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"Why did she remain so angry and resentful of him for so long? It's clear that professor Brand took Murph under his wing, and she actually devoted her life to working for NASA on the same exact project that Cooper left to be a part of, so why didn't she eventually come around to seeing the importance of what he was doing and forgive him for leaving? "
She forgives Brand for sending her father on the mission, but she doesn't forgive her father for going".
Good point, I didn't get it either....and this has been mentioned quite a bit online.
I think despite the obvious fact she was fully engaged in the work for the elder Dr. Brand - she still harbored resentment for her father leaving, which can only be explained when Dr. Brand had that death bed confession to her, then, well, you can understand how she felt thinking her father had left her knowing that there was an underlying hopelessness to her life time dedicated to solving something that had no solution and her father left her - knowing that as well.
"And then after everything, when the two are finally reunited, which is the main thing they both have wanted for the entire movie, they only spend about a minute together before they agree he should take off to go find astronaut Brand. "
Also mentioned quite a bit online, and I was asking myself the same question....awkward to say the least!
And maybe that was the point. As his daughter said on her deathbed..."No parent should have to see his child die..." But he was forgiven for leaving and she lived long enough to reconcile. Let's face it...this is a weird situation unknown and untested in real life given the nature of what's going on - but a question related to interstellar travel that would have to be asked...that is, if it was even possible to do it anyway. I have a mother in memory care in the last stages of Alzheimers and while the situation is different from the one in the movie I was struck by this scene on a personal level.. That said I have no kids, but likewise, I have watched people crying in the theatre over those scenes of the father leaving young Murph......not being a parent, I can't know the feeling but I can understand it. If such things as long term space travel is possible, with the effects of time dilation, this will be virgin ground that no one knows how it will be dealt with.
"I had problems with the motivations and actions of almost every character in the movie. Why did Cooper think astronaut Brand would want him to follow her to the other planet? Didn't she go there to find Edmunds?"
Good question...she was obviously keeping Cooper at a distance on the ship during the voyage. I read a comment online that proposed this question...what if Cooper shows up on Edmunds planet and Edmunds is still alive with Astronaut Brand...happily sitting out the arrival of earth colonizers. He will be like the third wheel on a date. (I got kick out of that - LOL) .
Explanations postulated have suggested his daughter and others knew more about Astronaut Brands situation on Edmunds planet and he was not going uninformed about her lonely situation.
That said....I had a problem with the whole Star Wars look of that last scene, it seemed like a cheap homage to Galatica/Star Wars movies...doning the crash helmet, getting in the X wing fighter, robot taking its place in the back seat....but I really liked the end scene and Zimmer score portraying Astronaut Brands desperate loneliness on that planet.
As Astronaut Mann said upon his own revival after hibernation, no one can know the loneliness of being by yourself for that long, and not even seeing a human face....THAT is the unsettling thought we were left with in the closing scenes...Astronaut Brand, basically stranded, marooned, alone on a planet with a grave and a memory. I was quite moved by that scene.
"Why didn't professor Brand just tell the astronauts that Plan A was doomed? Didn't he think that if they did find a habitable planet, they would try to return and implement hopeless Plan A instead of executing viable Plan B?"
I think Astronaut Mann actually explained that clearly...when Cooper got the message from his daughter asking ...Did you Know? Did you? Plan B in Brand's mind was the only plan...but their was a purpose to Plan A, despite it being a cover story.
Mann looks at an obviously betrayed Brand and astonished Cooper, saying the survivors of earth could not have kept the enterprise together unless they were laboring under a vision and hope, even if it was a false hope.
"Why did Mann think he needed to kill Copper? Didn't he think they would still take him with them even if he admitted he lied?"
Apparently not. After all...he is Astronaut Mann, and Man is evil - LOL. Seriously, I think this was screen writing just to contrast an individual's animal instinct or "wiring" for self preservation at all costs vs. personal sacrifice for the survival of a species."
"And how does killing Cooper get him out of the lie anyway? He was supposedly the best and brightest among them, but he was willing to throw away the whole plan because he was stranded on an uninhabitable planet --- that did not ring true to me."
It doesn't get him out the lie really.
Astronaut Mann - He was considered expendable if the planet was not habitable. And he lied about the data, to get them to come to the planet so he could get off it. For selfish reasons he therefore distracted a crew and a mission simply to save his own skin.
I'd think people leaving their families and taking a risk on a mission with limited resources and few alternatives because of Mann's lie, just might have a problem with that.
The person Mann needed to kill was anyone that figured out that despite Manns' false data Mann's planet was uninhabitable...so the bad news is he eventually would have to get rid of everyone and get to the habitable planet to save his life.
I think he even booby trapped the other robot in the habitat to hide the false data which the black astronaut had discovered.
"Why wouldn't the brother allow his wife and son to get medical treatment?"
Plot device to heighten the tension at the end. Other than heightening the feelings of dislike for his father for leaving him behind as well as his sister, and keeping the subject of parental abandonment at the forefront while they are left to face their demise...totally useless. Annoying and distracting as well. I actually started questioning the rationale of that character at that point.
"I even question the motivations and actions of the super-advanced 5-dimensional humans of the future --- why not just communicate the secret equation or black hole quantum data directly instead of this convoluted plan to get Cooper to go on this journey and communicate it back to himself (which is also a time travel paradox)? "
This was actually explained by Cooper (I didn't catch this dialogue the first time I saw the movie) to Tars in the tesseract, that "they" (the aliens or 5D inhabitants) despite being a super advanced 5D race, couldn't interact directly with people or objects in 3D space, therefore, they needed to have 3D humans to bridge that gap between the dimensions. Well...maybe I buy it. I also noticed that the first thing Cooper did, (once Tars contacted him in the tesseract and Cooper got it together), was to find out if Tars got the quantum black hole data and then assemble the data, (which he will eventually transmit touching gravity waves in the tesseract that interact with the watch on the bookshelf)...and then after confirmation Tars got the data, he asks Tars to get the coordinates for NASA on earth.......I was thinking that he was going to transmit the black hole Quantum date to NASA...but wait...he is sending coordinates for the NASA facility in binary (or morse code, don't recall which one) back to murph in the bedroom. SO, am I to understand this is how Cooper sends the information to Murph and himself to find the remote NASA facility in the old Norad missile silo in the first place ?
This is real bootstrap paradox stuff...in that instance, Nolan turns the entire movie from back to front, and we reconnect with the opening of the movie. The coordinates for NASA are sent in code by gravity waves and I believe this is the hidden message they found in the dust lines settling on the bedroom floor in the beginning of the movie, which leads them to find the NASA site.
You get the feeling yet that Time is has no boundaries and is all happening at once?
I had to hand it to Nolan at this point...he had me in that otherworldly space. My mind was for a moment comprehending the weirdness of multi-dimension time travel and the concept of no absolute time...but alas............only for a moment.
"The fool, the meddling idiot! As though his ape's brain could contain the secrets of the Krell! - Dr. Edward Morbius The Forbidden Planet
"There were a lot of scientific inaccuracies in the movie, but I can usually suspend disbelief enough to overlook those kinds of things for a good story. But the problem for me was that the story itself seemed full of false notes with the characters acting and behaving in ways that did not make sense to me."
He heh don't get me started on that one......not yet anyway.
I got a few more for 'ya but it's getting late.
