Inter-not-stellar >:c
You know I had strong opinions about the movie when I have to take it to Tumblr and off of Letterboxd.
I just watched Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, and it was three hours of straight dookie. The dust bowl is one of my favourite historical tragedies, and I don't think I've ever seen such a gross bastardization of the event, and nonetheless one that is the most POPULAR MOVIE ON LETTERBOXD?! Sigh... I'll try to do this semi-chronologically, but take that with a grain of salt cause I'll probably go off the rails. Apologies to my one reader, Natalia :)
The protagonist, Cooper, is framed as some "superior genius". An intellectual who has been confined to a life of... *gulp* farm labour! *gasp* Five minutes in he laments how his generation is forced to "caretake" for the rest. Oh my god, yeah Cooper, thats almost like what having a family is?? Yeah you do have to take care of your kids, you're a grown man, you cant just play rockets all day?
My biggest issue with Cooper, and every other character, is that this movie leaves no room for objectivity. Cooper being better than any caretaking-labourer is not my opinion, its the perspective thrust upon you by the narrative. An example of this is about ten minutes in, when Cooper has a parent teacher interview with his children's, Murphy and Tom's , teachers. The teachers are juxtaposed as these total weak sheeple, compared to the highbrow Cooper. They suggest that in times where people are starving, we don't need more Coopers, we need farmers. Yeah, it sucks that Tom can't go to University, but he says himself he enjoys working on the farm. Maybe unlike his dad, he enjoys caring for his community... After the interview, Cooper sits on the porch with his father in-law, Donald, and tells him about the interview. Donald replies by saying "In my day, it felt like something new was invented everyday. A new gizmo or something". I looked it up on the wiki, and Donald was born between the late 90's early 00's, so we are around the same age. As someone living in the "glory days" that Donald describes, I think Donald is naive and privileged, to be blunt about it. Yeah sure, here in the West it feels like something new is created each day, be it a new AI model or another iPhone. But this innovation comes at a cost. Donald was just fortunate enough to grow up in a part of the world where he wasn't responsible for the physical labour that keeps the innovation going. The dystopian future of Interstellar is just one where Americans are forced to do what the global South already does to keep our lives cushy. Equality feels like oppression to those accustomed to privilege.
A few minutes later Cooper is walking through a lab, when Professor Brand compares this imaginary crop blight to both the dust bowl, and the Irish potato famine. I know it's a small gripe but I found this scene so offensive. Both of these tragedies were man made, and weaponized to exploit working-class people into doing the biding of wealthy higher powers. Comparing these very intentional disasters to something organic is misleading and minimizes the struggle of the poor during both of these events, but as we know this movie doesn't seem to concerned with placing dignity on the lives of the labourer.
I'm biased because of my love for environmental science, but I also just generally disagree with the whole through line of the movie. "Mankind was born here but it was never meant to die here". Says who?! I hate this idea that we should just give up on earth as ecological devastation impedes us and that we should flee. "Never back down never what, never give up :D!" In the movie they try and make the idea of fleeing earth palatable by making the threat some organic blight that we cannot combat. In real life, we know exactly what the problem was and how to solve it. When I was a kid in school and we learned about climate change, we talked about it like the blight in this movie. Global warming seemed like the Loch ness monster: a mythical oddity that just can't stop eating us. I learned a lot more about the environment as I got older (I still have a lot to learn and I'm excited to do so :)) and I learned that its not some cryptic myth, it's a phenomenon fuelled by greed, and concentration of power in the hands of the few. Ironic how Christopher Nolan's second most popular movie is about the creation of the atom bomb, but he still managed to make this movie, where he promotes the idea that ecological demise is an inevitability, and we need to flee. Dude, you made a movie about the most horrific man made ecological disaster in history, pretty sure the atom bomb wasn't naturally occurring. Also I hope anyone who watches this isn't silly enough to believe the lie that if for some reason leaving earth was our only option, that the billionaires are taking us with them. Its easy for Christopher Nolan to imagine being saved by daddy Bezos, when he has a handsome six billion from making stuff like this. "Pleaseeeee mr. billionaire... let me on your shipppppp. I made so many propaganda movies for you! *puppy eyes*" Our asses are getting left on the planet they destroyed to Hunger Games it out.
There are so many other hints that the engineers are morally superior. Like on the ship when Brand says "This ship represents the best of humanity." Why? Because you have the money, education, and resources to set off into space for two years planet hunting? How does that make you more righteous than a poor farmer on earth during the blight. Most people don't have billions lying around to fart around in space, while their families starve. It just keeps pushing the same idea that the intellectuals are more valuable to society than the people who feed, educate, and house them. Who mined the iron for your dad's spaceship Brand? I know your dad wasn't in the Mauritanian iron mines hacking it out of cave walls himself.
The movie circles back on all this towards the end, when Ben Affleck makes them realize that they just need to save the earth, BUT THEY DON'T EVEN COMMIT! The movie ends with Brand still on another planet, just farting around.
Anyways, maybe I'm just being a hater, but this was not my cup of tea. Someday I'll torture myself into finishing Christopher Nolan's entire discography as a punishment after I commit some heinous act. If you want to watch an actually amazingly fire movie about freaky space hallucinations, go for Solaris. And for an accurate and respectful depiction of the dust bowl go with Grapes of Wrath. Okay these are my grand blabberings for the day, buh-baiiii :D
