While I thoroughly enjoyed Chris Nolan's Interstellar, sometimes good and even great films let you down because they're not the film you wanted or needed.
When I first heard that Nolan was working on a space film, its evocative title had me thinking that this would be a story of humanity building its first starship. I imagined a story about a huge human effort, something along the lines of the Apollo program, but on a much greater scale. I imagined a story of hundreds of thousands - millions - of people from across the world designing, building and launching Earth's first voyage to the stars. I imagined a story sprawling and vast and inspirational, a vision of how the species could work together to achieve true greatness in the spirit of peace, innovation and cooperation. I imagined a trip to Alpha Centauri to see what's there.
Instead, Nolan presented a story in which faster-than-light travel is a fait accompli, a gift from an outside agency, a wormhole tossed as a rescue line. And while that story was worth telling and exciting and enjoyable in its own right, it wasn't the story I expected or desired.
Of course, filmmakers are under no obligation to tell any stories but the ones they've chosen, and Interstellar touched on some important issues with a very SF-nal sense of wonder and social responsibility. And the robots were amazing - as I told Pete and Mike after we saw the film, I could happily watch spin-off movies about these clever creations.
I suppose the interstellar movie I was expecting is too optimistic and starry-eyed for this jaded age of austerity and paranoia. On the other hand, those are just the sort of stories our troubled civilization needs.
When I first heard that Nolan was working on a space film, its evocative title had me thinking that this would be a story of humanity building its first starship. I imagined a story about a huge human effort, something along the lines of the Apollo program, but on a much greater scale. I imagined a story of hundreds of thousands - millions - of people from across the world designing, building and launching Earth's first voyage to the stars. I imagined a story sprawling and vast and inspirational, a vision of how the species could work together to achieve true greatness in the spirit of peace, innovation and cooperation. I imagined a trip to Alpha Centauri to see what's there.
Instead, Nolan presented a story in which faster-than-light travel is a fait accompli, a gift from an outside agency, a wormhole tossed as a rescue line. And while that story was worth telling and exciting and enjoyable in its own right, it wasn't the story I expected or desired.
Of course, filmmakers are under no obligation to tell any stories but the ones they've chosen, and Interstellar touched on some important issues with a very SF-nal sense of wonder and social responsibility. And the robots were amazing - as I told Pete and Mike after we saw the film, I could happily watch spin-off movies about these clever creations.
I suppose the interstellar movie I was expecting is too optimistic and starry-eyed for this jaded age of austerity and paranoia. On the other hand, those are just the sort of stories our troubled civilization needs.
