Analysis of The Strong Points of The Film Interstellar

“A film about cosmology and complex scientific theories whose running time is almost 3 hours does not, even a single time, bore me.”

It can be said that Christopher Nolan, the film director of Interstellar, has successfully awakened audiences’ interest in finding the ‘secret of the universe’ that no one still uncovers. Nolan can alter a boring scientific report about the universe to be a stupendous and drama film. Despite its complex content and long running time, Interstellar is able to entertain the audiences since every part of the film raises thought-provoking questions: the question about time travel, other habitable planets, or even the black holes. Also, Nolan made Interstellar to be sufficiently realistic because every scene about the universe is based on complete cosmological theories.

Therefore, Interstellar is not only about the universe, but it is also about love and faith. A perfect combination between philosophy and science is the strength point of Interstellar. Nolan narrates the story through the different perspectives of characters: Cooper who has to choose between his beloved daughter and humankind, Murph who has lost his father, and Dr. Brand who is brave, but is more emotionally vulnerable than her colleagues. At this point, the audiences can feel characters’ pain, love, and faith. The film illustrates the humans’ emotions that are more complicated than the universe, and teaches us the “lesson of life”.

Here, as mentioned above, the main strength points of this film are “the interesting cosmological theories”, and “the philosophy”.

The Interesting Cosmological Theories

Interstellar is a sci-fi film which is based on complete cosmological theories. Interestingly, many theories that are still questionable, including the Black holes by Hawking, the Fifth dimension and Relativity by Einstein, and the Wormholes by Flamm, are presented in the film. Audiences who understand the background concept of these theories can obviously enjoy the way interstellar illustrates them, but what about those who have no any background? In fact, Interstellar does not require any scientific knowledge since the films itself can clarify these theories by using perfect CGI animation. The theories are explained through visualization, so those who do not have any backgrounds might be also attracted.

Most importantly, although many cosmological theories are just hypotheses, still Nolan presents them and uses “imagination” to continue the theory. This factor is considered to be a strength point of Interstellar as well. The film reflects the Einstein’s notion that “because knowledge is limited, people need to use imagination to give birth to evolution”. No one knows what will happens if a person is travelling through a wormhole or falling into a black hole. However, Nolan uses his imagination based on his scientific knowledge to narrate that Cooper saw his life timeline after got into a black hole. At this point, Nolan doesn’t only spark audiences’ interest about the black hole, but he also takes part in developing the black hole theory. If no one imagines about what is inside the black hole, the theory will be stuck forever.

The Philosophy

Interstellar illustrates the humans’ emotions that are more complicated than the universe. The storyline of this film is about a father who had to leave his daughter in order to find a new habitable planet since the world now faced the end. Although the story plot seems very simple, the minute details create a strong impact to the audiences. For example, watching the scene that Cooper decided to leave his daughter Murph, audiences may have questions “why does he choose to do that?”, or “what is his true purpose?”. Then, the story answers us that Cooper did not undertake the Lazarus mission in order to save mankind, yet he did it for ‘his daughter’. Love is his motivation; love is the crucial key of this travelling.

“Love is beyond time and space.” No matter how long has Cooper left, Murph still had hope that one day her father would come back. “Because my dad promised me.” Promise is faith that connects them together. Although Cooper was millions light years far from earth, he still believed that he would see his daughter again. Also, even though Murph got very old, she didn’t stop believing that her father would come back to her.

This is one of the strength points of Interstellar. The film does not only make the drama plot to entertain the audiences, but it also gives us the lesson of life. “Emotion is the foundation of what makes us human.” Murph and Cooper can finally meet each other because of their love and faith. If we do not have emotions, we will lose our humanity, and suffer the feeling of ‘emptiness’ just like darkness of the black hole.