Interstellar - Wow.

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I've been re-thinking the second series of "WFT" events closer to the end. I now realize it could be explained plausibly. But it had not occurred to me till today. So, yes, the movie did recover from that too.

I can't even say what my theory is (yet, as it would be a spoiler). Only that there is a quote by Arthur C. Clarke that is most appropriate.

Even Neil deGrasse Tyson might be OK with the theory. Of course that would depend on accepting one key piece of .... something.... which might be impossible. But 99.999 percent impossible still means possible.

- George Gassaway
 
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These are reasonably recent original designed rockets by me. What's your point?

View attachment 246118 View attachment 246119

My point is that I expected better.

Both of your rockets have their merits, but I can still compare their overall "goodness of design and construction" in my eyes. Subject matter differences don't prohibit me from comparing Interstellar and Inception.

If I compared Interstellar with a romcom, maybe you'd have a point, but there's no reason why we should build a wall around movies set in space separating them from the rest of science fiction.
 
My point is that I expected better.

Both of your rockets have their merits, but I can still compare their overall "goodness of design and construction" in my eyes. Subject matter differences don't prohibit me from comparing Interstellar and Inception.

If I compared Interstellar with a romcom, maybe you'd have a point, but there's no reason why we should build a wall around movies set in space separating them from the rest of science fiction.



Comparing Nolan to Nolan...ok.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people expected better from Kubrick when "Eyes Wide Shut" came out.
I know I did.
All Kubrick's movies were different from each other as well.

I'm going to watch Inception as soon as I can get it.
I heard Nolan set the bar high with that one and his later Dark Knight movies did not even compare favorably to his own work.

My brother, devout Sci-Fi fan that he is, saw Inception and told me some scenes were very very impressive visually, but at the conclusion he was asking himself, WTF was that all about.
And he isn't easily befuddled by movies.
Looking forward to viewing it.
 
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My brother, devout Sci-Fi fan that he is, saw Inception and told me some scenes were very very impressive visually, but at the conclusion he was asking himself, WTF was that all about.
And he isn't easily befuddled by movies.
Looking forward to viewing it.

No, it is very obvious that we, the viewer, don't quite know for sure. But the conclusion, one way or the other, is clear.
 
I'll add my perspective on IS, not that I expect it to matter to anyone else.

Entertaining, for sure.
Too loud in the theater, as others have said.
The science was spot on, for a while. Then it just became an action/fantasy/art piece where anything can happen (and it didn't need to do that, IMO).
When the science went awry, it was distracting to me. First offense was: a massive rocket was needed to leave Earth. After that, no rockets necessary.
Another sci-fi movie where there are no people of color in the future. Ok, there's one, but you know they are destined to die before it's over. I wish we could tell sci-fi stories that portray more than one demographic existing in the future.
It was engaging, but it didn't need to be nearly 3 hours long. Some of those scenes went on too long.
Nolan has obviously done hallucinogenic drugs. Only somebody who's dropped acid or the like would be able to conjure up such things. If you're gonna "go there" then don't call it a black hole. We know what black holes do and it ain't that.

I'm also interested to hear what NdGT has to say about the science in this one.
 
Also, as others have said, lots of parallels to the Kubrick film. Very derivative imagery and plot.
 
Spacecraft on display at Udvar Hazy - IMAX Movie Theatre
Check out this video on YouTube:

[video=youtube;EmbJd3C9OLs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmbJd3C9OLs&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/video]

[video=youtube;Py3WDMalpdI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py3WDMalpdI&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/video]
 
The movie was very well done and any rocket geek would like it. It had a great deal of science explicitly discussed and I was glad to have a degree in Physics to get it all, but it wouldn't keep the regular viewer from following the movie; they may learn something. My teenage son did. There were a lot of similarities to 2001, some to Gravity and Prometheus and of course The Black Hole. I appreciated the depth and strength of the story, even when it got weird it made sense. Interstellar is the opposite of Guardians of the Galaxy. Although both are futuristic space movies, GotG was all popcorn and Interstellar was BBQ ribs. There is a lot to bite into and chew. I'm glad to see the return of an intellectual SciFi flick.
 
My take...with 2001 there was so little spoon feeding the viewer had to bring something to the experience, a lot of patience for one. And a level of imagination to explain what he/her was seeing.
Precisely why the old people and execs walked out at the premier row by row, some 200 of them. Woody Allen didn't like 2001 until his third viewing, whereupon he realized how far ahead Kubrick was.
I read a book on the making of 2001 and they considered using narration, but decided (thank heavens) that it would be too hokey. I had the tremendous advantage of having read the book before seeing the movie, otherwise I could easily see how most anyone would have entirely missed many of the plot points.
 
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EDIT: Also, my theater turned the sound up way too loud. I brought musician earplugs in preparation, and it was just right for me, but the people around me were complaining after the movie was over.

This trend has made me a "home" movie consumer for most of this century. Headache-inducing volume and missed dialogue overcome the benefits of the visual presentation for me. I've enjoyed Nolan's past films very much so I'll be seeing Interstellar when I can control the volume.
 
Headache-inducing volume and missed dialogue overcome the benefits of the visual presentation for me. I've enjoyed Nolan's past films very much so I'll be seeing Interstellar when I can control the volume.

Uh, if the dialogue can't be heard well among the other noises of the movie at HIGH VOLUME, how can anyone expect the dialogue to be easier to hear at lower volume?

Once the movie's sound has been edited at the studio (before being sent to theaters), the level of the dialogue versus all other sounds in the movie, that's it. it is not like the local movie theater projection booth has controls for turning the dialogue volume DOWN and all the other sound UP.

To me it sounds like complaining that you can't hear the part of the sound you want to hear because ALL OF THE SOUND WAS TOO LOUD.

- George Gassaway
 
Uh, if the dialogue can't be heard well among the other noises of the movie at HIGH VOLUME, how can anyone expect the dialogue to be easier to hear at lower volume?

Once the movie's sound has been edited at the studio (before being sent to theaters), the level of the dialogue versus all other sounds in the movie, that's it. it is not like the local movie theater projection booth has controls for turning the dialogue volume DOWN and all the other sound UP.

To me it sounds like complaining that you can't hear the part of the sound you want to hear because ALL OF THE SOUND WAS TOO LOUD.

- George Gassaway

Well, yeah, I guess that's exactly what I'm complaining about. I realize I'm swimming against the stream here and probably slipping into "old codger" territory. I like the pause and replay part of home viewing as well. :eek:

As for 2001: A Space Odyssey, an important film because of it's technical acheivements and influence on later film makers. Absolutely inscrutable without reading Clarke's novelization (or his earlier short story, Sentinel https://econtent.typepad.com/TheSentinel.pdf)
 
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George pretty much nailed it. The volume in our theater was a little loud but not so that it required ear plugs or was annoying. The mix was just not right in some areas. There were times when the the dialog was washed out due to sound effects, but there were also moments, when I could barely hear what was being said during more quiet moments. I know my ears are aging, but I've rarely seen times when I couldn't hear something at the movies. Personally, it could have had a better mix with less dynamics on sound variation.
 
I'm sure your both right. Less dynamic range is probably what I'm after. Whatever it is it definitely has had a negative effect on my movie theater experience.
 
I get so tired though of no obvious connection with orbital mechanics, aerodynamic issues in re-entry, finding orbiting structures by dead reconing....etc and don't get me started about singularities.

Some of that I take as a given. So, they left out the real part of a re-entry, by the time they show the ship its already at cloud level. At least that's how I recall it. And I did not assume they "found orbiting structures by dead reckoning". I assumed the ship computer/navigation automatically did that, by the commands from the crew.

Possible dialogue from missing scene:
"Hey ship, take me to that thing, over there, that I've selected like in Kerbal Space Program. Allright, allright allright....."

That's not to say they got everything right, as regards orbits and flying to-from, but I can't recall anything that really stuck out. Not like the horrible groaning the "shuttles docking with Mir" scene in Armageddon, when first, Mir was spun up "for artificial gravity" (translation -too cheap to do zero-gravity scenes), and THEN the shuttles tried to dock with it, at the ENDS and not the middle as with the big wheel-like space station in 2001. Rather than dock first, spin second. The James Bond 007 movie "Moonraker" nailed it right on, dock FIRST, then spin up. That said, I still like Armageddon a LOT as a popcorny movie.......

- George Gassaway
 
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The old codger I sat next to at the movie couldn't believe how they kept burning all that green corn. Then I told him how wonderful it was that those Dodge trucks just lasted forever, as do the Jeeps. RAM tough! The scariest part was when they said they needed to educate more farmers, not rocket scientists:y:
 
The old codger I sat next to at the movie couldn't believe how they kept burning all that green corn. Then I told him how wonderful it was that those Dodge trucks just lasted forever, as do the Jeeps. RAM tough! The scariest part was when they said they needed to educate more farmers, not rocket scientists:y:


NO SPOILERS Daddy ! :rant:
 
Many of you may not know that it is widely available, but you might want to visit a theater that has closed captioning (even though you are not hard of hearing, as I am). The closed captioning can help with quiet passages where it is difficult to hear, loud sections where the score is drowning out the dialog, and may also increase your comprehension of some of the science-heavy dialog. Theaters may have special showings listed that include closed captioning or may have CC systems for all films in a given theater. Those that do can often be found on some of your local listings and https://www.captionfish.com/.

It would certainly be a different experience.
 
If those lame issues spoil such an epic movie then it is really sad. Don't even watch the online previews!
And definitely don't read "15 maddening 'Interstellar' plot holes" or "21 Things in Interstellar That Don’t Make Sense." I haven't, so I don't know if a burning green corn complaint is among them.
 
I was going to make an oblique reference to a scene without giving details, a future version of something that sadly is done today... but realized even THAT could be a spoiler in one way or another. So be careful what things you mention.

- George Gassaway
 
I'm guessing, this spoiler issue should probably be a dead issue within 2 weeks. I can't think of 1, (ONE) rocketeer that could resist seeing this in that amount of time. Since this thread started on the 7th, that would take us to the 21st. Any takers on that note? Providing the thread goes the distance?
 
Just took the wife to it this afternoon.
She was a bit speechless when it ended...on the way home she gave it a 10.

For what its worth... we saw it at a regular theatre as that was all that was available at the time w/o getting out late on a work night .

While I missed the big screen ....the sound was so, so much better.
I picked up a LOT of dialogue I missed the first time.
I was more engaged in the emotional part as well, which surprised me.
 
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The old codger I sat next to at the movie couldn't believe how they kept burning all that green corn. Then I told him how wonderful it was that those Dodge trucks just lasted forever, as do the Jeeps. RAM tough! The scariest part was when they said they needed to educate more farmers, not rocket scientists:y:

I think he meant "porn". The old codger couldn't believe how they kept burning all that green porn. You know, that green Star Trek chick.
 
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