Postby Steve Barber » Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:21 am
Complex -- I have to completely disagree with your assessment that Interstellar is a stupid film. I kind of wonder what it was you were expecting to find, but it's a film that actually does posit some difficult questions, and doesn't speak down to the audience.
(If films like Interstellar are stupid to you, I have to wonder what, if anything, you would find to be an intelligent film.)
Personally, I see almost no relation between the huckster "let's dazzle the audiences with bitchin' special effects" films like 2012 and War of the Worlds and the approach taken with Interstellar. Add in Avatar and others if you like. It's just not in the same category at all. Interstellar was anything BUT an action/adventure film. The film *I* saw had thoughtful, long passages, and an effective rendering of a world gone to waste -- with a plausible, if overwrought, explanation. The world wasn't dying from one instant calamity, but over generations and generations in a dismal and decaying way. No tsunamis, no crack in the world (though these did occur on OTHER worlds), and no angry, vengeful demonic aliens to contend with. We, humanity, were the villains and the saviors both. And that was a major point. What kid our basic nature? There's no easy answer.
(I might note that God is not the acting entity in the film, it's future humanity -- if you missed that point it's possible you missed others. Yes, the simple paradox of how humanity evolved to the super entities running the wormhole if there was no original wormhole is a basic -- but many of the best examples of SF have one core nut that you have to swallow to enjoy the rest of the story. Warp drive, etc...)
I'm startled you belittle the film by labeling it stupid. And you're finding religious allegory where I found nothing of the sort, unless you want to worship future humanity...and nobody in the film does that. Yes, the tale of a struggle for enlightenment often is told in a religious context, but here you're not bludgeoned over the head with this as an interpretation.
Interstellar is a film about redemption, a classic core story in mythology and literature. Of families, yes -- characterizations which do not get sold off cheap in order to show you cool little spaceships. The film fleshes the characters out nicely, and gives them an understandable motivation. Nearly every character has a personal motivation based upon a familial connection. It isn't about saving mankind, it's about saving their families. Their loved ones. The grand story of human salvation gives way in favor of the more intimate one: personal salvation.
The values in this film are easily spotted, whether you agree with them or not. It's a simplistic comment to reduce the entirety of your experience and assessment to "it's stupid".
You may not have liked the film, but mocking it for stupidity when it comes across to a lot of people -- intelligent ones like Neil Degrasse Tyson -- as far more serious and intelligent than most films in the genre, is difficult to understand.
All I need is a change of clothes, my Nikon, an open mind and a strong cup of coffee.