We’ve spent so much time talking about the space and science of Interstellar that we haven’t touched too much upon what’s actually happening on Earth in Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi drama. The first clip from the movie gives you a better sense of this world’s particular history, and part of what motivates Matthew McConaughey to search out new worlds.
Minor spoilers for Interstellar. If you want to go in totally blind, don’t read on.
We know, from past trailers, that Earth seems to be clogged with an alarming amount of dust. As Michael Caine tells McConaughey, “Your daughter’s generation will be the last to survive on Earth.” But despite watching their future literally close in around them, humans aren’t too keen about going into space. How do we know that? Because they deny that the moon landing ever happened.
As you’ll see in the clip, McConaughey’s daughter’s teacher sits down with him to talk about how his kid shouldn’t be bringing in old textbooks showing the Apollo landings. Instead, schools teach that the Apollo missions were faked in order to bankrupt the Soviet Union. Because that makes so much sense.
Beyond that shocker, the rest of the clip is equally interesting, as McConaughey makes a keen point about the other “useless machines” that the government has done away with.
Interstellar comes out November 7.
So Basically the Future is filled with assholes
@1: Well, the future is filled with assholes no more than the present is filled with assholes. Just check out the comments on Youtube for that clip. Assholery abounds.
Maybe it’s just because it’s a school, and schools have no money. Or… maybe the movie is supposed to take place in the early 90s (though the teacher said the 20th century like is was a while ago, not current). The old-school CRT TV and VRC setup behind McConaughey in that scene also points to some odd luddite thing going on…
Oh, man, I just *knew* that this wasn’t going to be a Nolan film without some tortured rumination on the human compulsion to deceive and be deceived (which is literally central every one of his other movies).
I want to be excited about this movie, but I want to be excited about it because Space Is Awesome And Everything Is Awesome In Space. I don’t want Space Is Awesome But Also Frightening And Everybody Is A Big Fat Liar.
I’ll have to see what the reviews say about it. I’ll hold out hope for the moment, but it’s tough.
@@.-@: That’s sort of where I’m at the moment. I’m looking forward to the visuals; Nolan’s always been good with them, and taking inspiration from Gravity is definitely awesome, but the storyline is inspiring new heights of meh from me. Not only is Nolan potentially retreading thematic ground, he’s using fridged women as the protagonist’s motivation yet again.
@3: Well, it’s definitely near future and I’ve heard nothing to indicate that it’s alternate universe. In the clip he explicitly says that MRIs are not manufactured or used anymore at that point in the future, and there’s definitely some talk in there about how advancing technology led somehow to the global crisis, so it’s positing a near future where at least the Western World has embraced anti-industrialization as a response to devastating climate change. And part of actualizing that world is showing how that mindset has impacted our actual understanding of history. In this future, the Moon Landing Hoax being taught in schools is no crazier than Creation being taught in schools in our actual present.
the movie is supposed to take place in the early 90s (though the teacher said the 20th century like is was a while ago, not current??????
___________
aaaa
@7: The movie does not take place in the early ’90s. It’s set in the future.
An open letter to Mr. Nolan:
You seem to have pitched Interstellar to the segment that hates teachers and liberals and masturbates to pictures of Buzz Aldrin. That’s great, probably, for your ticket sales, but let’s point out a few things here:
1) Your movie is the first mass market consumable that acknowledges humans cannot exist on the planet any longer. And yet who are we trained to hate by this kind of easy manipulative scene? Women, teachers, liberals. The people who had *absolutely nothing to do* with our planet being ruined.
2) The MRI machine, like much of the good stuff that came from the space program, was invented using tax dollars and then spun off to private interest to ensure that we, who paid for it in the first place, would pay for it again and again and again for the rest of our lives while a tiny few who didn’t even fund the R&D got to live off the fat. You get this so wrong it’s laughable.
Stop writing your own movies, because you have absolutely nothing interesting to say. You are not Fincher. You are not an idea man (given your obvious fear of women I hesitate to call you a man at all). “The Prestige” is the only movie of yours that has any intellectual coherence, so just be content making watchable movies from *good* scripts and keep your failed attempts to understand life to yourself.
With relief and gratitude,
We Who Can’t Get Past The Writing
News flash, Mr. Frick (if that is your real name) – the 90s are over, and hardly anybody reading your self-important posturing is likely to take it or you seriously.
“Your movie is the first mass market consumable that acknowledges humans cannot exist on the planet any longer”
Do you understand the difference between fiction and reality? If so, then how do you maintain that a movie can acknowledge anything? If not, then have you considered therapy as a possibility?
“And yet who are we trained to hate by this kind of easy manipulative
scene? Women, teachers, liberals. The people who had *absolutely nothing to do* with our planet being ruined.”
In other words, your complaint is that the movie didn’t have a narrow, laser like focus on being a piece of propoganda for the cause of your choice.
Therapy. Definitely seek therapy.
“given your obvious fear of women I hesitate to call you a man at all”
Yes, because it takes a real man to pick a fight, while hiding behind somebody else’s name. Somehow I doubt that the astronaut who honestly claims your posted name wrote that post, almost as much as I doubt that Nolan will ever see your semi-coherent rant.
How does this movie blame women, teachers, and liberals for ruining the planet? As far as I can tell, the moon landing conspiracy theorists in real life are right-wing men, although women can also be taken in by that kind of nonsense. Given the central role that women play in the plot, I don’t see how it’s aimed at people who hate women. In my view, the film blames the fly-over farm states and “cut government spending at all costs” tea party types. Those are the people who are more likely to deny science and oppose NASA funding.
Frick wrote: “And yet who are we trained to hate by this kind of easy manipulative scene? Women, teachers, liberals.”
PeterA somehow read this as: “And yet who does this movie blame for ruining the planet? Women, teachers, liberals.”
Well, anyway…
“Your movie is the first mass market consumable that acknowledges humans cannot exist on the planet any longer.”
What about WALL-E?
Besides, there are also a couple of decent sci-fi flicks (one from the 1970s, one from 2000s) whose entire plots revolve around overpopulation in the future, resulting in starvation, social descline, and technology sinking into disrepair. But since hardly anyone’s aware of them, maybe they’re not mass-market enough.
So what’s the real story, does Mr. Nolan believe that the first Apollo moon landings were a hoax or not? During the scene McConaughey listens but doesn’t put up resistance by claiming they did happen. Considering McConaughey does later almost supernatural deeds only a fully trained NASA astronaut could come close to perform reminded me a lot of Gene Kranz’ statements why they suceeded with Apollo 11 after a series of failures “We finally got our act together”. It then would seem Mr. Nolan deliberately implemented some very subtle self-irony in his film.
No, the moon landing was real. In this movie, the earth is becoming a uninhabitable planet and people are running out of food, so governments all over the world have decided to encourage people to do farming. Remember the line from the movie? “We need more farmers and fewer engineers”. The textbooks has been revised and changed because the teachings have changed too. The new teachings prioritize farming and taking care of the planet earth more than anything else. “We should teach our kids more about our planet, not tales about leaving it” – Teacher
“Tory Porn: The Hobbesian anti-art of Christopher Nolan”, by Jonathon Sturgeon:
https://thebaffler.com/the-immediate-experience/tory-porn