I believe there is somewhat reasonable explanation for almost every weirdness in the movie, even if it's only a speculation. For example: — regarding leaving the Earth: first, there was some "blight" mentioned in the movie. There are some pathogens already that we can't dealt with properly (think HIV); it was also mentioned that the "blight" is anaerobic and consumes nitrogen, so it can be *really* weird organism (and even extraterrestrial, I don't see why it's impossible) and it can not be possible to combat it effectively. Moreover, dust storms hint that the process can be runaway at the time: combination of soil erosion, the "blight" and Earth being on the inner border of Goldilocks zone can become synergistic and make Earth very inhospitable for humanity. — regarding wormhole placement: it makes a bit of sense if you consider that wormhole may be very massive. It's hinted by orbits of satellites around wormhole (there were a few sparks orbiting wormhole on low orbits with very high speeds). If this is the case, placing wormhole closer to Earth could destabilize it's orbit, and placing it near Jupiter could affect a number of asteroids and potentially knock some into inner Solar system. Therefore it's Saturn, with a lot of mass of it's own and far enough from Earth to not cause much disturbance. — regarding tidal forces: for very large black holes event horizon can be much larger than the region where tidal forces are noticeable; moreover, this particular black hole is rotating, which makes calculating tidal forces nontrivial, as shown in this http://ikjyotsinghkohli24.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/on-the-science-of-interstellar/ article (the author also considers the issue of getting an information from the black hole). — regarding jumping in the black hole: I believe this was a form of suicide. The guy was clearly unstable at the point, given all deaths, treason and hopelessness around him, so I don't think we should judge this decision on rational basis. — regarding venting the oxygen into thrusters: I believe the reason to postpone such venting was that their suits' oxygen supply was limited, and if the venting would not work, they will suffocate. However, they found that waves were too frequent, so they carried the risk.
The main inconsistency, of course, is the lack of remote observation — there were no point in descending on the planet to find that waves. But hey, then there will be no drama, just tedious work :)
I also suspect that the main reason behind your strong negative feelings about the movie is some sort of "uncanny valley": it was almost-believable for you, just to the point where you started to sympathize with characters, but were offputed later with some inconsistency or weirdness. You felt betrayed in a sense and later rationalized the feeling, finding reasons to dislike the movie. I have a friend that felt the same, but she reflected on the feeling and come up with aforementioned explanation, which I find probable.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-17 11:03 am (UTC)I believe there is somewhat reasonable explanation for almost every weirdness in the movie, even if it's only a speculation. For example:
— regarding leaving the Earth: first, there was some "blight" mentioned in the movie. There are some pathogens already that we can't dealt with properly (think HIV); it was also mentioned that the "blight" is anaerobic and consumes nitrogen, so it can be *really* weird organism (and even extraterrestrial, I don't see why it's impossible) and it can not be possible to combat it effectively. Moreover, dust storms hint that the process can be runaway at the time: combination of soil erosion, the "blight" and Earth being on the inner border of Goldilocks zone can become synergistic and make Earth very inhospitable for humanity.
— regarding wormhole placement: it makes a bit of sense if you consider that wormhole may be very massive. It's hinted by orbits of satellites around wormhole (there were a few sparks orbiting wormhole on low orbits with very high speeds). If this is the case, placing wormhole closer to Earth could destabilize it's orbit, and placing it near Jupiter could affect a number of asteroids and potentially knock some into inner Solar system. Therefore it's Saturn, with a lot of mass of it's own and far enough from Earth to not cause much disturbance.
— regarding tidal forces: for very large black holes event horizon can be much larger than the region where tidal forces are noticeable; moreover, this particular black hole is rotating, which makes calculating tidal forces nontrivial, as shown in this http://ikjyotsinghkohli24.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/on-the-science-of-interstellar/ article (the author also considers the issue of getting an information from the black hole).
— regarding jumping in the black hole: I believe this was a form of suicide. The guy was clearly unstable at the point, given all deaths, treason and hopelessness around him, so I don't think we should judge this decision on rational basis.
— regarding venting the oxygen into thrusters: I believe the reason to postpone such venting was that their suits' oxygen supply was limited, and if the venting would not work, they will suffocate. However, they found that waves were too frequent, so they carried the risk.
The main inconsistency, of course, is the lack of remote observation — there were no point in descending on the planet to find that waves. But hey, then there will be no drama, just tedious work :)
I also suspect that the main reason behind your strong negative feelings about the movie is some sort of "uncanny valley": it was almost-believable for you, just to the point where you started to sympathize with characters, but were offputed later with some inconsistency or weirdness. You felt betrayed in a sense and later rationalized the feeling, finding reasons to dislike the movie. I have a friend that felt the same, but she reflected on the feeling and come up with aforementioned explanation, which I find probable.