Speaking about the thriller genre to NPR, Oscar-winning filmmaker Christopher Nolan said, “You’re not meant to understand every single aspect. You’re meant to go on a journey, pass through this maze…” This strategy epitomizes his 2014 science fiction blockbuster Interstellar, a story of humanity’s search for habitable planets. Aided by theoretical physicist Kip Thorn, Nolan employs qualities of space that usually detract from storytelling – its vastness, the small likelihood of finding Earth-like worlds – to drive the plot, balancing realism with sentimentality.
Similar to Ridley Scott’s 2015 adaptation of former software engineer Andy Weir‘s novel The Martian, Interstellar strives for scientific accuracy while providing an intriguing backdrop for its characters’ odyssey. To NPR in 2014, Nolan said watching Star Wars as a child “cemented in [his] mind the maximum potential of the Hollywood blockbuster.” A combination of pop culture and hard science underlies Interstellar, allowing Nolan’s polar inspirations to coexist. The film’s built-in intellectual quality allows him to investigate themes of family and love without sacrificing the story’s convoluted nature.
On Netflix’s The Crown (2016-2023), in an episode titled “Moondust”, Prince Phillip meets the Apollo 11 crew, peppering them with philosophical inquiries. He asks for “perspectives…observations…of our place?” The nonplussed astronauts shrug and reply, “There wasn’t much time for that.” Their sojourn in space had been taken up by “procedure and protocol.” It is a reality with which a British royal should be all too familiar.
Space is business, too. Nolan’s approach to Interstellar proves philosophers can’t afford to leave Earth: they would probably crash the ship. The film reconciles humanity’s restlessness with the impossibility of interstellar travel, relying on plot devices that are possible only in theory. Through its blatant use of imagination, Interstellar serves as an indirect reality check, prompting viewers to reckon with the vastness of space on their own.
Interstellar’s Theoretical Backbone
The characters of Interstellar explore potentially habitable worlds by traveling through a wormhole, a tunnel connecting two different points in spacetime, a product of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. According to NewScientist, to keep a wormhole open, a form of exotic matter, such as a negative mass, is needed, and humans have yet to prove such a type of matter exists, let alone harness it. In a 2014 interview with Space.com, Kip Thorn said, “There are very strong indications that a type of wormhole that a human could travel through is forbidden in the laws of physics.”
However, by providing portals to other worlds, Christopher Nolan communicates the scale of the universe. The difficulty in finding hospitable planets – even after traveling great distances – shows that space is enormous and full of lethal threats. Humans evolved a specific biological composition suited to surviving on Earth. Finding an environment that matches our pre-existing needs would be a feat of probability.
While traveling through the wormhole, Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway), one of four astronauts on the spaceship Endurance, touches a pocket of warped space. Spoiler alert: this anomaly is her future self reaching through the fabric of time. This moment connects Interstellar’s scientific and emotional throughlines, which both speak to the ability of human knowledge to transcend its circumstances.
A property of storytelling is that, at the narrative’s conclusion, a character revisits an event from the beginning with new meaning, proving inner development. Stories involving time travel lend themselves to a literal interpretation of this trope by allowing characters to revisit their past selves physically. Brand’s contact with her past self exemplifies that Interstellar’s otherworldly premise hides its true nature: a story about the human need for connection. Although it aims to portray humanity’s future on a practical level by putting its characters in the most extreme circumstances possible, Interstellar reveals that our greatest asset and liability is ourselves.
At the journey’s beginning, Brand speaks about love being the only force that can transcend time and space. This feels out of place in a film that strives for scientific accuracy. Later, however, the essence of this speech is proven true when love for his family motivates Matthew McConaughey’s character to explore the fifth dimension. But Interstellar does not argue love itself enabled him to do this.
Human Nature on Foreign Worlds
Interstellar begins on a near-future Earth where humanity is on the verge of extinction due to planet-wide crop failures. A former pilot, Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) discovers a code written in the detritus of a Midwestern dust storm, leading him to a base where NASA operates in secret.
What’s left of NASA is run by physicist Dr. Brand Sr., the father of Anne Hathaway’s character (Michael Cane, who also plays the grandfatherly butler Alfred in Christopher Nolan’s Batman films). Cane’s comforting presence makes an unprecedented space mission seem almost safe. A familiar face onscreen clarifies to the audience that Interstellar is a friendly piece of pop culture, neutralizing plot holes by reminding viewers they are at a movie theater, not a physics lecture.
Undertaking Dr. Brand Sr.’s quest, Cooper, a father of two, must decide between personal obligations and a duty to humanity. Through this dilemma, Interstellar becomes a story of sacrifice. How much can we detach ourselves from our humanity to save it?
This is not a new story. In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus leaves his wife and son for 20 years while fighting in the Peloponnesian War. (Granted, he spent seven years on a goddess’ island. So, Interstellar is not totally comparable.) Subplots aside, humans have always sought ways to balance life and work. Interstellar’s familiar theme allows it to investigate a relatively new topic to humanity.
In a 2014 Indiewire interview, Christopher Nolan said, Interstallar “is about being a father…your life passing you by and your kids growing up before your eyes.” Indeed, Interstellar maintains that as Cooper watches his children grow up via recorded messages, he made the right choice through his mission’s success.
In another space epic, Gavin Hood’s Ender’s Game (2013), a young military genius defeats an alien invasion by sending human pilots to their deaths. Ender (Asa Butterfield) believes he is in a simulation; he doesn’t know he is fighting a real war. At its conclusion, the adults who set up Ender’s virtual reality tell him he never would have made the necessary sacrifices had he known the pilots were real.
Survival is never seamless. “A bunch of people will die,” Elon Musk coolly said in a 2021 interview with Space.com about human colonization of Mars in the future. Interstellar uses a personal story to make the realities of space travel digestible.
While exploring potentially habitable worlds, the crew of the Endurance, led by McConaughey’s Cooper and Hathaway’s Amelia Brand, encounter a planet orbiting a black hole called Miller’s planet, named for a previous human visitor who signaled they should follow.
In the years since Interstellar’s release, astronomers have postulated the formation of “blanets”, or planets orbiting black holes. According to Astronomy.com, they argue that a black hole’s accretion disk, the swirling cloud of hot gas and dust falling into it, resembles the protoplanetary disk around young stars that forms solar systems. However, an October 2019 MIT Technology Review article argues that even if heated sufficiently, a “blanet” would be inhospitable due to a black hole’s radiation.
In Interstellar, Miller’s planet proves inhospitable for other reasons. Covered in liquid water, it appears promising until Cooper and Brand realize that what initially appeared to be a mountain range is, in fact, a tidal wave. Brand delays escaping this threat to retrieve a capsule left behind by Miller, the planet’s namesake. This choice causes another crew member (Wes Bentley) to be caught in the approaching tidal wave, leaving Brand to reckon with a decision that effectively sacrifices a peer in the name of science.
Next is Mann’s planet: an icy world whose eponymous astronaut is still alive. Dr. Mann (Matt Damon) turns against the Endurance crew, attempting to steal their ship and return home. His choice represents another dilemma of exploration: the reevaluation of a decision. Ender of Ender’s Game offers up pilots he didn’t know were real. Conversely, Dr. Mann decides sacrificing his own life is no longer worthwhile.
Dr. Mann’s villainous turn is palatable. Who could blame him? No one would want to live the rest of their days on an icy, inhospitable planet with no hope of rescue. Dr. Mann reminds us that basic human needs can trump the knowledge of our species’ best interests. We are selfish.
Putting Interstellar‘s Theories Into Practice
Through its humanist and scientific realism, Interstellar deflates hopes raised by franchises such as Star Trek and Star Wars. While Star Wars’ introduction realistically implies that distant civilizations could have lived and died before the Earth’s formation, the series’ portrayal of commonplace light-speed travel is far from possible.
In his 2023 book Alone But Not Lonely, astronomer Louis Friedman hypothesizes humans are the only technological species in the Milky Way. He reasons that intelligence isn’t necessarily good for survival. The dinosaurs existed far longer than humanity, and they weren’t, as we humans deem them, as smart as us. What enables humans to explore space may be a rare adaptation.
On a more hopeful note, according to NASA, The Milky Way contains an estimated 100 billion terrestrial planets. In 2017, this organization announced that seven Earth-sized planets orbit a red dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1, 40 light years from Earth. Space.com reports that, as the fourth planet from this star, TRAPPIST-1e, sits in the habitable zone, a distance from a star where a planet could hold liquid water. Additionally, at 93% of Earth’s gravity, a human could stand on TRAPPIST-1e more comfortably than on Mars. The James Webb Space Telescope, launched in December of 2021, aims to detect whether TRAPPIST-1e has a breathable atmosphere.
However, there are already problems with TRAPPIST-1e. It is tidally locked, meaning, similar to Earth’s moon, one side constantly faces the body it orbits. The perpetual day and night of TRAPPIST-1e’s respective hemispheres result in extreme temperatures that would prohibit life. In a 2023 article in The Astrophysical Journal, scientists argue life could thrive in the “twilight zone” of a tidally locked planet: the area caught between day and night. However, this remains speculative. The research of NASA scientists shows Red dwarf stars such as TRAPPIST-1 emit radiation that may prevent atmospheres from forming on their planets.
In its final scene, Interstellar envisions better odds when Brand establishes a human colony. The camera angles of this scene force viewers to hold their breaths. The first shot depicts her wearing a space helmet, and by safely removing it, she resolves the film’s tension and humanity’s fears or survival. By honestly reckoning with bleak odds, Interstellar earns its hopeful end.
In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey, extraterrestrials send a newly evolved form of human to Earth. At a debate of the Royal Society Edinburgh titled “Is Evolution Over?”, scientists postulated that natural human evolution has finished, and future progress will be our design. Both Nolan and Kubrick entertain that benevolent aliens could be waiting for humans to cross a threshold when we will be worth their time. In The Wire, Heather Horn paraphrased a different prediction made by physicist Stephen Hawking: “Yes, there are aliens. No, we shouldn’t contact them.”
Interstellar and Homer’s The Odyssey contain the same core structure, where a character learns to balance a need for change with the benefits of stability. All humans reckon with this dilemma. Tens of thousands of years ago, our ancestors gave up a nomadic lifestyle to domesticate themselves through agriculture, eventually starting civilization. Although modern humans are born into civilization, internally, we are no less obligated to wrestle with our original nature as wanderers.
Practicality and idealism must coexist. Even Hollywood films with philosophical goals are chained to the norms of a Hollywood blockbuster, exemplified by Damon’s surprise cameo in Interstellar. “We are all involved in the biggest mystery of all, which is just living through time,” Nolan said (Indiewire).
Exploring Higher Dimensions
At Interstellar’s conclusion, McConaughey’s Cooper travels into a black hole where he learns to manipulate time and space. The wormhole that had allowed him to reach the black hole had been opened by future humans, not aliens, as initially thought. The knowledge Cooper gains in the black hole will be passed down to those future humans who can help him get there.
Space.com defines a time paradox as a hypothetical contradiction of cause and effect. One example, the grandfather paradox, asks, if you could go back in time and kill your grandfather, how could a version of you be alive attempt that act?
While inside the black hole, Cooper occupies fifth-dimensional space, meaning he can observe space in four dimensions. Humans can manipulate space in two dimensions by folding a piece of paper as creatures of three dimensions. According to theoretical physicist Jean-Pierre Luminet, in the fifth dimension, Cooper can traverse three spatial and fourth dimensions: time. This scene depicts Cooper giving his past self the codes to the secret NASA base.
Cooper becomes the person living out his fate and the force that determines it. He embodies a time paradox: his past self relies on answers from the future to reach his destination. Yet, the future self could never have given those answers unless the past self had always known them. The question remains: When were those answers learned?
This is a four-dimensional question. Viewing time from the fifth dimension eliminates the need for “when” to be a specific point. It could be “whenever” you want because, as Luminet stated, from the fifth dimension, time is laid out like a bookshelf where you can view any moment.
For Cooper, this theory contains a human element. Emotional knowledge also appears to transcend time in the sense that most stories are about the journey, not the destination. Regardless of a plot’s outcome, a level of determination is always innate.
With a mission completed, what is one left with? A good story. Humankind’s existence proves we have what we need to be happy. The point of survival is never immortality; humans evolved the capacity for happiness in a finite amount of time. In a 2021 article in The Atlantic, neurosurgeon David Linden writes, “Our brains are hardwired to prevent us from imagining the totality of death.” By forcing the act of living to take on increased meaning, this part of human programming is an effective survival adaptation.
Interstellar Prioritizes Its Humanity
According to Mandeep Gill, an observational cosmologist at Stanford University, McConaughey’s Cooper wouldn’t have survived his trip into a black hole. Its gravity would have pulled him apart as he traversed towards it. The U.S. National Science Foundation defines black holes as invisible to humans because their gravitational pull absorbs light. One could not “fall into” a black hole. They appear as voids in a human’s vision because we require light to reflect from an object to see it, and black holes cannot do this. They are holes in our perception. A little bit of ignorance is necessary to maintain the boundary of reality.
Black holes present what scientists call an “information paradox.” The Law of Conservation of Mass in physics states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. According to a 2022 article in Scientific American, an experiment in which physicists successfully unboiled an egg proves that “the information required to wind back the clock is always preserved.” Black holes appear to contradict this statement by constantly enveloping new material. There seems to be no way to undo this ongoing process.
However, in the 1970s, Stephen Hawking discovered that black holes emit small amounts of radiation that, in theory, could cause the black hole to evaporate over time. Because of their massive size, no known black hole has ever done this. The idea is that it could solve the information paradox. Order is restored. A crack in reality that undermines what humans know about our existence is disarming. The ability to explain something is power, especially when you’re explaining reality.
McConaughey’s Cooper spent a lifetime apart from his daughter: nothing good comes easily, especially the survival of humanity. A goal that should work in theory can have unintended consequences in practice. Although difficult to deal with, those consequences should not kill you. If you stay focused on theory, you will get where you’re going. Probably.
Christopher Nolan is a storyteller, not a scientist. All humans contain an emotional mechanism that functions like a black hole. We incorporate everything we experience into a narrative about ourselves. In an article for The New Yorker titled “Everything Is Fiction”, author Kieth Ridgeway wrote, “Research is its own slow fiction, a process of reassurance for the author.”
Humans are constantly looking for evidence of the reality we feel. Survival is a game of proving to ourselves that our immediate surroundings exist as we perceive them. This is not a futile exercise, however self-evident its result may seem. Our ability to make more complex claims relies on a simpler one. As philosopher Rene Descartes said, “I think therefore I am.”
Sometimes, we can only afford to be logical after a story is told—the characters of Interstellar function with both instinct and reason. Could reason alone have saved humanity? When McConaughey’s Cooper is reunited with his daughter at the film’s conclusion, Interstellar argues that future generations may not find out. Happy endings can come from emotionally driven actions.
Maybe the science-fiction epics of the future will recall Earth, told from another planet. Our lives will become mythology even though, now, our fiction is the future. Some things have to be put into practice.
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