About Interstellar | Teen Ink

About Interstellar

April 16, 2023
By Amber_Chen BRONZE, Nanjing, Other
Amber_Chen BRONZE, Nanjing, Other
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

The movie was shot 10 years ago, but it is the first time that I watched it. Things about the black hole simply are enough to amazed me. The image of the black hole in a science fiction film of 2014 was almost the same as the one which was truly shot five years later.

(Actually I did think of the possibility of chrono time-cross traveling...)

I have watched several work directed by Christopher Nolan like Inception. But this time, Nolan, who is always on the way of confusing the audience, did not focus on complicated background settings. He invited the awardee of Nobel Prize to be the scientific consultant, planted a great number of corn covering an area over 30 thousand mu for the setting, used up funds of 165 million dollars, just for telling a plain logic.

The boundlessness and loneliness of the universe and the unknown brought by the immense reach of time and space are the cruel background for the huge drama human beings are in.

At the same time, there is always something that is invariant outside the despairing and turbulent reality.

In the other word, we wish it to be invariant.

 

“Do not go gentle into that good night.”

I’d like to talk about the tangle circling all day in Cooper’s mind --- if time could really go back and repeat, would he choose to leave his dear daughter to “save the world” again?

Cooper’s father-in-law once mentioned the golden age in the past: “When I was a kid, it felt like they made something new every day. Some gadget or idea. Like every day was Christmas.”

People of good livelihood are always shining, with kindness and hope in mind. Only when the age is different and the days are not so enjoyable can various choices be filter.

 

There are three types of human beings in Interstellar.

The first one is like Cooper’s son, Tom.

The mind is normal. The life is normal. The dream is normal. Although they cannot understand the romance of oceans or stars, they are able to stand on solid ground and do everything well presented. He didn’t understand or believe the grand task of saving the human beings, but insisted to stay in the corn field because of the sentence “you look after our place for me, all right?” from his father. He still refused to move away even if every family member began to suffer from lung disease, seeming to be as stubborn as a mule.

However, the most important place in the whole story --- Murph’s bedroom in childhood managed to be preserved for his insistence.

Normal people also have the possibility to become a hero.

The second type is the only dark side in the film --- Dr. Mann.

There were 12 pioneer astronauts crossing the worm hole, who were the real pioneer for the whole human species. No people waiting in destination, no backup, and even no companion. 12 persons head towards 12 different planets. If the destination had habitable environment, each one would press a simple button to let the earth know. Dr. Mann was their leader.

The character once represented the most beautiful side of human beings. Bravery, the impulse to explore and the spirit of death. They still chose to leave without hesitation, even when they didn’t know the planets waiting for them were pleasant new home to live in the future, or dreadful environment which could lead to death.

But when being surrounded by endless desperation and loneliness, the destiny didn’t have the ability to defeat the nature of seeking for survival. Knowing the planet he landed was unsuitable for human living, he sent the fake message after all. The button standing for hope became his bait for being alive.

And the third in the end, is “explorers” like Cooper and Murph.

I will never suspect that even if time could repeat, Cooper would still make the same choice for a second time. And the grown Murph would understand father’s reason afterwards. They were born for freedom and cannot bare to enjoy fake “felicity” on the way of being destroyed. They must choose to know more and do more, even hurt badly in adversities. For instance, in the end of the film, Cooper became the “Saviour” written down into history. The younger generation built him a house in the space station near Saturn, mostly similar to the one he lived in on the earth. Cooper drank beer sitting in the corridor in the front of the house, the same picture we can see in the starting part of the film, and said, “I don’t care much for this, pretending we’re back where we started.”

Then he drove a space craft, leaving the temporary utopia.

 

Having seen so much unimaginable changes in human nature in science fiction works, I’m still running over my tears.

The belief of human beings will never die out, no matter how lonely or how weak they are in the wide universe.

Just as the repeated sentence from Dylan Thomas: “Do not go gentle into that good night; old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Though wise human know the rule of darkness in the end of their life, they still do not go gentle into that good night.


The author's comments:

Here is Amber Chen, eager to share my own feelings towards everything and learn from each of you.


Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.