Revisiting Interstellar As Oppenheimer Approaches (Amazon Prime)

WEBVTT

1
00:00:01.320 --> 00:00:22.160
Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.

2
00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:25.719
I'm a producer, writer of film
and television and now a podcast producer.

3
00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.519
And despite having every streaming service,
I never know what to watch. So

4
00:00:29.519 --> 00:00:33.039
anytime I watch something good, I
talk about it on the show. This

5
00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:36.200
way, you'll never have the same
problem I do. I watch this tonight,

6
00:00:36.399 --> 00:00:39.880
there's always something good to watch.
Let's get started today. On the

7
00:00:39.920 --> 00:00:45.520
show, I am revisiting Interstellar.
As Oppenheimer approaches. There's a moment early

8
00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:50.920
an Interstellar where Matthew McConaughey sees an
Indian drone in the sky and he's excited

9
00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:53.920
about it and he wants to pursue
it, but his truck has a flat

10
00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:57.920
tire, and Timothy Shalom plays his
son, tells him, hey man,

11
00:00:58.039 --> 00:01:00.479
there's a flat tire. You can't
and they but he doesn't care. He

12
00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:04.159
drives the truck anyway after it and
they almost drive off a cliff. And

13
00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:07.599
I was thinking about that, and
I thought, this moment, this sequence

14
00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:12.719
is like a microcosm of the incredible
strength of Christopher Nolan's a filmmaker and the

15
00:01:12.840 --> 00:01:18.760
arguable weaknesses. And I always felt
like this was his most flawed film.

16
00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:22.000
I always felt like his ambition is
so great, and I love his ambition,

17
00:01:22.079 --> 00:01:25.400
and the movie is beautifully made,
it constructed, and then you watch

18
00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:26.719
it and you kind of second guess
yourself and you're like, wait a second,

19
00:01:27.239 --> 00:01:30.319
like you think that I have I
is this a plot hole? And

20
00:01:30.359 --> 00:01:34.439
then you're like, well, it's
it's so smartly put together. Maybe there's

21
00:01:34.439 --> 00:01:37.280
just something I'm not understanding. And
in a lot of his movies, I

22
00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:40.079
felt that way, where I'm like, this kind of seems like a plot

23
00:01:40.079 --> 00:01:42.680
hole, and then I think,
no, there must just be something I'm

24
00:01:42.719 --> 00:01:45.799
not understanding. And my memory of
Interstellar is that I saw it in the

25
00:01:45.799 --> 00:01:49.319
theater and I felt that really strongly. At the time, I had been

26
00:01:49.319 --> 00:01:52.239
studying stuff about black holes. I
was writing something about black holes, so

27
00:01:52.280 --> 00:01:55.159
I knew, you know, a
decent amount of stuff about it, and

28
00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:59.200
I felt like this movie just ignored
just the basic idea of how those things

29
00:01:59.239 --> 00:02:02.480
work. And I really had a
very honestly, like a pretty negative reaction

30
00:02:02.519 --> 00:02:06.000
to it, and I kind of
you walked out of the theater. I

31
00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:09.479
never watched again. Obviously, I
am in the minority. The movie made

32
00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:14.360
three quarters of a billion dollars was
critically well received, although if you go

33
00:02:14.439 --> 00:02:16.800
to Rod Tomatoes and then you just
go to just the top critics, it's

34
00:02:16.840 --> 00:02:21.080
a bit more mixed. Most of
the criticism is about the last act.

35
00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:23.800
But I'm very excited for Oppenheimer.
I'm reading a book about three guys that

36
00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:29.520
are involved in making a decision to
use the atomic bomb, and so I

37
00:02:29.639 --> 00:02:31.159
was like, you know, I
feel like I should go back and give

38
00:02:31.199 --> 00:02:36.080
Interstellar another look. Maybe the passage
of time. You know, we do

39
00:02:36.159 --> 00:02:38.240
the all star episodes on the show. Maybe I just kind of judged it

40
00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:43.120
unfairly, and so I did,
and it was interesting. There were some

41
00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:46.840
things that I actually did not understand, but there were also some things that

42
00:02:46.879 --> 00:02:49.879
I think are still kind of plot
holes. So let's get into it.

43
00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:55.840
This is revisiting Interstellar. So this
movie has a single sequence that I think

44
00:02:55.919 --> 00:03:00.800
is better than many entire films,
which is the sequence on the planet.

45
00:03:00.199 --> 00:03:02.879
And obviously we're going to be in
spoilers here. I'm assuming if you're listening,

46
00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:06.599
if you're listening to this, you've
seen an Interstellar. The sequence on

47
00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:10.319
the planet with the mountain sized wave
and the robot turns into like an asterisk

48
00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:14.680
and rolls to get in Hathaway and
they get up in the wave and then

49
00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:17.520
they got to escape. And it's
just a great idea. If you're looking

50
00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:20.919
for a home planet, you're going
to be looking for a planet that has

51
00:03:20.919 --> 00:03:23.800
water. Great, we found a
planet with water, except the whole planet

52
00:03:23.960 --> 00:03:28.759
is these giant killer waves. That's
a great idea of you know, it's

53
00:03:28.759 --> 00:03:31.039
a great example of taking your characters
out of the frying pan and their friar.

54
00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:35.560
I think it is up there with
any sequence, any single sequence in

55
00:03:35.560 --> 00:03:38.800
any Nolan movie. That's great.
And then the planet that Matt Damon is

56
00:03:38.840 --> 00:03:43.719
on is also incredible. There's a
moment when they're flying and they hit a

57
00:03:43.759 --> 00:03:47.000
frozen clouds, so cleverly done,
because it looks like they're just flying they're

58
00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:51.879
seen a cloud and then they hit
it and it's solid and it breaks your

59
00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:54.520
brain for a second. It is
a great idea, and the Damon twist

60
00:03:54.719 --> 00:03:59.759
is incredible, So so much good
stuff, right, But then I think

61
00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:04.080
one reasons that I had issues with
it is that it's so deadly serious at

62
00:04:04.120 --> 00:04:10.039
times in ways that also kind of
feel silly. But it's hard to even

63
00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:13.960
it's sort of intangible, right,
So, for example, At one point,

64
00:04:13.960 --> 00:04:15.480
we're in the future. You know, obviously the story takes place in

65
00:04:15.519 --> 00:04:19.160
the future. The only sustainable crop
is corn. And there's a dinner scene

66
00:04:19.439 --> 00:04:29.959
that is extremely serious and the wife
of Casey Affleck she tells their kid,

67
00:04:30.879 --> 00:04:34.199
finish your fritter. But she says
it like a deadly serious, like heavy

68
00:04:34.279 --> 00:04:38.680
drama away, like finish it fritter. And it's one of those intangibles that

69
00:04:39.199 --> 00:04:43.279
intellectually it makes sense, It logically
makes sense, but it just feels silly

70
00:04:43.879 --> 00:04:48.000
else to explain it. Sort of
the same thing. Jessica Chastain asks Michael

71
00:04:48.079 --> 00:04:53.839
Caine an extremely important question. He's
just admitted that he lied to her and

72
00:04:53.920 --> 00:04:59.079
betrayed her in this horrible way,
and she's she asks him this very important

73
00:04:59.160 --> 00:05:01.680
question that's like found to who she
is as a person, and he just

74
00:05:01.759 --> 00:05:05.600
quotes a poem and dies. Now, to be fair to the film,

75
00:05:06.040 --> 00:05:10.759
probably might the scene that bothered me
the most of the whole movie is when

76
00:05:10.759 --> 00:05:15.439
Anne Hathaway has the thing where she
basically talks about and I had remembered it

77
00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:19.759
as like love is the only dimension
that transcends whatever, and I remember seeing

78
00:05:19.800 --> 00:05:23.560
the theater, like, what are
you talking about now? I when on

79
00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:27.800
the rewatch I was able to listen
more carefully. What she actually says is

80
00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:34.120
love is the only thing we're capable
of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and

81
00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:39.480
space. So what threw me off
there was the word dimension. In the

82
00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:44.279
theater. It's a two hour and
forty nine minute movie. It's so easy

83
00:05:44.319 --> 00:05:46.759
to miss, like exactly what she's
saying. I took it as she's saying

84
00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:49.319
that, like, love is a
dimension, which I'm like, love is

85
00:05:49.319 --> 00:05:53.240
an abstract idea, what are you
talking about? But she's saying that love

86
00:05:53.319 --> 00:05:57.680
is something that still applies across physical
space in the passage of time, which

87
00:05:57.720 --> 00:06:00.079
is of course true. If she
literally just took the word dimension, that

88
00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:04.040
totally would have worked for me.
But I misunderstood on the first watch because

89
00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:10.480
just trying to catch it and now
scrutinizing it more carefully, obviously it makes

90
00:06:10.519 --> 00:06:14.519
sense. It's clearly illustrated in the
relationship with Chastain and McConaughey, which does

91
00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:16.759
transcend space and time, even before
they get into this stuff in the third

92
00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:20.319
act. And I relate obviously much
more into the central relationship now that I

93
00:06:20.399 --> 00:06:25.439
have a daughter and you know,
there's a moment where I think it's the

94
00:06:25.519 --> 00:06:28.399
first planet they go to, and
then they go back up and like twenty

95
00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:33.120
years have passed and they have twenty
years of video messages and McConaughey is watching

96
00:06:33.160 --> 00:06:38.199
those twenty years of video messages,
and that all hit me much harder now,

97
00:06:38.319 --> 00:06:42.279
right, You're much more aware of
time is so much more precious in

98
00:06:42.279 --> 00:06:45.399
your mind when you have children and
you see them growing and you know to

99
00:06:45.519 --> 00:06:48.720
miss that time. I actually understand
what that means now. So I would

100
00:06:48.720 --> 00:06:54.439
say my biggest criticism of the film
now is like null and void, I

101
00:06:54.800 --> 00:07:00.480
was wrong. My second biggest criticism
of the film is that they just casually

102
00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:05.800
invent this concept of a gentle singularity. So this is something that I again,

103
00:07:05.800 --> 00:07:08.800
when I saw the movie, I
was like, this seems made up,

104
00:07:09.079 --> 00:07:12.560
and then I googled it when I
watched this yesterday, and it is

105
00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:14.279
made up. It's not a real
thing. They just made it up.

106
00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:18.120
So if you research black holes,
the idea of the black hole is that

107
00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:24.879
the nature of it if you if
you as in a spaceship or in this

108
00:07:24.879 --> 00:07:29.480
movie, Matthew McConaughey ejects into space, or to even get close to a

109
00:07:29.519 --> 00:07:31.800
black hole. You would for sure
die, no matter what, you would

110
00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:35.879
die. It's that's it. It's
not more complicated than that. And you

111
00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:41.839
know, they it's a problem because
as storytellers, it's so tantalizing, like,

112
00:07:41.879 --> 00:07:43.839
oh man, what happens when you
go in a black hole? The

113
00:07:43.879 --> 00:07:47.279
answer is you die, that's the
answer. And so they just made this

114
00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:53.360
thing up to deal with that problem, the idea of the gentle singularity.

115
00:07:53.879 --> 00:07:57.439
And I think the reason bothered me
so much, and this is this is

116
00:07:57.439 --> 00:08:01.720
how marketing affects your perception movie.
They had made such a big deal about,

117
00:08:01.879 --> 00:08:05.600
oh my god, it is so
scientifically accurate in the marketing leading up

118
00:08:05.639 --> 00:08:07.639
to the release of the film.
So I think that's why maybe it rubbed

119
00:08:07.639 --> 00:08:11.160
me the wrong way. It's a
perfectly reasonable like you have to make some

120
00:08:11.160 --> 00:08:15.120
stuff up in service of the story. And it's also you know, you

121
00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:16.560
can make the argument of like,
hey, who really knows none of us

122
00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:20.079
have been in a black hole,
so you know, I was much more

123
00:08:20.199 --> 00:08:24.399
lenient on it this watch. The
other thing is that the movie is pretty

124
00:08:24.439 --> 00:08:26.600
long, so I feel like in
the theater, if a couple things rub

125
00:08:26.600 --> 00:08:30.279
you the wrong way, you can
kind of check out on it at home.

126
00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:33.759
I was able to take a break, go in for the last forty

127
00:08:33.799 --> 00:08:37.200
five minutes with a clear head,
and I really did enjoy it much more

128
00:08:37.320 --> 00:08:41.039
on this viewing. That being said, the part that I have a tough

129
00:08:41.080 --> 00:08:45.120
time with at the end, at
the very very end. So Matthew McConaughey,

130
00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:50.120
the whole movie is about him and
his daughter being separated and then making

131
00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:52.279
their way back to each other.
And she's on her deathbed and it's like,

132
00:08:52.360 --> 00:08:56.279
hey, I haven't seen you my
entire life, and she's like,

133
00:08:56.320 --> 00:08:58.679
you know, you shouldn't watch your
child die. Like, I'm good,

134
00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:03.519
you can piece out go find Anne
halfaway and he's like, all right,

135
00:09:03.519 --> 00:09:05.600
sweet, let me go find it
and halfway and it felt a little bit

136
00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:09.679
like kind of a betrayal of the
themes of the entire movie. So again

137
00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:13.759
I just kind of rubbed me and
bit the wrong way. But overall,

138
00:09:13.799 --> 00:09:16.879
I would say my initial reaction on
this very much was like the arrogance of

139
00:09:16.919 --> 00:09:20.799
youth, right Like, sitting there
thinking like as a twenty six year old

140
00:09:20.840 --> 00:09:26.080
or whatever, I was being like, oh, yeah, this movie sucks.

141
00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:28.639
The movie rocks. It's a really
good movie. You know. My

142
00:09:28.759 --> 00:09:33.519
issues with it. Notwithstanding, I
think my issues with it in the grand

143
00:09:33.519 --> 00:09:37.799
picture of what the movie accomplishes are
relatively minor. And this movie is really

144
00:09:37.799 --> 00:09:43.440
good, breaking news. Interstellar is
good. Oh it really, it really

145
00:09:43.519 --> 00:09:46.000
is. I was I was way
too hard on it. But in the

146
00:09:46.039 --> 00:09:50.480
tradition of these all star episodes on
the show, definitely the passage of time

147
00:09:50.519 --> 00:09:54.480
affects your viewing. I am so
curious to know if there's any of you

148
00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:58.279
out there listening to this who had
an equally mixed reaction Interstellar, either when

149
00:09:58.279 --> 00:10:03.360
you first saw it maybe you still
do or is it just gangbusters for you

150
00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:07.200
all the way through and you just
absolutely loved it the first time, still

151
00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:09.840
love it? Has it played different
for you as the years have passed.

152
00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:13.360
Yeah, I just would love to
know your thoughts on Interstellar. You can

153
00:10:13.399 --> 00:10:18.200
always reach me at Benamore Dan on
Twitter, watch This Tonight on Instagram,

154
00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:22.039
watch This Night podcast on TikTok,
or you can join our Facebook group.

155
00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:24.480
That is the show for today Until
next time. Bye,