The successful blockbuster Interstellar came out about 1 hour and 20 minutes ago. At least, that’s when it came out on Miller’s Planet, the aquatic planet explored in the film. But here on Earth, it was released just over eight years ago on November 5, 2014. And while many people enjoy the beautiful cinematography, emotional performances, and creative concepts, many still try to understand its complex plot.
One Hour in Space, Seven Earth Years
Interstellar was directed, produced, and co-written by Christopher Nolan. The story follows astronauts named Joseph Cooper, played by Matthew McConaughey, and Dr. Amelia Brand, played by Anne Hathaway. They and two other crewmates travel to a wormhole near Saturn to find a new home for humanity as Earth becomes inhabitable. Today, the film has its own cult following and praise from many astronomers for its scientific accuracy.
This is no surprise since one of the executive producers, Caltech theoretical physicist and 2017 Nobel laureate in physics Kip Thorne, was also a scientific consultant. He also wrote The Science of Interstellar, a book that ties in to the film. Soon after the release, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson commented on the movie’s plausibility in an interview with NPR.
In particular, he explains the representation of relativity in the film, namely how the astronauts explored Miller’s Planet for a few hours only for 23 years to pass on Earth. “You can run the equations of general relativity and, when you run those equations, what you learn is that if you are in the presence of a strong gravity, you will have noticeable effects on how slow your time ticks, relative to anybody else who is looking at you from the outside,” he explained. Despite the extreme version of time-slowing in the film, it took place on a planet orbiting a black hole, which caused the time-dilation effect.
He gave a practical example of this. Since our GPS satellites are farther away from our planet’s center of gravity, time goes more slowly for us than for them. “…And the designers of the GPS satellites knew this. And so the time that they send to us, to all of our devices, [is] pre-corrected for the effects of general relativity so that we, on Earth, in a different time dilated place, will have the correct time for our world.” [1]
Behind the Scenes of Interstellar
Interstellar has become a science fiction classic, unsurprisingly, since 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of Nolan’s favorite films. “One of my earliest movie memories is my dad taking me to see 2001 in [London’s] Leicester Square on the big screen,” said Nolan. “It was such an extraordinary feeling: to be taken off this planet and to the furthest reaches of the universe. It has really been an ambition of mine: If I ever had the opportunity to get involved in a large-scale science fiction project, something about exploring our universe, I would try to seize the opportunity.”
A “large-scale science fiction project” is definitely one way to describe the creation of Interstellar. The film runs for two hours and 47 minutes, and cost $165 million to make. Some of the sets included cornfields in Calgary, Alberta, and a glacier shelled by a volcano in Iceland. There, they had to plant acres of corn for the characters to drive through and transport 10,000-pound spaceships.
There was also a spaceship set, which was run by a robot called TARS, played by Bill Irwin, who puppeteered a rig to move the character. Plus, the actors used a different kind of rig to make the actors look like they were floating in space. And Nolan asked Hans Zimmer to compose part of the score before filming began. Zimmer didn’t even know the movie’s title at that point.
Nolan explained that he prefers practical sets and effects and to only implement CG to enhance the shots. “And so I’ve found taking on a subject matter that inevitably involves fully CG shots is a huge challenge.” He and his team watched The Right Stuff for inspiration. “We looked at what they had done technically in 1983 with reflections of visors and things like that. And we said, ‘Let’s try to fully realize the interiors of the spaceship, so that Matthew and Anne, when they’re sitting in the ship, they can look out the window and see what’s actually out there, so it’s not just a set, it’s more of a simulator.’ And these guys really rose to it.” [2]
Why go to space?
The other co-writer for the script was Jonathan Nolan, Christopher’s younger brother. In an interview with Space.com, he discusses one of the film’s topics: Why go to space? “Kip and I spent one very memorable afternoon with a group of biologists and astrobiologists, considering all the different ways in which life could be extinguished from this planet,” said Nolan. “…So that some cosmic event, and we considered many of them, might extinguish us so quickly… It seems only practical that we get out there and see what else is out there.” [3]
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Sources
- “Neil DeGrasse Tyson Separates Fact From Fiction In ‘Interstellar’.” NPR. November 14, 2014
- “‘Interstellar’s’ Christopher Nolan, Stars Gather to Reveal Secrets of the Year’s Most Mysterious Film.” Hollywood Reporter. Stephen Galloway. October 22, 2014
- “Inside ‘Interstellar’: Q&A with Jonathan Nolan and Kip Thorne.” Space.com. Rod Pyle. March 31, 2015