InterstellarTeam Lit Like Bic

Expectations

What to ExpectBased on the title name Interstellar, it is expected that this movie is

to occur somewhere in space

The first dialogue is an interview with an elderly woman in what seems to be the future, and it is learned that the Earth is no longer what it used to be and that people are struggling to survive

After the first scene, it is assumed that the main character Joe Cooper and his family have something to do with how the Earth or how the population are going to be saved

Characterization

CharactersThere are several important characters in Interstellar. The protagonist of this movie is a former ace pilot named Joseph Cooper. He is accompanied on the Endurance, the spaceship he captains, by a biologist, Dr. Brand, a geographer, Doyle, and a physicist named Dr. Romilly. The crew is sent out into space by Professor Brand, who is Dr. Brand’s father and a scientist at NASA. He sends this new crew to finish the job of the first scientists Miller, Edmunds, and Dr. Mann, who turns out to be the antagonist in the movie. Cooper’s family, consisting of his daughter, Murph, his son, Tom, and his father-in-law, Donald, is left on Earth with the mindset that they have been abandoned and left to die. Most of the characters in this movie come from scientific backgrounds so they act and think rationally and logically.

Plot

Plot SummaryThe first scene is a series of interviews with elderly people, who are

talking about how the world used to be compared to what it is now

The movie then goes back in time and introduces the main character, Joe Cooper, and his family who are living and working on a farm, although Cooper used to be a NASA test pilot

We find out that the population of the world has been reduced in half, due to lack of food and hunger

Technology is at a standstill and there are no more militaries or war

Cooper’s daughter, Murph, keeps talking about a ghost in her room, which foreshadows events that occur later in the movie

Plot SummaryCooper decides to look into this ghost Murph is talking about, and

believes that the “ghost” is sending signals to them for some reason

He studies the “signals” and believes they are coordinates on a map so he and his daughter drive to it

Cooper accidentally stumbles upon the new NASA headquarters, where he ends up being told about a space mission by his old colleague, Dr. Brand, that could save the human population

He learns about a wormhole near Saturn, and that 10 years prior, 12 astronauts traveled through it to search for potentially habitable planets

3 of the astronauts sent the “thumbs-up” signal for their planet, and the current mission is to send more astronauts and gather more data about which planet is the best

Plot SummaryCooper ends up piloting the spacecraft for the mission, although his

family wanted him to stay, as they thought he was leaving them on Earth to die

Dr. Brand had 2 plans for the mission if Cooper is successful in finding a habitable planet

Plan A would rescue a large amount of people on Earth by bringing space stations near the wormhole, but Dr. Brand would need to solve the equation that would allow them to overcome gravity before Cooper gets back

Plan B is to use frozen embryos to continue the population on whichever planet is deemed the most habitable

It takes 2 years for the crew to get to the wormhole, and once they are through, they decide to go to astronaut Miller’s planet first

Plot SummaryDue to the gravitational pull of a black hole on Miller’s planet, 1 hour

there is equivalent to 7 Earth years, meaning they needed to work quick

However, they ran into trouble and did not get back into space until 23 Earth years later

With wasted time and only enough fuel to visit one of the two remaining planets, they decide to visit astronaut Mann’s planet, because he was still transmitting a signal from his beacon

While on Mann’s planet, Mann reveals to Cooper the planet is uninhabitable and tries to kill him and steal his spaceship so he can go back to Earth

Amelia saves Cooper, and they chase after Mann back to the space station

Plot SummaryWhile Cooper and his crew was on Mann’s planet, Murph, who is now

an adult working with Dr. Brand on the gravity equation, discovers that the gravity equation is impossible without information from a black hole

Dr. Brand dies, but Murph is still set on solving the equation and saving the population

She thinks about the ghost in her room from her childhood, and goes back to her old house to try to find something that will help her

She realizes that the “ghost” was her dad the whole time and that he must’ve gotten inside a black hole to get her the information she needed

Cooper had gotten inside a black hole and was helped by “5th-dimensional beings” to help code the information onto a wristwatch left in his daughter’s room

Plot SummaryCooper had gotten into a black hole after Mann died trying to dock his

spacecraft onto the space station

The damage caused by Mann made it impossible for Cooper and Amelia to make it back to Earth

Cooper said they were both going to astronaut Edmond’s planet, the last of the 3 potentially habitable planets, but when they neared the black hole Cooper ejected his spacecraft to Amelia’s surprise

He travels through the black hole and thinks he’s in heaven or something when he wakes up

However, he survived and was able to code the information back to his daughter with the help of whatever beings were in the black hole

Plot SummaryWhen Cooper wakes up again, he is in a hospital on a space station

near Saturn and the wormhole, and discovers that he and his daughter succeeded in saving the population by solving the gravity equation

However, due to the gravitation he experienced in space, he was technically 124 Earth years old even though he still looked to be in his forties

He was able to visit his daughter, who is now 90 and about to die

He didn’t know anybody or anything about this space station, so he decided he wanted to go on a mission to find Amelia on Edmond’s planet

The movie ends with him taking another spacecraft towards the wormhole

Setting

SettingThe story starts off someplace in the rural Midwest at some point in the future

There has been a major drought and the earth has become very barren

The setting changes when the protagonist, Joe Cooper, takes off into space in an effort to find a planet suitable for life, and the rest of the action takes place on the different planets and parts of space he and his crew venture to

SettingTime is an essential element of this piece

The point of the crew’s mission is to find a new planet to inhabit before the rest of the people on earth die

The catch is that a lot of their time is spent near a black hole called Gargantua, which, when they are close enough to it, causes severe gravitational time dilation

For example, every hour the crew spends on Miller’s planet (the first planet they journey to) is actually seven Earth years

Cooper is especially concerned with time given that his underlying goal for the mission is to save his two children, Murph and Tom, and to one day see them again

SettingThe stage directions describe the setting very well, for they give descriptions of many

of the places in the story

However, actually seeing the surroundings gives a great representation of how important the setting is to the story, for a lot of the work depends on sights like the vast cornfields, the utter blackness of space, the beauty and terror of the black hole, etc.

Style

Style of DialogueThe style of the dialogue is concise. Each of the characters talks in short sentences or phrases. They rarely talk over each other, and normally take turns talking. The vocabulary is rather simple with a few exceptions. When the characters are talking to each other to move the plot forward, the dialogue is rather simple, however in many situations that arise, the dialogue becomes much more complex. For example, when the astronauts approach the wormhole, the dialogue becomes much more complex and scientific. The only times the dialogue behaves in this manner, is when they are discussing the scientific aspects of the setting. This represents that the science that they are using and studying are bigger than they are. It shows that they do not really understand all that is going on in the universe, but they are a small part of it, and have to try to understand their place in the universe. There are periods of great science, and often times, in periods of great conflict. These periods happen in space, and in space, sound does not travel. This represents the astronauts trying to understand their place and react to conflict. There is no dialogue when these things happen, until they discover a solution. The main characters talk more than anyone else to represent that they are the chosen ones to save the human species, while the others are there just to assist the main characters in their tasks.

Images and Figures of SpeechThere are a couple of uses of figures of speech. Throughout the play, the characters keep referring to what they do not understand as “they.” When the Wormhole appears, they allude to an idea that “they” placed it there. At the end of the story, we learn that there never was a “they,” instead, everything that was happening already existed, the characters just did not understand these occurrences. Similarly, at the beginning of the movie, when Cooper and Murph did not understand the mystery of the bookcase, they referred to the cause as a ghost. It’s not until closer to the end of the play that we understand the mystery, and we discover what the ghost actually was all along.

Tone and MoodThe tone and mood can be described as curious. There are many questions that, not only the audience does not understand, but the characters do not understand either. It is not until the end of the play that the characters and the audience get the answers to the questions. The entire story considers the curiosity of the main character Cooper, and his desire to explore. He even goes as far as to refer to the entire human species as explorers and pioneers. This curiosity leads the audience to be curious about what the characters will do, how they will react to situations and solve problems, and to receive answers to questions that are purposed at the beginning of the story. The author considers the concept of time throughout the entire play. He uses time and the emotions of time throughout the entire story. In the scene where Cooper returns to the spaceship after spending over 23 Earth years searching another planet, he reviews all that has happened over the past 23 years. The author takes the audience on an emotional rollercoaster. We experience every emotion within a short period of time as Cooper lives 23 years in about a minute and a half. This shows the consequences of time, and uses emotions and tone to convey the point.

Theme

ThemeThere are many themes that can be drawn from this movie

The theme that is most inevitable though, is Love

This movie shows just what Love can make someone do, even when they are in a different planet, galaxy, or dimension

Each character displays in different ways what Love makes them do, like Cooper doing everything he can to make sure his children survive or like Dr. Brand, who dedicated his whole life to solving the gravity equation that would continue the human population