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Extra Credit 043 - Interstellar (Patreon)

Published:
2026-01-28 15:07:17
Imported:
2026-01

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Content

We're time-traveling back to 2014 to have a look at Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, then discussing it... in the PRESENT! WHOA!

Comments

Jason Thompson

Thank you for mentioning The Time Capsule, which I finally saw and liked! You should link to it for other folks! Honestly you two should do an extra credit on all the different films you have pitched and worked on. Of course I respect that you might prefer to look forward even with me asking for you to talk about old stuff (Were Dad!!).

Jason Thompson

I’d forgotten about the anti-science/miseducation/conspiracy-theory aspect. That was just interesting worldbuilding in 2014 but it’s terrifying in 2026

Bryce Perry

Chad man, I love you but you can't use the word g*psy. It's a racial slur against the Roman people.

ESTY

This was a fun bonus episode! The greatest exploration of time dilation, in my opinion is: Gunbuster (1988). It’s 6 episodes, roughly 22 minutes each. Peak anime, it keeps escalating until the climax, which at one point switches from amazing full colour visuals to rough pencil drawings. Highly recommended.

Pete Williams

I haven't watched interstellar since it was in cinemas but I came away with the impression that it was a movie about how much a father loves his daughter and only sort of likes his stupid farmer son. Also that it was too loud.

Newk

I second this idea.

Newk

This episode made me think of my first book suggestion for you guys! You should cover Kurt Vonnegut's "Timequake"

Mark Simmons

That's the kind of reaction I had to the X-Files revival around the same time. "Your worldview won, and it's terrible, please go away."

Wulf Mungus

From what I recall the artist choice of the silent rough pencils at the end was also forced by budget constraints. I really enjoyed the sequel, Diebuster... It pulls an amazing 180 at about the half way point. And it's ending brought literal tears. As I had watched right after Gunbuster

Wulf Mungus

First, I'm shocked by the reminder that there is still 1 episode of Manimal in the chamber... But mostly I came here to suggest that Chris and Chad write a comic for that "Interstellar from the robot's perspective" story

Casey

After hearing Chad’s take on Interstellar, I wonder if either of you have read Joanna Russ’s science fiction? It’s worth checking out.

Richard Horsman

I was coming in to recommend Russ’s We Who Are About To… It’s a novella that looks at (as Chad put it) “the assumption that humanity should be saved.” It is MUCH less schmaltzy than Interstellar, and I like it much more.

witchhousemedia

Hi Bryce, I hear you - I feel like context is important because I'm making a reference to The Wolf Man here rather than denigrating, and the history/iterations of that word are complex. We've talked AT LENGTH about this issue when covering The Shining Pyramid as well as A Night in the Lonesome October because the word comes up a lot in horror lit, and I'd refer you to those episodes and comments because our Roma listeners weighed in. In short, the policy that resulted from those discussions is to never use that word to describe a group of people, which we never do unless quoting a writer, and even then we make sure to address it. But if referring to things like a movie curse, a popular song, a musical or the many, many ways its incorporated into modern language would be awkward to bleep or talk around.

witchhousemedia

That said - ALWAYS GOOD to be reminded to be sensitive and this is much appreciated, Bryce.

Alan Ricks

Can I please get that “Robots traveling through space rethinking their mission to save Humanity” plot in a short story by Chad? Thank you.

Jim Cannon

Its okay, guys, I still haven't seen Interstellar. Or Titanic. Or any of the Avatar movies. I know Chad's Hollywood Senses are finely honed, but it seems to me that the more traditional Hollywood version of this film would be from the point of view of the children left behind, who then join the project as a way to connect with/understand their father, and eventually reunite with him (or an alien wearing his face) at the end. Hollywood loves its missing fathers. Its much less traditional to follow the father who has to leave his children behind and talk at all about what that costs him. So just by taking that perspective, sounds like Interstellar does something at least a little different.

Alan Ricks

Rm9sbG93ZXJz is now.

Alan Ricks

I waited years to watch Interstellar because I feared many of the same issues Chad did. And… it certainly has many interesting parts. I didn’t think they all went together and the melodrama time-ghost subplot didn’t work for me. I either just wanted to stay in the early post-apocalyptic Dust setting or explore more of those alien worlds with Matt Damon. I wasn’t a father and hadn’t seen the end of 2001 or Solaris yet so now my take might be a bit different.

Alan Ricks

My favourite exploration of time dilation is the anime Lily C.A.T. (1987). Think The Thing and Alien mashed together with a super computer gone awry all on ship full of people that age only a little bit while in cryosleep but everyone else goes through 100s of years between their visits.

Ben A

Glad you guys got to see this! When I saw it in the theater (was that really over 11 years ago—talk about time dilation!) my response was more in line with Chris. The movie was a visual feast. The black hole physics blew me away, no pun intended. The effects company that created the black hole actually worked with Kip Thorne, who used his (and others’) equations to create a “gentle” spinning black hole for the film. To date it is one of the most accurate depictions of a black hole created (externally—that business past the event horizon was wonderful hokum). And like you both, thinking about the time dilation effects and the weird physics of the alien worlds (especially the water world) occupied my brain for days. But when I rewatched it perhaps a year ago, my thinking paralleled Chad’s. Why should humans save themselves? (Bootstrap paradox aside…) The story doesn’t make me think humans are worth rescuing given the bad decisions the film portrays us making as a species. I read the drone situation at the beginning as a sign that there had been wars over resources like water and food (especially when the blight would have decimated global food supplies). And the willful ignorance portrayed in education and everyday attitudes made the justification less compelling. Perhaps I’m in grumpy middle age. This is all to say that, with different context and age, I found myself coinciding with how you both reacted to the film. And now that you have introduced Lem to the podcast, I’ll throw out my recommendation for you all to read Solaris. And watch the Tarkovsky film!

Jerome Tracy

I enjoyed your Interstellar discussion; it's one of my favorites (along with The Expanse) in large part because they at least tried to get some actual science into the story (so many science fiction movies are really just fantasies dressed up with gadgets that wouldn't work in the real world. I can still enjoy them, but it always sets my teeth on edge when, for example, there's an explosion in space with a big KABOOM! instead of the less cinematically preferred silence) Also, the Hans Zimmer score was amazing!!!

Jamie Allinson

Here’s some time dilation for you. ‘Interstellar’ came out when my partner and I were in the early stages of going out. She mentioned she wanted to see it but, since I didn’t feel we were at the stage of exclusive cinema rights, I went to see it with my friend Justin, which I do admit wasn’t very nice. We’ve now been together for more than a decade, living together for most of that time and her resentment about this incident is as fresh as the day it happened.

Aaron La Vene

The expanse is the best sci fi show ever created and i need more of it. I’ll die on this hill And to add. To fully appreciate this movie I had to watch it again . The first time I watched it, I liked it. I watched it again several years later and man…. I loved it. Some movies are just that way. Weirdly enough. Totally different, but Predator 2 aged like fine wine in that way as well. Watched it a few years ago, and man it was so much better than I remember. some films just made before their time . I think interstellar was one of those movies

It's a Ghost.

I watched the entire movie thinking that adult Murphy was being played by Bryce Dallas Howard 😐 Also, I don't feel too bad since I saw a clip of Bryce Dallas Howard on The Graham Norton Show where she said that she and Jessica Chastain have been confused for each other going all the way back to when she was a student at NYU and Jessica Chastain was at Juilliard!

nancy steinecke

Hey guys. So this movie really hit me right in the gut with the theme of abandonment. Seeing young Murph decode the "Stay" message, and having her dad disregard her pleas - yeah, I've been the parent walking away from crying daughters in my husband's car back seat as I stepped into the airport for the flight to Afghanistan or some other dangerous assignment. Saying "I'll be back" just doesn't cut the pleading grief of your own children. And this movie - whew - people are walking away, driving away, flying spaceships away from each other with alarming repetition. Hit me pretty hard. On another note, I do want to point out the amazing musical score by Hans Zimmer for this film - did you notice the constant ticking, like a clock, as the orchestration relentlessly built up your suspense? Oh yeah, that Zimmer fella, he's got the goods.

Our old pal Brendan Gardiner

I like how Chris Nolan skipped over the business of what the climate catastrophe was. Reminds me of an hour ago when I was listening to the Men Who Murdered Mohammed episode and I was reminded of the 1986 Jim Jarmusch movie Down by Law and how he glided right past the details of the how the three main characters escaped prison.

Our old pal Brendan Gardiner

I’ll spare you the details of how I came up with the idea to make this great joke. The process isn’t as important as the joke itself.

S Jayne Bradley

I too had missed it when it came out and decided for this podcast I would sit down and watch it. While I enjoyed the plot, I was put off by how grey it was. In fact I feel like all Christopher Nolan movies are grey, excluding maybe the batman movies. I found I couldn't really connect with it because it has the same colour pallette as the corporate office where I work. But at least the story was good.

King Dinosaur

I enjoyed your discussion way more than the movie. I just didn't connect with it. And I'm pretty much done with three hour movies. Is editing not a thing anymore? Lastly, don't be baggin' on McConaughey...he's alright, alright, alright.

Science Doctor, PhD

I like longer movies (when they use that time well of course) but I am surprised we have not seen "intermissions" included for the theatrical release. Heck longer movies could even build in a recommended point for this if they wanted to avoid it impacting the experience.

King Dinosaur

Yeah, there are longer movies that I like, but in general it seems like most modern movies are pointlessly long. I'm with you on the intermissions. Just please bring back the dancing hot dogs!

Science Doctor, PhD

I remember really loving this movie, and loved it on a re-watch, but as Chad and others pointed out, it definitely hit very different. I don't know if it's being ~10 years older, or, you know, the collapse of America and other nations to authoritarianism and anti-science, but it's a harder watch.

Our old pal Brendan Gardiner

I finally watched this movie and I think I’ve had enough of the bootstrap time paradox thing as a narrative device. It really made me think when I first encountered it watching The Final Countdown on VHS when I was 10, but ultimately it’s no less aggravating a storytelling gimmick than “it was all a dream.” I know the fun of a paradox like this is that you get to discuss it walking out of the movie theater as you try to sort out the puzzle of it, but how many times can you have this conversation? At some point I just feel like the filmmaker is making you do the work that they didn’t want to do.