Over the weekend, Christopher Nolan’s space epic Interstellar opened with a $47 million weekend — coming in second place behind Disney’s animated Marvel adventure Big Hero 6 — and ended up being a mixed bag for most viewers and critics, alike. A lot of folks loved it, but there were many more who thought otherwise.
Personally, there were isolated moments that blew my mind, especially when projected on a six story IMAX screen. This is clearly Nolan’s most ambitious project, and I admired his willingness to go big and heady for each scene. Unfortunately, those scenes didn’t add up to a whole, and I found the movie’s last act was emotionally distant (when it wasn’t supposed to be) and rang false and unearned (which is how I feel about the third act of most of Nolan’s movies, actually).
Anyway, there is one nerd whose opinion of Interstellar I was most curious about. Last year, Tyson was responsible for one of the more infamous twitter rants ever when the Oscar-winning Gravity was wowing audiences, Tyson once again took to twitter to share his thoughts on Interstellar.
In #Interstellar: All leading characters, including McConaughey, Hathaway, Chastain, & Caine play a scientist or engineer.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar: There’s a robot named KIPP. One of the Executive Producers, a physicist, is named Kip. I’m just saying.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar: And in the real universe, strong gravitational fields measurably slow passage of time relative to others.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar: Experience Einstein’s Relativity of Time as no other feature film has shown.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar: Experience Einstein's Curvature of Space as no other feature film has shown.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar: The producers knew exactly how, why, & when you’d achieve zero-G in space.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar: You observe great Tidal Waves from great Tidal Forces, of magnitude that orbiting a Black Hole might create
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar: You enter a 3-Dimensional portal in space. Yes, you can fall in from any direction. Yes, it’s a Worm Hole.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar: They reprise the matched-rotation docking maneuver from "2001: A Space Odyssey," but they spin 100x faster.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar: Of the leading characters (all of whom are scientists or engineers) half are women. Just an FYI.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar: On another planet, around another star, in another part of the galaxy, two guys get into a fist fight.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar, if you didn’t understand the physics, try Kip Thorne’s highly readable Bbook “The Science of Interstellar"
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar, if you didn’t understand the plot, there is no published book to help you.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
In #Interstellar: They explore a planet near a Black Hole. Personally, I’d stay as far the hell away from BlackHoles as I can
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
REMINDER: Never look to me for opinions on new films. All I do is highlight the science one might or might not find in them.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 10, 2014
I respect his criticisms. But if science fiction could not play with what’s not possible we’d never venture into the unknown.
I always find deGrasse Tyson’s comments interesting. Here is an article I wrote on the tidal bulges seen in the movie. http://sciencevshollywood.com/surfing-on-interstellar-tidal-waves/#sthash.WidOoAHc.HhK9Nlca.dpbs