You knew this was going to happen the moment the first reviews for Interstellar painted the film as more of an artistic than a thematic masterpiece. Now Honest Trailers have gotten their hands on Christopher Nolan's latest cinematic toybox, and you can watch them dump out all the LEGO pieces in the video below.
The Honest Trailers series loves to strip a film down to the nuts and bolts, only to criticize how those nuts and bolts don't exactly fit when you look at them in the right light. They've taken on some pretty big targets in their quest to force Hollywood filmmakers to think twice before they make a lazy movie, but Interstellar has to be one of the biggest targets they've ever taken on. Since the subject of Interstellar can turn into as heated a debate as whether the next Transformers film will be the one to turn it around, we'll try to keep ourselves as even keeled as possible.
Now with any debate over Interstellar's value as a movie, there are several key points that manage to recur in pretty much any case against the film. The dialogue gets a lot of shade thrown its way; the science of the film is both praised and damned; and the sound design of the film is a prime target for all of the jokes that Interstellar invites upon itself. Now it can be agreed upon that The Dark Knight has earned Christopher Nolan a lot of good will that still hasn't dissipated, there isn't nearly enough to overcome massive problems in any of those departments. While Interstellar certainly isn't The Dark Knight, it's Christopher Nolan's experiment in warmer, character driven filmmaking. Considering how Nolan's previously been labeled as a cold, plot driven director, the end result of Interstellar could have been a lot worse off.
Despite all of the defense that can be provided in Interstellar's’s favor, there are still some points that cannot be defended. The biggest point that Interstellar has against it is the fact that Tom, Cooper's son, really is a spare character in the plot. The most he gets to do is push exposition over the 23 or so years that Cooper missed on Earth, and he even loses a kid for emotional poignancy. All that time could have been spent on Murph's slowly fermenting resentment of her father, culminating in her big birthday message at the end of the mail chain.
Interstellar has its issues, much like any other film of its stature would. Again, Christopher Nolan was dabbling in some far out stuff that was outside of his typical wheelhouse, and to a good degree he can be argued as successful. Though there is one argument that needs to be put to rest once and for all, and it's not the argument you're thinking of. Folks, if someone doesn't like Interstellar, it doesn't mean that they automatically "don't get it." Even if they don't get it, and they still don't like it, it's not the end of the world. For every person that doesn't get Interstellar, there's someone who just doesn't get Michael Bay's Transformers films. To each their own, guys. To each their own. That said, Screen Junkies does kind of gloss over a lot of the dialogue and emotional content justifying a lot of the points it likes to dissect in the ending, but that's another rant for another day.
Interstellar is available on Digital HD, Blu-ray, and DVD now.
