Time Travel discussion

As usual, details are mysterious with a Chris Nolan movie. Absolutely no suggestion of time travel in this teaser but the film is billed as one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyc6RJ...

What Nolan expertises in is taking an outlandish scifi or comic book caper concept and grounds it in reality.

This time its time travel. Anyone read Timescape by Gregory Bensford? For me that was the most realistic depiction of time travel and this film gives me that same vibe. The teaser also reminds me of The Right Stuff.

Okay. I went and saw this tonight. All I can say is wow. Mind blown. This was right up my alley. As a time travel fan and a fan of space exploration, this was a home run. Solid, compelling acting, some great twists, and really heartfelt emotion. It gets five stars from me. As soon as it was over I already wanted to see it again. Relish the first viewing though. There is some really great suspense and more than a few fun twists to enjoy being surprised with. It will keep your mind engaged with the fundamentals of time travel too.

I also saw this yesterday.

I tried hard not to have too high expectations for the film but I failed miserably. With Nolan's incredible portfolio and my love for scifi at the movies, my expectations were too high and that can only lead to disappointment...

....only it didnt.

As Nathan says, WOW

Just wow.

I will humbly say this was the greatest piece of transcendental hardcore science fiction cinema I have experienced in a long time, perhaps ever in my personal cinema going life if I exclude cinema re-releases of Blade Runner and 2001 (never saw them on their original release) and giving that i see 80-100 films a year at the cinema, I never miss a Sci Fi movie good or bad and this one towers above all of them.

But more importantly for us Time travel fans, this for me is one of the greatest time travel movies ever made because its the most realistic. If time travel ever existed this is the the only way it can be done.


At least that's how I felt as I came out of the cinema. But its how I feel then is what matters most. When I see it again next week, its possible I may not feel the same way or I may love it more. It depends on how much more of the story I can grasp because to be honest, I didnt actually get a quarter of whats going on which I will explain why later. Yet, yet the film still blew me away.

It does not mean it will be my most rewatchable. I would probably see a great deal more of lesser sci fi movies more times than this, films such as Star Trek movies, Aliens, Back to the Future etc because they just have that fun or adrenaline feeding rewatchable factor. Interstellar, on the other hand is a film I will watch once or twice more because its true cosmic power is in its first viewing, thanks to the masterful narrative.

In all honesty, in the first quarter of the movie, I got angry. The film was taking absurd directions with logic and sensibility in its plausibility (in the context of what I thought this movie will be about). I kept thinking what the hell is this film doing, this is not what I was expecting but I went with the flow and resigned myself to just enjoy the journey and let it roll with whatever it has to deliver. There is some truly exotic theoretical science going on throughout the film as well as some absurd "anomolies".

And then came the last act which truly blew my mind as everything I critised about its narrative during my viewing was suddenly justified. This is the Nolan Brothers writing at their absolute finest.

As usual I say nothing about the story, I will even assume you never even watch the trailers. That's what I do. I avoid all trailers for movies. But I have now seen the trailers for this film and I can happily say there is much more to the film than what the trailers show. But really, I would like to champion the habit of not watching trailers. Taking this as an example, many elements that the trailer showed came as a wondeful giddying surprise to me. Even mediocre films can be enjoyed so much more.

There is a clear emulation of Kubrick's 2001:ASO in terms of ambience right down to some very obvious nods in the soundtrack, visuals and props...not so subtle, in fact I dare say very arrogant. There is just so many parallels I can draw between the two films. However, this film has a far more broader audience appeal. Ignoring its auteuristic position in the all time greats, 2001 A Space Odyssey is a very acquired taste and while Nolan has an equally "cold" style of film making, he does inject more humour and audience pleasing character play in this film, moreso than Kubrick's very precise mechanical approach (masterful though Kubrick's style is).

The soundtrack was superb although once again as with every bloody Nolan film, they dont get the sound mix right and it sometimes drowns the dialogue and this is the flipping reason why I think I missed a chunk of plot. Its bloody amazing I still enjoyed the film as much as I did, I guess that reinforces the mark of a great script. Quite often the base tones are really heavy, inducing so much vibrations that I thought I mistakenly sat in one of my screen's D-Box chair (a hydraulics chair many of our cinemas in UK installed). If this film actually does utilise D-box, then I can imagine it will be a helluva ride. But I loved the base and the soundtrack, its fantastic, adds to the cinematic experience...if only it didnt bloody rob me off hearing a lot of the dialogue. Especially McConaughey's who once again drawls at such a low frequency and strong southern accent, I depended on facial expressions and other characters' reactions to try get a gist of what the bloody hell he was mumbling. I must add however, that when watching Nolan movies on Blu ray, I do not have anywhere as much difficulty. The problem is simply accentuated with most cinemas' acoustics.

Another thing about the soundtrack is that its part the usual Nolan/Zimmer collaboration and er, part Space Odyssey cd ripping!Yeah I know. But hey I am in the cinema to enjoy an experience so do what the hell you like, Nolan, just entertertain me, I let the Strauss thing go man, at least you used it in the right places and I actually really dug it but dont overdo it now...wait, why am I suddenly talking to Nolan? Sorry guys, just be prepared for some of those large "nods" to 2001, I hope you can enjoy those moments and not criticise its extensiveness (justifiable though it maybe to do so).

VIsually, the cinematogrphy is breathtaking....but you know what, the actual visual effects were surprisingly reigned in. This is not as visually bombastic as its potential holds. Much like Inception, Nolan doesnt seem to take advantage of the potential his high concept movies can be in the visual stakes. Its probably an artistic deliberation to avoid too much grandeur and keeping plausible "reality" in check as much as possible and I appreciate that its just I found that a shame in the excellent Inception and I find it a shame here too. That's not to say there isnt any grand visual moments, there were, I just think there could have been more ooomph to it but that misgiving I have about the visuals is more than compensated by the majestic narrative drive which make those visuals effective enough to have my heart pounding.

Matthew McConaughey is fantastic in the lead and the rest of the excellent cast do their bit but no one is particularly outstanding they all simply serve the narrative because that is the real star of the show which truly makes this great cinema.

One thing to be clear about, this is hardcore thought provoking sci fi with minimal action...I repeat minimal action. A good deal more than Kubick's 2001 yes but it aint your typical Star Trek movie.

One more element I will like to cover. The Science and plausibility in fictional context.

As a recent amateur astronomer hobbyist in the last couple of years, (hence my unfortunate decrease of time to spend on here :( ), I have been immersed in an environment of very serious astronomers who largely scorns bad science in science fiction especially when such films are trying to be plausible. But I am a movie lover first and foremost where unrealistic science never bothered me as long as there is a great narrative to justify liberties taken. But having bizarrely surrounded myself amongst these smart people by which I stand out like a sore thumb being the divvie that I am (though they still accepted me as a volunteer committee member at Royal Observatory Greenwhich), I have unwittingly being influenced in being more conscience and unwantedly affected by the plausibility of science in films and so unfortunately I find myself scrutinising the hardcore science in this film...at least the parts which I can bloody hear. While there is some lovely proper theoretical physics talk going on, there is an equal amount of mumbo jumbo mixed in...while I tut tut, deep down I still love it and my true nature still comes out, its the movies, man!

Which brings me to a conclusion that this film is part transcendant scifi and part B-Movie for all that extremely exotic theoretical science. Its also quite emotional...what? Nolan doing emotional?! No, really its true,

So I have given a lot of negative thoughts about it yet my reaction was WOW just wow best sci fi best time travel blah blah. I am still bouncing with joy from it. I had a truly magnificent ride on it and will see it again next week with different company. It is one of the greatest time travel movies I have ever seen. It is a flawed movie yet its spectacle, emotional impact and epic canvas far far outweighs its arrogance in its science plot and "tibutes" to Kubrick's 2001.

9/10

Tej, I can second that about the trailers. I was happily surprised that the trailers did not give away all the content or even all of the main characters. So many trailers ruin the suspense whereas these actually aided the suspense. They made you curious and then the film delivered so much more. That's how it should be done. A lot of care was obviously spent on that.

Absolutley. Everytime I go to the cinema, I either put my music headphones on during the trailers or if with company, talk to them and if they get annoyed and want to see the trailers I excuse myself to get everyone some more edibles from the foyer!

Trailers do give away too much. Its a double edged sword though, trailers serve to market a film and give an audience a feel for whether its their cup of tea or not. But if one is invested in seeing a film already from synopsis or cast and crew pedigree, its absolutely pointless to watch trailers.

I basically want to be surprised from page 1 of a book or first act of a movie.

Just viewed the film last night. Nolan has made something wonderful. One thing has been bugging me, and it led me here. Tej, you called in in your initial post, Timescape. Is it me or was Benford's novel canabalized and refitted for a Hollywood Sci-Fi blockbuster.
Not just the time travel/communication aspect, but the ecological and climate-related plot points such as the "blight" (bloom in Timescape) causing famine.
Anyone else get this feeling?

Hi Tsolyankee, I'm not sure what you mean by cannibalised, it could well have some influence in my view but in all honesty, Interstellar probably has nothing original to offer if one is to hunt down every piece of past literature and find every element of Interstellar, somewhere. Its not about how original ideas and concepts are when enjoying a movie but how well they are implemented, cooked and served. As with all pieces of fiction, it in turn would have been influenced by works of Clarke, Isimov etc.

(view spoiler)[ Tachyons is often used as a means of time travel communication in fiction (imo not often enough!) which Timescape in my view uses to the greatest effect than any other piece of science fiction. Interstellar uses it as a prop for the last act to serve as an exhilarating twist narrative. Beautifully done, I thought. (hide spoiler)]

So unless I am not grasping your whole train of thought, I wouldn't really say Interstellar is cannibalising, it certainly is heavily "tributing" 2001 with a certain arrogance but in terms of science fiction concepts, no book or film should ever have claim to own a concept or idea. Fiction will never blossom without using ideas and concepts from past literature. And in fairness no one ever does. What would the world be like if we only had one flavoured cake...or worse the concept of baking a cake be copyrighted by one individual...terrible analogy but you get my drift :)

I cant quite remember the cause of the ecological breakdown in Timescape but I take your word for it. But again, it is a concept that many people would share and should be used in fiction even more to balance with other more popular climate breakdown scenarios we see in countless novels and films.

Those are my personal thoughts and oh welcome to the Time Travel group! Hope you stick around, there is so much great discussions and activities here that I think you will enjoy :)

Hi Florian

PLEASE put your post in spoiler tags. You are spoiling a major plot twists for those who have not seen the film.

If you are unsure how to use spoiler tags, here is a short tutorial

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Thanks

Sorry, I am posting rarely, so I completly forgot about spoilers.

There are three temporal paradoxes in the movie (one of them not fulfilled):
(view spoiler)[ 1) The traveler from the future tries to stop himself to leave the planet. He ignore his own "stay" message, so not fulfilled.
2) The same traveler send to himself NASA coordinates so he can leave the planet (not really consistent with the stop before), so he leaves the planet based on those coordinates.
3) It a slight message that the "library" was created by humans trying to save themselves from extinction.
(hide spoiler)]

Hi Florian, these are my interpretations:

(view spoiler)[

1. So in this scene, we see Couper might actually think that he is in an eternal grave trapped in a black hole bubble below the event horizon, so spontaneously he tries to send the STAY message just out of desperation and not thinking things through about his situation. This is before he realises the robot is present. So not a paradox in this case because no change is being made to the timeline.

2. Dont really understand what the paradox you are referring to here, FLorian, sorry. Are you saying the coordinates were different? Yes, Couper realises its him that brings the humans to the black hole system BUT its the fifth dimension aliens that are steering their fate.

3. I think the library is actually created by aliens from a fifth dimension according to the Robot's explanation, created from Couper's memories. In the fifth dimension, time is "simply" a traversible 4th dimension in all directions. The aliens can't make direct contact but they can create these wormhole blackhole bubbles (this is where scifi imagination takes the reigns!). So its the fifth dimension aliens that are trying to save humankind from extinction...why on earth they elected to create a wormhole for them leading to a bloody supermassive blackhole system of planets, is a flipping bizarre choice!...having said that, its probably because the blackhole was their means of their limited interaction to humankind dimension)


I will say, that Of all the time travel concepts, the "loop" time travel as we see played out in this film and most other time travel movies/books is the most ridicuous in my opinion. However, it is the most entertaining and fun time travel scenario to play with in fiction and thats why I still absolutely love them despite my thoughts of their ridiculousness. Basically, I just dont like the idea of reactions causing actions...makes no sense. I love it in this film however because you have the fifth dimensional aliens steering the loop. Otherwise, realistically, if time travel did exist, I believe any changes made would create a new timeline. What happens to the old timeline? Well either it doesnt exist or still exists in parallel. At least its logical. Loops are just not logical but are so damn fun to read and watch.

(hide spoiler)]

So those are my thoughts but I dont quite understand your number 2 point?

I saw the movie last night, and I thought it was a masterpiece until the last half hour. Here's my review http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2014... Ironically, the one part I didn't especially like was how the time travel was handled. Otherwise, it's a magnificent film.

Tej, I walked away from the first viewing under the impression that (view spoiler)[ there weren't any fifth dimensional aliens after all. Instead it was implied that the "aliens" were actually the future of the human race who had learned to master space and time and thus created the infinite world of the daughter's room and allowed the communication across time for our traveler. It's definitely an ontological paradox since the cause happens after the effect, but I still liked it. (hide spoiler)] I am going to see it again tomorrow afternoon so I will let you know if I get something different from it after the second viewing, now that I know what I am looking for.

Nice review, Paul.

Thanks, Nathan.

spaghettification its a real scientific term!!

(view spoiler)[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGn_w... (hide spoiler)]

PS to Nathan - I had the same impression as you describe in your spoiler.

Nathan wrote: "Tej, I walked away from the first viewing under the impression that [spoilers removed] I am going to see it again tomorrow afternoon so I will let you know if I get something different from it afte..."

Gosh, if I have misinterpretated that ending then I will be so disappointed if it is as you say...curse the flipping sound problems! I will be seeing it again too tomorrow, coincidentally, so we'll see what more plot we summise from it! Or in my case re-interpret.

Tej
(view spoiler)[I simplified a bit the last two points.
For the third one we know, for most of the movie, that the library is an alien artifact. Close to the end, the main character states that the library is created by humans, but nothing else comes to prove any of the two possibilities.
For the second one, the NASA facility coordinates were sent via the library. No other information is provided (in the first case, the “stay” message, we know for sure who sent it). So here we can have two versions too. Another small detail here: this message was not sent using Morse but binary code, so...
(hide spoiler)]

Here's an interview with Christopher Nolan and the cast of Interstellar http://paullev.tumblr.com/post/103174...

That's a great interview. Thanks Paul!

Any time, Nathan!

Saw it yesterday. Slightly annoyed by some of the ordinary everyday Newtonian laws being stretched and some other inconsistencies. However, (view spoiler)[I actually really enjoyed the fact that he'd instructed himself to stay and then gone back on that decision because the suddenness and unlikelihood of him suddenly finding the NASA facility and being given the plum job had niggled me from the start. This was a more than satisfactory explanation for it. It wasn't a paradox - it was surely his own indecision as he came to realise that he was there to complete a mission that he put himself on. (hide spoiler)]

However, it was a terrific piece of cinema and I wish I'd seen it at an IMAX in 3D. The juxtaposition of (view spoiler)[ the fight to the death on Mann's planet and the fight back on Earth was masterful directing. I agree that there was a nod to 2001. You might notice that the final note of Also Sprach Zarathrustra was the opening note of when Cooper is 'reborn' after coming back via the singularity and that it was played on an organ (or a synth that sounded like full church organ). (hide spoiler)]

Just popping back in her, about Timescape - I loved it. But, if I remember correctly, isn't it primarily about communication from the future to the past, not strictly time travel? (Though, I guess it is, under that large umbrella.)

Paul wrote: "Just popping back in her, about Timescape - I loved it. But, if I remember correctly, isn't it primarily about communication from the future to the past, not strictly time travel? (Though, I gue..."

Yes it is as strictly as you remembered ;) But it certainly falls fully under time travel imo and you can close that umbrella a little more too! Once there is an instant interaction between two different time periods, regardless if the traveller is a dog, cat, human or Mr Tachyon, its a time travel novel/movie (as long as the time travel element is a prominent theme).

BTW I brought up Timescape in the very first post of creating this thread when I discovered the Interstellar had time travel in the IMDB keywords, absolutely nothing else was known about its storyline at the time as is the case with most Nolan films.

The reason I brought up Timescape was because Nolan has an ability to marry high concepts from Comic book super heroes to crazy fringe science onto a real world platform. In other words if Batman really could exist, he would exist as depicted in Nolan's Dark Knight.

And so with Timescape, I just wanted to convey that the novel depicted time travel (albeit by theoritcal subatomic particle communication) as the realistic possibility in a real world premise.

A year later, having now seen seen Interstellar, turns out Nolan continued his "if it could happen, it would happen like this" streak, this time giving us the most realistic plausibility of time travel. Otherwise, it shares absolutely nothing else with Timescape, lol!

Good points - and, as I also pointed out in my review (link above), there's a big Frequency element in Interstellar, too.

Saw it today in the IMAX theater at the Uvar-Hazdy Air & Space Museum in Virginia. Wow, very good! You're not going to get quantum physics and astrophysics better in Hollywood.

Actually Brenda, interstellar may have taken a leaf out of your book, Revise the World which i thought shared a common theme of love transcending space and time :)

I saw it on Sunday and OMG, there were terrible feelings of deja vu! But I will say that these tropes date back at least two generations -- before us all, Robert Heinlein was doing it. (DOOR INTO SUMMER immediately comes to mind.) Everybody knows that when you steal, steal from a master.

I've written a short review of the movie but it will not go up at the Book View Cafe blog until December. The review this week will be of BIRDMAN.