The following is my musings on the movie Interstellar, directed into three separate topics of interest coalescing into a final fourth topic that takes everything from the above topics into consideration ending and with my theory on the ultimate hidden premise of the movie itself.
**SPOILERS**
**SPOILERS**
Point One: Back To The Future
The movie was brilliant, but fell short in several areas. The biggest disappointment for me was definitely when Joseph Cooper entered the black hole and found a construct made of 5th dimensional time/space that he could manipulate. I cannot fathom for the life of me how Cooper could manipulate kinetic energy in this plane of existence (meaning physical contact of at least photons occurred), yet he was unable to enter through time himself. Why? How unoriginal, but I suppose the writers wanted to avoid a whole back-to-the-future cliché where none of the movie even had to take place since JC could have just traveled back in time to spend time with his daughter and tell her what she needed to know for the future. By allowing him to manipulate kinetic energy through space and time, and for physical contact to have occurred, would require his physical structure to have made contact with the pasts, thus there is no reason at all he could not have gone back himself, but whatever...
Point Two: Chicken And The Egg
Of course, the whole premise of this movie is JC goes through the wormhole, communicates with his daughter in the *past* which sets in motion him going into the wormhole in the first place. Okay... whatever. So what did JC's musings and pondering produce in the past? Some data of the inside of a black hole that an older Murphy Cooper was able to use to "complete the code". But what exactly does this mean? At the end of the movie, MC is not taking a wormhole off of Earth to meet her father, but instead uses cryogenic sleep of no less than 2-years, the same time it took JC to reach Saturn. So this says the discovery of the gravity theory solved... absolutely nothing in terms of wormhole travel, at least not at this point in time. It is equally clear that since there is a cylindrical spaceship housing humans headed towards the wormhole on Saturn, then obviously humans had made their homes on these ships, and were attempting to use the wormhole to travel to potential new planets, possibly because they had received a probe from Amelia Bran a few years prior – it is not clear how long JC traveled through the black-hole turned wormhole before being ejected back through the wormhole near Saturn. In any case, it can be deduced that at this point in the timeline, MC's equations account for no substantial gain in helpful knowledge in the story. Not even the ships make use of any sort of anti-gravity field to simulate artificial gravity, instead relying on the cylindrical shape to provide this. What can be surmised at this point is *if* MC never got this code and solved these equations, that humans would never have access to this wormhole meaning MC would still be living underground on Earth, and some humans would be living in cylindrical spaceships in space for perhaps thousands of years before actually discovering the theory of space-time manipulation. This bleeds into my 4th and final point, but again, for the sake of the movie itself, the code has exactly zero effect on the plot.
Point Three: Where Did All The Humans Go?
At the ending of the movie, a dying MC tells JC to go meet up with Amelia Bran, which is clearly on the third potential planet since we see her ex-boyfriend’s dog tag and are aware he was sent to that planet. MC tells JC that Bran is stranded alone on this planet. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the black hole acted as a wormhole (instead of crushing JC to dust) and teleported him to the other wormhole in front of Saturn. Cool beans, and there just happened to be this ship headed toward that wormhole at that exact second because, why not. So I'm going to assume here also that somehow Bran sent a probe back through the wormhole and communicated with Earth and *that* is why Earth was sending its survivors on that spaceship to *that* planet. Alright, but if so, why did MC send her father to meet up with Bran ahead of the rest of the Earth colony showing up? This is never resolved, however we can assume here that at this point in the film, Earth must have received Brans message and had a minimum of 2-years to reach Saturn, plus perhaps another 2-5 to prep not only create this elaborate spacecraft, but assuming it was already crafted by this time, to prep it for interstellar wormhole travel. I’d say it’s fair to assume 4-5 years have passed since JC and Bran have last seen one another, and Bran has been alone on this planet raising 20+ test tube babies at a time (or did they say 30?). How sane do you think she’s going to be when JC arrives? Why not come with the whole convoy and meet her? Ridiculous plot holes abound, but not so bad as the *fact* space travel seems to have stopped Brans hair from growing past the initial scene, since it was the same length in the last scene, so I'm sure there are some perks to living in this universe. And of Earth? It’s clear MC left Earth to see her father, so evidently the planets still habitable, although Tom Cooper (JC's son) did mention he didn't want to live his life underground, hinting at a dystopian future subsurface. It's not clear what state Earth is in, but if MC could stay there to finish her work and even die there in peace (before she found out about her father and decided to cryo herself out to meet him and die in space), then I think it's possible here that at this point in the timeline, humans may have split into three separate colonies, one on Earth living underground, one on the mythical third planet, and the last living in space. It's anybody’s guess which one ends up being the evolutionary race that develops time-space travel through the 5th dimension.
Summation: Hints Of A Far Worse Future
What is clear in the plot thus far is that were it not for the future humans having caused an interdimensional space-time interference when they did, that the humans of that timeline would have been stuck on Earth underground and/or in space for perhaps thousands, or even tens-of-thousands of years, and once humans finally did discover this technology, for whatever reason they decide to use it to invent this elaborate plan to lure JC and MC into delivering their message *sooner* than they would have naturally developed this technology without the message, allowing future human selves to develop 5th dimensional travel maybe 1,000-years into the future instead of 10k years, but this begs the question, why bother going through all the trouble so their future selves could manipulate time-space at an earlier date? Why bother when they would eventually discover it anyhow instead of setting up this elaborate "Predestination" paradox.
Taking everything I've mused on above in all topics into consideration, it's clear that without having caused an interdimensional space-time interference when they (i.e. future humans) did, that humans would have separated into at least two distinct human colonies, the ones on Earth, and ones living in space. After several hundred generations, one of these evolved colonies learns how to manipulate space-time, however this this knowledge, they chose to alter history way earlier than expected so that they will have this knowledge sooner… that much is clear. I’m drawing the assumption that it's because either the space and Earth colonies were at war during this period, or they had completely and utterly exhausted all their resources and life was totally unsustainable at the point in time this technology came about, so since destruction of our species was eminent, they chose a time in the past where if they received that message, humanity could develop space-time manipulation way earlier than they did and save our species from total destruction. Perhaps it was a time in our future evolution when we were ready for this knowledge after a few generations of surviving in space? In any case, it seems it was necessary to ensure the future humans received this information much sooner than it was naturally formulated. But this raises the question, to what end? So these future humans have evolved, perhaps looking more "alien" in nature over time having evolved in space, and their bodies are more likely to withstand interdimensional travel, so what do they do with this technology? It's clear to me that they can alter the past in this universe. One could speculate director Christopher Nolan is implying here that all "alien" sighting in our lifetime is nothing more than the future us trying to subvert a hereafter where we all die, maybe even manipulate it in such a way as to continue creating this 5th dimensional travel technology to avoid any impossible paradoxes. At least, that's what I feel is the penultimate outcome of this train of logic, and the secret message behind the ending of this movie, or to be clearer, that future humans goal all along was to receive this technology earlier so they could use this knowledge with whatever resources they had at the time they got interdimensional travel working to go into our distant past and influence our actions to ensure certain destructive outcomes never occurred, such as the food famine.
EDIT: I wanted to add that I just read a review on this movie making a fair argument that it is actually robotic AI from the future that lives on and causes the space-time rift long after humanities downfall. A very interesting possibility I hadn't considered, so perhaps the AI is the original protagonists of interdimensional travel, however they are making sure humans receive this knowledge before their demise so they can use it to save themselves? An interesting point that does not seem to invalidate any of my theories, but might actually strengthen the weak-link in my theory of humanity trying to give the technology to themselves earlier, and I kept asking why? Well, this would serve as the vehicle for the why - because humanity was already long gone!
Thanks for reading my thoughts and theories on this interesting movie! Hope to hear comments for you all soon!
**SPOILERS**
**SPOILERS**
Point One: Back To The Future
The movie was brilliant, but fell short in several areas. The biggest disappointment for me was definitely when Joseph Cooper entered the black hole and found a construct made of 5th dimensional time/space that he could manipulate. I cannot fathom for the life of me how Cooper could manipulate kinetic energy in this plane of existence (meaning physical contact of at least photons occurred), yet he was unable to enter through time himself. Why? How unoriginal, but I suppose the writers wanted to avoid a whole back-to-the-future cliché where none of the movie even had to take place since JC could have just traveled back in time to spend time with his daughter and tell her what she needed to know for the future. By allowing him to manipulate kinetic energy through space and time, and for physical contact to have occurred, would require his physical structure to have made contact with the pasts, thus there is no reason at all he could not have gone back himself, but whatever...
Point Two: Chicken And The Egg
Of course, the whole premise of this movie is JC goes through the wormhole, communicates with his daughter in the *past* which sets in motion him going into the wormhole in the first place. Okay... whatever. So what did JC's musings and pondering produce in the past? Some data of the inside of a black hole that an older Murphy Cooper was able to use to "complete the code". But what exactly does this mean? At the end of the movie, MC is not taking a wormhole off of Earth to meet her father, but instead uses cryogenic sleep of no less than 2-years, the same time it took JC to reach Saturn. So this says the discovery of the gravity theory solved... absolutely nothing in terms of wormhole travel, at least not at this point in time. It is equally clear that since there is a cylindrical spaceship housing humans headed towards the wormhole on Saturn, then obviously humans had made their homes on these ships, and were attempting to use the wormhole to travel to potential new planets, possibly because they had received a probe from Amelia Bran a few years prior – it is not clear how long JC traveled through the black-hole turned wormhole before being ejected back through the wormhole near Saturn. In any case, it can be deduced that at this point in the timeline, MC's equations account for no substantial gain in helpful knowledge in the story. Not even the ships make use of any sort of anti-gravity field to simulate artificial gravity, instead relying on the cylindrical shape to provide this. What can be surmised at this point is *if* MC never got this code and solved these equations, that humans would never have access to this wormhole meaning MC would still be living underground on Earth, and some humans would be living in cylindrical spaceships in space for perhaps thousands of years before actually discovering the theory of space-time manipulation. This bleeds into my 4th and final point, but again, for the sake of the movie itself, the code has exactly zero effect on the plot.
Point Three: Where Did All The Humans Go?
At the ending of the movie, a dying MC tells JC to go meet up with Amelia Bran, which is clearly on the third potential planet since we see her ex-boyfriend’s dog tag and are aware he was sent to that planet. MC tells JC that Bran is stranded alone on this planet. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the black hole acted as a wormhole (instead of crushing JC to dust) and teleported him to the other wormhole in front of Saturn. Cool beans, and there just happened to be this ship headed toward that wormhole at that exact second because, why not. So I'm going to assume here also that somehow Bran sent a probe back through the wormhole and communicated with Earth and *that* is why Earth was sending its survivors on that spaceship to *that* planet. Alright, but if so, why did MC send her father to meet up with Bran ahead of the rest of the Earth colony showing up? This is never resolved, however we can assume here that at this point in the film, Earth must have received Brans message and had a minimum of 2-years to reach Saturn, plus perhaps another 2-5 to prep not only create this elaborate spacecraft, but assuming it was already crafted by this time, to prep it for interstellar wormhole travel. I’d say it’s fair to assume 4-5 years have passed since JC and Bran have last seen one another, and Bran has been alone on this planet raising 20+ test tube babies at a time (or did they say 30?). How sane do you think she’s going to be when JC arrives? Why not come with the whole convoy and meet her? Ridiculous plot holes abound, but not so bad as the *fact* space travel seems to have stopped Brans hair from growing past the initial scene, since it was the same length in the last scene, so I'm sure there are some perks to living in this universe. And of Earth? It’s clear MC left Earth to see her father, so evidently the planets still habitable, although Tom Cooper (JC's son) did mention he didn't want to live his life underground, hinting at a dystopian future subsurface. It's not clear what state Earth is in, but if MC could stay there to finish her work and even die there in peace (before she found out about her father and decided to cryo herself out to meet him and die in space), then I think it's possible here that at this point in the timeline, humans may have split into three separate colonies, one on Earth living underground, one on the mythical third planet, and the last living in space. It's anybody’s guess which one ends up being the evolutionary race that develops time-space travel through the 5th dimension.
Summation: Hints Of A Far Worse Future
What is clear in the plot thus far is that were it not for the future humans having caused an interdimensional space-time interference when they did, that the humans of that timeline would have been stuck on Earth underground and/or in space for perhaps thousands, or even tens-of-thousands of years, and once humans finally did discover this technology, for whatever reason they decide to use it to invent this elaborate plan to lure JC and MC into delivering their message *sooner* than they would have naturally developed this technology without the message, allowing future human selves to develop 5th dimensional travel maybe 1,000-years into the future instead of 10k years, but this begs the question, why bother going through all the trouble so their future selves could manipulate time-space at an earlier date? Why bother when they would eventually discover it anyhow instead of setting up this elaborate "Predestination" paradox.
Taking everything I've mused on above in all topics into consideration, it's clear that without having caused an interdimensional space-time interference when they (i.e. future humans) did, that humans would have separated into at least two distinct human colonies, the ones on Earth, and ones living in space. After several hundred generations, one of these evolved colonies learns how to manipulate space-time, however this this knowledge, they chose to alter history way earlier than expected so that they will have this knowledge sooner… that much is clear. I’m drawing the assumption that it's because either the space and Earth colonies were at war during this period, or they had completely and utterly exhausted all their resources and life was totally unsustainable at the point in time this technology came about, so since destruction of our species was eminent, they chose a time in the past where if they received that message, humanity could develop space-time manipulation way earlier than they did and save our species from total destruction. Perhaps it was a time in our future evolution when we were ready for this knowledge after a few generations of surviving in space? In any case, it seems it was necessary to ensure the future humans received this information much sooner than it was naturally formulated. But this raises the question, to what end? So these future humans have evolved, perhaps looking more "alien" in nature over time having evolved in space, and their bodies are more likely to withstand interdimensional travel, so what do they do with this technology? It's clear to me that they can alter the past in this universe. One could speculate director Christopher Nolan is implying here that all "alien" sighting in our lifetime is nothing more than the future us trying to subvert a hereafter where we all die, maybe even manipulate it in such a way as to continue creating this 5th dimensional travel technology to avoid any impossible paradoxes. At least, that's what I feel is the penultimate outcome of this train of logic, and the secret message behind the ending of this movie, or to be clearer, that future humans goal all along was to receive this technology earlier so they could use this knowledge with whatever resources they had at the time they got interdimensional travel working to go into our distant past and influence our actions to ensure certain destructive outcomes never occurred, such as the food famine.
EDIT: I wanted to add that I just read a review on this movie making a fair argument that it is actually robotic AI from the future that lives on and causes the space-time rift long after humanities downfall. A very interesting possibility I hadn't considered, so perhaps the AI is the original protagonists of interdimensional travel, however they are making sure humans receive this knowledge before their demise so they can use it to save themselves? An interesting point that does not seem to invalidate any of my theories, but might actually strengthen the weak-link in my theory of humanity trying to give the technology to themselves earlier, and I kept asking why? Well, this would serve as the vehicle for the why - because humanity was already long gone!
Thanks for reading my thoughts and theories on this interesting movie! Hope to hear comments for you all soon!
"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." -Albert Einsetin