Christopher Nolan Movies

[The Bookwyrm]

I haven't seen a thread for this yet, so I'm going to make one.

This man is a storming genius.

I've only seen three of his movies, those being Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet. Each of them are incredible, intricate, confusing, deep, and amazing. I don't know what his other movies are like, but if those three are any indication, they're probably awesome.

Of these, Interstellar is my favorite, but that's probably because it plays into my personal interests and values far more than Inception and Tenet do. I love astronomy and space travel, and the view of the universe that Interstellar gives, including it's explanation of time and four dimensional beings, makes perfect sense to me. I love how it gets as close as possible to science fact so that the inaccuracies that are there fit into the whole well. It also has a powerful message that appeals to me, stating that love can transcend time and space, and that the connections between people are something that leaves a mark on the universe. It fits with my understanding of how science works when put together with my religion. (Though that's a separate topic...)

Inception...I can't think of anything specific to say about it, but it is an incredible film. I think the thing that interests me the most about it is the concept of infiltrating the subconscious through shared dreams. Nolan sets up a hidden world where this is a reality, but then expertly creates a story that's based on this idea; a story that happens quite literally in the minds of the main characters. It's a movie that makes you think, not just about the movie, but about yourself. And the ending, though immensely frustrating at first, has gained an appeal to me because the movie has a powerful meaning whether the top stops or not. You can choose, based on your own perceptions, how it ends.

Tenet didn't appeal to me at first. I just saw it last week, and the movie ended with me feeling like something was missing. It was very hard to follow, so that by the end of the movie I was still expecting a final explanation that didn't ever come. The ending didn't seem like an ending because it hinted at so much more and made it seem like it wasn't actually over. It was only after I read a bunch of online summaries and watched it again that I enjoyed it. Once I had a firmer grasp of the story and the time travel mechanics, I was able to enjoy the movie a lot more. I understand that the whole "inversion" thing is baffling. It is. I'm still trying to wrap my head around aspects of it. But I understand it now to a point that it makes me enjoy the movie so much more than I did that first time.

I love, specifically, the theme of time that runs through these movies. Interstellar and Tenet hinge on the idea that linear time, as we understand it, isn't the whole picture. Another movie I like that supports this is Arrival. That image of time interests me so much, and plays into how I like those movies. Inception looks at time in a different way, how it speeds up in dreams, and what the consequences of that are.

Yeah. I like ranting about these movies.

This is a thread for discussion of Christopher Nolan's movies, and not just the ones I've seen. Please, tell me about the other ones I haven't seen, or what you like/dislike about the ones I have seen.

And if I'm all alone in my nerdiness for these movies, then so be it. That's fine too.

[Medium]

interstellar mmmmm 

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[The Bookwyrm]

17 minutes ago, Ookla the Crow said:

interstellar mmmmm 

interstellar mmmmm 

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interstellar mmmmm 

It's a very tasty movie.

[Medium]

i wrote a review for it for journalism class

did really well on it too

would you like me to post the review?

@Ookla the Perpetual

Edited November 24, 2022 by Ookla the Crow

[The Bookwyrm]

24 minutes ago, Ookla the Crow said:

i wrote a review for it for journalism class

did really well on it too

would you like me to post the review?

@Ookla the Perpetual

I don't see why not. Go ahead.

[Medium]

Spoiler

Interstellar: A Snake Of Stars 

 

Interstellar goes through ideas and notions and themes like a snake goes through skins, letting us see it for a while, take it in, before shedding it, and moving to a bigger one. Eventually, we have the fully grown proverbial snake, resulting in a multi layered movie of epic proportions.

 

Within five minutes, Interstellar goes from explaining theoretical concepts, to sprinting through shin high water, in gravity 130% that of earths, to escaping a wave the size of a mountain.

Another five minutes, they’re explaining how love is one of the most powerful things able to be perceived over dimensions of time and space. 20 minutes later, and our views on why the characters are there, in the place they are, are changed dramatically.

 

Interstellar was released to the big screen on October 26, 2014, and was filmed entirely using IMAX cameras. With a runtime of two hours, 47 minutes, and 13 seconds of existential conversations, action packed space scenes, and physics breaking fifth dimension interactions, Interstellar is one heck of a mind boggler.

 

Considering it’s another movie that embraces the idea that we have a place in the stars, it does it in an unexpected way. Usually, with a movie like this, we have a group of smart people off screen who decide to send the protagonists, usually copy-paste reckless adventurers, to some distant part of space.

 

Interstellar breaks those barriers, by making the protagonists actual scientists, who at multiple points in the movie, explain the science behind several factors. The massive black hole seen in the film, called Gargantua, is so massive that at multiple points, the characters explain the effect it has on the planetary bodies orbiting it.

 

Early on in the film, where you would expect the mentor character to say to the main character something along the lines of “Get out there, find the thing, and save the world,” he doesn’t.

Professor Brand (Michael Caine), head of NASA in a resource deprived, Second Dust Bowl scourged Earth, instead tells Cooper, (Matthew McConaughey) “We aren’t meant to save the world, we’re meant to leave it.” Cooper is a farmer, driven towards protecting his children from the dangers of the world, who believes he doesn’t belong as a farmer, so being told to find a new place for humanity by Professor Brand, who himself is an experienced scientist and old friend of Cooper, is hugely inspiring.

 

Setting Interstellar apart from the rest is the fact that it realizes that at some point, Earth can’t be saved. We have to move on and find a better place to live.

 

More revelations appear later in the movie, and without giving too much away, it was all posh nonsense. The Earth was doomed, humanity was doomed, it was all for naught. It addressed the fact that Humanity was going to die. Everyone.

 

And yet, by the end of the film, using complicated theoretical ideas that there are 5th dimensional beings, humanity is saved, moving off world to new places, having cracked problems that had plagued them for years.

 

But such a happy ending did not arrive without tragedy. A father, leaving his daughter for only a couple years to him, and for the daughter, almost a century passed. People died, both in space and on earth, and their deaths revealed secrets that changed the plot of the entire film.

 

Interstellar breaks barriers yet again, with ideas based on real science. Everything shown in the film, everything involving physics and gravity and all that, is all based on real, hard math, given to director and co-writer Christopher Nolan by Kip Thorne, who worked with Nolan to come up with the math, to make the film as authentic as it could be. Before production started, Thorne told Nolan there would be two rules to making Interstellar; Nothing would violate known laws of physics or our current knowledge of the universe, and that anything thought up creatively would have to scientifically work.

 

With these rules in mind, Thorne and Nolan would sit for hours discussing ideas, debating creative and scientific approaches to many aspects of the film.

 

Interstellar breaks laws, adds laws, creates and explains, and overall occupies a space of its own making in the movie industry. Because of this, it deserves all the praise it’s received, and will remain a game changer for many years to come.

 

[The Isochronism]

The Dark Knight and The Prestige are my favorite CN movies, and both are very interesting—though they feel kind of like opposites in theme. And yes, the man is a genius of sorts.