Интерстеллар сценарий на английском

Well, my dad was a farmer.

Um, like everybody else back then.

Of course, he didn’t start that way.

Computer says you’re too tight.

— Nah, I got this.
— Crossing the Straights.

— Shutting it down, Cooper.
— No!

— Shutting it all down.
— No, I need power up!

Dad?

Sorry, Murph. Go back to bed.

— I thought you were the ghost.
— No.

There are no such things as ghosts, babe.

Grandpa says you can get ghosts.

Maybe that’s because Grandpa’s close to being one himself. Back to bed.

Were you dreaming about the crash?

Get your butt back in bed, Murph. Heh.

The wheat had died.

The blight came and we had to burn it.

And we still had corn. We had acres of corn.

But, uh, mostly we had dust.

I guess I can’t describe it. It was just constant.

Just that steady blow… of dirt.

We wore, um, little strips of sheet…

sometimes over our nose and mouth…

so that we wouldn’t breathe so much of it.

When we set the table, we always set the plate…

upside-down. Glasses or cups, whatever it was…

upside-down.

Shake a leg! Murph, get a move on!

Tom, 4:00 today, you and me in the barn, Herbicide Resistance 101.

— Check?
— Yes, sir.

Not at the table, Murph.

Dad, can you fix this?

What the heck did you do…

— to my lander?
— Wasn’t me.

Let me guess. It was your ghost?

It knocked it off. It keeps knocking books off.

No such thing as ghosts, dumb-ass.

Hey.

I looked it up. It’s called a poltergeist.

Dad, tell her.

Well, it’s not very scientific, Murph.

You said science was about admitting what we don’t know.

— She’s got you there.
— Hey.

Start looking after our stuff.

Coop.

All right, Murph, you want to talk science?

Don’t tell me you’re afraid of some ghost. No, you got to go further.

You got to record the facts, analyze, get to the how and the why…

then present your conclusions. Deal?

— Deal.
— All right.

— Have a good day at school.
— Hold up.

Parent-teacher conferences. Parent.

Not grandparent.

Slow down, turbo!

— That’s not a dust storm.
— Nelson’s torching his whole crop.

Blight?

They’re saying it’s the last harvest for okra.

Ever.

He should’ve planted corn like the rest of us.

Now, be nice to that Miss Hanley. She’s single.

What’s that supposed to mean?

Repopulating the earth. Start pulling your weight, young man.

Why don’t you start minding your own business, old man?

All right, Murph, give me second.

Uh-huh.

Third.

— Find a gear, dumb-ass.
— Grind it!

Shut it, Tom!

— What’d you do, Murph?
— Ah, she didn’t do nothing.

— Blew a tire is all.
— Murphy’s Law.

Shut up!

— Grab the spare, Tom.
— That is the spare.

Get the patch kit!

How am I supposed to patch it out here? COOPER: You got to figure it out.

I’m not always gonna be here to help you.

What’s going on, Murph?

Why did you and Mom name me after something that’s bad?

We didn’t.

Murphy’s Law?

Murphy’s Law doesn’t mean that something bad will happen.

What it means is whatever can happen will happen.

And that sounded just fine with us.

Whoa!

Get in.

Get in, let’s go.

What about the flat tire?

Yeah.

It’s an Indian Air Force drone. Solar cells could power an entire farm.

Take the wheel, Tom.

Go, go, go!

Keep that aimed right at it.

Faster, Tom. I’m losing it.

Right at it.

Stay on it.

Here we go.

Whoa.

Nice one, Tom.

Dad?

I almost got it. Don’t stop. Don’t stop!

Dad!

Tom!

You told me to keep driving.

Well, I guess that answers the old «if I asked you to drive off a cliff» scenario.

— We lost it.
— No, we didn’t.

Want to give it a whirl?

This way.

Go.

Let’s lay her down right there at the edge of the reservoir.

Nicely done.

How long you think it’s been up there?

Delhi Mission Control went down, same as ours…

— ten years ago.
— Heh.

So for ten years?

— Why did it come down so low?
— I don’t know.

Maybe the sun cooked its brain or it was looking for something.

— What?
— Give me a large flatblade.

Maybe some kind of signal? I don’t know.

What are you gonna do with it?

I’m gonna give it something socially responsible to do…

like drive a combine.

Can’t we just let it go?

It wasn’t hurting anybody.

This thing needs to learn how to adapt, Murph…

like the rest of us.

How’s this work? You guys come with?

I’ve got class.

This one needs to wait.

— What did you do?
— They’ll tell you about it in there.

— Am I gonna be mad?
— Not with me.

— Just please try not to.
— Hey. Relax.

I got this.

Little late, Coop.

Yeah, we had a flat.

And I guess you had to stop off at the Asian fighter plane store.

No, actually, sir, that’s a surveillance drone.

With outstanding solar cells. It’s Indian.

Take a seat.

So, uh…

we got Tom’s scores back.

He’s going to make an excellent farmer.

Yeah, he’s got a knack for it. What about college?

The university only takes a handful. They don’t have the resources to…

I still pay my taxes.

Where’s that money go? There’s no more armies.

Well, it doesn’t go to the university.

Look, Coop, you have to be realistic.

You’re ruling my son out for college now?

— The kid’s 15.
— Tom’s score simply isn’t high enough.

What’s your waistline? About what, 32?

About a 33 inseam?

I’m not sure I see what you’re getting at.

It takes two numbers to measure your ass but only one to measure my son’s future?

Come on. You’re a well-educated man, Coop.

— And a trained pilot.
— And an engineer.

Okay, well, right now we don’t need more engineers.

We didn’t run out of television screens and planes. We ran out of food.

The world needs farmers. Good farmers, like you.

— And Tom.
— Uneducated farmers.

We’re a caretaker generation, Coop. And things are getting better.

Maybe your grandkids will get to be engin…

Are we done here, sir?

No.

Miss Hanley’s here to talk about Murph.

Murph is a great kid. She’s really bright.

But she’s been having a little trouble lately.

She brought this in to show the students. The section on the lunar landings.

Yeah, it’s one of my old textbooks.

She always loved the pictures.

It’s an old federal textbook. We’ve replaced them with the corrected versions.

Corrected?

Explaining how the Apollo missions were faked to bankrupt the Soviet Union.

You don’t believe we went to the moon?

It was a brilliant piece of propaganda.

The Soviets bankrupted themselves pouring resources…

into rockets and other useless machines.

«Useless machines.»

If we don’t want a repeat of the excess and wastefulness of the 20th century, then…

we need to teach our kids about this planet, not tales of leaving it.

One of those useless machines they used to make was called an MRI.

If we had any of those left, the doctors would’ve been able to find…

the cyst in my wife’s brain before she died instead of afterwards.

Then she’d have been the one listening to this instead of me…

which would have been a good thing, because she was always…

the calmer one.

I’m sorry about your wife, Mr. Cooper.

But Murph got into a fistfight with several of her classmates over this…

Apollo nonsense.

So we thought it best to bring you in and see what ideas…

you might have for dealing with her behavior on the home front.

Yeah, you know what? Um, there’s a game tomorrow night.

She’s going through a bit of a baseball phase.

Her favorite team is playing. There’s gonna be candy and soda and…

I think I’ll take her to that.

How’d it go?

I got you suspended.

— What?
— Cooper.

This is Cooper. Go.

Coop, those combines you rebuilt went haywire.

Just reset the controllers.

I did that. Now you should come take a look.

One by one they’ve been peeling off the fields and heading over.

Something’s interfering with the compass.

Magnetism or some such.

Nothing special about which book.

I’ve been working on it, like you said.

— I counted the spaces.
— Why?

In case the ghost is trying to communicate.

I’m trying Morse.

Morse?

Yeah.

— Dots and dashes, used…
— I know what Morse code is, Murph.

I just don’t think your bookshelf’s trying to talk to you.

Had to reset every compass clock and GPS to offset for the anomaly.

— Which is?
— I don’t know.

If the house was built on magnetic ore…

we’d have seen this the first time we switched on the tractor.

I hear your meeting at the school didn’t go so well.

Heh. You heard?

It’s like we’ve forgotten who we are, Donald.

Explorers, pioneers, not caretakers.

When I was a kid…

it felt like they made something new every day. Some…

gadget or idea. Like every day was Christmas.

But six billion people…

just try to imagine that.

And every last one of them trying to have it all.

This world isn’t so bad.

And Tom will do just fine.

You’re the one who doesn’t belong. Born 40 years too late, or 40 years too early.

My daughter knew it, God bless her.

And your kids know it. Especially Murph.

Well, we used to look up in the sky and wonder…

at our place in the stars.

Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.

Cooper, you were good at something…

and you never got a chance to do anything with it.

I’m sorry.

You didn’t expect…

this dirt that was giving you this food…

to turn on you like that and destroy you.

In April… I believe I’m right… Fifteenth of April, I think.

This happened about 1:30 when that thing…

came off the top of that canyon.

In my day, we had real ballplayers.

Who are these bums?

In my day, people were too busy…

fighting over food to even play baseball.

Popcorn at a ballgame is unnatural. I want a hot dog.

School says you’re gonna follow in my footsteps.

I think that’s great.

— You think that’s great?
— You hate farming, Dad.

Grandpa said.

Grandpa said, huh?

Listen, all that matters is how you feel about it.

I like what you do.

I like our farm.

You’re gonna be great at it.

Let’s get out of here.

All right, it’s a doozy.

All right, gang, let’s mask up.

— Tom? Murph? Check?
— Yeah.

Murph, Tom, you guys shut your windows?

Murph?

The ghost.

Grab your pillow.

You’re sleeping in with Tom.

It’s not a ghost.

It’s gravity.

I’m dropping Tom, then heading to town.

You want to clean that up when you’ve finished praying to it?

It’s not Morse, Murph. It’s binary.

Thick is one, thin is zero.

Coordinates.

Nope. Mm-mm.

Here we go.

Thirty-three.

That’s it.

I can’t miss this!

Grandpa will be back in a couple hours, Murph.

But you don’t know what you’re gonna find.

And that…

is why I can’t take you.

Murph?

Grandpa will be home in a while. Tell him I’ll call him on the radio.

— Aah!
— Jesus.

— What are you doing?
— Heh-heh.

Oh, you think this is funny? Huh?

You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.

Make yourself useful.

Hey, Murph?

Murph!

I think this is the end of the road.

Didn’t you bring the bolt cutters?

That’s my girl.

Step away!

Don’t shoot! I’m not armed. My daughter’s in the car.

— Don’t be afraid.
— Aah!

How did you find this place?

Where’s my daughter?

You had the coordinates for this facility marked on your map. Where did you get them?

Where’s my daughter?

Don’t make me take you down again. Sit down!

Oh, you still think you’re a Marine, pal?

Marines don’t exist anymore.

And I got grunts like you mowing my grass.

Where did you find those coordinates?

But you don’t look much like a lawnmower.

Think I’ll turn you into an overqualified vacuum cleaner.

No, you won’t.

TARS, back down, please.

You know, you’re taking a risk using ex-military security.

They’re old, and their control units are unpredictable.

It’s what the government could spare.

Who are you?

Dr. Brand.

I knew a Dr. Brand once. He was a professor.

What makes you think I’m not?

Wasn’t near as cute, either.

Please, Dr. Brand. I don’t have any idea what this is.

Now I’m scared for my daughter and want her by my side.

You give me that, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.

Get the principals and the girl in the conference room, please.

Your daughter is fine.

Bright kid.

Must have a very smart mother.

It’s pretty clear you don’t want any visitors.

So why don’t you just let us back up from your fence and we’ll be on our way? Huh?

— It’s not that simple.
— Well, sure, it is.

I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know anything about this place.

Yes, you do.

Dad!

Hello, Cooper.

Professor Brand.

Explain to me how you found this facility.

Kind of an accident. We sort of stumbled upon it. We were on a salvage run…

You’re sitting in the best-kept secret in the world.

Nobody stumbles in here. Nobody stumbles out.

Cooper, please.

Cooperate with these people.

Look.

It’s kind of hard to explain.

We learned these coordinates from an anomaly.

What sort of anomaly?

I hesitate to term it supernatural, but it definitely wasn’t scientific.

You’re going to have to be specific, Mr. Cooper. Right now.

It was gravity.

Um, what sort of gravitational anomaly? Where was this?

Now, I’m real happy that you’re excited about gravity, bud…

but you’re not getting any answers from us until I get assurances.

— Assurances?
— Yeah.

Like, that we’re getting out of here. And I don’t mean in the trunk of some car.

Don’t you know who we are, Coop?

No, professor, I don’t.

You know my father, Professor Brand.

We’re NASA.

— NASA?
— NASA.

The same NASA you flew for.

I heard they shut you down, sir…

for refusing to drop bombs from the stratosphere…

onto starving people.

When they realized that killing other people was…

not a long-term solution, then they needed us back.

— In secret.
— Why secret?

Because public opinion wouldn’t allow spending on space exploration.

Not while you’re struggling to put food on the table.

Blight.

Wheat seven years ago. Okra this year.

Now there’s just corn.

And we’re growing more than we ever have.

But like the potatoes in Ireland and the wheat in the Dust Bowl…

the corn will die.

Soon.

We’ll find a way, professor. We always have.

Driven by the unshakable faith the Earth is ours.

Not just ours, no.

But it is our home.

Earth’s atmosphere is 80 percent nitrogen.

We don’t even breathe nitrogen.

Blight does. And as it thrives, our air gets less and less oxygen.

The last people to starve will be the first to suffocate.

And your daughter’s generation…

will be the last to survive on Earth.

Murph is tired. I was wondering if she could take a nap in my office.

Yeah. Thank you.

Okay…

now you need to tell me what your plan is to save the world.

We’re not meant to save the world. We’re meant to leave it.

Rangers.

The last components of our one versatile ship in orbit, the Endurance.

Our final expedition.

You sent people out there looking for a new home?

The Lazarus missions.

— Oh, that sounds cheerful.
— Lazarus came back from the dead.

Sure, but he had to die in the first place.

There’s not a planet in our solar system that could sustain life…

and the nearest star’s over a thousand years away.

That doesn’t even qualify as futile.

Where’d you send them?

Cooper…

I can’t tell you anymore unless you agree…

to pilot this craft.

— You’re the best pilot we ever had.
— I barely left the stratosphere.

This team never left the simulator.

We need a pilot, and this is the mission that you were trained for.

Without even knowing it?

An hour ago, you didn’t even know I was alive. You were going anyway.

We had no choice.

But something sent you here.

— They chose you.
— Who’s «they»?

How long would I be gone?

Hard to know. Years?

I’ve got kids, professor.

Get out there and save them.

Who’s «they»?

We started detecting gravitational anomalies almost 50 years ago.

Mostly small distortions to our instruments in the upper atmosphere.

In fact, I believe you encountered one yourself.

Yeah, over the Straights.

My crash. Something tripped my fly-by-wire.

Exactly.

But of all these anomalies, the most significant is this:

Out near Saturn…

a disturbance of space-time.

— Is that a wormhole?
— It appeared 48 years ago.

And it leads where?

Another galaxy.

A wormhole’s not a naturally occurring phenomenon.

Someone placed it there.

— «They»?
— Mm.

And whoever they are, they appear to be looking out for us.

That wormhole lets us travel to other stars.

It came along right as we needed it.

They’ve put potentially habitable worlds right within our reach.

Twelve, in fact, from our initial probes.

— You sent probes into that?
— Mm-hm.

We sent people into it. Ten years ago.

The Lazarus missions.

Twelve possible worlds…

twelve Ranger launches carrying…

the bravest humans ever to live…

led by the remarkable Dr. Mann.

Each person’s landing pod had enough life support for two years.

But they could use hibernation to stretch that…

making observations on organics over a decade or more.

Their mission was to assess their world, and if it showed potential…

then they could send out a signal, bed down for the long nap, wait to be rescued.

And what if the world didn’t show promise?

Hence the bravery.

You don’t have the resources to visit all 12.

No.

Data transmission back through the wormhole is rudimentary.

Simple binary pings on an annual basis give us

some clue as to which worlds have potential.

And one system shows promise.

One. That’s a bit of a long shot, isn’t it?

One system with three potential worlds?

No long shot.

Okay.

So if we find a home…

— then what?
— That’s the long shot.

There’s a Plan A and a Plan B.

Did you notice anything strange about the launch chamber?

This entire facility’s a centrifuge.

Some kind of vehicle. A space station?

Both. Plan A.

How do you get it off the ground?

The first gravitational anomalies changed everything.

Suddenly we knew that harnessing gravity was real.

So I started working on a theory and we started building this station.

But you haven’t solved it yet.

That’s why there’s Plan B.

The problem is gravity. How to get a viable amount of human life off the planet.

This is one way.

Plan B: a population bomb.

Over 5,000 fertilized eggs weighing in at just under 900 kilos.

How would you raise them?

With equipment on board, we incubate the first 10.

After that, with surrogacy, the growth becomes exponential.

Within 30 years, we could have a colony of hundreds.

The real difficulty with colonization is genetic diversity.

This takes care of that.

But what about the people here? You just…

give up on them?

My kids?

That’s why Plan A is a lot more fun.

— How far have you got?
— Almost there.

You’re asking me to hang everything…

on an almost.

I’m asking you to trust me.

Find us a new home.

And by the time you return…

I will have solved the problem of gravity.

I give you my word.

Go away!

Murph.

Go! If you’re leaving, just go.

This world was never enough for you, was it, Coop?

What, because heading out there is what I feel like I was born to do?

And it excites me? Heh.

No, that does not make it wrong.

It might.

Don’t trust the right thing done for the wrong reason.

The why of the thing, that’s the foundation.

And the foundation’s solid.

We farmers, we sit here every year when the rains fail and we say:

«Next year.»

Well, next year ain’t gonna save us, nor the one after that.

This world’s a treasure, Donald, but it’s been telling us to leave for a while now.

Mankind was born on Earth, it was never meant to die here.

Tom will be all right, but you got to make things right with Murph.

I will.

Without making promises you don’t know you can keep.

You have to talk to me, Murph.

I need to fix this before I go.

Then I’ll keep it broken so you have to stay.

After you kids came along, your mom said something to me I never quite understood.

She said, «Now…

we’re just here to be memories for our kids.»

And I think that now I understand what she meant.

Once you’re a parent, you’re the ghost of your children’s future.

You said ghosts didn’t exist.

That’s right, Murph.

Murph, look at me.

I can’t be your ghost right now.

I need to exist.

They chose me.

Murph, they chose me. You saw. You’re the one who led me to them.

That’s exactly why you can’t go.

I figured out the message.

— One word. Know what it is?
— Murph.

«Stay.»

— It says, «Stay,» Dad.
— Murph.

You don’t believe me.

Look at the books! Look at this. It says, «Stay.»

Why…? You’re not listening! It says, «Stay!»

No, I’m coming back.

When?

One for you, one for me.

When I’m up there in hypersleep, or…

traveling near the speed of light, or…

near a black hole…

time’s gonna change for me. It’s gonna run more slowly.

When we get back…

we’re gonna compare.

— Time will run differently for us?
— Yeah.

By the time I get back, we might even be the same age, you and me.

«What?» Imagine that!

Aw, Murph…

You have no idea when you’re coming back.

No idea at all!

Murph, don’t… Don’t make me leave like this.

Come on, Murph!

Don’t make me leave like this, Murph!

Hey…

I love you.

Forever. You hear me?

I love you forever, and I’m coming back.

I’m coming back.

— How’d it go?
— Fine.

Just fine.

I love you, Tom.

— Travel safe, huh?
— Yeah.

You look after our place for me, all right?

— All right?
— Uh-huh.

Hey, can I use your truck while you’re gone?

You mean your truck?

I’ll make sure they bring it back.

Look after my kids, Donald!

Go for main engine start. T-minus 10…

— Dad!
— Nine… Dad!

Eight…

seven… Dad!

Six…

five, main engine start, four…

three…

two…

one. Booster ignition and…

All engines look good. Beginning roll program.

Prepare for stage one separation.

Stage one.

There is Mach 1.

Everybody good? Plenty of slaves for my robot colony?

They gave him a humor setting so he’d fit in better with his unit.

He thinks it relaxes us.

A giant sarcastic robot.

What a great idea!

I have a cue light I can use when I’m joking if you like.

That’d probably help.

You can use it to find your way back to the ship after I blow you out the airlock.

— What’s your humor setting, TARS?
— That’s 100 percent.

Let’s bring it on down to 75, please.

Stage two separation.

All feeds going manual.

Going manual.

Deactivate probe heater one, two and three.

Check.

— Taking control.
— This is handover to you.

— A.D.F. check.
— Over.

Pull thrusters back. Fuel cells one, two, three.

One hundred percent.

Ex-mites.

It’s hard leaving everything.

My kids. Your father.

We’re going to be spending a lot of time together.

— We should learn to talk.
— And when not to.

Just being honest.

I don’t think you need to be that honest.

Hey, TARS, what’s your honesty parameter?

— Ninety percent.
— Ninety percent?

Absolute honesty isn’t always the most diplomatic, nor the…

safest form of communication with emotional beings.

Okay.

Ninety percent it is, Dr. Brand.

We are coming up on the Endurance. Twelve minutes out.

Okay. Taking control.

Approaching module port, 500 meters.

It’s all you, Doyle.

Nice and easy, Doyle. Nice and easy.

I feel good.

Take us home.

— Lock.
— Target locked.

— Well done.
— Okay, helmets on.

Good job.

Door’s not charging.

Never mind.

Cooper, you should have control.

Control here.

Communication with ring module active.

Oh, wow.

That’s initiate.

— Are we ready to spin?
— Just a sec.

— Hello, CASE.
— Hello, TARS.

All right, we’re all set.

All right, let’s do it.

Heh.

Thirty percent of spin.

One G.

How’s gravity treating you back there?

Well.

Romilly? Hey, you okay?

— Yeah.
— You all right?

Mm. Yeah, I just need a minute.

We have some Dramamine in the hab pod, or maybe in the cryo-beds. I’ll just be a sec.

— Hey, Brand?
— Yeah?

— Bring a lot.
— Heh-heh-heh.

Amelia, be safe.

— Give my regards to Dr. Mann.
— I will, Dad.

It looks good for your trajectory.

We’ve calculated two years to Saturn.

That’s a lot of Dramamine.

Look after my family, will you, please, sir?

We’ll be waiting for you when you get back.

A little older, a little wiser, but happy to see you.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Old age should burn and rave at close of day

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Though wise men at their end Know dark is right

Because their words had forked No lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

— You good?
— Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Here. Pills.

So alone.

We have each other. Dr. Mann had it worse.

No, I mean them.

Hm?

it’s a perfect planet, and we won’t find another one like her.

No, it’s not like looking for a new condo.

The human race is going to be…

adrift…

desperate for a rock it can cling to while it catches its breath.

We need to find that rock.

And our three prospects are at the edge of what…

might sustain human life.

Laura Miller’s planet is first.

— Laura started our biology program. Mm-hm.

— Uh, Wolf Edmunds is here.
— Tell me about Edmunds.

Oh, uh, Wolf’s a particle physicist.

None of them had families, huh?

No. No attachments. My father insisted.

They all knew the odds against ever seeing another human being again.

I’m hoping we can surprise at least three of them.

— How about Mann?
— Dr. Mann?

He’s remarkable. He’s the best of us.

He inspired 11 people to follow him on the loneliest journey in human history.

Scientists, explorers.

That’s what I love. You know, out there we face great odds.

Death, but…

not evil.

You don’t think nature can be evil?

No. Formidable. Frightening. But…

— no, not evil.
— Hm.

Is a lion evil because it rips a gazelle to shreds?

Just what we take with us, then.

Yeah.

This crew represents the best of humanity.

Even me, huh?

You know what? We agreed, 90 percent.

There you go.

— Don’t stay up.
— I’ll be there in a minute.

Just remember, Coop, you are literally wasting your breath.

Hey, TARS? Let’s go over that trajectory one more time.

Eight months to Mars.

Counter-orbital slingshot around. Fourteen months to Saturn.

Nothing’s changed on that.

Just let me ask you something.

Dr. Brand and Edmunds…

Why are you whispering? They can’t hear you.

Dr. Brand and Edmunds. They close?

I wouldn’t know.

Is that 90 percent «wouldn’t know» or 10 percent «wouldn’t know»?

— I also have a discretion setting, Cooper.
— Aah.

But not a poker face, Slick.

Hey, guys.

Uh, Dad’s about to go down for the long nap.

So I wanted to give you an update.

Uh…

The Earth looks amazing from here. Um…

You can’t see any of the dust. Heh.

Um, I really hope you guys are doing great.

I know you’ll get this message. Professor Brand’s assured me he’ll get it to you.

Know that I love you.

— Is it him?
— I don’t think so, Murph.

You must be Donald.

Hello, Murph.

Why are you in my dad’s truck?

He wanted me to bring it for your brother.

He sent you a message.

She’s pretty upset with him for leaving.

If you record any messages, I can get them to transmit it to Cooper.

Murph is a bright spark.

Maybe I should fan the flame.

She’s already making fools of her teachers.

So maybe she should come and make a fool out of you.

— So where are they?
— Heading for Mars.

The next time you hear from Cooper, they’ll be coming up on Saturn.

As far as school goes…

the administration wants me to repeat Plant Pathology. Which sucks.

But they said I could start Advanced Agriculture a year early.

All right, I got to go, Dad. Hope you’re safe up there.

Um, sorry, Coop.

I asked Murph to say hi, but she’s as stubborn as her old man.

I’ll try again next time.

You all right, Rom?

This gets to me, Cooper.

This. This.

Millimeters of aluminum, that’s it, and then nothing…

out there for millions of miles won’t kill us in seconds.

You know that some of the finest…

solo yachtsmen in the world don’t know how to swim?

They don’t know how. And if they go overboard, psst, they’re done.

We’re explorers, Rom.

This is our boat.

Here.

This is from the, uh, relay probe?

It was in orbit around the wormhole.

This is the wormhole, and every time we’d come around…

we would receive images from the other side of the foreign galaxy.

Oh, yeah. Like swinging a periscope around.

Exactly.

So we got a pretty good idea what we’re gonna find on the other side, huh?

Navigationally.

Guys? We’ll be approaching the wormhole in about three hours.

Hey, Coop?

Can we stop the spinning?

Why?

Because we’re close enough to see it now?

All right.

Thanks.

There, that’s it! That’s the wormhole!

Say it, don’t spray it, Rom.

It’s a sphere.

Of course it is. What, you…? You thought it would just be a hole?

No, it’s just that all the illustrations I’ve ever seen, they…

In the illustrations, they’re trying to show you how it works.

So they say you want to go from here to there.

— But it’s too far, right?
— Mm-hm.

So a wormhole bends space like this, so you can take a shortcut through…

a higher dimension.

Okay, so…

to show that, they’ve turned three-dimensional

space into two dimensions…

which turns a wormhole into two dimensions, a circle.

What’s a circle in three dimensions?

— A sphere.
— Exactly.

A spherical hole.

But who put it there? Who do we have to thank?

I’m not thanking anybody until we get out of here in one piece, Rom.

Any trick to this, Doyle?

No one knows.

The others made it, right?

At least some of them.

Everybody ready to say goodbye to our solar system?

To our galaxy.

Here we go.

The controls won’t work here. We’re passing through the bulk.

It’s space beyond our three dimensions. All you can do is record and observe.

What is that?

I think it’s them.

Distorting space-time.

Don’t! Don’t!

What was that?

The first handshake.

We’re…

We’re here.

So the lost communications came through.

— How?
— The relay on this side cached them.

So years of basic data. No real surprises.

Miller’s site has kept pinging thumbs up, as has Dr. Mann’s. Um…

Edmunds’ went down three years ago.

Transmitter failure?

Maybe. He was sending the thumbs up right until it went dark.

But Miller’s still looks good though, right?

— Because she’s coming up fast. Mm-hm.

With one complication.

The planet is much closer to Gargantua than we thought.

— Gargantua?
— It’s what we’re calling the black hole.

Miller’s and Dr. Mann’s planets both orbit it.

— And Miller’s is on the horizon?
— As a basketball around a hoop.

Landing there takes us dangerously close.

And a black hole that big has a huge gravitational pull.

Look, I could swing around that neutron star to decelerate.

No, it’s not that. It’s time.

The gravity on that planet will slow our clock compared to Earth’s drastically.

How bad?

Every hour we spend on that planet will be…

seven years back on Earth.

Jesus.

Well, that’s relativity, folks.

Well, we can’t just drop down there without…

Cooper, we have a mission.

Yeah, Doyle, we have a mission, and our mission Plan A is…

to find a planet that can habitate the people that are living on Earth now.

You can’t just think about your family. Now you have to think bigger.

I am thinking about my family and millions of other families, okay?

Plan A does not work if the people on Earth are dead by the time we pull it off.

No. It doesn’t.

That’s why there’s a Plan B.

Okay. Cooper’s right.

We need to think of time as a resource, like

oxygen and food. Going down will cost us.

All right, look.

Dr. Mann’s data is promising, but it will take months to get there.

And Edmunds’, it’s even further.

Miller hasn’t sent much, but what she has is

very promising. it’s water, it’s organics…

— You don’t find that every day.
— No, you don’t.

And just think about the resources, including time…

that would be spent trying to get back here.

— Romilly…
— Yeah?

How far off from Miller’s planet do we have to be to stay out of the time shift?

Just back from the cusp.

All right, which is here, just outside of Miller’s planet.

— Right.
— Okay.

Here’s Gargantua. Here’s Miller’s planet.

Instead of taking the Endurance into orbit around Miller’s planet…

which would conserve fuel, but we would lose a lot of time…

what if we take a wider orbit around Gargantua, parallel with Miller’s planet…

outside of this time shift, to here?

Then we take the Ranger down, we get Miller, we get her samples.

We come back, we analyze, we debrief. We’re in, we’re out.

We lose a little fuel, but we save a whole lot of time.

— That’ll work.
— That’s good.

There’s no time for monkey business or chit-chat down there.

So, TARS, you should definitely stay here.

CASE, you’re with me. Anyone else can stay.

If we’re talking about a couple years, I could use the time to research gravity.

Observations from the wormhole, that’s gold to Professor Brand.

TARS, factor an orbit of Gargantua.

Conserve fuel, minimize thrusting, but make sure we stay in range of Miller’s planet.

— You got it?
— I wouldn’t leave you behind…

Dr. Brand.

— You ready, CASE?
— Yup.

— You don’t say much, do you?
— TARS talks plenty for both of us.

Detach.

— Romilly, are you reading these forces? it’s unbelievable.

A literal heart of darkness.

If we could just see the collapsed star inside…

the singularity, yeah, we’d solve gravity.

— And we can’t get anything from it?
— Nothing escapes that horizon.

Not even light.

The answer’s there, just no way to see it.

There’s Miller’s planet.

Goodbye, Ranger.

This is fast for atmospheric entry.

— Should we use the thrusters to slow?
— No.

I’m gonna use the Ranger’s aerodynamics to save some fuel.

Air brake?

— We want to get down fast, don’t we?
— We want to get there in one piece.

— Hang on.
— Brand, Doyle, get ready.

— We should ease!
— Hands where I can see them.

The only time I went down was when a machine was easing at the wrong time.

A little caution…

Can get you killed, like reckless driving.

— Cooper, it’s too damn fast!
— I got this.

— Should I disable the feedback?
— No. I need to feel the air.

Here we go.

It’s just water!

The stuff of life.

Twelve hundred meters.

— Do we have a fix on the beacon?
— Got it!

— Can you maneuver?
— I’ll need to shave some speed.

I’m gonna spiral down on top of it. Everybody hang on!

Seven hundred.

On my cue, CASE. On my cue.

Five hundred meters.

Fire!

Very graceful.

No.

But very efficient.

What are you waiting for? Let’s go!

Go, go, go!

Seven years per hour here. Let’s make it count!

This way.

About 200 meters.

The gravity’s punishing.

Been floating through space too long?

One hundred and thirty percent Earth gravity.

Come on. Come on.

— There’s nothing here.
— Should be right here.

If the signal’s coming from here, then…

Her beacon.

Wreckage.

Where’s the rest?

Towards the mountains!

Those aren’t mountains.

They’re waves.

Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

That one’s moving away from us.

We need the recorder.

Brand, Doyle, back to the Ranger now!

We’re not leaving without her data.

Get back here now!

We do not have time!

The second wave is coming! We’re in the middle of a swell.

No, I got it.

Get your ass back to the Ranger now!

Brand, get back here now!

No, Cooper, go. Cooper, go. I can’t make it.

— Go!
— CASE, go get her.

— Go!
— Get up. Get up, Brand!

Go, go! Go!

— I’m not gonna make it!
— Yes, you are. Yes, you are!

Come on, CASE has her! Get back here, Doyle!

Come on!

Get to the hatch!

Go, go! Go!

Shit.

Manually overriding inside hatch!

Cooper! Wait!

The engines are flooded! I’m gonna have to shut her down.

Holy shit.

Hang on!

CASE, what’s the problem?

Too waterlogged. Let it drain.

Goddamn it!

— I told you to leave me! Why didn’t you?
— And I told you to get your ass back here!

— One of us was thinking about the mission!
— You were thinking about getting home.

I was trying to do the right thing!

Can you tell that to Doyle?

— CASE, how much time?
— Forty-five to an hour.

The stuff of life, huh?

What’s this gonna cost us, Brand?

A lot. Decades.

What happened to Miller?

Judging by the wreckage, she was…

broken up by a wave soon after impact.

How’s the wreckage stayed together after all these years, huh?

Because of the time slippage.

On this planet’s time, she just landed hours ago.

She probably just died minutes ago.

The data Doyle received was just the initial status echoing endlessly.

Oh, we are not prepared for this.

You eggheads have the survival skills of a Boy Scout troop.

Well, we got this far on our brains. Farther than any human in history.

Well, not far enough!

And now we’re stuck here till there won’t be anyone left on Earth to save.

I’m counting every minute, same as you, Cooper.

Is there any possibility…

some kind of a way we can maybe all jump in a black hole?

Gain back the years?

Don’t shake your head at me.

Time is relative, okay?

It can stretch and it can squeeze, but…

it can’t run backwards. it just can’t.

The only thing that can move across dimensions, like time, is gravity.

Okay.

The beings that led us here, they communicate…

— through gravity, right?
— Yes.

Could they be talking to us from the future?

— Maybe.
— Okay. If they can…

«They» are beings of five dimensions.

To them, time might be another physical dimension.

To them…

the past might be a canyon that they can climb into and the future…

a mountain they can climb up. But to us, it’s not, okay?

Look, Cooper, I screwed up. I’m sorry.

But you knew about relativity.

Oh.

Brand…

My daughter was 10 years old.

I couldn’t teach her Einstein’s theories before I left.

Couldn’t you have told her you were going to save the world?

No.

When you become a parent, one thing becomes really clear.

And that is that you want to make sure your children feel safe.

And it rules out telling a 10-year-old that the world is ending.

Cooper?

— How long for the engines, CASE?
— A minute or two.

We don’t have it. Helmets on!

Brand, co-pilot, you’re up.

CASE, blow the cabin oxygen through the main thrusters!

— We’re gonna spark it.
— Roger that.

— Locked.
— Depressurizing.

Engines up!

Hello, Rom.

I’ve waited years.

How…? How many years?

— By now it must be… Twenty-three years…

four months, eight days.

Doyle?

I thought I was prepared. I knew the theory.

Reality’s different.

And Miller?

There’s nothing here for us.

Why didn’t you sleep?

Oh, I had a couple of stretches. But I stopped believing you were coming back.

And something seemed wrong about dreaming my life away.

I learned what I could from the black hole…

but I couldn’t send anything to your father.

We’ve been receiving, but nothing gets out.

— Is he alive?
— Oh, yeah.

— Yeah?
— Yeah.

We’ve got years of messages stored.

Cooper.

Messages span 23 years.

Play it from the beginning.

Hey, Dad.

Checking in. Saying hi.

Um… Finished second in school.

Miss Kurling’s still giving me C’s though.

Pulled me down, but second’s not bad.

Grandpa attended the ceremony.

Um… Oh.

I met another girl, Dad.

I, uh…

I really think this is the one.

Name’s Lois. That’s her right there.

Murphy stole Grandpa’s car.

She crashed it. She’s okay, though.

Hey, Dad.

Look at this!

You’re a grandpa.

His name’s Jesse.

I kind of wanted to call him Coop, but Lois says, uh, maybe next time.

Donald says he’s already earned the «great» part, so we just leave it at that.

Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

Say «Bye-bye, Grandpa.»

Bye-bye, Grandpa. Okay.

Sorry it’s been a while.

Just…

what with Jesse and all.

Uh…

Grandpa died last week.

We buried him out in the back forty next to Mom and…

Jesse.

Which is where we would have buried you if you’d ever…

come back.

Murph was there at the funeral.

We don’t see her that much, but she came for that.

You aren’t listening to this, I know that.

All these messages are just, like…

drifting out there in the darkness.

Lois says that, uh…

I have to let you go.

And, uh…

so…

I guess I’m letting you go.

I don’t know where you are, Dad…

but I hope that you’re at peace.

Goodbye.

Hey, Dad.

Hey, Murph.

You son of a bitch.

I never made one of these when you were still responding…

because I was so mad at you for leaving.

And then when you went quiet, it…

seemed like I should live with that decision. And I have.

But today’s my birthday.

And it’s a special one, because you told me…

You once told me that when you came back, we might be the same age.

And today I’m the age you were when you left.

So it would be a real good time for you to come back.

I didn’t mean to intrude. It’s just that I’ve never seen you in here before.

I’ve never been in here before.

I talk to Amelia all the time.

It helps.

— I’m glad you’ve started.
— I haven’t. I…

I just had something I needed to get out.

— I know they’re still out there.
— I know.

There are so many reasons their

communications might not be getting through.

I know, professor.

I’m not sure what I’m more afraid of.

Them never coming back or…

coming back to find we’ve failed.

Then let’s succeed.

So…

back to the fourth iteration. Let’s run it through some new fields.

With respect, professor, we’ve tried that hundreds of times.

It only has to work once, Murph.

Every rivet that they strike could have been a bullet.

We’ve done well for the world here…

whether or not we crack the equation before I kick the bucket.

— Don’t be morbid, professor.
— I’m not afraid of death.

I’m an old physicist.

I’m afraid of time.

Time.

You’re afraid of time.

We’ve been trying to solve the equation…

without changing the underlying assumption about time.

— And?
— And that means…

each iteration is an attempt to prove its own proof.

It’s recursive. It’s nonsensical.

Are you calling my life’s work…

nonsense, Murph?

No, I’m saying that you’ve been trying to…

finish it with one arm… No, with both arms… tied behind your back.

And I don’t understand why.

I’m an old man, Murph.

Can we take this point up at another time?

I want to talk to my daughter.

Stepping out into the universe…

we must confront the reality of interstellar travel.

We must reach far beyond our own lifespans.

We must think not as individuals but as a species.

Do not go gentle into that good night

TARS kept the Endurance right where we needed her.

But the trip took years longer than we anticipated.

We no longer have the fuel to visit both prospects, so…

we have to choose.

But how?

They’re both promising.

Edmunds’ data is better, but Dr. Mann is the one still transmitting, so…

We’ve no reason to suspect Edmunds’s data would have soured.

His world has key elements to sustain human life.

— As does Dr. Mann’s.
— Cooper, this is my field.

And…

I really believe Edmunds’ is the better prospect.

— Why?
— Gargantua, that’s why.

Look at Miller’s planet. Hydrocarbons, organics, yes…

but no life. Sterile. We’ll find the same thing on Mann’s.

Because of the black hole?

Murphy’s Law. Whatever can happen will happen.

Accident is the first building block of evolution.

But when you’re orbiting a black hole not enough can happen.

It sucks in asteroids and comets, other events which would otherwise reach you.

We need to go further afield.

You once said that Dr. Mann…

was the best of us.

He’s remarkable. We’re only here because of him.

And yet… Yet here he is.

He’s on the ground, and he’s sending a very unambiguous message, telling us…

to come to his planet.

Granted, but Edmunds’ data is more promising.

We should vote.

Well, if we vote, there’s something you should know.

Brand?

He has a right to know.

That has nothing to do with it.

— What does?
— She’s in love with Wolf Edmunds.

— Is that true?
— Yes.

And that makes me want to follow my heart.

But maybe we’ve spent too long trying to figure all this out with theory.

You’re a scientist, Brand.

So listen to me…

when I say that love isn’t something we invented. It’s…

observable, powerful.

It has to mean something.

Love has meaning, yes. Social utility, social bonding, child rearing…

We love people who have died. Where’s the social utility in that?

None.

Maybe it means something more, something we can’t…

yet understand.

Maybe it’s some evidence, some…

artifact of a higher dimension that we can’t consciously perceive.

I’m drawn across the universe to someone I haven’t seen in a decade…

who I know is probably dead.

Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving…

that transcends dimensions of time and space.

Maybe we should trust that, even if we can’t understand it yet.

All right, Cooper…

yes…

the tiniest possibility of seeing Wolf again excites me.

That doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

Honestly, Amelia…

it might.

TARS, chart a course for Dr. Mann’s.

We’ll lose about a third again.

But next year…

Next year I’m gonna work Nelson’s farm and we’ll make it up.

What happened to Nelson?

Murph, would you like some more soufflé?

Oh, no. I’m full, thanks. It was delicious.

Coop, finish your fritter, please.

Will you spend the night? Your room is exactly as you left it. it’s ready.

I need to get back.

My sewing machine is in there, but there’s plenty…

I need to…

Too many memories.

We might have something for that. Hey, Coop.

The dust.

Lois, I have a friend who…

could look at his lungs.

— Amelia, I’m sorry.
— You were just being objective.

Unless you’re punishing me for screwing up on Miller’s planet.

No, this wasn’t a personal decision.

If you’re wrong, you will have a very personal decision to make.

Your fuel calculations are based on a return journey.

Strike out on Mann’s planet, and we’ll have to decide whether to return home…

or push on to Edmunds’ with Plan B.

Starting a colony could save us from extinction.

You might have to decide between seeing your children again…

and the future of the human race.

I trust you’ll be as objective then.

He’s been asking for you since he came to.

We were trying to reach you.

Murph.

I’m here, professor.

I let you all down.

No, you got us so far. Real close.

I’ll finish what you started.

Good, good Murph.

You had faith…

all those…

all those years.

I… I asked you to have faith.

I wanted you to believe…

that your father…

would come back.

I do, professor.

Forgive me, Murph.

There’s nothing to forgive.

I…

I lied, Murph.

I lied to you.

There was no need for him to…

To come back.

There is no way to help us.

But Plan A…

All this. All these people.

And the equation.

Did my father know?

Did he leave me?

Do…

not…

go…

gentle…

No.

No!

You can’t leave.

You… No.

Dr. Brand, I’m sorry to tell you that your father died today. He had no pain.

He was at peace.

I’m very sorry for your loss.

Brand, did you know?

He told you, right?

You knew.

This was all a sham.

You left us here.

To suffocate.

To starve.

Frozen cloud.

It’s okay.

It’s okay.

It’s okay.

Pray you never learn…

just how good it can be to see another face.

I hadn’t a lot of hope to begin with, but…

after so long, I had none.

My supplies were completely exhausted.

The last time I went to sleep, I didn’t even set a waking date.

You have literally raised me from the dead.

— Lazarus.
— Hm.

— What about the others?
— I’m afraid you’re it, sir.

So far, surely.

No, our present situation is that there’s very little chance of rescuing any others.

Dr. Mann. Dr. Mann?

Tell us about your world.

Our world, we hope.

Our world, uh, is cold… stark…

but undeniably beautiful.

The days are 67 hours long, cold.

The nights are… 67 far colder hours.

The gravity is a very, very pleasant 80 percent of the Earth’s.

Now, up here where I landed, the water is alkali…

and the air has too much ammonia to breathe for more than just a few minutes…

but down at the surface, and there is a surface…

the chlorine dissipates.

The ammonia gives way to crystalline hydrocarbons and breathable air.

To organics.

Possibly even to life.

We might be sharing this world.

These readings are from the surface?

Over the years, I’ve dropped various probes.

— How far have you explored?
— I’ve mounted several major expeditions.

But with oxygen in limited supply, KIPP there really did most of the legwork.

— What went wrong with him, sir?
— Degeneration.

He misidentified the first organics we found as ammonia crystals.

We struggled on for a time, but ultimately I decommissioned him and…

used his power source to keep the mission going.

I thought I was alone before I shut him down.

Would you like me to look at him?

No. No. He needs a human touch.

Dr. Brand, CASE is relaying a message for you from the comm station.

Okay. Be right there. Excuse me.

Dr. Brand, I’m sorry to tell you that your father died today.

He had no pain.

He was at peace.

I’m sorry for your loss.

Is that Murph?

She’s… She’s grown.

Brand, did you know?

He told you, right?

You knew.

This was all a sham.

You left us here.

To suffocate.

To starve.

Did my father know too?

Dad?

I just want to know…

if you left me here to die.

I just have to know.

Cooper, my…

My father dedicated…

his whole life to Plan A. I have no idea what she’s talking about.

I do.

He never even hoped to get the people off the Earth?

No.

But he’s been trying to solve the gravity equation for 40 years.

Amelia, your father solved his equation before I even left.

Then why wouldn’t he use it?

The equation couldn’t reconcile relativity with quantum mechanics. You need more.

More? More what?

More data. You need to see into a black hole.

The laws of nature prohibit a naked singularity.

Romilly, is that true?

If a black hole is an oyster, then the singularity’s the pearl inside.

The gravity’s so strong, it’s always hidden in darkness…

behind the horizon.

That’s why we call it a black hole.

Okay, but if we see beyond the horizon…

We can’t, Coop.

There are some things that aren’t meant to be known.

Your father had to find another way to save the human race from extinction.

Plan B. A colony.

Why not tell people?

— Why keep building those stations?
— He knew how hard it would be…

to get people to work together to save the species instead of themselves.

Or their children.

Bullshit.

You never would’ve come unless you believed you would save them.

Evolution has yet to transcend that simple barrier.

We can care deeply, selflessly about…

those we know, but that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight.

But the lie.

That monstrous lie?

Unforgivable.

And he knew that.

He was prepared to destroy his own humanity in order to save the species.

— He made an incredible sacrifice.
— No.

An incredible sacrifice is being made by the people on Earth who are gonna die!

Because in his fucking arrogance…

he declared their case hopeless.

I’m sorry, Cooper…

their case is hopeless.

No. No.

We are the future.

Cooper, what can I do?

Let me go home.

You’re absolutely positive?

His solution was correct. He’d had it for years.

— It’s worthless?
— It’s half the answer.

Okay, how do you find the other half?

Out there? A black hole.

— But stuck down here on Earth?
— Yeah?

I’m not sure you can.

God, they just pack up and leave.

What are they hoping to find?

Survival.

Damn it.

Murph, don’t…? Don’t people have a right to know?

Panic won’t help. We just have to keep working, same as ever.

But isn’t that exactly what Professor Brand was manipulating us to do?

Brand gave up on us. I’m still trying to solve this.

So…

do you have an idea?

A feeling.

I told you about my ghost.

My dad thought I called it a ghost…

because I was scared of it.

But I was never scared of it.

I called it a ghost because it felt…

It felt like a person.

It was trying to tell me something.

If there’s an answer here on Earth, it’s back there…

somehow, in that room.

So I have to find it.

We’re running out of time.

What about auxiliary oxygen scrubbers?

No, they can stay. I’ll be sleeping anyway.

— Hey, Coop?
— Yeah?

I have a suggestion for your return journey.

— Yeah, what’s that?
— Have one last crack at the black hole.

I’m going home, Rom.

Yeah, I know. This isn’t going to cost you any time.

There’s a chance for the people on Earth.

— Talk to me.
— Gargantua’s an older spinning black hole.

— It’s what we call a gentle singularity.
— Gentle?

They’re hardly gentle. But the tidal gravity is so quick that…

something crossing the horizon fast might survive. A probe, say.

— What happens after it crosses?
— After the horizon is a complete mystery.

So, what’s to say there isn’t some way that the probe…

can glimpse the singularity and relay the quantum data?

If he’s equipped to transmit every form of energy that can pulse.

Just when did this probe become a «he,» professor?

TARS is the obvious candidate.

I’ve already told him what to look for.

I’d need the old optical transmitter off KIPP, Cooper.

You’d do this for us?

Before you get all teary, remember that as a robot I have to do anything you say.

Your cue light’s broken.

I’m not joking.

I’ll need TARS to remove and adapt some components from KIPP.

I don’t want to disturb his archival functions.

I’ll supervise.

All right.

Dr. Mann, we need to find three secure

sites. One for Brand’s lab, two for habitat.

Once those modules have landed, you don’t want to move them.

I can take you to the probe sites, but I don’t think…

these conditions will hold. I think we should wait.

CASE is headed down with the rest of the distillery equipment.

I’d really like to secure those sites by nightfall.

Well, these squalls do usually blow over.

Okay, then.

— You’ll need a long-range transmitter.
— Got it.

— Are you charged?
— Yeah.

Follow me.

TARS, 72 hours, yeah?

Roger that, Cooper.

Brand told me why you feel you have to go back.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention…

that a mission such as ours could certainly use an extra engineer.

You better slow down, turbo. Safety first, CASE, remember.

Safety first, Cooper.

I have to tell you, Dr. Mann, I’m honored to be a part of this.

But once we set up base camp and secure those modules, my work’s done here.

I’m going home.

You have attachments. But even without a family…

I can promise you that that yearning to be with other people is powerful.

That emotion is at the foundation…

of what makes us human. It’s not to be taken lightly.

— How long have you had that cough?
— A while.

Mom lets me play in here.

I don’t touch your stuff.

Just take this gently.

You know why we couldn’t just send machines on these missions, don’t you?

A machine doesn’t improvise well because you can’t program a fear of death.

Our survival instinct is our single greatest…

source of inspiration. Take you, for example.

A father…

with a survival instinct that extends to your kids.

What does research tell us is the last thing you’re going to see before you die?

Your children. Their faces.

At the moment of death, your mind’s gonna push…

a little bit harder to survive.

For them.

Deep breath.

Uh, hey. I bet you’re Coop. Why don’t you have a seat here for me?

It’s bad. They cannot stay here.

— Okay?
— Yeah.

TARS, what’s taking so long?

Professor, I am having trouble completing the boot up.

I don’t understand.

It’s funny.

When I left Earth…

I thought I was prepared to die.

The truth is…

I never really considered the possibility that my planet wasn’t the one.

Nothing worked out the way it was supposed to.

Let’s go.

All right, buddy, give me a big deep breath.

What is this?

What are you doing?

I’m sorry! I can’t let you leave with that ship.

We’re gonna need it to complete the mission…

once the others realize what this place isn’t.

We cannot survive here. I’m sorry!

I’m sorry!

— They can’t stay here anymore.
— You have to leave right now.

Let me make something abundantly clear. You have a responsibility…

— Oh! Jesus!
— Coop, get her stuff. She’s going home.

Dad didn’t raise you to be this dumb, Tom!

Dad didn’t raise me, Grandpa did. And he’s buried out back with Mom and Jesse.

You faked all the data?

Yeah.

There’s no surface?

No.

I tried to do my duty, Cooper…

but I knew the day that I arrived here that this place had nothing.

And I resisted the temptation for years…

but I knew that…

if I just pressed that button, then…

somebody would come and save me.

You fucking coward.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Listen, if you’re not going to go, let your family go. Just save your family.

And we go live underground with you?

Pray that Daddy comes to save us?

Dad’s not coming back. He never was coming back. It’s up to me.

You’re gonna save everybody?

— Because Dad couldn’t do it.
— Dad didn’t even try!

Dad just abandoned us!

He left us here to die.

Nobody’s going with you.

You gonna wait for your next kid to die?

Get out.

And don’t come back.

You can keep my stuff.

Stop it!

No. No!

Dr. Mann, there’s a 50-50 chance you’re gonna kill yourself!

Those are the best odds I’ve had in years.

Don’t judge me, Cooper.

You were never tested like I was.

Few men have been.

You tried your best, Murph.

You’re feeling it, aren’t you?

The survival instinct.

That’s what drove me. it’s what drives all of us. And it’s what’s gonna save us.

Because I want to save all of us. For you, Cooper.

I’m sorry, I can’t watch you go through this. I’m sorry.

I thought I could, but I can’t.

I’m here. I’m here for you.

Just listen to my voice, Cooper.

I’m right here.

You’re not alone.

Do you see your children?

It’s okay.

They’re right there with you.

Did Professor Brand tell you that poem before you left?

Do you remember?

Do not go gentle into that good night

Old age should burn and rave

At close of day

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Brand! Help!

— Help!
— Cooper?

CASE!

No air.

Ammonia.

Cooper. Cooper, we’re coming! CASE!

— I have a fix.
— Go! Go, go, go!

And away!

Cooper, we’re coming. Hang in there. Don’t talk.

Try to breathe as little as possible. We’re almost there.

There’s a security lockout, sir.

It requires a person to access function.

It’s all yours, sir.

Try not to breathe.

We’re coming. We’re coming right now.

CASE, come on! Come on!

We got to go faster, CASE! Faster, faster, faster!

Hang in there. Come on.

I see him, I see him! CASE, bank! Bank right!

Cooper! Cooper!

I’m here!

This data makes no sense.

I’m sorry.

— What?
— Mann was lying!

Go. Go.

Romilly.

Romilly!

Romilly! Do you read me, Romilly?

Step back, professor! Step back!

— Romilly…
— Romilly, do you read me?

Keep watch!

Lois?

— What happened to caution, CASE?
— Safety first, Cooper.

Romilly? Romilly, do you read me? This is Brand.

Romilly?

Dr. Brand. Cooper. There’s been an explosion.

Dr. Mann’s compound.

TARS, TARS, 10 o’clock!

Let me know when TARS is aboard.

Romilly did not survive.

I could not save him.

— TARS is in.
— I’ll take her now.

— Do we have a fix on the Ranger?
— He’s pushing into orbit!

If he takes control of that ship, we’re dead.

— He’d maroon us?
— He is marooning us.

I’ll meet you guys downstairs. Go wait by the car.

Come on! Give me your bag. Get in the backseat. Get in the backseat now!

Dr. Mann, please respond.

Dr. Mann, please respond!

He doesn’t know the Endurance docking procedure.

— The autopilot does.
— Not since TARS disabled it.

Nice.

— What’s your trust setting, TARS?
— Lower than yours apparently.

Do not attempt docking. I repeat, do not attempt docking.

Please res…

Auto-docking sequence withheld.

— Override.
— Unauthorized.

Override.

Unauthorized.

Do not attempt docking. I repeat, do not attempt docking. Please resp…

Moving slowly toward the Endurance.

Imperfect contact.

— Override.
— Hatch lockout.

— Is he locked on yet?
— Imperfectly.

Dr. Mann, do not…

Hatch lockout disengaged.

Dr. Mann, do not, I repeat, do not open the hatch.

I repeat, do not open the hatch.

If you open the hatch, the airlock will depressurize.

— What happens if he blows the airlock?
— Nothing good.

Okay, pull back. Retro thrusters, everything we’ve got, CASE!

— Thrusters are full!
— Back!

Relay my transmission to the on board computer…

and have it rebroadcast as emergency P.A.

Dr. Mann…

I repeat, do not open the inner hatch. I repeat…

Brand?

I don’t know what he said to you…

but I am taking command of the Endurance.

And then we can talk about completing the mission.

Dr. Mann, listen to me.

This is not about my life.

Or Cooper’s life. This is about all mankind.

There is a moment…

It is not sa…

Oh, my God.

CASE: There’s no point using fuel to chase…
— Analyze the Endurance’s spin.

— Cooper, what are you doing?
— Docking.

Endurance rotation is 67, 68 RPM.

Okay, get ready to match our spin with the retro thrusters.

— it’s not possible.
— No…

it’s necessary.

Endurance is hitting stratosphere!

She’s got no heat shield.

— CASE, you ready?
— Ready.

Cooper! This is no time for caution.

CASE, if I black out, you take the stick.

TARS, get ready to engage the docking mechanism.

Endurance is starting to heat.

Twenty feet out.

I need three degrees starboard, Cooper.

Ten feet out.

Cooper, we are lined up.

Initiating spin!

Come on, TARS.

Come on, TARS!

— We are locked, Cooper.
— Locked. Easing up!

Easy.

Easy.

Retro thrusters!

Main engines on.

Pushing out of orbit. Come on, baby.

Killing main engines!

Okay, we’re out of orbit.

Okay. And for our next trick!

it’ll have to be good. We’re heading into Gargantua’s pull.

Oh, shit.

— CASE, take the stick.
— Roger that.

Cooper, we’re slipping towards Gargantua.

Shall I use main engines?

No.

We got to let her slide as far as we can.

— Give it to me.
— There’s good news, there’s bad news.

Yeah, I’ve heard that one, TARS. Give it to me straight.

The backup generator kicked in, so the system’s stable. They’re all good.

Good.

Okay. The navigational hub has been completely destroyed.

We don’t have enough life support to make it back to Earth…

but we can scratch our way to Edmunds’ planet.

What about fuel?

Not enough. But I have a plan.

We let Gargantua pull us down close to her horizon.

Then a powered slingshot around, launching us towards Edmunds’ planet.

— Manually?
— That’s what I’m here for.

I’m gonna take us just inside the critical orbit.

— What about time slippage?
— Neither of us has time to worry…

about relativity right now, Dr. Brand.

I’m sorry, Cooper.

Once we’ve gathered enough speed around Gargantua…

we use Lander 1…

and Ranger 2 as rocket boosters to…

push us out of the black hole’s gravity.

The Lander’s linkages have been destroyed…

so we’ll have to control manually.

Once Lander 1 is spent, TARS will detach…

And get sucked into that black hole.

Why does TARS have to detach?

We have to shed the weight to escape the gravity.

Newton’s third law.

The only way humans have ever figured out of getting somewhere…

is to leave something behind.

Cooper, you can’t ask TARS to do this for us.

He’s a robot. So you don’t have to ask him to do anything.

Cooper, you asshole!

Sorry, you broke up a little bit there.

It’s what we intended, Dr. Brand.

It’s our only chance to save people on Earth.

If I can find a way to transmit the quantum data I’ll find in there…

they might still make it.

Let’s just hope there’s still someone there to save.

Maximum velocity achieved.

Prepare to fire escape thrusters.

Ready?

Ready.

Ready.

Main engine ignition in three… two…

one. Mark.

Come on, baby.

Lander 1 engines, on my mark.

Three…

two… one. Mark.

Ranger 2 engines, on my mark.

Three, two, one…

— Mark.
— Fire!

This little maneuver’s gonna cost us 51 years!

You don’t sound so bad for pushing 120!

Lander 1, prepare to detach on my mark.

Three, two…

one. Mark.

Detach!

— Goodbye, TARS.
— Goodbye, Dr. Brand.

— See you on the other side, Coop.
— See you there, Slick!

Okay, CASE.

— Nice reckless flying!
— Learned from the master.

— Ranger 2, prepare to detach.
— What?

No! No! Cooper! What are you doing?

Newton’s third law. You got to leave something behind.

You told me we had enough resources for both of us.

We agreed, Amelia…

90 percent.

Don’t.

Detach.

Okay, I am nosing down.

Approaching the event horizon.

Portside, dipping down beneath it…

to go through it.

Heading towards blackness.

I have a visual of the event.

It’s all black.

TARS, do you read me?

It’s all blackness.

TARS! Do you read me? Over.

Okay.

Screens…

getting interference.

Losing control of the stick. I got flashes.

Flashes of lightness and blackness.

The turbulence in the gravity is increasing.

Ah.

The computers are going down. Agh.

Gravitational pull. I’m losing control of the stick.

Murph? Murph, come on!

Eject. Eject.

Eject.

Eject.

Eject.

Eject.

Murph.

Murph! Murph! Murph!

Murph!

No, no, no!

Murph!

Murph!

No! No!

If you’re leaving, just go.

No, no. No.

No, don’t go. Don’t go, you idiot.

Don’t go!

Morse. Morse.

Morse.

Dot. Dot.

S.

T.

A.

Dash!

Dash! Dash!

Murph!

Murph, we don’t have time for this! Come on!

Y.

«Stay!»

Come on. Come on, Murph. Come on!

What’s it say? What’s it say, Murph?

What’s it say?

«Stay.»

Tell him, Murph.

Make him stay.

Make him stay, Murph.

Make him stay, Murph.

Don’t let me leave, Murph!

Don’t let me leave, Murph!

No! No! No!

It was you.

You were my ghost.

Cooper. Cooper. Come in, Cooper.

— TARS?
— Roger that.

— You survived.
— Somewhere…

in their fifth dimension.

They saved us.

Yeah? Who the hell is «they»? And just why would they want to help us?

I don’t know, but they constructed this three-dimensional space…

inside their five-dimensional reality to allow you to understand it.

Yeah, that ain’t working.

Yes, it is.

You’ve seen that time is represented here as a physical dimension.

You have worked out that you can exert a force across space-time.

Gravity to send a message.

Affirmative.

Gravity…

can cross the dimensions, including time.

Apparently.

Do you have the quantum data?

Roger. I have it.

I am transmitting it on all wavelengths, but nothing is getting out, Cooper.

I can do this. I can do this.

But such complicated data to a child?

Not just any child.

What else?

Oh, come on, Dad.

Murph, the fire’s out! Come on!

Even if you communicate it here, she won’t understand its significance for years.

I get that, TARS.

But we’ve got to figure something out or the people on Earth are gonna die. Think!

Cooper…

they didn’t bring us here to change the past.

Say that again.

They didn’t bring us here to change the past.

No, they didn’t bring us here at all.

We brought ourselves.

TARS, give me the coordinates for NASA in binary.

In binary. Roger. Feeding data.

«It’s not a ghost.»

«it’s gravity.»

Don’t you get it yet, TARS?

I brought myself here!

We’re here to communicate with the three-dimensional world.

We’re the bridge!

I thought they chose me.

— But they didn’t choose me, they chose her. TARS: For what, Cooper?

To save the world.

All of this is one little girl’s bedroom. Every moment.

It’s infinitely complex.

They have access to infinite time and space, but they’re not bound by anything!

They can’t find a specific place in time. They can’t communicate.

That’s why I’m here. I’m gonna find a way to tell Murph…

just like I found this moment.

— How, Cooper?
— Love, TARS, love.

It’s just like Brand said. My connection with

Murph, it is quantifiable. it’s the key!

What are we here to do?

Find how to tell her.

The watch.

The watch.

That’s it.

We code the data into the movement of the second hand.

TARS, translate the data into Morse and feed it to me.

Translating data to Morse. Cooper, what if she never came back for it?

She will. She will.

Murph, I can see his car!

He’s coming, Murph!

Okay. I’m coming down.

How do you know?

Because I gave it to her.

Roger. Morse is dot-dot-dash-dot.

Dot-dot…

dash-dot.

Dot-dash-dot-dot.

Dot-dash-dot-dot.

Dash-dash-dash.

Dash, dash, dash.

He came back!

It was him all the time! I didn’t know. it was him!

Dad’s gonna save us.

Eureka!

It’s traditional.

Eureka!

Did it work?

I think it might have.

How do you know?

Because the bulk beings are closing the tesseract.

Don’t you get it yet, TARS?

They’re not «beings.»

They’re us.

What I’ve been doing for Murph, they’re doing for me.

For all of us.

Cooper, people couldn’t build this.

No. No, not yet.

But one day.

Not you and me. But people.

A civilization that’s evolved past the four dimensions we know.

What happens now?

Mr. Cooper.

All right. Let’s take it slow, sir.

Nice and easy, Mr. Cooper.

Remember, you’re no spring chicken anymore. Actually, you are 124 years old.

Take it slow, sir.

You were, uh, extremely lucky.

The Rangers found you with only minutes left in your oxygen supply.

Where am I?

Cooper Station.

Currently orbiting Saturn.

Cooper Station.

Nice of you to name it after me.

What?

The station isn’t named after you, sir. It’s, uh, named after your daughter.

Although she’s always maintained just how important you were.

Is she still alive?

She’ll be here in a couple weeks.

She is far too old to be transferring from another station…

but when she heard that you’d been found…

well, this is, uh, Murphy Cooper we’re talking about.

Yes, it is.

We’ll have you checked out of here in a couple days.

I’m sure you’ll be excited to see what’s in store.

I actually, uh, did a paper on you in high school.

I know all about your life back on Earth.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

If… If you’ll follow me, we’ve got a really good situation for you.

So, uh, when I made my suggestion to Miss Cooper…

I was delighted to hear that she thought it was perfect.

It was just constant. Just that steady blow of dirt.

Of course, I didn’t speak to her personally.

We always set the plate upside-down.

Glasses or cups, whatever it was, upside-down.

Well, my dad was a farmer. Uh, like everybody else back then.

There just wasn’t enough food.

We wore little things, little strips…

of sheet over our nose and mouth so we wouldn’t breathe so much of it.

Well, it was pretty exciting for me because it was hope.

I don’t care who describes it, there is no way

for it to be exaggerated. It was that bad.

She did confirm just how much you loved farming.

— Oh, she did, did she?
— Yeah.

Come here.

Home sweet home. Everything replaced and put back where it…

— Hey, is this…?
— Oh, yeah.

The machine we found out near Saturn when we found you. Yes.

Its, uh, power source was shot, but we could get you another one.

Yes. Please.

Settings.

General settings.

Security settings.

Honesty, new setting:

95 percent.

Confirmed. Additional customization?

Humor:

75 percent.

Confirmed.

Auto self-destruct T-minus 10, nine…

Let’s make that 60 percent.

Sixty percent confirmed.

— Knock-knock.
— You want 55?

Is this really what it was like?

It was never this clean, Slick. Heh.

I don’t care much for this pretending we’re back where we started.

I want to know where we are.

Where we’re going.

— Mr. Cooper. The family’s all in there.
— Yeah.

Family?

Yeah, they all came out to see her. She’s been in cryo-sleep for almost two years.

You told them I like farming.

It was me, Murph.

I was your ghost.

I know.

People didn’t believe me. They thought that I was doing it all myself.

But…

I knew who it was.

Nobody believed me.

But I knew you’d come back.

How?

Because my dad promised me.

Well, I’m here now, Murph.

I’m here.

No.

No parent should have to watch their own child die.

I have my kids here for me now.

You go.

Where?

Brand.

She’s out there…

setting up camp.

Alone…

in a strange galaxy.

Maybe right now she’s settling in for the long nap…

by the light of our new sun…

in our new home.

The original script for Interstellar was written on March 12, 2008 by Jonathan Nolan for prospective director Steven Spielberg.

The full script can be viewed on http://www.scribd.com/doc/186682938/Interstellar-Script. The printed script is 121 pages.

ACT 1[]

The script opens up with a sequence featuring a neutron star falling into a black hole sending ripples of gravity waves across the galaxy which opens up a wormhole in Sol’s Solar System. LIGO physicists at CalTech scramble to find out what some signals from space are. NASA then arrives to assist the physicists in finding out what it means. Ansen and a young John Brand are present when they discover that there’s a wormhole somewhere in the solar system.

The script then flashes forward fifty years, where we see an object falling toward the Earth. In Central California, we find Cooper and his children attempting to repair the bus for the New York Yankees prior to attending their baseball game where they see an object falling out of the sky, crash-landing somewhere.

In the morning, Cooper’s father-in-law Donald tells him to attend a parent-teacher conference, on the way to school, their truck tire blows and they stop to fix it. When a Chinese drone flies over, they take the truck to capture it and steal its power cells. Afterward, Cooper talks to the school principal and Murph’s teacher, there he learns that the world is turning its back on their history. A friend asks Cooper to investigate a crashed black box space probe at a beach near Galveston, Texas, the probe has NASA markings. He returns home, attempts to pull data off it and discovers an image of an Ice Planet. The probe chirps loudly and annoys them into returning it to where it come from. But instead Cooper places it down a well to get some rest.

At the request of Murph, Cooper flies the probe to a special facility built on Santa Cruz Island off the coast of Los Angeles, where he discovers the last remnants of NASA have been feverishly working to complete a rocket to a nuclear-powered spacecraft in orbit. Coop is selected by an aged John Brand to go along with a three scientists: Amelia, Doyle and Roth and two robots (cyborgs): CASE and TARS, to fly through the wormhole to the icy planet. Coop joins the rest of the crew for the launch, after a painful goodbye to his children where he gives one of his sons a watch to keep as promise of Coop’s return. They reach the wormhole and see their ship and bodies distorted by a space-time distortion.

ACT 2[]

On the other side of the wormhole, they enter a new solar system to find two black holes in orbit of each other, they navigate between the black holes and end up on the Ice Planet. TARS is lost during the transit between the black holes. After passing through, they discover one long garbled message from Earth then nothing.

While on the Ice Planet, they look around for clues and discover a shelter made by the Chinese government. Apparently the Chinese arrived prior to the United States and set up shop. However, all human Chinese personnel have died as evidenced by the presence of nearby graves. They find out why these researchers died, a neutron star orbiting the black holes wasn’t detected on their first patrols of the system, the neutron star sends out powerful radiation every 24 hours that deposits on the Ice Planet. The team goes inside for shelter before the star returns, CASE drills a hole in the ice, which opens a hole underneath them taking them deep underground. The team then discover alien life in the walls which absorb and live off the radiation from the neutron star’s X-rays when it passes by.

After the neutron star makes its pass, the alien lifeforms are discovered to be small but live as colonies and can take shapes in larger forms. One of the scientists decides to get a sample, disrupting the alien life which causes the alien lifeforms to give chase. Afterward, the team discover a secret Chinese bunker installation, also underground. The team discovers that the installation was supposed to keep all Chinese people there, but no one showed up because all researchers died, only Chinese robots remain. While at the installation, the team discovers a black box which generates gravity. They decide to keep it, but the Chinese robots disagree and chase them. CASE decides to sacrifice himself so the rest can move forward. The team then find out another emergency. Within a decade, a smaller black hole, tiny compared to Pantagruel and Gargantua, will pass by the Ice planet. The planet’s orbit will destabilize, and it will fall beneath Pantagruel’s Roche limit and horizon.

The team decides to leave the planet immediately. But, get stuck in the orbit of one of the black holes and end up inside the event horizon after leaving the planet. Time slows down for them and decades pass by as minutes. Suddenly, another wormhole opens up for them inside the black hole and transports them to a hyper-dimension where they encounter the bulk beings that transport them to a humongous space station built by the Chinese over the course of 4,000 years where TARS has remained since they lost him.

ACT 3[]

While at the Chinese space station, they find technologies very advanced created by the Chinese robots who have been on the station for thousands of years. Amelia decides to take TARS and explore the galaxy through the wormhole network. While Coop and Doyle decide to leave and go back in time using the advanced technologies. Coop makes a promise to Amelia, that he will come back for her. It is discovered that time travel is possible but humans can’t go through, Coop tells Doyle that he will be killed if he goes through, but Doyle refuses and locks Coop in a lander and decides to go in by himself. Coop is launched away from the wormhole and Doyle goes through. Doyle is killed and his ship destroyed but the black box survives as well as his spaceship debris like from the beginning of the script.

A sequence is shown that reveals that Coop’s youngest son Murphy Cooper returned to the Santa Cruz Island facility years later and discovered the black box. Decades pass, but Murph spends nearly twenty years attempting to solve the gravity box. Later, his daughter Emily ends up actually solving gravity, thus saving the human race.

Unbeknownst to Coop, he returns to Earth 200 years after he had left, the Earth is an icy wasteland. He returns to what used to be his house, releases the alien lifeform on the world, where it thrives. Coop remains to die as he falls unconscious. He reawakens inside the Medical Bay of an immense space station orbiting high above Earth named after Murph, Cooper Station. Coop discovers that he is considered a hero, and gets to meet his great great great grandson Anthony Cooper Welling, who gives him back the watch he gave Murphy centuries ago. An untold amount of time passes and Coop begins to feel alone in this future, he decides one day to take himself and a robot heavily modeled on TARS to steal a spaceship and set out to find Brand like he had promised her.

THE END

The original script for Interstellar was written on March 12, 2008 by Jonathan Nolan for prospective director Steven Spielberg.

The full script can be viewed on http://www.scribd.com/doc/186682938/Interstellar-Script. The printed script is 121 pages.

ACT 1[]

The script opens up with a sequence featuring a neutron star falling into a black hole sending ripples of gravity waves across the galaxy which opens up a wormhole in Sol’s Solar System. LIGO physicists at CalTech scramble to find out what some signals from space are. NASA then arrives to assist the physicists in finding out what it means. Ansen and a young John Brand are present when they discover that there’s a wormhole somewhere in the solar system.

The script then flashes forward fifty years, where we see an object falling toward the Earth. In Central California, we find Cooper and his children attempting to repair the bus for the New York Yankees prior to attending their baseball game where they see an object falling out of the sky, crash-landing somewhere.

In the morning, Cooper’s father-in-law Donald tells him to attend a parent-teacher conference, on the way to school, their truck tire blows and they stop to fix it. When a Chinese drone flies over, they take the truck to capture it and steal its power cells. Afterward, Cooper talks to the school principal and Murph’s teacher, there he learns that the world is turning its back on their history. A friend asks Cooper to investigate a crashed black box space probe at a beach near Galveston, Texas, the probe has NASA markings. He returns home, attempts to pull data off it and discovers an image of an Ice Planet. The probe chirps loudly and annoys them into returning it to where it come from. But instead Cooper places it down a well to get some rest.

At the request of Murph, Cooper flies the probe to a special facility built on Santa Cruz Island off the coast of Los Angeles, where he discovers the last remnants of NASA have been feverishly working to complete a rocket to a nuclear-powered spacecraft in orbit. Coop is selected by an aged John Brand to go along with a three scientists: Amelia, Doyle and Roth and two robots (cyborgs): CASE and TARS, to fly through the wormhole to the icy planet. Coop joins the rest of the crew for the launch, after a painful goodbye to his children where he gives one of his sons a watch to keep as promise of Coop’s return. They reach the wormhole and see their ship and bodies distorted by a space-time distortion.

ACT 2[]

On the other side of the wormhole, they enter a new solar system to find two black holes in orbit of each other, they navigate between the black holes and end up on the Ice Planet. TARS is lost during the transit between the black holes. After passing through, they discover one long garbled message from Earth then nothing.

While on the Ice Planet, they look around for clues and discover a shelter made by the Chinese government. Apparently the Chinese arrived prior to the United States and set up shop. However, all human Chinese personnel have died as evidenced by the presence of nearby graves. They find out why these researchers died, a neutron star orbiting the black holes wasn’t detected on their first patrols of the system, the neutron star sends out powerful radiation every 24 hours that deposits on the Ice Planet. The team goes inside for shelter before the star returns, CASE drills a hole in the ice, which opens a hole underneath them taking them deep underground. The team then discover alien life in the walls which absorb and live off the radiation from the neutron star’s X-rays when it passes by.

After the neutron star makes its pass, the alien lifeforms are discovered to be small but live as colonies and can take shapes in larger forms. One of the scientists decides to get a sample, disrupting the alien life which causes the alien lifeforms to give chase. Afterward, the team discover a secret Chinese bunker installation, also underground. The team discovers that the installation was supposed to keep all Chinese people there, but no one showed up because all researchers died, only Chinese robots remain. While at the installation, the team discovers a black box which generates gravity. They decide to keep it, but the Chinese robots disagree and chase them. CASE decides to sacrifice himself so the rest can move forward. The team then find out another emergency. Within a decade, a smaller black hole, tiny compared to Pantagruel and Gargantua, will pass by the Ice planet. The planet’s orbit will destabilize, and it will fall beneath Pantagruel’s Roche limit and horizon.

The team decides to leave the planet immediately. But, get stuck in the orbit of one of the black holes and end up inside the event horizon after leaving the planet. Time slows down for them and decades pass by as minutes. Suddenly, another wormhole opens up for them inside the black hole and transports them to a hyper-dimension where they encounter the bulk beings that transport them to a humongous space station built by the Chinese over the course of 4,000 years where TARS has remained since they lost him.

ACT 3[]

While at the Chinese space station, they find technologies very advanced created by the Chinese robots who have been on the station for thousands of years. Amelia decides to take TARS and explore the galaxy through the wormhole network. While Coop and Doyle decide to leave and go back in time using the advanced technologies. Coop makes a promise to Amelia, that he will come back for her. It is discovered that time travel is possible but humans can’t go through, Coop tells Doyle that he will be killed if he goes through, but Doyle refuses and locks Coop in a lander and decides to go in by himself. Coop is launched away from the wormhole and Doyle goes through. Doyle is killed and his ship destroyed but the black box survives as well as his spaceship debris like from the beginning of the script.

A sequence is shown that reveals that Coop’s youngest son Murphy Cooper returned to the Santa Cruz Island facility years later and discovered the black box. Decades pass, but Murph spends nearly twenty years attempting to solve the gravity box. Later, his daughter Emily ends up actually solving gravity, thus saving the human race.

Unbeknownst to Coop, he returns to Earth 200 years after he had left, the Earth is an icy wasteland. He returns to what used to be his house, releases the alien lifeform on the world, where it thrives. Coop remains to die as he falls unconscious. He reawakens inside the Medical Bay of an immense space station orbiting high above Earth named after Murph, Cooper Station. Coop discovers that he is considered a hero, and gets to meet his great great great grandson Anthony Cooper Welling, who gives him back the watch he gave Murphy centuries ago. An untold amount of time passes and Coop begins to feel alone in this future, he decides one day to take himself and a robot heavily modeled on TARS to steal a spaceship and set out to find Brand like he had promised her.

THE END

PROLOGUE

First comes darkness, the constant hushed murmur of wind through brittle leaves. And then a woman’s voice, quavering pleasantly with age.

“Sure,” she says. “Sure, my dad was a farmer back then.”

Then the darkness is gone, and all is golden and green as the wind stirs the tassels of waist-high young corn, rattling the stalks as it picks up, as if somewhere a storm is sending notice.

“Like everybody else back then,” the woman continues. All at once she is visible against a dark background. The lines of laughter and grief etched into her face, the relief map of a long life.

“Of course,” she says, “he didn’t start that way.”

PART ONE

ONE

The controls jerked in his hands as if they were alive.

Outside the cockpit, white mist streaked by. He could see the nose of his craft, but nothing beyond it.

“Computer says you’re too tight.” The radio crackled in his ear, the static of shredding ions from the air threatening to overwhelm the signal.

“I got this,” he protested, despite the fact that his instruments were telling him impossible things.

“Crossing the straights,” control said. “Shutting it down. Shutting it all down.”

“No!” he said. “We need to power up—”

He was spinning like crazy now, black and red, black and red, and suddenly the controls ripped free of his hands, and he screamed…

* * *

Cooper sat up in the bed, drenched in sweat, and in his mind—still saturated in dream—he was still spinning, still blind in the mist. Panting, he felt the air rushing into and out of his lungs as he tried to control it, to take control of something…

“Dad? Dad!”

He turned at the familiar voice, and saw her, in the faint first light of dawn coming through his window. His daughter. The whirlwind of his nightmare faded, and there was only the familiar room, the scent of old wood and mothballs coming from his bedclothes.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “Go back to sleep.”

She just stood there, though. Murph, as stubborn as ever.

“I thought you were a ghost,” she said.

Cooper saw she was serious.

“There’s no ghost, Murph,” he mumbled.

“Grandpa says you can get ghosts,” she persisted.

“Grandpa’s a little too close to being one himself,” Cooper grunted. “Back to sleep.”

Murph still wasn’t ready to go. The early morning light picked up the red in her hair, and her green eyes were full of concern. And obstinacy.

“Were you dreaming about the crash?” she asked.

“Back to sleep, Murph,” he said, trying to be firm. Murph hesitated, then finally, reluctantly turned and shuffled back through the door.

Rubbing his eyes, Cooper turned to the window. Outside lay a vista of young corn, its leaves dark green, still only waist high. Dawn was painting the tops of the stalks a vivid red-gold. A gentle breeze sent ripples through it, and in his sleep-blurred vision he felt as if he were gazing upon a vast sea, stretching off to the horizon.

TWO

“Corn, sure,” the old lady says. “But dust. In your ears, your mouth.” We move from her to an old man’s face, his watery eyes searching through decades and distance for the road marks left behind him.

“Dust just everywhere,” he says, nodding. “Everywhere.”

* * *

Donald swept the dust from the farmhouse porch, knowing in the back of his mind that it was pointless, that in a matter of hours it would be covered again. Yet simply surrendering to it seemed even more pointless.

This porch—and the sturdy two-story farmhouse to which it was attached—had sheltered generations. It deserved care. Wind and dust had nearly gnawed through the last coat of white paint, and it wasn’t likely to get a new coat anytime soon. And it needed bigger repairs than that, work that he was too old to do and Cooper was too busy to see to.

But he could sweep the porch. That much his aging body was still capable of doing. He could beat back the dust, although each assault was a temporary victory at best.

He straightened up and surveyed his work, then loosened the kerchief that stood between the grime and his lungs as he turned and swung open the farmhouse door.

So much for the porch, he thought. It was time to fix breakfast. He made his way to the kitchen, running his fingers through what little bit of thin hair remained on his balding head, feeling the grit matted in it.

Inside, he went to the table, where bowls lay upside down, covered in a thin film of dust, and turned their clean insides up. Then he turned his attention to the stove.

For Donald, the kitchen was probably the most comforting room in the house. His wife had once stood in front of the sturdy enameled ivory oven and stovetop, and in time his daughter had joined her, at first straining on her tiptoes to stir the pot. Then later, as a strong young woman with both feet firmly planted, feeding a family of her own. Both women now gone, but both still here, somehow.

He put the grits on and stirred them as they came to a boil, then turned down the heat so they would simmer, remembering times when breakfast had been a bit more… varied. Oatmeal, waffles, pancakes. Fruit.

Now, mostly grits. And without a lot of the things that made grits worthwhile—the butter, sorghum molasses, bacon for Chrissake. But there wasn’t much point in bawling about the things that were gone, was there? And there was plenty good that remained. Time was, a bowl of plain grits was more than most people could hope for in a day. Those days were past, too, and he didn’t miss them in the slightest.

Count your blessings, old man. He could almost hear the old woman saying it. No sense moaning ’bout what you can’t have. And by the time the grits were done, counting the better end of his blessings was easy enough—they were all right there in front of him.

There was his grandson Tom, of course. Donald’s grandson was always there when food hit the table. His fifteen-year-old body seemed to travel on two hollow legs. The boy was always hungry—and so he should be, because he was a hard worker, too. He didn’t complain about the lack of diversity in breakfast.

Grits were fine with Tom.

His ten-year-old granddaughter Murph was a bit slower to arrive. Her coppery hair was wet, and she still had a towel around her neck from the shower. At times he thought her the spitting image of her mother, but then she would turn in such a way, or say a particular thing, and he could see her father there. Like now. She was fiddling with the pieces of something or other as she sat down. Which she oughtn’t to be.

Читать дальше

Interstellar is a 2014 epic science fiction film co-written, directed, and produced by Christopher Nolan. It stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, Matt Damon, and Michael Caine. Set in a dystopian future where humanity is struggling to survive, the film follows a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new home for mankind.

Interstellar
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Christopher Nolan
Written by	Jonathan Nolan Christopher Nolan
Produced by	Emma Thomas Christopher Nolan Lynda Obst
Starring	Matthew McConaughey Anne Hathaway Jessica Chastain Bill Irwin Ellen Burstyn Michael Caine Matt Damon
Cinematography	Hoyte van Hoytema
Edited by	Lee Smith
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Production companies	Legendary Pictures Syncopy Lynda Obst Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures (North America) Warner Bros. Pictures (International)
Release dates	October 26, 2014 (TCL Chinese Theatre) November 5, 2014 (United States) November 7, 2014 (United Kingdom)
Running time	169 minutes[1]
Countries	United Kingdom[2] United States[2]
Language	English
Budget	$165 million[3]
Box office	$773.8 million[3]

Brothers Christopher and Jonathan Nolan wrote the screenplay, which had its origins in a script Jonathan developed in 2007. Caltech theoretical physicist and 2017 Nobel laureate in Physics^[4] Kip Thorne was an executive producer, acted as a scientific consultant, and wrote a tie-in book, The Science of Interstellar. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot it on 35 mm movie film in the Panavision anamorphic format and IMAX 70 mm. Principal photography began in late 2013 and took place in Alberta, Iceland, and Los Angeles. Interstellar uses extensive practical and miniature effects and the company Double Negative created additional digital effects.

Interstellar premiered on October 26, 2014, in Los Angeles, California. In the United States, it was first released on film stock, expanding to venues using digital projectors. The film had a worldwide gross over $677 million (and $773 million with subsequent re-releases), making it the tenth-highest grossing film of 2014. It received acclaim for its performances, direction, screenplay, musical score, visual effects, ambition, themes, and emotional weight. It has also received praise from many astronomers for its scientific accuracy and portrayal of theoretical astrophysics. Since its premiere, Interstellar gained a cult following, and now is regarded by many sci-fi experts as one of the best science-fiction films of all time.^[5][6] Interstellar was nominated for five awards at the 87th Academy Awards, winning Best Visual Effects, and received numerous other accolades.

Plot

In 2067, a global famine caused by blight has had major effects on human society, including the abandonment of scientific pursuits such as space exploration. The world’s food problem has forced Joseph Cooper, an ex-NASA pilot, to work as a farmer. One day, Cooper experiences a gravitational «anomaly» in his daughter Murph’s bedroom. He deduces it to be a pattern of GPS coordinates, and following it, arrives at a secret NASA facility, headed by Professor Brand.

Brand explains to Cooper that, while NASA was publicly shut down, it continued to operate with the secret mission of discovering an extra-terrestrial planet capable of supporting human life, in the probable aftermath of extinction of earthly life due to blight. Brand claims to be working on a gravity-equation and enlists Cooper’s help to pilot an exploratory spacecraft for the second part of the mission. Cooper agrees, leaving behind his children to whom he promises to return. He commands a shuttle carrying three other scientists — Romilly, Doyle, and Brand’s daughter Amelia. They dock with a larger spaceship called the Endurance, and using a mysterious wormhole near Saturn, pass through to another galaxy. Their mission is to investigate three planets, orbiting a supermassive black hole called Gargantua, each of which was previously explored by a NASA scientist-explorer.

The first planet turns out to be an aqua planet. The NASA explorer there is found dead, and one of their crew — Doyle — drowns after being caught in a massive tidal wave. The same tide also causes the probe’s engines to be filled with water, forcing Cooper and Amelia to wait significantly longer than required for them to dry out. They return to the Endurance in an hour, finding that 23 years have passed aboard due to the time dilation caused by the planet’s proximity to Gargantua. Romilly, who stayed aboard, has aged significantly, as has everyone on Earth.

Murph has become a scientist, and now works with Brand at NASA. She learns from a dying Professor Brand that he gave up on solving his gravity-equation years ago, knowing that information is needed from inside a black hole, which is impossible to achieve. Instead, he doomed humanity to their extinction, putting their mission’s hopes on Cooper’s team succeeding to establish a space colony using pre-fertilized eggs, on a new habitable planet. Brand dies and Murph relays the information back to the Endurance, but the crew has already departed to the second planet.

At this planet, the crew find its explorer, Mann, to be alive. They awaken him from cryostasis and ask about his planet’s potential for habitation. Mann is optimistic at first, but secretly reveals to Cooper that he lied, falsifying data in the hope that NASA sends a mission to rescue him. Romilly dies in an explosion when he attempts to access the system’s logs, and Mann tries to kill Cooper. He attempts to hijack the Endurance spacecraft. He is killed when his craft fails to dock properly, and Cooper manages to regain command of the Endurance. He realizes that the Endurance only has enough resources for one person to safely complete their mission. Cooper initiates a slingshot move around Gargantua, setting it to use gravity and be propelled to the final planet. At the last minute, he sacrifices himself by detaching from the spaceship, so that Amelia might safely complete the mission.

Back on Earth, Murph attempts to solve Professor Brand’s equation. Hoping to look for clues in her bedroom, she revisits her family house. Cooper survives falling into the black hole and finds himself inside a five-dimensional tesseract, out of view from beyond the event horizon. The tesseract is composed of moments (in time) from inside Murph’s bedroom. Frustrated, Cooper discovers that he can move the books on the bookshelf in Murph’s room and uses them to convey a message in morse code: “STAY”. Deducing that this construct has been created by future humans with the ability to time-travel, Cooper understands his mission is to communicate with Murph. From inside this higher dimension, he sends messages to her using gravity. Murph finds her father’s old wristwatch on the bookshelf and picks it up. She notices the seconds-hand moving irregularly and realises that the movement is a message in morse code.

Realizing «the ghost» is her father, she decodes the information that Cooper is feeding her about the black hole’s singularity. This allows her to solve Brand’s gravity-equation. His mission/purpose now completed, Cooper is ejected from the tesseract by the future beings, who place him back near the wormhole outside Saturn. Cooper is picked up by a ranger and is taken to a (cylindrical) space station to reunite with Murph. Using the gravity-equation, Murph orchestrated humanity’s exodus from Earth, and is now nearing the end of her life. Due to the extreme time dilation around Gargantua, Cooper has aged only a few years when he sees Murph again. Older than him and nearing death, she advises him to seek out Amelia. Cooper agrees and sets off on a journey again.

Meanwhile, on the mission’s final planet, Amelia is setting up a new colony for future humans to inhabit. She removes her helmet and breathes in the air, showing that the planet is capable of supporting human life.

Cast

• Matthew McConaughey as Joseph Cooper,^[a] a widowed NASA pilot who, after the agency was closed by the government, had become a farmer
• Anne Hathaway as Dr. Amelia Brand, a NASA scientist, and astronaut
• Jessica Chastain as Murphy «Murph» Cooper, Joseph’s daughter, who eventually becomes a NASA scientist
  • Mackenzie Foy as young Murph
  • Ellen Burstyn as elderly Murph
• John Lithgow as Donald, Cooper’s elderly father-in-law
• Michael Caine as Professor John Brand, a high-ranking NASA scientist, ideator of Plan A, former mentor of Cooper, and father of Amelia
• David Gyasi as Romilly, another high-ranking NASA member, and Endurance crew member
• Wes Bentley as Doyle, a high-ranking NASA member, and Endurance crew member
• Casey Affleck as Tom Cooper, Joseph’s son, who eventually grows up to become a farmer
  • Timothée Chalamet as young Tom
• Matt Damon as Mann, a NASA astronaut sent to an icy planet during the Lazarus program
• Bill Irwin as TARS (voice and puppetry) and CASE (puppetry)
• Josh Stewart as CASE (voice)
• Topher Grace as Getty, Murph’s colleague and love interest
• Leah Cairns as Lois, Tom’s wife
• David Oyelowo as School Principal
• Collette Wolfe as Ms. Hanley
• William Devane as Williams, another NASA member
• Elyes Gabel as Administrator
• Jeff Hephner as Doctor
• Russ Fega as Crew Chief

Production

Crew

• Christopher Nolan – Director, producer, writer
• Jonathan Nolan – Writer
• Emma Thomas – Producer
• Lynda Obst – Producer
• Hoyte van Hoytema – Cinematographer
• Nathan Crowley – Production designer
• Mary Zophres – Costume designer
• Lee Smith – Editor
• Hans Zimmer – Music composer
• Paul Franklin – Visual effects supervisor
• Kip Thorne – Consultant, executive producer

Development and financing

The premise for Interstellar was conceived by producer Lynda Obst and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, who collaborated on the film Contact (1997), and had known each other since Carl Sagan set them up on a blind date.^[7][8] The two conceived a scenario, based on Thorne’s work, about «the most exotic events in the universe suddenly becoming accessible to humans,» and attracted filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s interest in directing.^[9] The film began development in June 2006, when Spielberg and Paramount Pictures announced plans for a science-fiction film based on an eight-page treatment written by Obst and Thorne. Obst was attached to produce.^[10][11] By March 2007, Jonathan Nolan was hired to write a screenplay.^[12]

After Spielberg moved his production studio DreamWorks from Paramount to Walt Disney Studios in 2009, Paramount needed a new director for Interstellar. Jonathan Nolan recommended his brother Christopher, who joined the project in 2012.^[13] Christopher Nolan met with Thorne, then attached as executive producer, to discuss the use of spacetime in the story.^[14] In January 2013, Paramount and Warner Bros. announced that Christopher Nolan was in negotiations to direct Interstellar.^[15] Nolan said he wanted to encourage the goal of human spaceflight,^[16] and intended to merge his brother’s screenplay with his own.^[17] By the following March, Nolan was confirmed to direct Interstellar, which would be produced under his label Syncopy and Lynda Obst Productions.^[18] The Hollywood Reporter said Nolan would earn a salary of $20 million against 20% of the total gross.^[19] To research for the film, Nolan visited NASA and the private space program at SpaceX.^[14]

Warner Bros. sought a stake in Nolan’s production of Interstellar from Paramount, despite their traditional rivalry, and agreed to give Paramount its rights to co-finance the next film in the Friday the 13th horror franchise, with a stake in a future film based on the television series South Park. Warner Bros. also agreed to let Paramount co-finance an indeterminate «A-list» property.^[20] In August 2013, Legendary Pictures finalized an agreement with Warner Bros. to finance approximately 25% of the film’s production. Although it failed to renew its eight-year production partnership with Warner Bros., Legendary reportedly agreed to forgo financing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) in exchange for the stake in Interstellar.^[21]

Writing and casting

Screenwriter Jonathan Nolan worked on the script for four years.^[7] To learn the scientific aspects, he studied relativity at the California Institute of Technology.^[22] Jonathan was pessimistic about the Space Shuttle program ending and how NASA lacked financing for a human mission to Mars, drawing inspiration from science-fiction films with apocalyptic themes, such as WALL-E (2008) and Avatar (2009). Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly commented: «He set the story in a dystopian future ravaged by blight, but populated with hardy folk who refuse to bow to despair.»^[13] His brother Christopher had worked on other science fiction scripts but decided to take the Interstellar script and choose among the vast array of ideas presented by Jonathan and Thorne, picking what he felt, as director, he could get «across to the audience and hopefully not lose them,» before he merged it with a script he had worked on for years on his own.^[14][23] Christopher kept in place Jonathan’s conception of the first hour, which is set on a resource depleted Earth in the near future. The setting was inspired by the Dust Bowl that took place in the United States during the Great Depression in the 1930s.^[7] He revised the rest of the script, where a team travels into space, instead.^[7] After watching the 2012 documentary The Dust Bowl for inspiration, Christopher contacted director Ken Burns and producer Dayton Duncan, requesting permission to use some of their featured interviews in Interstellar, which was granted.^[24]

Christopher Nolan wanted an actor who could bring to life his vision of the main character as an everyman with whom «the audience could experience the story.»^[25] He became interested in casting Matthew McConaughey after watching him in an early cut of the 2012 film Mud,^[25] which he had seen as a friend of one of its producers, Aaron Ryder.^[7] Nolan went to visit McConaughey while he was filming for the TV series True Detective.^[26] Anne Hathaway was invited to Nolan’s home, where she read the script for Interstellar.^[27] In early 2013, both actors were cast in the starring roles.^[28] Jessica Chastain was contacted while she was working on Miss Julie (2014) in Northern Ireland, and a script was delivered to her.^[27] Originally, Irrfan Khan was offered the role of Dr. Mann but rejected due to scheduling conflicts. Matt Damon was cast as Mann in late August 2013 and completed filming his scenes in Iceland.^[29]

Principal photography

Nolan shot Interstellar on 35 mm film in the Panavision anamorphic format and IMAX 70 mm photography.^[30] Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema was hired for Interstellar, as Wally Pfister, Nolan’s cinematographer on all of his previous films, was making his directorial debut working on Transcendence (2014).^[31] More IMAX cameras were used for Interstellar than for any of Nolan’s previous films. To minimize the use of computer-generated imagery (CGI), the director had practical locations built, such as the interior of a space shuttle.^[25] Van Hoytema retooled an IMAX camera to be hand-held for shooting interior scenes.^[7] Some of the film’s sequences were shot with an IMAX camera installed in the nose cone of a Learjet.^[32]

Nolan, who is known for keeping details of his productions secret, strove to ensure secrecy for Interstellar. Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Ben Fritz stated, «The famously secretive filmmaker has gone to extreme lengths to guard the script to … Interstellar, just as he did with the blockbuster Dark Knight trilogy.»^[33] As one security measure, Interstellar was filmed under the name Flora’s Letter,^[34] Flora being one of Nolan’s four children with producer Emma Thomas.^[14]

The Svínafellsjökull glacier in Iceland was used as a filming location for Interstellar, doubling for Mann’s planet.

The film’s principal photography was scheduled to last four months.^[29] It began on August 6, 2013, in the province of Alberta, Canada.^[21] Towns in Alberta where shooting took place included Nanton, Longview, Lethbridge, Fort Macleod, and Okotoks. In Okotoks, filming took place at the Seaman Stadium and the Olde Town Plaza.^[34] For a cornfield scene, production designer Nathan Crowley planted 500 acres (200 ha) of corn that would be destroyed in an apocalyptic dust storm scene,^[13] intended to be similar to storms experienced during the Dust Bowl in 1930s America.^[14] Additional scenes involving the dust storm and McConaughey’s character were also shot in Fort Macleod, where the giant dust clouds were created on location using large fans to blow cellulose-based synthetic dust through the air.^[35] Filming in the province lasted until September 9, 2013, and involved hundreds of extras in addition to 130 crew members, most of whom were local.^[34]

Shooting also took place in Iceland, where Nolan had previously filmed scenes for Batman Begins (2005).^[36] The location was chosen to represent two extraterrestrial planets: one covered in ice, and the other in water.^[7] The crew transported mock spaceships weighing about 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg) to the country.^[14] They spent two weeks shooting there,^[29] during which a crew of about 350 people, including 130 locals, worked on the film. Locations included the Svínafellsjökull glacier and the town of Klaustur.^[37][38] While filming a water scene in Iceland, Hathaway almost suffered hypothermia because the dry suit she was wearing had not been properly secured.^[14]

After the schedule in Iceland was completed, the crew moved to Los Angeles to shoot for 54 days. Filming locations included the Westin Bonaventure Hotel and Suites, the Los Angeles Convention Center, a Sony Pictures soundstage in Culver City, and a private residence in Altadena, California.^[39] Principal photography concluded in December 2013.^[40] Production had a budget of $165 million, $10 million less than was allotted by Paramount, Warner Bros., and Legendary Pictures.^[14]

Production design

Interstellar features three spacecraft— a ranger, the Endurance, and a lander. The ranger’s function is similar to the Space Shuttle’s, being able to enter and exit planetary atmospheres. The Endurance, the crew’s mother ship, is a circular structure consisting of 12 capsules, laid flat to mimic a clock: Four capsules with planetary settling equipment, four with engines, and four with the permanent functions of cockpit, medical labs, and habitation. Production designer Nathan Crowley said the Endurance was based on the International Space Station: «It’s a real mish-mash of different kinds of technology. You need analogue stuff, as well as digital stuff, you need backup systems and tangible switches. It’s really like a submarine in space. Every inch of space is used, everything has a purpose.» Lastly, the lander transports the capsules with settling equipment to planetary surfaces. Crowley compared it to «a heavy Russian helicopter.»^[7]

The film also features two robots, CASE and TARS, as well as a dismantled third robot, KIPP. Nolan wanted to avoid making the robots anthropomorphic and chose a 1.5 m (4.9 ft) quadrilateral design. The director said: «It has a very complicated design philosophy. It’s based on mathematics. You’ve got four main blocks and they can be joined in three ways. So, you have three combinations you follow. But then within that, it subdivides into a further three joints. And all the places we see lines—those can subdivide further. So you can unfold a finger, essentially, but it’s all proportional.» Actor Bill Irwin voiced and physically controlled both robots, but his image was digitally removed from the film, and actor Josh Stewart’s voice replaced his voicing for CASE.^[7] The human space habitats resemble O’Neill cylinders, a theoretical space habitat model proposed by physicist Gerard K. O’Neill in 1976.^[41]

Sound design and music

Gregg Landaker and Gary Rizzo were the film’s audio engineers tasked with audio mixing, while sound editor Richard King supervised the process.^[42] Christopher Nolan sought to mix the sound to take maximum advantage of theater equipment^[43] and paid close attention to designing the sound mix, like focusing on the sound of buttons being pressed with astronaut suit gloves.^[13] The studio’s website stated that the film was «mixed to maximize the power of the low-end frequencies in the main channels, as well as in the subwoofer channel.»^[44] Nolan deliberately intended some dialogue to seem drowned out by ambient noise or music, causing some theaters to post notices emphasizing that this effect was intentional and not a fault in their equipment.^[45]

Composer Hans Zimmer, who scored Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception (2010), returned to score Interstellar. Nolan chose not to provide Zimmer with a script or any plot details for writing the film’s music but instead gave the composer a single page that told the story of a father leaving his child for work. It was through this connection that Zimmer created the early stages of the Interstellar soundtrack. Zimmer and Nolan later decided that the 1926 four-manual Harrison & Harrison organ of the Temple Church, London, would be the primary instrument for the score.^[46][47] Zimmer conducted 45 scoring sessions for Interstellar, three times more than for Inception. The soundtrack was released on November 18, 2014.^[13]

Visual effects

Visual effects company Double Negative, which worked on Inception, was brought back for Interstellar.^[48] According to visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin, the number of effects in the film was not much greater than in Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (2012) or Inception. However, for Interstellar, they created the effects first, allowing digital projectors to display them behind the actors, rather than having the actors perform in front of green screens.^[7] Ultimately, the film contained 850 visual-effect shots at a resolution of 5600 × 4000 lines: 150 shots that were created in-camera using digital projectors, and another 700 were created in post-production. Of those, 620 were presented in IMAX, while the rest were anamorphic.^[49]

The ranger, Endurance, and lander spacecraft were created using miniature effects by Nathan Crowley in collaboration with effects company New Deal Studios, as opposed to using computer-generated imagery, as Nolan felt they offered the best way to give the ships a tangible presence in space. 3D-printed and hand-sculpted, the scale models earned the nickname «maxatures» by the crew due to their immense size; the 1/15th-scale miniature of the Endurance module spanned over 7.6 m (25 ft), while a pyrotechnic model of part of the craft was built at 1/5th scale. The Ranger and Lander miniatures spanned 14 m (46 ft) and over 15 m (49 ft), respectively, and were large enough for van Hoytema to mount IMAX cameras directly onto the spacecraft, thus mimicking the look of NASA IMAX documentaries. The models were then attached to a six-axis gimbal on a motion control system that allowed an operator to manipulate their movements, which were filmed against background plates of space using VistaVision cameras on a smaller motion control rig.^[50] New Deal Studio’s miniatures were used in 150 special effects shots.^[49]

Influences

The director was influenced by what he called «key touchstones» of science fiction cinema, including Metropolis (1927), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Blade Runner (1982),^[51] Star Wars (1977), and Alien (1979).^[52] Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Mirror (1975) influenced «elemental things in the story to do with wind and dust and water», according to Nolan,^[53] who also compared Interstellar to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) as a film about human nature.^[54] He sought to emulate films like Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) for being family-friendly but also «as edgy and incisive and challenging as anything else on the blockbuster spectrum». He screened The Right Stuff (1983) for the crew before production,^[7] following in its example by capturing reflections on the Interstellar astronauts’ visors. For further inspiration, the director invited former astronaut Marsha Ivins to the set.^[14] Nolan and his crew studied the IMAX NASA documentaries of filmmaker Toni Myers for visual reference of spacefaring missions, and strove to imitate their use of IMAX cameras in the enclosed spaces of spacecraft interiors.^[55] Clark Kent’s upbringing in Man of Steel (2013) was the inspiration for the farm setting in the Midwest.^[23] Apart from films, Nolan drew inspiration from the architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.^[14]

Scientific accuracy

Kip Thorne, a theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate, served as scientific consultant and executive producer.

Regarding the concepts of wormholes and black holes, Kip Thorne stated that he «worked on the equations that would enable tracing of light rays as they traveled through a wormhole or around a black hole—so what you see is based on Einstein’s general relativity equations.»^[56] Early in the process, Thorne laid down two guidelines: «First, that nothing would violate established physical laws. Second, that all the wild speculations … would spring from science and not from the fertile mind of a screenwriter.» Nolan accepted these terms as long as they did not get in the way of making the film.^[11] At one point, Thorne spent two weeks trying to talk Nolan out of an idea about a character traveling faster than light before Nolan finally gave up.^[57] According to Thorne, the element which has the highest degree of artistic freedom is the clouds of ice on one of the planets they visit, which are structures that would go beyond the material strength that ice could support.^[11]

Astrobiologist David Grinspoon criticized the dire «blight» situation on Earth portrayed in the early scenes, pointing out that even with a voracious blight it would have taken millions of years to reduce the atmosphere’s oxygen content. He also notes that gravity should have pulled down the ice clouds.^[58] Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist, explored the science behind the ending of Interstellar, concluding that it is theoretically possible to interact with the past, and that «we don’t really know what’s in a black hole, so take it and run with it.»^[59] Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku praised the film for its scientific accuracy and has said Interstellar «could set the gold standard for science fiction movies for years to come.» Similarly, Timothy Reyes, a former NASA software engineer, said «Thorne’s and Nolan’s accounting of black holes and wormholes and the use of gravity is excellent.»^[60]

Wormholes and black holes

Miller’s planet orbiting Gargantua

To create the visual effects for the wormhole and a rotating, supermassive black hole (possessing an ergosphere, as opposed to a non-rotating black hole), Thorne collaborated with Franklin and a team of 30 people at Double Negative, providing pages of deeply sourced theoretical equations to the engineers, who then wrote new CGI rendering software based on these equations to create accurate simulations of the gravitational lensing caused by these phenomena. Some individual frames took up to 100 hours to render, totaling 800 terabytes of data.^[8] Thorne described the accretion disk of the black hole as «anemic and at low temperature^[61]—about the temperature of the surface of the sun,» allowing it to emit appreciable light, but not enough gamma radiation and X-rays to threaten nearby astronauts and planets.^[62] The resulting visual effects provided Thorne with new insight into the gravitational lensing and accretion disks surrounding black holes, resulting in the publication of three scientific papers.^[63][64][65]

The first image of the event horizon of a black hole, obtained by the Event Horizon Telescope. The asymmetric brightness of the accretion disk is well visible here.

Christopher Nolan was initially concerned that a scientifically accurate depiction of a black hole would not be visually comprehensible to an audience, and would require the effects team to unrealistically alter its appearance. The visual representation of the black hole in the film does not account for the Doppler effect which, when added by the visual effects team, resulted in an asymmetrically lit black and blue-black hole, the purpose of which Nolan thought the audience would not understand. As a result, it was omitted in the finished product.^[66] Nolan found the finished effect to be understandable, as long as he maintained consistent camera perspectives.^[67]

As a reference, the asymmetric brightness of the accretion disk is very well visible in the first image^[68] of the event horizon of a black hole obtained by the Event Horizon Telescope team in 2019. Futura-Sciences praised the correct depiction of the Penrose process.^[69]

According to Space.com, the portrayal of what a wormhole would look like is considered scientifically correct. Rather than a two-dimensional hole in space, it is depicted as a sphere, showing a distorted view of the target galaxy.^[70]

Marketing

The teaser trailer for Interstellar debuted December 13, 2013, and featured clips related to space exploration, accompanied by a voiceover by Matthew McConaughey’s character, Cooper.^[71] The theatrical trailer debuted May 5, 2014, at the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater in Washington, D.C. and was made available online later that month. For the week ending on May 19, it was the most-viewed film trailer, with over 19.5 million views on YouTube.^[72]

Christopher Nolan and McConaughey made their first appearances at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2014 to promote Interstellar. That same month, Paramount Pictures launched an interactive website, on which users uncovered a star chart related to the Apollo 11 Moon landing.^[73]

In October 2014, Paramount partnered with Google to promote Interstellar across multiple platforms.^[74] The film’s website was relaunched as a digital hub hosted on a Google domain,^[75] which collected feedback from film audiences, and linked to a mobile app.^[75] It featured a game in which players could build Solar System models and use a flight simulator for space travel.^[76] The Paramount–Google partnership also included a virtual time capsule compiled with user-generated content, made available in 2015.^[77] The initiative Google for Education used the film as a basis for promoting math and science lesson plans in schools.^[74][78]

Paramount provided a virtual reality walkthrough of the Endurance spacecraft using Oculus Rift technology. It hosted the walkthrough sequentially in New York City, Houston, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., from October 6 through November 19, 2014.^[79][80] The publisher Running Press released Interstellar: Beyond Time and Space, a book by Mark Cotta Vaz about the making of the film, on November 11.^[81] W. W. Norton & Company released The Science of Interstellar, a book by Thorne;^[82] Titan Books released the official novelization, written by Greg Keyes;^[83] and Wired magazine released a tie-in online comic, Absolute Zero, written by Christopher Nolan and drawn by Sean Gordon Murphy. The comic is a prequel to the film, with Mann as the protagonist.^[84]

Release

Theatrical

Before Interstellar‘s public release, Paramount CEO Brad Grey hosted a private screening on October 19, 2014, at an IMAX theater in Lincoln Square, Manhattan.^[85][86] Paramount then showed Interstellar to some of the industry’s filmmakers and actors in a first-look screening at the California Science Center on October 22.^[87] On the following day, the film was screened at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California for over 900 members of the Screen Actors Guild.^[88] The film premiered on October 26 at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles,^[89] and in Europe on October 29 at the Odeon Leicester Square in London. The film premiered on November 7 in Canada.^[90][91]

Interstellar was released early on November 4 in various 70 mm IMAX film, 70 mm film and 35 mm film theaters, and had a limited release in North America (United States and Canada) on November 5, with a wide release on November 7.^[92] The film was released in Belgium, France, and Switzerland on November 5, the United Kingdom on November 7 and in additional territories in the following days.^[93] For the limited North American release, Interstellar was projected from 70 mm and 35 mm film in 249 theaters that still supported those formats, including at least forty-one 70 mm IMAX theaters. A 70 mm IMAX projector was installed at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles to display the format. The film’s wide release expanded to theaters that showed it digitally.^[94] Paramount Pictures distributed the film in North America, and Warner Bros. distributed it in the remaining territories.^[30] The film was released in over 770 IMAX screens worldwide, which was the largest global release in IMAX cinemas,^[95][96] until surpassed by Universal Pictures’ Furious 7 (2015) with 810 IMAX theaters.^[97]

Interstellar was an exception to Paramount Pictures’ goal to stop releasing films on film stock and to distribute them only in digital format.^[98] According to Pamela McClintock of The Hollywood Reporter, the initiative to project Interstellar on film stock would help preserve an endangered format,^[94] which was supported by Christopher Nolan, J. J. Abrams, Quentin Tarantino, Judd Apatow, Paul Thomas Anderson, and other filmmakers.^[99] McClintock reported that theatre owners saw this as «backward,» as nearly all theatres in the US had been converted to digital projection.^[100]

Home media

Interstellar was released on home video on March 31, 2015, in both the United Kingdom and United States.^[101] It topped the home video sales chart for a total of two weeks.^[102][103] It was reported that Interstellar was the most pirated film of 2015, with an estimated 46.7 million downloads on BitTorrent.^[104] It was released in the Ultra HD Blu-ray format on December 19, 2017.^[105]

Reception

Box office

Interstellar grossed $188 million in the US and Canada, and $489.4 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $677.4 million against a production budget of $165 million.^[3] Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $47.2 million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations, and other costs, with box office grosses, and ancillary revenues from home media, placing it twentieth on their list of 2014’s «Most Valuable Blockbusters».^[106] It sold an estimated 22 million tickets domestically.^[107]

The film set an IMAX opening record worldwide with $20.5 million from 574 IMAX theaters, surpassing the $17.1 million record held by The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), and is also the best opening for an IMAX 2D, non-sequel, and November IMAX release.^[108] It had a worldwide opening of $132.6 million, which was the tenth-largest opening of 2014,^[109] and it became the tenth-highest-grossing film of 2014.^[110] Interstellar is the fourth film to gross over $100 million worldwide from IMAX ticket sales.^{[111][112][113]} Interstellar was released in the UK, Ireland and Malta on November 6, 2014, and debuted at number one earning £5.37 million ($8.6 million) in its opening weekend, which was lower than the openings of The Dark Knight Rises (£14.36 million), Gravity (£6.24 million), and Inception (£5.91 million).^[114] The film was released in 35 markets on the same day, including major markets like Germany, Russia, Australia, and Brazil earning $8.7 million in total.^[115] Through Sunday, it earned an opening weekend total of $82.9 million from 11.1 million admissions from over 14,800 screens in 62 markets.^[116] It earned $7.3 million from 206 IMAX screens, at an average of 35,400 viewers per theater.^[117] It went to number one in South Korea ($14.4 million),^[118] Russia ($8.9 million), and France ($5.3 million). Other strong openings occurred in Germany ($4.6 million), India ($4.3 million), Italy ($3.7 million), Australia ($3.7 million), Spain ($2.7 million), Mexico ($3.1 million), and Brazil ($1.9 million).^[119] Interstellar was released in China on November 12 and earned $5.4 million on its opening day on Wednesday, which is Nolan’s biggest opening in China after surpassing the $4.61 million opening record of The Dark Knight Rises.^[120][121] It went on to earn $41.7 million in its opening weekend, accounting for 55% of the market share.^[122][123] It is Nolan’s biggest opening in China, Warner Bros.’ biggest 2D opening,^[124] and the studio’s third-biggest opening of all time, behind 2014’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies ($49.5 million)^[125] and 2013’s Pacific Rim ($45.2 million).^[126][127]

It topped the box office outside North America for two consecutive weekends before being overtaken by The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014) in its third weekend.^[124] Just 31 days after its release, the film became the 13th-most-successful film and 3rd-most-successful foreign film in South Korea with 9.1 million admissions trailing only Avatar (13.3 million admissions), and 2013’s Frozen (10.3 million admissions).^[128] The film closed down its theatrical run in China on December 12, with total revenue of $122.6 million.^[129][130] In total earnings, its largest markets outside North America and China were South Korea ($73.4 million), the UK, Ireland and Malta ($31.3 million), and Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) ($19 million).^[131] Interstellar and Big Hero 6 opened the same weekend (November 7–9, 2014) in the US and Canada. Both were forecast to earn between $55 million and $60 million.^[132] In North America, the film is the seventh-highest-grossing film to not hit No. 1, with a top rank of No. 2 on its opening weekend.^[133] Interstellar had an early limited release in the US and Canada in selected theaters on November 4 at 8:00 pm, coinciding with the 2014 US midterm elections.^[134] It topped the box office the following day, earning $1.35 million from 249 theaters (42 of which were IMAX screens); IMAX accounted for 62% of its total gross.^[135] Two hundred and forty of those theaters played in 35 mm, 70 mm, and IMAX 70 mm film formats.^[136] It earned $3.6 million from late-night shows for a previews total of $4.9 million.^{[137][138][139]} The film was widely released on November 7 and topped the box office on its opening day, earning $17 million ahead of Big Hero 6 ($15.8 million).^[140] On its opening weekend, the film earned $47.5 million^[b] from 3,561 theaters, debuting in second place after a neck-and-neck competition with Disney’s Big Hero 6 ($56.2 million).^[142] IMAX comprised $13.2 million (28%) of its opening weekend gross,^[142] while other premium large-format screens comprised $5.3 million (10.5%) of the gross.^[143][144] In its second weekend, the film fell to No. 3 behind old rival Big Hero 6 and newcomer Dumb and Dumber To (2014), and dropped 39% earning $29.1 million for a two-weekend total of $97.8 million.^[145][146] It earned $7.4 million from IMAX theaters from 368 screens in its second weekend.^[147][148] In its third week, the film earned $15.1 million and remained at No. 3, below newcomer The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and Big Hero 6.^[149]

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 73% of 372 critic reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.10/10. The website’s critics consensus reads, «Interstellar represents more of the thrilling, thought-provoking, and visually resplendent filmmaking moviegoers have come to expect from writer-director Christopher Nolan, even if its intellectual reach somewhat exceeds its grasp.»^[150] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100 based on 46 critics, indicating «generally favorable reviews».^[151] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of «B+» on an A+ to F scale.^[152]

Scott Foundas, chief film critic at Variety, said that Interstellar is «as visually and conceptually audacious as anything Nolan has yet done» and considered the film «more personal» than Nolan’s previous films.^[153] Claudia Puig of USA Today praised the visual spectacle and powerful themes, while criticizing the «dull» dialogue and «tedious patches inside the space vessel.»^[154] David Stratton of At the Movies rated the film four-and-a-half stars out of five, commending its ambition, effects, and 70 mm IMAX presentation, though criticizing the sound for «being so loud» as to make some of the dialogue «inaudible». Conversely, co-host Margaret Pomeranz rated the film three out of five, as she felt the human drama got lost among the film’s scientific concepts.^[155] Henry Barnes of The Guardian scored the film three out of five stars, calling it «a glorious spectacle, but a slight drama, with few characters and too-rare flashes of humour.»^[156] James Berardinelli called Interstellar «an amazing achievement» and «simultaneously a big-budget science fiction endeavor and a very simple tale of love and sacrifice. It is by turns edgy, breathtaking, hopeful, and heartbreaking.»^[157] He named it the best film of 2014,^[158] and the second-best movie of the decade, deeming it a «real science fiction rather than the crowd-pleasing, watered-down version Hollywood typically offers».^[159]

«It’s been a while since somebody has come out with such a big vision to things … Even the elements, the fact that dust is everywhere, and they’re living in this dust bowl that is just completely enveloping this area of the world. That’s almost something you expect from Tarkovsky or Malick, not a science fiction adventure movie.^[160]

—Quentin Tarantino on Interstellar.

Oliver Gettell of the Los Angeles Times reported that «film critics largely agree that Interstellar is an entertaining, emotional, and thought-provoking sci-fi saga, even if it can also be clunky and sentimental at times.»^[161] James Dyer of Empire awarded the film a full five stars, describing it as «brainy, barmy, and beautiful to behold … a mind-bending opera of space and time with a soul wrapped up in all the science.»^[162] Dave Calhoun of Time Out London also granted the film a maximum score of five stars, stating that it is «a bold, beautiful cosmic adventure story with a touch of the surreal and the dreamlike.»^[163] Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film a full four stars and wrote, «This is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen—in terms of its visuals, and its overriding message about the powerful forces of the one thing we all know but can’t measure in scientific terms. Love.»^[164]

Describing Nolan as a «merchant of awe,» Tim Robey of The Telegraph thought that Interstellar was «agonisingly» close to a masterpiece, highlighting the conceptual boldness and «deep-digging intelligence» of the film.^[165] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, «This grandly conceived and executed epic tries to give equal weight to intimate human emotions and speculation about the cosmos, with mixed results, but is never less than engrossing, and sometimes more than that.»^[166] In his review for the Associated Press, Jake Coyle praised the film for its «big-screen grandeur,» while finding some of the dialogue «clunky.» He described it further as «an absurd endeavor» and «one of the most sublime movies of the decade.»^[167] Scott Mendelson of Forbes listed Interstellar as one of the most disappointing films of 2014, stating that the film «has a lack of flow, loss of momentum following the climax, clumsy sound mixing,» and «thin characters» despite seeing the film twice in order to «give it a second chance.» He wrote that Interstellar «ends up as a stripped-down and somewhat muted variation on any number of ‘go into space to save the world’ movies.»^[168] Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, saying that despite his usual quibbles regarding Nolan’s excessive dialogue and its lack of a sense of composition, «[Interstellar] is still an impressive, at times astonishing movie that overwhelmed me to the point where my usual objections to Nolan’s work melted away … At times, the movie’s one-stop-shopping storytelling evokes the tough-tender spirit of a John Ford picture … a movie that would rather try to be eight or nine things than just one.»^[169]

New York Times columnist David Brooks concludes that Interstellar explores the relationships among «science and faith and science and the humanities» and «illustrates the real symbiosis between these realms.»^[170] Wai Chee Dimock, in the Los Angeles Review of Books, wrote that Nolan’s films are «rotatable at 90, 180, and 360 degrees,» and that «although there is considerable magical thinking here, making it almost an anti-sci-fi film, holding out hope that the end of the planet is not the end of everything, it reverses itself, however, when that magic falls short when the poetic license is naked and plain for all to see.»^[171] Author George R. R. Martin called Interstellar «the most ambitious and challenging science fiction film since Kubrick’s 2001.»^[172] In 2020, Empire magazine ranked it as one of the best films of the 21st century.^[173]

Accolades

At the 87th Academy Awards, Interstellar received nominations for Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing, and
won Best Visual Effects.^[174]

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

• Thorne, Kip (November 7, 2014). The Science of Interstellar. Book about the science behind the film. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-35137-8.
• Keyes, Greg (November 11, 2014). Interstellar: The Official Movie Novelization. Titan Books. ISBN 978-1783293698.
• Vaz, Mark Cotta (November 11, 2014). Interstellar: Beyond Time and Space. Book about the making of the film. Running Press. ISBN 978-0-7624-5683-3.
• MacKay, John. «On Interstellar (2014) (preliminary notes)»

External links

• Interstellar at IMDb
• Interstellar at AllMovie
• Interstellar at the TCM Movie Database
• Interstellar at the American Film Institute Catalog

Идея создания фильма о группе астронавтов, которые получают возможность попасть в самые дальние уголки нашей вселенной благодаря червоточине была выдвинут Кипом Торном в беседе с продюсером Линдой Обст еще когда они работали вместе над созданием фильма «Контакт». Тогда Торн составил даже что-то вроде тритмента.

Где-то в 2006 году Стивен Спилберг захотел снять большой фильм про грандиозное космическое путешествие. Студия Paramount наняла Джонатана Нолана (брата Кристофера Нолана) написать для него сценарий, используя в качестве основы идеи Торна.

Как известно, Спилберг в итоге не стал режиссером проекта – в 2009 году его компания Dreamworks переехала под крыло Walt Disney. Кресло постановщика стало вакантным и пребывало таким до 2012 года, когда закончивший трилогию про темного рыцаря Кристофер Нолан, выбрал этот проект в качестве своего нового фильма. Не помешало даже то, что до этого Нолан почти все свои картины снимал с Warner Bros. – в данном случае обе студии договорились совместно финансировать фильм, поделив между собой американский и международный прокат (такое бывает весьма редко). Поскольку кредит доверия к Нолану очень высок, по слухам ему предложили на картину бюджет в 200 миллионов долларов, однако тот сказал, что уложится и в 165 миллионов. Что у него в итоге получилось, можно увидеть уже сейчас в ближайшем кинотеатре.

Многие могут задаться вопросом, что из себя представлял «Интерстеллар» времен Стивена Спилберга? На этот вопрос позволяет ответить датированный 12 марта 2008 года 153-страничный сценарий Джонатана Нолана. Для тех кто еще не смотрел фильм и пока не будет дальше читать, могу сказать сразу – Кристофер Нолан взял из сценария брата большую часть первого акта (где-то начальные 35 страниц) и часть финала.

Итак, сценарий начинался со сцены, в которой нейтронная звезда сталкивалась с черной дырой, что порождало гравитационные волны, которые засекались учеными из Калифорнийского технологического института. Проведя анализ, они обнаруживали, что волны попали к нам через внезапно возникшую в Солнечной системе червоточину. Вскоре в лабораторию прибывали военные, которые засекречивали открытие ученых.

50 лет спустя. После американо-китайской войны, правительства сверхдержав коллапсировали. Централизованного государства больше нет, вдобавок, неведомая болезнь уничтожает сельскохозяйственные культуры, что угрожает человечеству вымиранием от голода. Мы знакомимся с главным героем – бывшим пилотом NASA Купером, который ныне вынужден переквалифицироваться в фермеры и его двумя сыновьями Томом и Мерфом. Во время одной из выездных работ, Купер обнаруживает воронку, оставшуюся после падения старого зонда NASA. Купер забирает его домой, после чего зонд начинает издавать пронзительный писк, который уменьшается, если его сдвинуть в определенном направлении. Купер понимает, что это что-то вроде аварийного маяка и решает найти хозяев зонда.  Он садится в самолет и вместе с Мерфом находит островок у побережья Калифорнии (в процессе полета нам бы показали панораму деградировавшего Лос-Анджелеса). Там они обнаруживают секретный объект и вскоре их берут в плен сотрудники вроде как давно закрытого NASA.

Узнав, что Купер бывший пилот, руководитель группы – робот CASE — предлагает ему присоединится к ним. Оказывается, 30 лет назад NASA запустило в червоточину несколько десятков зондов. Тот зонд, что нашел Купер, единственный что вернулся, и в нем содержатся фотографии системы по другую стороны червоточины. В ее центре находится огромная черная дыра Гаргантюа вокруг нее вращается еще одна черная дыра (но уже поменьше) Пантагрюэль, а вокруг нее в свою очередь вращается ледяная планета, под поверхностью которой есть полости, воздух в которых богат кислородом. Поскольку жизнь на Земле обречена, CASE предлагает создать на этой планете колонию, которая бы спасла наш вид от вымирания.

Подумав, Купер соглашается. После некоторой подготовки, включающей в себя ныряние за запчастями на кладбище американского военного флота, на 50-й странице герои наконец отправляются в космос. Их капсула стыкуется с орбитальной станцией, где последние 30 лет армия роботов строила космический корабль Endurance. В отличии от фильма он не вращается (потому нет никакой искусственной гравитации), зато оснащен двумя ядерными двигателями позволяющими долететь до червоточины всего за пару дней.

Команда из четырех человек (Купер, Бэнд, Дойл и Рот) и двух роботов (TARS и CASE) отправляется в путь. Червоточина у Нолана представляет собой весьма небольшой объект, диаметром четыре метра — потому, корабль, как бы это сказать «ловит» ее, после чего она начинает перемещать его и экипаж. Со стороны это выглядит так, будто корпус корабля корабль съеживается внутрь самого себя. В процессе путешествия по червоточине экипаж посещают некие аномалии, которые изгибают пространство и видимо являются существами, построившими ее.

Прибыв на место, корабль оказывается ближе к черной дыре, чем планировалось. Дойл паникует, и решает вернуться домой, самовольно запустив двигатели. Но это приводит к обратному результату и Endurance начинает падать на черную дыру. Мощности двигателей не хватает и чтобы спасти миссию, робот TARS выходит наружу, отсоединяет один из ядерных двигателей и взрывает его – импульс  отталкивает корабль на безопасное расстояние, сам же TARS падает в черную дыру.

Прибыв к ледяной планете, экипаж обнаруживает сигналы зондов NASA, которые почему-то сгруппированы в одном и том же месте. Приземлившись, они обнаруживают (сюрприз!) заброшенную китайскую станцию, рядом с которой вырыты могилы ее обитателей. Пока герои пытаются понять, что происходит, внезапно выясняется, что вокруг черной дыры вращается еще и нейтронная звезда (пульсар) – и когда она проходит рядом с планетой, то заливает ее жестким гамма-излучением, которое вероятно и убило китайцев.

До очередного прохода пульсара остается всего 5 минут, и герои в попытке спастись лезут в ведущий вглубь ледяной коры туннель, который некогда прорыли китайцы, видимо планируя  построить там радиационное убежище. Им удается обнаружить подо льдом свод полости и пробить его стенку. В результате, герои попадают в подледный мир, в центре которой находится настоящее море. На побережье моря находятся  своего рода «джунгли». Планета населена странной формой жизни, которую герои называют фрактальной. Это что-то вроде скопления организмов, которые ночью соединяются друг с другом, образуя самые разнообразные подвижные формы, а днем (когда пролетает пульсар) соединяются в статичные структуры, напоминающие деревья, которые поглощают гамма-радиацию и вырабатывают кислород.

Брэнд решает остаться здесь и основать колонию, однако вскоре выясняется, что через несколько лет ряд с планетой пройдет еще одна черная дыра, которая сорвет ее с орбиты и бросит на Пантагрюэль. Вскоре, герои находят еще одну, но уже куда большую, китайскую базу, построенную автономными роботами экспедиции. Выясняется, что оставшись без экипажа, роботы продолжили изучение системы и в одном из полетов нашли некий артефакт, позволяющий изменять гравитацию. При его включении герои например ходят по потолку базы.  Эта штука позволяет создать технологию, с помощью которой можно будет создать огромные космические корабли, которые смогут эвакуировать население Земли в космос.

Однако, когда астронавты собираются вернуться на Землю, неожиданно появляются китайские боевые роботы. Заложенная в них программа не позволяет им отпустить иностранцев без приказа командования (которое уже 30 лет как умерло), и потому CASE жертвует собой, вступая с роботами в бой, чтобы дать экипажу возможность спастись. На поверхности астронавты встречают еще одного китайского робота-морпеха. Они уничтожают его, однако выясняется,  что тот повредил двигатели их шаттла и тот уже не сможет взлететь – в то время как скоро рядом пролетит пульсар, который убьет их радиацией.

Рот решает пожертвовать собой и отправиться на орбиту в маленькой исследовательской ракете, чтобы включить там артефакт, после чего «выдернуть» Endurance из поля притяжения планеты. Пока Купер сохраняет информацию об устройстве артефакта в память одного из зондов NASA, появляется полуразбитый робот CASE. Герои грузят его в шаттл, а затем в последний момент Брэнд решает взять образец местной формы жизни, чтобы спасти ее от неминуемого уничтожения. Купер выскакивает вслед за ней, и в этот момент Рот, который уже находится на орбите, включает устройство, которое мгновенно расплющивает его и одновременно выдергивает значительный кусок ледяной коры планеты вместе с кораблем в космос.

После этой зрелищной сцены, оставшийся внутри шаттла Дойл подбирает дрейфующих в скафандрах Брэнд и Купера. Затем, они совершают стыковку с Endurance и чинят CASE. Параллельно, Купер узнает что из-за релятивистских эффектов, за время их пребывания на планете на Земле прошло 47 лет. Он обвиняет Брэнд в том, что она утаила от него эту информацию, а затем смотрит накопившиеся за 47 лет видео со своими выросшими детьми.

Тем временем выясняется, что китайские роботы перепрограммировали CASE – тот саботирует миссию и отстреливает второй ядерный двигатель. В итоге, Endurance попадает на орбиту Пантагрюль. Из-за релятивистких эффектов, время для экипажа сильно замедляется и они видят, как черная дыра проходит рядом с ледяной планетой, которая в итоге тоже становится пленницей Пантагрюля и рассыпается на части.

Купер приходит в голову идея залезть память перепрограммированного CASE, благодаря чему он находит там координаты второй червоточины, которую нашли китайские роботы. Используя маневровые двигатели они устремляются в нее. Путешествие по червоточине длится очень долго – за это время например Брэнд и Купер успевают заняться сексом в невесомости, корабль снова посещают пространственные аномалии и в итоге он выныривает в пространство где-то за пределами нашей вселенной, где время течет очень медленно. Там герои находят построенную китайскими роботами базу, где последние 300 лет их ожидал TARS, которого оказывается засосало в червоточину.

Тот рассказывает, что китайские роботы находились здесь 4000 лет, за которые построили станцию и сделали карту червоточин, соединяющих все планеты в галактике. В конце концов, на основе артефакта они создали собственную червоточину, которая должна была доставить их на Землю, но в прошлое, когда китайское правительство еще функционировало, чтобы было кому сообщить о своем открытии. Однако поскольку герои находятся здесь, то значит роботы погибли в червоточине и не смогли изменить прошлое.

После этого экипаж разделяется – Брэнд и TARS решают отправиться дальше на Endurance по червоточинам в поисках подходящей для жизни планеты, Дойл и Купер решают вернуться через китайскую червоточину в прошлое. Однако в последний момент Купер вдруг понимает, что зонд NASA с данными об артефакте – этот тот самый зонд, который он когда-то нашел еще на Земле. А значит,  раз он не встретил самого себя, то червоточина уничтожит корабль. Дойл, однако, не слушает его и угрожая пистолетом захватывает один из китайских кораблей, который затем залетает в червоточину и взрывается. Далее нам показывают, как переживший взрыв зонд падает на Землю и его находит Купер.

Затем действие перемещается в будущее и  нам показывают Мерфа, которому уже исполнилось 30 лет. В поисках запчастей он отправляется на базу NASA которая давно заброшена и разграблена. Он находит зонд, забирает его домой и каким-то образом делает то, что не удалось всему NASA и CASE – расшифровывает данные. В итоге, он строит гравитационное устройство, но оно не работает. Через 10 лет его выросшая дочь Эмили решает продолжить работу отца и в итоге ей удается заставить устройство функционировать.

2320 год. Купер наконец возвращается на Землю, которая совершенно обезлюдела и более непригодна для жизни. Он находит руины своего дома, плачет, затем выпускает фрактальную жизнь, для которой наша планете станет новым домом, и решает перестать бороться за существование  и умереть.

Купер теряет сознание, а затем просыпается  уже в госпитале на цилиндрической орбитальной станции имени самого себяа. Он  узнает, что изобретение его внучки позволило людям переселиться в космос. Сыновья героя уже давно умерли, Купер в итоге встречается со своим 80-летним праправнуком. Поняв, что в этом мире ему делать нечего,  он  угоняет космический корабль и отправляется в космос на поиски Брэнд.

В целом, несмотря на то, что по сравнению со сценарием брата в фильме Кристофера Нолана в итоге оказалось меньше космических сцен, но он на мой взгляд все равно вышел как минимум более амбициозным и напряженным.  В отличии от брата, Джонатан Нолан не раскрыл тайны создателей червоточины – они просто существуют и все. Драмы в его сценарии тоже намного меньше – Купер конечно сожалеет о расставании с семьей, но по сравнению с фильмом, не слишком сильно и часто. Идея и описание замкнутой экосистемы в пульсарной системе мне понравилась, и жаль что ничего из этого в итоговый фильм не попало (хотя конечно сам факт, что целых две экспедиции не заметили пульсар мне показался весьма глупым). Версия выхода за пределы Вселенной от Джонатана Нолана интересна… но по эффектности все же уступает версии Кристофера Нолана.

На мой взгляд, самое слабое место сценария Джонатана Нолана весь этот подсюжет с китайскими роботами. Не сама идея, а то, как она обыграна. Эти роботы какие-то слишком продвинутые для того состояния, в котором находилась цивилизация и собственно говоря, могли бы решить многие из проблем человечества на Земле.  К тому же, мне лично сложно поверить, что за 4000 лет они так и не эволюционировали, не смогли изменить свое программное обеспечение или построить других роботов — а просто всем скопом отправились в червоточину, не подготовив запасного варианта на случай неудачи. Было бы куда интереснее, если бы они наоборот, за эти тысячелетия создали свою сверхцивилизацию, которую люди бы сочли пришельцами. Как говорил Артур Кларк, технология развитой цивилизации не отличима от волшебства. Собственно, мне кажется что Кристофер Нолан определенно отталкивался от каких-то подобных рассуждений, когда работал над своим финалом.

В целом, «Интерстеллар» это очередной хороший пример того, как на протяжении нескольких лет может сильно измениться сюжет большого фильма. Как я уже говорил, в итоге от этого сценария в фильм попали лишь значительная часть первого акта и часть финала. Версия Джонатана Нолана мне понравилась, но лично я бы все таки отдал предпочтение киноверсии – она более душевная, амбициозная, можно даже сказать крышесносящая и все же оставляет после себя меньше вопросов. Хотя это уже конечно дело вкуса, каждый в принципе может самостоятельно сделать выводы, какой из сюжетов – начальный или итоговый, был лучше.