Interstellar - Part 8

[DA_Champion]

That was not what he said.

Thanks.

People have all sorts of reasons for not liking movies.

Among those, there is a heavy dose of anti-intellectuality in some of the Interstellar reviews. "**** this movie! It's for geeks!"

 

[Anita18]

I hope Nolan stays on his current course .
You don't learn anything if you don't take risks .

That's what the entire film is about too.

I don't rule out Interstellar having good legs but Inception good legs? Inception had July weekdays, is a more fun film and Inception didn't face a film like Mockingjay in it's 3rd weekend. We will see but I'd be shocked if Interstellar's legs were as good as Inception. I'll give it a 3.5 multiplier but as I said I'll be shocked if it has much better legs than that.

Inception also had that killer last shot, that ensured water cooler talk for months. And MUCH better trailers - I always felt the trailers for Interstellar were really weak, even by Nolan's standards.

Even so, with a relatively weak box office for Interstellar, I don't think Nolan has anything to worry about. He's always struck me as a realist, and works with what he's got. If he doesn't get carte blanche after this, he probably won't go on an artistic freefall trying to reclaim his former glory or anything like that.

 

[DA_Champion]

Interstellar is also competing with Big Hero Six, and soon, Hunger Games 3.

 

[kvz5]

I'm not worried. Nolan will get his revenge when his next film is a Disney kid/family movie.

 

[PWN3R]

Saw it. Loved it. So many things I could talk about but I got a kick out of TARS and the robots. I love how they were essentially "monolith" looking robots reminding you constantly of 2001 and HAL, yet they were the best bros anyone could ask for. I want my own TARS.

However one of the biggest surprises for me was Hans Zimmer. Over the past few years, and especially since Inception, Zimmer has played it safe. He is this massive household name. Everyone can spot a Zimmer score, blah blah. Eventually all his scores sound alike or everyone else copies them. Not that they're bad, they're just nothing special. Thinking of Man of Steel specifically. It's good but typical playing it safe Zimmer.

His score for this is absolutely wonderful. A huge departure and it's unique and a perfect fit. That docking sequence? The organs? JESUS CHRIST. Hans Zimmer still got it, that beautiful man.

 

[rickfox]

The problem with Nolan's films isn't a problem with him or his movies, it's the problem with American audiences. This is now a time where people want:

- Comedy
- Simple
- Lighthearted
- Fast-Paced
- Silly

Christopher Nolan provides NONE of these things.

The films that provide that list of criteria are Guardians of the Galaxy, Big Hero 6, anything by Marvel Studios, Transformers, Fast & Furious... That's just the world now, and that's the mass audience.

Nolan's problem is that he's trying to make big movies with mass appeal. He should stop doing that. People either don't get it, they don't care, or they're bored. He needs to make small, independent movies and reach out to a niche crowd instead of trying to please everyone in the world.

He needs to pull a Darwinism, basically: He should do his own thing, completely off the radar, and certain people will flock to it - but not everybody. You either go or you don't, and there isn't a $200 million budget at stake. That's the whole reason why Following and Memento put him on the map in the first place. Unless Nolan straight up does a big dumb comedy, his career will be in decline, and it's starting with this movie. Interstellar truly is a masterpiece, but most people don't really care about stuff like that anymore. Most masterpieces that are made anymore are released during Awards season which were made for a tenth of the budget of Interstellar, and nobody in America sees those films because they're written intelligently and treat cinematography and acting with extreme importance.

In short: Nolan is playing to the wrong crowd. He's making the wrong movies for the wrong people. He needs to make small movies for smart people instead of huge movies for the masses.

ok, perhaps you are right,

same thing for many people in my nation -- they only can be entertained with those 5 elements you listed above

 

[Marvin]

Weird question to ask.

it was wasn't it.

 

[Mysteryman]

Any word on what Nolan is doing next?

Personally , I would like to see him get that Howard Hughes project off the ground .

 

[terry78]

I'd be curious to see how he does an adventure film. Not a comic adaptation or a sci-fi based mind****, but a straightforward adventure based movie. Not his wheelhouse, but therein lies the challenge.

 

[The Shape]

Even so, with a relatively weak box office for Interstellar, I don't think Nolan has anything to worry about. He's always struck me as a realist, and works with what he's got. If he doesn't get carte blanche after this, he probably won't go on an artistic freefall trying to reclaim his former glory or anything like that.

He definitely has nothing to worry about, and I wouldn't call box office "relatively weak", all things considered. We're also one weekend in, and there's a lot that has to play out in terms of Interstellar's performance. I imagine it'll have a really solid shelf life both in theaters and on home video. For a non-sequel, non-franchise film, this will be about as much of a slam dunk as it gets when all is said and done.

From Forbes:

Chris Nolan’s Interstellar has earned $52.15 million since opening on Tuesday, and believe you me it’s a lot more complicated than that. The $165 million adventure had a somewhat odd unique schedule, going out in 249 film-only theaters and racking up around $2.15 million prior to its national roll-out on Thursday at 8:00pm, where it grabbed another $2.7m from pre-release previews. The Paramount (Viacom VIAB -0.25% Inc.) release earned $17m on Friday and then pulled a strong 2.9x weekend multiplier for a straight $50m Fri-Sun frame. Said multiplier is good, but frankly it’s below the likes of Gravity (3.2x but with a much shorter running time) and Inception (3x, but with a more crowd-pleasing marketing campaign and a bigger movie star at the helm) although neither film had that whole early sneak preview thing sucking up weekend grosses. The Matthew McConaughey/Anne Hathaway/Jessica Chastain/Michael Caine outer-space adventure has earned $52m at the end of its full launch, which is still among the bigger debuts for a “not based on anything” live-action adventure.

I would argue that Interstellar, which has somber, “why so serious?” sequences of scientific debate, family trauma, and coldly analytic space exploration as opposed to shoot-outs, car chases, and zero-gravity fisticuffs, isn’t as explicitly as commercial a film as Inception. And McConaissance or not, Matthew McConaughey isn’t the mega movie star that Leonardo DiCaprio was in 2010 and still is today, nor is he a comparable draw to Sandra Bullock in relation to Gravity. All of this is meant to highlight that it’s no tragedy that Interstellar‘s debut weekend ended up well below Inception or short of Gravity.

 

[The Shape]

I need Nolan to do a small-scale thriller or murder mystery next.

 

[Octoberist]

I'd be curious to see how he does an adventure film. Not a comic adaptation or a sci-fi based mind****, but a straightforward adventure based movie. Not his wheelhouse, but therein lies the challenge.

like what I've said many times, adventure movies need a come back because it's pretty much dead at the moment. Not to be confused with action movies, mind you.

 

[sycore]

They referring to a "Blight" , a disease that was slowly killing all crops but gave no further explanation, I wanted more detail.

They mentioned something about to much nitrogen in the air, I think. Don't know if it was and organism eating the crops and producing it or what, but they said the Murphy's generation would suffocate before they died of starvation.

 

[AnneFan]

His score for this is absolutely wonderful. A huge departure and it's unique and a perfect fit. That docking sequence? The organs? JESUS CHRIST. Hans Zimmer still got it, that beautiful man.

I think he used the organs for the connotations of being in the heavens. I've looked up an experiment which was conducted, and pipe organ music gave people particular feelings. Namely extreme sense of sorrow, coldness, anxiety and even shivers down the spine.

 

[scifiwolf]

Loved this movie. It just dropped the mic on the scifi genre. I can't add much more than that. Everything was just spot on.

 

[Sun_Down]

It was a quintessential Nolan movie: expert direction, fantastic performances from a great cast, visually impressive, and a plot that invariably goes a little wonky. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and the IMAX experience was great.

 

[mclay18]

Thanks.

People have all sorts of reasons for not liking movies.

Among those, there is a heavy dose of anti-intellectuality in some of the Interstellar reviews. "**** this movie! It's for geeks!"

I really like the ideas presented in Interstellar, great acting and it has some great scenes -- but it didn't deliver for me. The plot of the film revolves around heavy science and space-time continuums... and it lost me. And as I mentioned in my earlier posts, McConaughey just didn't feel right in the lead. Had Nolan written Chastain as the true lead of the film, it would go over much better. She's great.

But yeah, the legs for this will be interesting. It'll make its money back worldwide, but it may sour some people on Nolan's next movie.

 

[Keyser Soze]

The problem with Nolan's films isn't a problem with him or his movies, it's the problem with American audiences. This is now a time where people want:

- Comedy
- Simple
- Lighthearted
- Fast-Paced
- Silly

Christopher Nolan provides NONE of these things.

The films that provide that list of criteria are Guardians of the Galaxy, Big Hero 6, anything by Marvel Studios, Transformers, Fast & Furious... That's just the world now, and that's the mass audience.

Nolan's problem is that he's trying to make big movies with mass appeal. He should stop doing that. People either don't get it, they don't care, or they're bored. He needs to make small, independent movies and reach out to a niche crowd instead of trying to please everyone in the world.

He needs to pull a Darwinism, basically: He should do his own thing, completely off the radar, and certain people will flock to it - but not everybody. You either go or you don't, and there isn't a $200 million budget at stake. That's the whole reason why Following and Memento put him on the map in the first place. Unless Nolan straight up does a big dumb comedy, his career will be in decline, and it's starting with this movie. Interstellar truly is a masterpiece, but most people don't really care about stuff like that anymore. Most masterpieces that are made anymore are released during Awards season which were made for a tenth of the budget of Interstellar, and nobody in America sees those films because they're written intelligently and treat cinematography and acting with extreme importance.

In short: Nolan is playing to the wrong crowd. He's making the wrong movies for the wrong people. He needs to make small movies for smart people instead of huge movies for the masses.

I think you're off-base here. I love Christopher Nolan's work, he's one of my favourite directors, but I don't think he has an issue with making films that are too intellectual and arthouse for wide audiences. One of his big strengths is taking big ideas and high concepts and packaging them into very palpable, accessible bundles that a mainstream audience can enjoy. He's someone who makes excellent genre blockbusters.

Interstellar does have some heady concepts, so I can imagine that might play some part in not everyone loving it. But, speaking as someone who generally liked the film, I do feel there are other reasons not to like the film than "It was too smart/not dumb and funny enough for me."

 

[Keyser Soze]

Also, slight tangent, I liked Interstellar but MAN... tonight I sat and watched Snowpiercer on Netflix on my little laptop screen and it ended up totally upstaging Interstellar on IMAX.

 

[Steyin]

Well, this wasn't horrible, but a little disappointing. I was hoping this film would be more ambiguous, but it was pretty straightforward. It didn't quite have the emotional impact it should have, or was aiming for, but if anything, it makes it clear to me that we as a civilization are doomed.

Kind of feels like Nolan is losing his touch personally. 6/10

 

[Mysteryman]

I have not seen Snowpiercer.
What did it for you ?
The performances?
The story?
The visual effects?
All of the above?

 

[Keyser Soze]

I don't think we should be writing Christopher Nolan's obituary quite yet. Interstellar is still on course to do gonzo box office, and this is still a great film that's maybe a little less great than the last several films he's made. He doesn't need to rethink his strategy for filmmaking. If he just keeps with the ambitious filmmaking, and being a champion of cinema of ideas being told on a massive, IMAX-level scale, he shouldn't go far wrong.

 

[Keyser Soze]

I have not seen Snowpiercer.
What did it for you ?
The performances?
The story?
The visual effects?
All of the above?

All of the above, really. It's apples and oranges with Interstellar, really. Interstellar is a very polished, very earnest film playing on a huge canvas for a very wide, mainstream audience. Whereas Snowpiercer is a bit of an oddball, red-headed stepchild, the latest creation of Bong Joon-ho, who has established himself as one of the most offbeat auteurs around. Even in concept, Interstellar's scale is vast and infinite whereas just about everything in Snowpiercer is confined to narrow carriages. It's expansive VS intimate, classic VS eccentric.

 

[Snow Queen]

I liked Snowpiercer, though definitely preferred Interstellar.

 

[Mysteryman]

Well, this wasn't horrible, but a little disappointing. I was hoping this film would be more ambiguous, but it was pretty straightforward. It didn't quite have the emotional impact it should have, or was aiming for, but if anything, it makes it clear to me that we as a civilization are doomed.

Kind of feels like Nolan is losing his touch personally. 6/10

I watch a lot of science shows .
I see a lot of stuff about potential cosmic catastrophes that will destroy The Earth in billions of years .
But , what if we knew the world could end in our lifetime?
How would that affect our choices , both as a species and as individuals ?
To me thats what the movie was about.
but , I hope you are wrong about civilization being doomed.