Tuesdays with Tom: The Dimension-Defying Beauty of Interstellar
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of Christopher Nolan's sci-fi epic; plus thoughts on Netflix Moments, Nintendo Music and the end of encores
*THIS PIECE INCLUDES SPOILERS FROM THE 2014 FILM INTERSTELLAR*
One could argue that Interstellar is a story billions of years in the making. With the unfathomable vastness of the known universe as its canvas, Christopher Nolan dared to bring that expanse to life in 2014 with boldness and unyielding vision. Interstellar is a journey through the cosmos with a surprisingly grounded, human core. The film teases the edges of mind-bending concepts, just skimming the surface of the ideas it explores. Honestly, attempting to write about it feels ambitious. But in honor of Interstellar, Nolan, and the remarkable team who brought this story to life, I’m committed to giving it my best shot. Just…let’s keep this from my high school physics teacher.
In 1997, Paramount Pictures hired producer Lynda Obst to create a new science fiction film. She tapped into an old friend, theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, whom she met on a blind date organized through American astronomer Carl Sagan. Thorne and Obst had collaborated on the film Contact and decided to create a story built around Thorne’s “warped space-time” concepts. Thorne envisioned a story about “the most exotic events in the universe suddenly becoming accessible to humans.” The outline swayed Steven Spielberg to pick it up for DreamWorks. Later, he hired Jonathan Nolan, the brother of Christopher Nolan, to turn the high concept outline into a script.
Jonathan Nolan spent four years working on the script for the untitled project. As a screenwriter, he had little scientific background. He studied relativity at the California Institute of Technology to brush up on that light subject. He researched the history of the Space Shuttle program and NASA’s reduced funding for potential Mars missions. He even drew inspiration from other space-set apocalyptic movies like WALL-E and Avatar. The project remained with Paramount through Spielberg’s switch of DreamWorks to Disney. It was only natural that Paramount wanted Nolan’s director brother to get involved. Despite his historic arrangement with Warner Brothers at the time, he signed on to direct in 2012.
With a co-production team of Paramount, Legendary Pictures and Warner Brothers, the Nolans dug deep into the script that would become Interstellar. They kept the first hour intact, a family drama set in the near future on a blight-plagued version of Earth. They used stories from American families in the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl to create that backdrop. The second half is where the galactic fireworks start. Both Nolans strived to write a story that had “edgy and incisive” themes with action, thriller elements. They wanted to emulate Spielberg movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Jaws, where terrifying challenges hit relatable families.
Casting a central actor would be crucial in merging these elements together. Christopher Nolan watched an early cut of the 2012 film Mud, starring Matthew McConaughey. At the time, McConaughey was working tirelessly to shed his image as a goofy, romantic comedy lead. Movies like The Lincoln Lawyer, Killer Joe, and Mud were part of this growing “McConaissance” in his career: a period where McConaughey displayed shocking versatility beyond what audiences had seen. It was exactly this type of unexpected synergy that drew Nolan to casting McConaughey in Interstellar’s lead role. McConaughey embodied the American everyman, a relatable guy with unmatched charisma and passion. Eventually, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, John Lithgow, Casey Affleck and Michael Caine joined him in the cast. The stage for epic lift-off was officially set.
Interstellar was shot on 35MM and IMAX 70MM throughout its massive production cycle. In typical Nolan fashion, the crew built as many practical sets and effects as possible. The goal? To make Interstellar the most authentic, accurate portrayal of wormhole and black hole travel ever captured. Keep in mind, not even NASA has achieved this today. The interior of a space shuttle was built from scratch. They also built the three primary spacecraft in the movie: the Endurance, a ranger and a lander. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema retooled an IMAX camera to be hand-held for shooting interior scenes. They went to Iceland to film on the Svínafellsjökull glacier. At one point during the press tour, McConaughey proclaimed that Interstellar would be “the grandest adventure I think any of us will ever see on film.” And he was in EDtv.
It’s not hyperbolic to say that Interstellar goes where literally no one has gone before. While we don’t know for sure what wormhole or black hole travel looks like, this is the most accurate deception imaginable. It was so scientifically accurate that it took “approximately 100 hours to render each frame in the physics and VFX engine.” That means every single second you see of Gargantua, Interstellar’s fictional black hole, took 100 hours to render before the final edit. That staggering amount of effort and care dovetails nicely with the story of Interstellar, one where time bends fluidly and viciously depending on your gravitational pull.
Interstellar begins with a Midwestern family in the year 2067. Joseph Cooper (McConaughey) is a retired NASA test pilot turned disgruntled farmer. Earth has been ravaged by famine and blight. Coop’s family consists of himself, his elderly father-in-law Donald (Lithgow), his son Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and his daughter Murphy. He loves his kids, but he feels an unconscious pull to the sky. So much so that he drives his truck into a cornfield to chase a stray drone with his kids in tow. The scene wonderfully establishes the family dynamic and Coop’s wide-eyed thirst for anything other than his current life.
Things are rough on Earth. The New York Yankees are a mere minor league attraction. Billions have starved to death. The rest are unknowingly biding their time until the planet is permanently consumed with blight. Coop won’t have it, nor will he accept that schools are teaching kids that the moon landing was a hoax (the jokes are short and sweet in this film). Coop and Murph become consumed with a “ghost” that is sending messages and hurdling books off the shelves in Murph’s bedroom. Between the drone and ghost’s messages, Coop unwittingly discovers a NASA base operating in total secrecy underground. He meets Professor Brand (Michael Caine) and his daughter Amelia (Hathaway), who are working on a Hail Mary plan to save humanity. They claim they weren’t looking for Coop, but he happens to be exactly what they need.
Brand’s plan is desperate, but imperceptibly feasible. NASA sent a team of astronauts to a wormhole near Saturn 10 years ago. The wormhole allows for interdimensional travel, with potentially habitable planets for Earth’s residents. Who put the wormhole there? “They” did. We’re not sure who they are, but the Lazarus missions have yet to return. NASA needs to know if they’ve succeeded or failed. There are two plans from there. If they find a suitable planet, they can take everyone there through the wormhole. This plan is entirely dependent on Brand solving the most important scientific equation in history while they travel in space. Then, there’s Plan B: a “population bomb” that can be unleashed with new humans upon arrival. We know the preferred option. Could the stakes be any higher?
This is the opportunity Coop has waited a lifetime for. It’s a gut wrenching decision, but he accepts the offer, leaving his family behind on a decaying Earth, with the hope to save them and the future of humanity. Murph is inconsolable. She sees right through his attempts to ease her pain. He says he might be the same age as her when he returns. This will serve as the most important scene in Interstellar: Coop’s good-bye to Murph and all the implications that come with it. The ghost is losing it. Murph implores her father to stay. The morse code translation of the ghost’s message literally says “STAY”! He doesn’t stay. He drives away and gets on the Endurance, off to a two-year journey to the wormhole near Saturn. None of them have any clue how long they’ll be gone after that. This is truly bravado filmmaking right here.
On the Endurance, you’ve got Coop, Amelia Brand, Romilly (David Gyasi), Doyle (Wes Bentley), and two robots, TARS and CASE. The robots operate at 90% honesty levels and adjustable humor levels to protect from the human element. It’s 2069. Another breathtaking sequence unfolds as the Endurance hits the wormhole near Gargantua, the imposing black hole. I’ll be damned if this doesn’t feel as real as it gets. They fly through into another dimension, with an unknown force reaching out to grab Brand’s hand on the ship. Doyle outlines their mission once they’re through. The Lazarus crew sent messages from three planets, named after the leader who landed on each one. They decide to investigate “Miller’s Planet” first. But it’s a risk. Due to the planet’s proximity to the black hole, it’s severely time dilated. They calculate that every hour spent on Miller’s Planet will cost them seven years of Earth time. It also features a punishing 130% of Earth’s gravity on the planet. What could go wrong?
Everything. Coop, Brand and Doyle aim to spend no more than an hour on Miller’s Planet. They’re shocked to find their NASA counterparts already dead. The planet is nothing but a barrage of mountain-sized tidal waves. And because of that unbelievable time dilation, the first astronauts died only hours ago on the planet, even though it’s been a full 12 years since they left Earth. Doyle is swept up in one of the waves. They barely escape the planet totally empty handed. It gets worse though. Back on the Endurance, Romilly and CASE tell them it’s been 23 years just outside of Miller’s Planet. For Coop and Brand, it’s only been three hours.
The visit to Miller's planet is the most devastating in Interstellar. What follows it is arguably worse. Coop and Brand watch 23 years worth of messages from their families. Imagine watching your loved ones grow over a 23 year stretch exclusively through recorded videos. The last one for Coop is the worst of all. It’s his daughter, an adult Murph who tells him he’s now the same age as he was when he left her. It’s a masterclass of acting from McConaughey, performing against nothing but video clips. If they didn’t already understand how dangerous this mission was, they do now. Back on Earth, Murph works for Professor Brand at NASA, blissfully unaware of the Endurance’s failure thus far. It’s 2092.
On Earth, Professor Brand reaches his deathbed. He’s become a father-like figure for Murph, who is a brilliant scientist helping him solve the equation that will save everyone. He tearfully tells Murph that he lied to her. His last breath escapes him before he can share more. On the Endurance, Coop shoots down Amelia’s recommendation to go to Edmunds Planet next. The data is promising for both Edmunds Planet and Mann's Planet, but Coop believes Amelia is impartial due to her feelings for Edmunds. She pleads with Coop to change his mind, claiming that her love of Edmunds is pulling her beyond the limits of science. He’s unconvinced. Off to Mann’s Planet.
The master of cameos arrives in the form of Matt Damon (sorry!) as Dr. Mann. It’s one of the best cameos I can recall. “You literally raised me from the dead” he says to the crew after waking from an indefinite sleep. Initially, they are thrilled to find a living astronaut on a supposedly habitable world. But something’s not right. The days are 134 hours long, unbelievably freezing and covered in ice. Mann says that there is a livable world underneath the ice. His robot KIPP is mysteriously out of commission. Mann reveals the lie that Brand kept up all those years. Brand finished the equation years ago, well before even the Lazarus missions went to space. However, the equation is only possible with data from inside a black hole. He never believed they’d make it there, nor did he think modern humans would rally around his vision if they didn’t think they’d live to see it.
That’s not the only lie that could doom humanity. Mann only sent the positive signal because he wanted to go home, not because his planet was habitable. He tries to kill Coop, and successfully blows up his home base with Romilly inside of it. It leads to a thrilling chase to get back to the Endurance between Mann, Coop and Amelia. Mann dies, but his exploding ship sends the Endurance careening into the abyss. Coop’s pilot skills are expertly put to the test as he docks their ranger back onto the Endurance. While they make it back, Mann’s disastrous docking attempt sends the Endurance straight towards Gargantua. Coop suggests a last ditch effort to get to Edmunds Planet. They accept that they’ll never make it back to Earth given the time dilation cost of flying so close to Gargantua. “This little maneuver is gonna cost us 51 years.”
Interstellar’s journey through a black hole is one that will live with me forever. As the Endurance slingshots around Gargantua, you feel the enormity and conclusion of the story coming to literal warp speed. The Endurance blasts around Gargantua, but Coop and TARS detach along the way. Remember, they only agreed to 90% honesty. Amelia can complete the mission on Edmunds Planet. But what will happen to Coop and TARS? I can’t remember being this unsure about what was going to happen in a movie.
If you don’t want to know, I suggest stopping here. Coop’s descent into the black hole unlocks the entire story of Interstellar. It reveals that “they” -- the ones who placed the wormhole that made this journey possible -- are mysterious beings from the distant future. “They” have figured out fifth-dimensional travel and place Coop and TARS into a tesseract beyond the limitations of time. Coop is the ghost. He was the one communicating with Murph all those years ago, from the future. It's a real bootstrap paradoxical mind fuck when you understand that the drone, the coded messages, even the word “STAY” came from Coop himself, maniacally wishing to undo his choices. And most importantly, he delivers the final piece of the equation, complete with the data that TARS collects from Gargantua that transmits back to Earth. When he’s completed his mission, he is sent back outside of Gargantua, but not before he holds Amelia’s hand on the back-end of the journey (that’s right!).
It’s now 2156. It’s been 89 years since the beginning of Interstellar’s story and yet Coop is only a few years older than he was at the beginning. He wakes up at Cooper Station. Not named after him, but his daughter. Their solution brought humanity to a new colony near Saturn. Lazarus (who rose from the dead) and the Endurance (humanity's will to survive for their loved ones) are honored at Cooper Station. They even have baseball. Coop is reunited with his daughter, now far older than he is. It’s hard to fathom an interaction like this, with Murph urging her father not to stick around to watch her die. But even after finding a home that he helped create, he can’t resist the urge to explore again. He leaves to find Amelia on Edmunds Planet, which was the right one all along.
Ultimately, Interstellar reveals itself to be Nolan’s most sentimental film. The one thing that can transcend time, space and gravity is…love? How could that be! Your acceptance of that idea is the swing vote in finding beauty in Interstellar. It’s strange that a movie dedicated to sound scientific logic is equally rooted in the most powerful human emotion. There are dozens of references to death and love throughout Interstellar. The motifs of ghosts that haunt our past and present and our ability to persevere through the most difficult circumstances are peppered all over the film. Several characters reference “Do not go gentle into that good night”, possibly the most famous poem about death. Grief is love enduring through death in the memories of our loved ones. That’s powerful stuff, folks.
Interstellar is about the preciousness of time, interdimensional space travel, the intangible, yet undeniable connection between human beings and the everlasting hope that can burst through isolation. Conceived by some of the greatest artistic and scientific minds of our time, Interstellar is a remarkable film achievement technically, visually and sonically (Hans Zimmer deserved much more than a passing mention here). It belongs in the pantheon of science fiction epics like Metropolis, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Star Wars and Alien. It is one of the most ambitious pieces of art ever made. Its unbelievably rich text and subtext could be analyzed for days.
There are few films that have thrilled and transported me like Interstellar. The kid inside me who wanted to be an astronaut emerges every time I see it. I genuinely feel like I’m leaving the planet. Movies like Interstellar are why I keep coming back for more. Since most of us will never go to space, it’s amazing that talented filmmakers can bring a facsimile of that experience into our lives. And who knows? Maybe one day, our ancestors will get to see it for real. That would be quite a trip.
Interstellar is currently streaming on Peacock, Paramount+ and VOD
Tom’s Thoughts of the Week
In the last two episodes of Friday Night Beers, Vince and I drank Old Engine Oil and Bikini Bottom Pineapple Wheat. We discussed traditional manliness in the Old Engine Oil episode. Do we still see those types of men in pop culture today? Men like Tim Allen? It’s a complicated answer. Although Bikini Bottom Pineapple Wheat screams SpongeBob, we’ve covered that one in previous episodes quite a bit. Instead, we talked about things that are best in small doses and our favorite fictional locations. Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast here and follow our Instagram page for relevant updates!
Netflix’s obsession with user engagement is taking the next logical step forward. Enter “Netflix Moments” - a new mobile feature that allows Netflix subscribers to save scenes in their account and “share their favorites across platforms like Instagram and Facebook.” Netflix’s new commercial features some famous people raving about their programming to promote the feature and remind consumers about the power of the Netflix effect. You could argue that Netflix is a bit late to the short form content game. People have shared Spotify song links and Instagram reels for years now. Late or not though, Netflix is one of many media companies fighting for your sustained attention and trying to keep you from leaving their ecosystem. This feature allows people to go straight from a friend recommendation to watching in their app with no intermediaries. It also serves as a ready-to-go homemade ad for Netflix content. I’ll be curious to see how many people end up using this in the wild.
If you’re a Nintendo Switch Online user, you can now listen to Nintendo’s amazing library of original music for free through a new platform called Nintendo Music. This is basically a Nintendo-specific version of Spotify. It’s noteworthy that Nintendo is warehousing a few decades worth of Nintendo’s signature tracks into a standalone app and not making it available elsewhere. There are nearly 40 million Nintendo Switch Online customers globally today, many of whom pay a bit extra for the Expansion Pack that includes old Nintendo 64 games to play on the Switch. I’m not saying that Nintendo Music will ever compete with Spotify, but Nintendo Music creates more added value for loyal Nintendo customers and promotes their exclusivity even more so. I’m a bit biased, but I think that this is one of the greatest deals in all of entertainment today. For about $4 a month, you can play some of the best games in video gaming history with your friends online year-round. And now, you can even enjoy some of the most iconic music produced from video games as an added bonus. Nintendo is a brand that rewards its customers for their loyalty.
We’ve all agreed to play along with a silly charade at most concerts. The show comes to an end and the musicians say they have “one last song” to perform. They walk off stage. The crowd demands “one more song” and within a few minutes they return to the stage to play the suspiciously absent three biggest songs in their catalog. These artists cave into an artificially manufactured encore performance. I can rip on it because we did this as a band. Every band and artist has done it. However, the tides are finally turning on this absurd tradition. I’ve noticed that several bands have omitted the fake encore in the last few years. The most memorable non-encore occurred when I saw PUP in 2022. PUP’s lead singer Stefan Babcock was quoted in the Washington Post stating that “they feel forced” and that he and his bandmates don’t care to “leave the stage expecting to have our egos stroked.” It’s a hilariously apt critique of the music business. As much as I love concerts, it’s a big time commitment. A few Sundays ago, I waited three hours (through three opening acts I didn’t really know) to see Four Year Strong, the headlining act on their own tour, and I was quite content after their 70-plus minute setlist. They announced their final song and they meant it. Maybe the encores of the past were a genuine thrill, but the encore became a tired, expected trope of concerts that lost any sense of spontaneity. The encore may have exited the stage for the last time.