lipstick,eyeliner and rouge in hyper space.One scene Michael Caine is an old man,next scene it is supposed to be 20 years later,he looks exactly the same.BTW-He is the best thing about this.In the spaceship,one crew member has his helmet on and continues with it on,the other no helmet-Why the helmets men? What is with that TARS robot-I really laughed out loud when I saw that. Is that Nolans answer to HAL.What is with the "They" all time.You want to sound deep and mysterious,use "They".

I can relax and say it was just a film and that is fine.But when I read reviews comparing it to masters like Kubrick or that they consulted NASA and so on.Come on.

BTW-Dave is right.Boyhood is truly wonderful.

[drone on]

Although I don't agree with your summation, your review did make me laugh.  Yes, Caine still looked the same age.  Everybody got perfect haircuts --maybe by TARS?--during the long spaceship mission.  I wanted to puke during Hathaways "love" speech. 

[chris23]

Saw it today. I enjoyed it, but wasn't as blow away by it as I had hoped I would be. I agree with those who summed it up by noting that it attempts to do too much, without really connecting all the dots. (Is it a movie about love? Is it a movie about the will to live? Is it a movie about ambition? a movie about trust?) The soundtrack was unremarkable.

I love Nolan. I'm not disappointed--I was just hoping this would be a game changer and it wasn't.

[Analoguekid]

While not wanting to appear too outspoken and the fact that I haven't seen it (not that seeing it would make any difference to me anyway) but do people who watch Sci Fi movies always look for something in it more than just a slab of light hearted entertainment:-)

The words Science followed by FICTION tends to give it a bit of a clue as to its content, this not being Science FACT :-)
 

[drone on]

Was 2001 a slab of light hearted entertainment?  Hmmmmm...

[Analoguekid]

Was 2001 a slab of light hearted entertainment?  Hmmmmm...

I think so, well ahead of its time but still light entertainment based around Sci Fi writings, maybe some are more factually correct than others but they are just slabs of cinema designed to entertain to one degree or another:-)

[drone on]

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion.   

[jkn]

I still haven't seen it - I will when it gets on Netflix or somewhere. 

Zimmer's Thin Red Line - yes - my favorite soundtrack of his.  Agree with previous.  There's a sublime moment of awesomeness in the movie where the score completely overtakes the audio of the movie - a magnificent drone - over the battle up the hill. Amazing. 

I've heard the organ at times overtakes the movie in Interstellar as well. 

[Bill Binkelman]

Finally went to see this last night at our neighborhood second run theater (it's an excellent theater with tremendous sound quality and digital projection....not your typical 3 buck a show theater, trust me). Man, was I disappointed. Everything was a let down and the reviews I had read previously were mostly all spot on about what was wrong. IMO, it wasn't even that spectacular to look at (and the Riverview Theater has a HUGE screen...not IMAX sized but BIG). I kept waiting for some kind of WOW factor, but even going through the wormhole and the 2 planetscapes were underwhelming, e.g. the frozen cloud planet...you never get a sense that they are on frozen clouds above the planet surface, you just think they are on the ground already.

But it's the third act that just fell apart, IMO. I may be no astrophysicist but I'm not stupid and the time travel paradox at the end was one of the worst I have ever seen in a time travel movie. As soon as Cooper entered the black hole, I thought "Well, at least we're going to see something awe-inspiring." Nope...just some nonsensical I-don't-know-what-it-was. I could give you a better idea of what I couldn't buy, but not sure it's worth it. I thought Contact did a MUCH better job with some of the same ideas (e.g. wormhole traveling), although at least there the "ending" (i.e. when Jodie meets her "father" and it's revealed what the movie is about) made sense, from an SF standpoint. Interstellar, did not. Even the earth bound scenes that set the story in motion had me thinking "Really???" E.g. schools are teaching that the moon landing was staged to bring down the Soviet Union? Yeah, right.

As I walked out of the theater (at midnight) a woman who was alongside me said "No one stays for the credits when it's midnight." We both laughed and then I said to her, "Ya know, I don't get this movie at all...I saw 2001 in 1968 when I was 14 and and I understood that movie a lot more than I did this one."

I had such high expectations for this...damn. Oh well, it was still 100x better than Prometheus, IMO. 

[mgriffin]

The science consultants for Interstellar were the same ones who consulted on Contact.

[Bill Binkelman]

The science consultants for Interstellar were the same ones who consulted on Contact.

Yeah, which makes it even more of a puzzle to me. I just don't get it, i.e. the paradox factor. I will post it later and se what forumites have to say.

[mgriffin]

I've seen a number of articles by scientists and science writers taking on the idea that the science in Interstellar was weak. They're basically saying that just because weird effects occur, that doesn't mean the science is unrealistic. Weird things do occur with spacetime in proximity to black holes.

That's not to say one or two liberties weren't taken in order to make the story work a certain way.

I loved Interstellar, and rank it up there with Contact and 2001 among my favorite SF films.

Here are a couple of articles of the sort I mentioned. These aren't necessarily the best of them, but two that I found quickly.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/interstellar-science-explained-by-neil-degrasse-tyson/

http://www.space.com/27692-science-of-interstellar-infographic.html