Interstellar's Sinister Message
Some people loved Interstellar because it was everything film goers have come to expect from Christopher Nolan with all the hits he has under his belt; thought-provoking, visually mesmerising and full of action. However some of those same reasons are why others hated it. People had to think about how the science worked, although visually mesmerising at times this was few and far between as was the action. Most people just didn't like the fact that it took so long for the film to finish at a whopping 2 hours 49 minutes I can't blame them even I had to have a stretch while watching it. There are also a lot of "plot holes" that people have criticised but to me they're just nit-picking.
However the reasons why people loved and hated it aren't what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about a sinister message that I picked up on during the film that to me rings true and that message is "Humans are selfish dicks". Okay yes I could phrase that better but honestly I don't want to write a long review of the film just to get to that simple truth.
We as humans will only look to protect the current and possible next generation of humanity or more precisely the generations connected by blood. Rarely will a human think of anything further than that. We see this represented in the film firstly by the fact that the entire human race ignores the idea of creating/nurturing great thinkers (engineers, scientists etc) and instead looks to create farmers and indoctrinate the rest to further the creation of the limited food that can be made. Later we find out this is a futile effort that anyone thinking long term would have realised!
Professor Brand in the film played by Michael Caine tricks the entirety of NASA into thinking he was going to solve an equation that he had no conceivable hope of solving without seeing a black hole up close. His reasoning behind doing this: Humans would never have worked together to create the "backup plan" of the space ships without the somehow more plausible idea of this equation he had been working on for decades. Pretty sure he was right.
The main character however is what pushes the idea that 'Humans are selfish dicks'. He wants to do everything himself from start to finish, he ignores the pleas of his daughter to stay, ignores the teachers over what is right for society (although that was just them being selfish dicks), he sacrifices himself without letting the other scientist get a vote and he only helps save the world due to his connection to his selfish connection to his daughter. Finally he goes off to try and save Brand from being alone on an alien world by stealing a ship and a robot!
So in my opinion this is a quite obvious but slightly obscured message from the film that is slightly sinister in that we're basically all doomed to be prey to everyone else's selfish desires and those of our leaders.
So although it's slightly messed up. Be a selfish dick...everyone else will be. Maybe you won't regret it. Maybe you will.
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