2001: A Space Odyssey is the best film ever made.
People often scoff when I say that. Obviously, it’s just my opinion. But as evidence for my point I would cite the frequency of space-travel films that feel like homages to 2001. WALL•E was probably the biggest, best-known one until this past weekend’s release of Interstellar.
In fact, I would describe the new film as a triangulation between those two earlier ones. As in WALL•E, the Earth is doomed by an environmental disaster, and humanity is attempting to escape into space. As in 2001, the film follows a small crew of scientists accompanied by artificially intelligent computers on a long space journey and features scenes of silent, weightless action, to reflect the airlessness of space and ends with a trip through a psychedelic space tunnel and, most obvious to those with ears to hear, sounds many times the last note of Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” the musical theme of 2001.
My editor, Elijah Davidson, wrote our first review of Interstellar and keyed on the theme of time. So, for my alternate take, I will center on the film’s other major scientific subject: gravity. Many big-budget Hollywood science fiction movies are described as “gravity-defying” for the way they use special effects to portray physically implausible feats. Gravity is what holds us to the ground, but movies often flaunt that restriction.
Interstellar is an interesting case. Christopher Nolan, the director, is known for using practical effects rather than CGI, and he works hard to maintain the sense of scientific plausibility. Science aside, the story strikes me as narratively implausible. The plot’s coincidences and characters’ choices add up too conveniently for me. The word for this missing sense of fit is “verisimilitude,” and I happen to like my science fiction films with a high degree of it. The recent film that best exemplifies what I’m after is, ironically, Gravity.
But, if I may play with the word, gravity also means emotional weight. Interstellar presents some very grave circumstances. On the global level, we have one of the heaviest situations imaginable, as the human race is within a generation of extinction and apparently without a hope of survival due to environmental degradation. On a personal level, several of the characters face heavy choices in what they say and do. If you had a chance to save the species, but had to leave your children to do it, would you? If you chose to go, what would you say to your children? As a drama, Interstellar succeeds. The actors carry the emotional weight convincingly, and the science fiction setting allows for compelling, new versions of old questions.
Does Interstellar make me want to re-write my first sentence above? No. It’s a good film, provoking thought and moving briskly through its nearly three hours without feeling slow or bloated. Many people think 2001 is boring; Interstellar might be the film for them. But, to me, Nolan’s film isn’t nearly as transporting, compelling, or beautiful as Kubrick’s masterpiece. For one thing, Interstellar tries to explain everything we see through dialogue, while 2001 leaves much more open to mystery and interpretation.
In fact, I interpret 2001 through the lens of my faith. Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction author who co-wrote 2001 with Kubrick, once said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” or, in other words, from the supernatural. The advanced aliens who bless humanity throughout 2001 might just be God. Interstellar, on the other hand, leaves no openings like that. We humans must save ourselves, and that is the most narratively implausible part of the story.
You might also find these reviews of Interstellar helpful:
1 More Film Blog
Christianity Today
Decent Films Guide
Larsen on Film
Reel Gospel
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