I was surprised to learn while reading a recent book by a physicist I respect a great deal regarding the science of the movie Interstellar how limited the views of science really are. While attempting to discover a way to insert the concept of a blight into the film as the primary reason for earth’s cataclysmic disaster pushing human kind off the planet, Kip Thorne, the author organized a dinner meeting with Jonathan Nolan the screenwriter, at the Caltech faculty club, the Anthenaeum. Also attending the dinner was film producer Lynda Obst, the biologist Elliot Meyerowitz, Jered Leadbetter—an expert on diverse microbes, Mel Simon, an expert on cells that make up plants, and David Baltamore, an expert about everything regarding biology.
The challenge was to discover how plausible it was for a blight to consume the food supply on earth due to relatively natural occurrences. In the film Jonathan and the Director Christopher Nolan wanted a natural disaster in the story that would force humans to make a decision, so they set the story a bit into the future, yet the population on earth was rapidly declining, and technological advancement was regressing. The scientists attached to the film, and the attendees of that dinner found it hard to believe that scientific endeavor would decline so rapidly in such a society—which I thought was astonishing. After all, it’s happening right now.
My son-in-law and I were discussing this very problem just last night–if it hadn’t been for Ronald Reagan and Margret Thatcher who wrestled away from socialist England much of its industry back into privatization, most of the great technology we are enjoying today would not have happened. Our society would regress as opposed to the leaps it made in the 80s and 90s to what many neglect these days as common occurrences–such as cell phone technology. It took political vision and commitment to privatizing industry that was using science to usher in the technical leaps that we have been seeing. However, the danger is that much of that work is has-been technology and for the generations coming from the years of the Bush presidents, Clinton and Obama, much of the science has returned to the type of dinner discussions occurring at Caltech for the Interstellar blight meeting.
Most college professors know that most of their funding comes from the tax payers, so their view of the world tends to be left leaning progressive. People tend to attach their politics to what feeds their mouths, not so much what they believe is right or wrong based on personal judgment. So those brilliant scientists at Kip Thorne’s meeting were already missing a major ingredient to the success of science before their meeting on the blight even took place. After reading about the meeting it is no wonder that so many top scientists believe in global warming as a manmade occurrence—as their funding often comes from government, and government wants to propel such myths so to gain more control through organizations like the EPA on regulating industry. In much the same way that the aforementioned scientists found a type of blight for the Interstellar film plot line, they also find evidence of global warming to gain grant money for their research leaving the discovery process of scientific data contaminated with liberal politics.
Yet the point of the meeting was to find a form of biological blight appropriate for the Nolan storyline—so it was under a capitalist endeavor that the scientists even gathered to discuss the topic. Without the potential profit of making the movie Interstellar, the motivation for even having the scientific discussion would not be present, and those same faculty members would talk among themselves not sharing with the world the brilliant science of their efforts. It was just another reminder of how science should be attached more to business rather than government.
The dinner meeting went on for some time and many topics were discussed. Jonathan Nolan is my kind of screenwriter. He is concerned with many of the same types of themes that I am, the danger of collectivism, the regression of human spirit when the profit motive is taken away, and the strength of the individual over the mob of democracy. Those are topics that Kip’s scientists are typically weary of as they come often from the liberal side of the tracks, particularly Lynda Obst who is one of those liberal Hollywood producers that are always talked about attending Obama fundraisers thinking that he is the second coming of Christ or the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses. Yet Lynda was in the business of making money. At the time it was Steven Spielberg who was attached as the director of the film, and there is an expectation that his films must garner a certain healthy box office take—especially in regards to science fiction. But Nolan was staying away from the typical man-made doomsday scenario that most writers guided by Obst would typically be comfortable with. If not for the profit motive, the dinner meeting would not have occurred at Caltech with any purpose but for scientist to talk about what projects they were working on.
The result of the dinner was the type of blight that is known in the science world as a lethal generalist blight that would run rampant over the earth consuming the oxygen humans need to breathe. As the atmosphere is 80 percent nitrogen and the lethal blight feeds off of nitrogen it has an endless supply of nutrients for its parasitic destruction of plant life. The byproduct of the Interstellar blight is CO2 which of course is a byproduct of human breathing which would gradually consume the oxygen in our atmosphere slowly killing everyone who depends on oxygen to live. But before arriving at that conclusion many scenarios were discussed, such as an AIDS virus that could quickly evolve into a far more contagious form that was airborne. Another scenario proposed by Leadbetter was that people might panic due to global warming and fertilize the oceans to produce algae that would eat much of the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide via photosynthesis. This could be done by throwing a lot of iron into the oceans to help feed algae growth. However this massive growth might then kill off all the fish and plant life starving humans from the rich food supply there. Another proposal by Meyerowitz contemplated that ultraviolet light streaming through our atmosphere’s ozone hole could mutate an enormous bloom of algae growth creating new pathogens that would again wipe out plant life in the oceans then jump on land to do the same. All those are interesting ideas, but also point to the dangers of not having a screenwriter like Jonathan Nolan who came up with a strong premise that actually made these scientists think. Typically, what would have happened is that a clueless screenwriter enamored by the nice meal and wine at such dinners would do whatever the scientists proposed and hoping to get another writing job, would kiss the ass of Obst. This would have taken Interstellar’s plot and made it into something like The Day after Tomorrow or some other cheap environmentally charged message film that would falter at the box office because it does not speak to the core of the American film audience—rather just the fringe government driven scientists at universities.
If the faculty at Caltech was more attached to capitalism instead of government driven socialism discussions like the one that took place for Interstellar would take place all the time and be aimed at more profitable measures—which would be a great thing. Instead of brilliant scientists like Thorne, and the others sitting around at the Anthenaeum contemplating the universe as they wait for tax payers to funnel money through the government to arrive at their science experiments, the goals of such discussions under capitalist endeavor would be to align profit with science to arrive at a new market—and therefore a new human creation. There needs to be a lot less government involved in those types of meetings and a lot more capitalism. It is only because of Jonathan Nolan and later his brother Christopher that Interstellar took a unique approach that pushed scientific validity to a level that was unusual for a big screen film produced by the studio system. And if such endeavors could do wonders for a simple movie, just think what they could do if private enterprise was more engaged directly with the likes of Thorne, Leadbetter, and Meyerowitz.
Most normal Americans probably don’t know that there is a World Socialist Web Site, but there is. In fact, there are a lot of web sites throughout the world dedicated to socialism and they are primarily aimed at the young, the stupid, and the uneducated masses that lack natural aptitude. Socialism is attractive to the infinitely, and incurably lazy because it allows them to gain resources at the expense of somebody else’s work. It is far from fair because those who have natural ambition and drive are constantly plucked throughout their lives and punished for their drive by the collective masses who call themselves socialists. There are a lot more socialists than most people realize—and they are a lot more open about their activity outside of the United States. There is still a stigma in America toward socialism because of the foundations of capitalism that formed the prosperous country. So socialists and would-be communists keep their identification concealed behind “alternative” terminology to perpetrate their ruse against society.
I have identified to readers here what Interstellar was all about in my review, which can be seen by clicking here. The film has made within just three weeks over $500 million dollars, most of it overseas—particularly communist China and somewhat capitalist South Korea. The film underperformed in the United States largely due to the intellectual weight of the subject matter. Thinking is not fashionable in America currently, so given the nature of Interstellar, an almost 3 hour film that does not involve any sex or even romance—is a lot to ask out of American film audiences to sit though. They for the most part are scared of a physics experiment that does not involve someone flashing boobies somewhere within it. Those who love Interstellar in America are those who like to think. In societies already suppressed by communism and collectivism however—they do enjoy thinking because it’s the only freedom that they have—and they LOVE Interstellar. Forget the stereotypes that Asians are good at math, the movie market in the East loves thinking movies—which Interstellar is.
But socialists don’t like thinking movies because they require non-thinking mentality to execute their ridiculous political and economic policies. Communists in China have seen first-hand what a debacle their policies have been and the are moving toward capitalism instead of away from it like Americans have been for so long—and they see the message behind Interstellar as hope for their dire situations. Elsewhere, particularly around Europe, socialists see the message of Interstellar as a threat to their climate change religion of earth worship so they attack the premise of the plot with the same voracity that Bible thumpers profess that evolution is not a scientific factor in plant and animal life development.
For proof of this discriminatory condition against capitalist endeavors such as a non-climate change movie, below are some hilarious excerpts from the World Socialist Web Site as they reviewed Interstellar. The World Socialist Web Site is essentially The Huffington Post only without the filter of progressivism to mask the hard left slant. The WSWS is written by The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) which is the name of two Trotskyistinternationals; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site, and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain. The International Committee originated as a public faction of the Fourth International. It was formed in 1953 by a number of national sections of the FI that disagreed with the course of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International led at that time by Michel Pablo (Raptis) and Ernest Mandel (Germain). The Committee was co-ordinated by the American section, the Socialist Workers Party, and included the British section led by Gerry Healy and Pierre Lambert’s Parti Communiste Internationaliste (PCI) in France. Trotskyist groups in various other countries, notably in Austria, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and Nahuel Moreno‘s group in Argentina, also joined.
Needless to say, they didn’t like the movie, here’s what they said:
Interstellar is part of a trend in contemporary science fiction movies, and cinema in general, that subscribes to the notion that everything in this planet is already lost. Brand’s brilliant scheme is simple: if we cannot save the Earth, let’s leave it. The idea of abandoning the planet for a fresh start in another part of the universe is alarming, irritating. Responsible scientists, artists and others need to address the present social and political challenges, instead of ignoring them or projecting them far away.
Toward the end, when Cooper awakes on board a NASA space station orbiting Saturn, it seems that people are living in harmony. As was the case at the beginning of the film, there is no reference to the social context. Is this a world with a different economic structure, with social justice, free from capitalist exploitation? Does Nolanthink the discovery of another planet will automatically make human beings’ relationships better? Or is humankind a species destined to wander through the universe without hope for all eternity?
Nevertheless, the overall plot resolution is ridiculous. Nolan prefers providing easy, indulgent answers to the audience rather than working through thought-provoking questions.
At one point, Amelia says: “Love is the one thing we are capable of perceiving that transcends time and space.” But beyond the vindication of the family institution, the classic setting of the petty bourgeois, the film does not dare to go anywhere. Ultimately, what is so striking about Interstellar is the contradiction between the science and technology (including film technology) and the poverty of the ideas. It is easier for many filmmakers to imagine a fifth dimension and coming out the other end of a black hole than it is for them to study our social organization and construct a critical picture of it.
Incoherent and boring for long stretches, Interstellar is a galactic mess: a sci-fi extravaganza, in which Nolan becomes the prisoner of his own gravity. His work says little about the human condition, our world and its relation with the universe around us. Made for $165 million, it has already grossed more than $130 million in the US, and $225 million in the rest of the planet since its release. If Nolan’s film reveals anything, it would be the mediocre state of American studio filmmaking and the undemocratic global system of distribution and exhibition.
Notice how the key words of socialism were placed in the article from their philosophic vantage point, “capitalist exploitation,” “social justice,” and the illustrious “bourgeois.” Their biggest gripe with the film is that the Nolan brothers decided to take the plot line of earth worship completely out of the factors of consideration and just left earth behind for destinations yet unknown. By doing so all the tenants of progressive and socialist belief are instantly diffused. Socialism and communism only work when there are no other options for a society—and capitalism is destroyed. This is why they tend to mostly be greenie weenie types and old hippie tree huggers with tie die t-shirts hanging in their closets and an occasional aroma of marijuana smoke emitting from their urban dwellings. They have made a religion out of earth worship and attached it directly to political activism—which ultimately attacks capitalist enterprises like coal consumption, carbon emissions, and creates EPA activism through regulation.
Socialists require no options to sell their ideals to society, and Interstellar takes movie goers completely out of the earth worship culture of progressives and gives them something else to think about besides social justice. Given that option, socialists throughout the world are watching as years of mind-numbing programming are erased with a simple three-hour Christopher Nolan movie. This is precisely why my own children have been to see Interstellar three times over the last three weeks. When my oldest daughter had any option she wanted for her 25th birthday, she chose to see Interstellar for the third time—and I am proud of her for supporting such a wonderful picture. I want to see it again just because I know it galls socialists to no end to see such philosophic competition arguing against their policies.
Kip Thorne is hardly a bastion of conservatism along with his openly left-leaning Interstellar producer Lynda Obst. Thorne is an academic whom I admire immensely, so I forgive him for his old hippie ways. It’s alright so long as he stays on campus and keeps his fingers out of the business world where capitalism rules. Lynda was producing Interstellar with Steven Spielberg and if things had stayed the way they were lining up Interstellar would have been a good film like A.I. or something to that effect, but it would not have made nearly as much money. Science geeks would go to the film, but conservatives would stay away because of all the hippie messages that Obst and Spielberg would have sprinkled in—and the $200 million dollar project might have broken even in the world-wide market. But Obst had a problem, after a writer’s guild strike pulled Jonathan Nolan away then Spielberg had to bail, she had no other option but to take the next best thing, Christopher Nolan fresh off his Dark Knight films. The Nolans working together once again rewrote the script, cut out all the hippie sludge, and put together a film that truly took viewers off this planet and all the problems associated with it. The result is an international box office smash that will redefine the film industry—especially in the Asian market.
So the socialists of the world are watching the success of Interstellar with a serious case of the goo. They are miserable to see such a rejection of their social philosophies, and Interstellar is very much a rejection of their assumptions—that’s partly what makes it so wonderful. So if you really want to piss off a socialist—go see Interstellar a few more times and support it with the kind of revolution that the communists in America are calling for in Ferguson. The best way to solve many of the social problems that afflict the world is to put more money in people’s pockets and upgrade their standard of living. Space shows promise in that direction—but more importantly, capitalism offers those solutions. Socialism leads mankind to earth worship and more EPA regulations. Capitalism leads to space, and the many opportunities for the world found there. It is that realization that has the World Socialist Web Site feeling so dejected. And that makes me very, very happy.
“But beyond the vindication of the family institution, the classic setting of the petty bourgeois, the film does not dare to go anywhere.” Now, you know what’s wrong with American public schools—what a terrible, diabolical attitude toward family structure. It should be clear what socialists are out to destroy.
I had an epiphany that my wife and I were stepping off a Virgin Galactic vessel into the first hotel of their design floating above the earth with the horizon spinning outside of a massive lobby window. It is Virgin’s first hotel in space established as a resort location rivaling the Atlantis vacation destination in the Bahamas complete with an indoor water park covered with large glass windows looking out into the vastness of space. The lobby was lush and expensive with exotic restaurants all offering outrageously epic views out every window. The moon is always full and casts a constant—haunting shadow through every object and mixed with the brilliant light shining off the earth is a bluish hue that has never been replicated by any light on the home planet. It’s our 50th wedding anniversary and we have a $5000 bottle of wine to mark the year of this writing to celebrate our first week-long vacation in space. We have worked hard and deserve to pamper ourselves with a very expensive outing that will mark many years of persistence. In the lobby is playing the old soundtrack to the classic 2014 movie Interstellar, which has by then become the standard of music referencing space. It was that award-winning Christopher Nolan movie that changed it all and set the tone for the second world-wide space race causing Hilton, Marriott and Virgin Galactic to build the first space stations catering to tourism. Virgin was the first to achieve it.
The majestic views out of the multiple windows demand the music of Interstellar because nothing else would be sufficient. The hotel operators just play constantly the old Hans Zimmer soundtrack to help alleviate the shock of being grounded so firmly to the floor as the view outside swirls around like a marry-go-round. It takes some getting used to for some people; some actually throw up with the disorienting effect of the earth’s horizon spinning around so rhythmically. There are trash cans stationed along the pathway toward the check-in counter large enough for visitors to dump their stomachs in the most graceful way possible. A cleaning crew quickly removes the contents so not to alter the smell of space—that rusty metal odor mixed with the fragrance of lobby vegetation that is intended carefully to greet guests as they step off the shuttle from their journey below.
We walk to the counter as track 7 on that enchanting soundtrack plays with organs chiming to the tempo of a clock’s second hand—the earth still swirling, the light from the moon and sun moving around the room casting shadows in all directions hauntingly. Bright overhead lights on the ceiling between more large windows cast stabilizing light so that the lobby looks to be the only stable element of a universe in chaos outside—which adds to the otherworldly sensation of a species raised on a planet where the sun rises and falls every 12 hours and the horizon is always fixed. Here, the sun is always out, the moon is always full, and the horizon never stills—it spins perpetually so to provide an earth like gravity for the visitors—some who are already in their swimming suits and heading for the massive domed Water Park behind the check-in counter.
My wife and I aren’t sick; the music brings our minds to ease with a familiarity that we know well. We have listened to that soundtrack every week for the last 25 years and know its notes by heart. Before checking in we just listen to it while we sit in one of the lobby seats and watch the Virgin Galactic shuttle pull away from the docking station and head back to earth with its navigational thrusters silently pushing it back into a declination orbit to Spaceport America—our home launch point. In another three hours that same ship will be back with more visitors and within 30 minutes another ship will arrive from Spaceport America and fifteen minutes after that, one from Space Port Japan, then one from Spaceport Europe. Because Virgin Galactic has brought the Internet to Africa—they now have one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Soon they will have their own spaceport in right in the middle of the Congo.
My wife and I head to our rooms and prepare for dinner. We spend five solid hours drinking our expensive bottle of wine sitting on our hotel bed watching the world turn—literally. And we cherish that this event has finally been made possible after many years of dreaming. The whole time we listen to our well-played soundtrack for the several hundred thousandth time—Interstellar, as we have always loved it and likely always will.
That soundtrack actually only came out a few days ago, on November 17, 2014, so my son-in-law rushed to Barnes and Nobel to get it for he and my daughter the moment it was unloaded from the delivery truck. They spent their evening listening to it while eating Chinese food from their favorite restaurant—and they gave me a copy. They have already seen the movie twice and are looking for ways to see it many more times. In what’s being touted as a first-of-its-kind promotion, Paramount and AMC Theatres are offering movie patrons in North America the chance to see Christopher Nolan‘s Interstellar as many times as they want, for one price.
As with any deal, there are rules. Those who want to participate must be members of the AMC Stubs program, which has an annual fee of $12.
The unlimited tickets will be available for sale to AMC Stubs members at 330 AMC theater across the country, including AMC Imax locations. The price will range from $19.99 to $34.99, depending upon the location (currently, the average cost of a movie ticket price in the U.S. is $8.08.
Interstellar requires for most people many viewings just to understand everything that is happening. Many critics of the film on their first viewings were used to a more conventional film experience and didn’t know what to make of some of the sound issues. As I said in my review—I think I was the first and only one to date to point it out—the sound in Interstellar was entirely on purpose. Christopher Nolan wanted there to be times where the events overwhelmed the sound made by the actors—because in real life—that happens often.
“I’ve always loved films that approach sound in an impressionistic way and that is an unusual approach for a mainstream blockbuster, but I feel it’s the right approach for this experiential film,” Christopher Nolan said, speaking for the first time in detail about the use of sound in his new film.
It is because of this approach to sound that the Interstellar soundtrack was so exceptionally good—and is why it will become the inspiration for all that I described above. When my kids gave me the first copy of the soundtrack and I played it for much of the day on Tuesday and Wednesday listening to it many, many times—it was easy to conclude that it was a masterpiece. I remember the music being great during the movie, but listening to it by itself, it was simply phenomenal as it steps up and well beyond anything that’s ever been attempted. The closest that I can think of is Philip Glass—but the Hans Zimmer approach comes with a much bolder, and narrative link to the future by drawing so historically on the past.
Blasting through the track on the soundtrack titled “S.T.A.Y” all that I began this writing above occurred with the epiphany. Many of the world’s problems seemed so miniscule and the minds that made them that way even less relevant. I could literally reach out and touch that future space station/hotel as if I were there, as if I could smell it, taste it and walk across its vast floors with Richard Branson still alive and standing in the corner welcoming his guests with long flowing locks still beyond his shoulders with a smile from ear to ear.
At dinner in my epiphany there was a guest who played in the center of a vast dinning hall with a clear picture of the moon out the distant window—again spinning around with rhythmic precision upon a large glass piano lit from beneath with blue lights that made it look like it was made out of ice. That guest was an elderly Hans Zimmer playing the Interstellar soundtrack live with a deeply personal concert, graced too with a smile from ear to ear knowing that it was his soundtrack that helped build this palace of achievement in defiance of the earthly stupidity which attempted to shackle man’s ankles to earth forever. His music helped free those shackles to usher in this entirely new age of dreamers, fortune hunters and lovers of science and possibility. It was and would be the best dinner of our lives. Happy 50th Anniversary to us—and it was.
Regarding space travel versus these Taoist monk progressives who are so obsessed with their mind/body dichotomy that they stay all their lives so treacherously grounded to the earth–space to the extent that you can see the curvature of the earth easily is only 22 miles straight up. A bicycle rider could cover that distance in a couple of hours, a car could knock out that travel time in less than 15 minutes. There really isn’t much above us considering the massive amount of space that is beyond those 22 miles of atmosphere. The International Space Station orbits on average above the earth between 173 miles to 266. That is the usual distance between most major cities in the Midwest and can be covered within a few short hours of car travel time. It’s not that far—at all. Yet people like Arthur Rosenfeld think that the human mind should remain tethered to the ground so that we can align ourselves to our mind and body through Tai Chi exercises.
In college I met tons of these idiots. On the U.C. campus I used to eat breakfast every morning in Coryville at a little place right across from the Kroger store. Inside with me were many of the college professors who had the same habit before reporting to class. I would often do my morning reading which often composed of material well beyond their grasp—some of it Kip Thorne’s work. They would gather over coffee and omelets and wear their Taoist jewelry under their sport coats and argue with me over the same type of things that Arthur Rosenfeld did after seeing Interstellar, most of it playful banter until they realized they couldn’t change my mind. What I learned from my college experience was that those people in that little breakfast shop were destroying the minds of every American youth who attended their classes. They were not equipped to teach anybody anything regarding spirituality, science, or even politics when their frame of reference was rooted to progressive philosophy in such a way that the answers to life’s difficulties were not explored just 22 miles above our heads—but instead around the other side of the world and down the road in the latest government created slum.
Arthur Rosenfeld is a typical progressive—he is a mind firmly anchored to the ground much like a jealous small-minded parent who fears for their five-year old to ride a bicycle down the driveway without a helmet. He is part of that “safety first” culture when it crushes the natural spirit of adventure. Instead he offers to quiet the mind so that you can hear the voices of the earth and all its animals relegating oneself to its grim limitations like a jealous mother who cannot let go of a treasured son or daughter. After seeing Interstellar Rosenfeld wrote a remarkably small-minded review in the Huffington Post, linked below. But of that article, there were a few paragraphs that stood out as exceptionally ridiculous reminding me so intensely of those nutty U.C. college professors who used to share breakfast over arguments in Coryville and convinced me that progressives could not be helped—that they were not content to just live and let live—but desired with a military-like fervor to put shackles on the mind of mankind so to keep them within their own intellectual comfort zones. Progressives were detrimental to every mind they attempted to teach. Read those excerpts below with my comments following:
Posted: 11/14/2014 8:29 am EST Updated: 11/14/2014 9:59 am EST
Despite the marvelous special effects and the great lengths gone to by the filmmakers to imaginatively render singularities, Interstellar misses the chance to be either an inspiring or cautionary tale. Instead, the film lionizes precisely those social elements that are most reprehensible and scary, and lauds precisely those psychological traits that we must excoriate if we are truly to save our planet and survive along with it. More, instead of juxtaposing technology and consciousness, science and morality as James Cameron did in Avatar, director Christopher Nolan panders to our primitive urge to resort to fantasy rather than reality when facing the very problems that have put humanity in its current pickle.
Jim Cameron’s film, Avatar was a progressive journey against capitalist endeavor. The corporation in the film was the villain and the heroes were a bunch of natives who were plugged into the consciousness of their planet. With each failed marriage in Cameron’s personal life he moved more and more away from the logic of the truck driver he used to be—which was obvious in his early films, like Terminator, and even the Abyss and started forming his political beliefs around the pick-up lines he used on subsequent love interests. Females, because of their unique ability to have children are sympathetic to the resonance of Mother Earth and the metaphor of their children growing up and leaving them is not lost to the concept the plight of mankind leaving the earth to journey into space. When a human male wants to gain the sexual favor of a female he will often appeal to this “motherhood” aspect of females to lure them into his bed. If he likes them, he might try to marry them, and in James Cameron’s case—he went through this process many times looking for love that never really lived up to his cinematic brilliance. So he has moved toward female view points after many marriages as opposed to finding females that leaned toward him. Avatar was the result of a pick-up line that became a movie. This is why many women vote for Democrats because progressive liberals appeal to this motherhood neurosis.
Mankind is at its adolescence and space is essentially like moving out into one’s own first apartment. It doesn’t mean that we abandoned our parents on earth, but that we have to form a healthy relationship where our destiny is shaped by our own thoughts instead of the home planet. Rosenfeld is proposing that Interstellar had an obligation to accentuate how irresponsible mankind is—like the film Koyaanisqatsi—which Interstellar resembles often. Instead, Interstellar boldly declares that man’s mind is the answer to everything in the universe and this is what Rosenfeld finds so reprehensible.
To sort through the razzle-dazzle and get to what really makes this movie so reprehensible requires some straight talk about who we humans really are and are not, both in the physical and spiritual sense. Physically, we are one species among millions, living an impermanent existence against an ever-changing bio-geological backdrop. If we are unique, it is not because we are the most intelligent species on the planet (that honor likely goes to whales), nor because we are the most enduring (look to cycads and roaches instead) but because, in addition to being stunningly resourceful, creative, potentially loving and deeply spiritual, we are also the most hubristic, self-absorbed, and destructive.
Animals are collectivists; I have not seen a whale build a rocket to the moon, or a new car to speed their transit across the earth. Whales especially are a matriarchal society which is a progressive metaphor for their religion of earth worship, so it is not to be ignored that Rosenfeld uses whales as an example of the type of earthly animal species that deserves inclusion as the earth’s most intelligent species. Give me a break. Whales are wonderful; they are magnificent to look at. I respect their right to live in the ocean and not to have their mating habits infringed upon—but when a whale gains the ability to run a company and produce more than an ocean full of shit—then I might be willing to entertain the notion that whales need to be considered intelligent. But again, Rosenfeld proposes that humans are just one species and that it is our task to slow our minds down to the tiniest insect and to listen to what they have to say as an equal species.
Just yesterday I was conversing with a person and was aware of a Chinese stink bug that was crawling along the side of a table. I was careful not to lean against that table as I was trying not to bring harm to it. Well, the person I was speaking with without any ill intent leaned against the table killing the poor little insect by crushing three of its legs. It fell to the ground for a slow death completely unintentional and I felt bad for it. I tried to save it, but the insect was in a place it didn’t belong and it was crushed by man’s progress just like the millions of bugs that are smashed on the front of our cars and under our feet. To people like Rosenfeld we are supposed to limit this behavior almost to the point of non action, but in the scheme of the universe—of the potential life that is “out there” even the largest whale is of the importance of a bug. Entire species can be killed easily with a simple meteor impact into the ocean or a few degrees of temperature change induced by radiation from the sun. Only human beings have emerged with a mind to so dramatically change their fate as to be simple bugs crawling on the side of a table with life and death timed out so perfectly between revolutions of the earth around the sun. Humans have come to know themselves by how many times the earth circles the sun. To the young women who cries at her waning youth complaining about how many candles are on her birthday cake representing age 40, her crises is that the first forty times she traveled on the earth around the sun provided her with youthful growth, and the next forty will be a gradual decline into death where her body is placed into the earth to be forgotten forever—so she is sad.
There is nothing brilliant about animals when they yield to those in a pecking order who are stronger and faster than they are—or older and more experienced. When humans follow the same patterns they end up worshiping people like Rosenfeld who hope to think of themselves at the top of an intellectual pyramid in a collective based society where he can be the one to teach others to tap into that common fountain of knowledge that we share through the tiniest insect during his Tai Chi exercises. Interstellar is about leaving this corrupting behavior behind and overcoming their restrictions. In the future, it is people like Rosenfeld who have destroyed invention, destroyed education, and destroyed politics leaving mankind to scribble in the dirt waiting to die. Interstellar offers an alternative and that is why Rosenfeld disliked the movie.
Let’s stop making movies like this, or, at least, let’s stop watching them. They freeze our hearts, turn our brains to mush, and delude our children into believing in Scientism, the latest and most dangerous of man’s religions. If we are going to explore, let’s explore our spiritual landscapes in a quest for an antidote to all such fantastical belief systems. Let’s find a mindful, balanced, and harmonious alternative to hating and killing everyone and everything in the name of what we say we believe. Let’s create cinematic masterworks that exhort us to cherish the planet we have, and all the wonders upon it, rather than jettison it in favor of new turf to kill.
Here is likely the most ridiculous statement I have heard in a long time—Rosenfeld actually proposes that movies like Interstellar shouldn’t be made in a free society full of competing ideas. As much as I like Star Wars, I’m not a huge fan of the “Force,” as it reminds me too much of people like Rosenfeld who don’t quite “get it.” I can watch those movies and enjoy them taking what I like and leaving behind what I don’t. But Rosenfeld actually proposes either a boycott of Interstellar, or cutting off the ability to produce such works of art because he doesn’t like the message.
There was no proposal in Interstellar to kill another species while they were in space looking for another earth-like planet to settle on. Rosenfeld suggests that there be a kind of social cinema board who sits around and actually decides the type of content which should be made into a film. In some ways—there already is within the studio system where progressive money often does just this very thing. It is amazing that Christopher Nolan has managed to make his kind of movie in that studio environment—but if you look at a chart of how many counties in America are politically red, it is no wonder that Nolan does so well at the box office—because he makes movies for the type of people who often get ignored by progressives like Rosenfeld. The farmer/hunter from the Midwest doesn’t give a rat’s ass about some urban progressive like Rosenfeld who wants to “feel the earth” while in line at Starbucks. The farmer is in the dirt every day and the content of Interstellar is very appealing to them—“they” get it.
Rosenfeld actually attacks the premise of science which is a ghastly mistake proposing that our “spiritual landscapes” are far more important than the vast blackness just a few miles above our heads. To maintain the type of political order where progressives like Rosenfeld get to be the “leader of the pack” on earth teaching people to honor the defeated Indian tribes and all their superstitions or think that whales are the most intelligent species on earth they cannot have competition to those beliefs, so they attack anything that might disrupt their scam against the human intellect.
I keep waiting for whales to build a cool shopping mall on the bottom of the ocean, and I eagerly await the next whale feature film about their life and habitat—their latest drama about how upset their matriarchs get when they seek to change mating locations 20 miles north of their birth place instead of the traditional nesting grounds. And I can’t wait until whales send their own into space on a rocket built of sea shells using compressed water as a propulsion system. Maybe if they are really smart, which Rosenfeld believes they are, they’ll use a couple of dolphins to run smaller scout ships into orbit around Mars so they can begin to seek a new ocean planet where natives of the intellect of Rosenfeld fall in nicely to whale worship and are happy to sacrifice goats, cows and other human beings to the Gods of the ocean to keep the whales living prosperously lumbering around in peace for all eternity.
To Rosenfeld progress—the products of man’s mind is the real villain. To his religious fanaticism any attempt to supplant nature as the superior guiding force is reprehensible. If one does not yield to nature, they are harming it—so every shopping mall, every Starbucks, every movie that does not pander to this earthly belief should be attacked and ridiculed. That is the limited mind of the progressive and why I just can’t stand them. I learned to hate them while I was in college and I never yielded to their rhetoric even in small ways—and for that I am infinitely grateful. Over time, those professors found some place else to eat and left me alone—which suited me just fine. The owner of the restaurant was in distress about the many arguments we often had—and when only I was left, it brought him much pain—much like the aforementioned stink bug—a casualty of intellectual competition. The professors took their four tables of left-leaning progressive hippies and started meeting across the street at Perkins and I spent my breakfast periods alone with my books and my omelet each morning happy for the solitude. Within four months, over the summer break, the owner had to close down due to a lack of business. So I moved across the street into Perkins and those same college professors left for someplace else–again. They did not want to sit near me because I would not give them the illusion that they were right about their limited world view. So they did what they always do, they picked up their act and went somewhere among their own kind so that they could live in the illusion of their falsehood. And what happens when people spend their whole lives in that condition—they become people like Arthur Rosenfeld. The appeal for me of Interstellar would be that I could leave the earth to get away from people like that—or—that they might get on a ship and leave for some hippie planet far away—just as the college professors did at our breakfast restaurant—leaving me to enjoy my life in peace—away from their corrupt minds and small perspective.
To get an idea of what the screenwriter was thinking during the development process of Interstellar—before diving too deeply into the contents of the story—read what he said to /Film.com which is a kind of industry insider blog site. Jonathan Nolan spoke openly about his motivations while writing Interstellar. He has brought his writing talents to the Dark Knight series which I have praised heavily because of the content and angle he chooses to provide in those films. In Interstellar his motivations were clear, persuasive, and as bold as anything that has ever been done before in a movie.
/Film question: So that was always the pitch that like it was set in the future where resources are, were our future’s looking bleak?
Nolan: Absolutely. I mean, look the reality is we stopped going to space because we’re too fucking wrapped up in whatever narcissistic bullshit, you know, as a sort of a collective. I mean, look, there’s an awful lot of things that still need to be fixed here on Earth, right? You know, problems that never seem to go away. Poverty, disease and a lot of stuff that we turned our attention to that is a good thing. We’re also just kind of sucked in the bullshit. I was talking downstairs, I grew up in Apollo space travel, we were promised jetpacks and fucking teleportation and instead we got fucking Facebook and Instagram. That’s a bummer.
But we don’t think of it in those terms. We think of ourselves as being the most magnificent, amazing universe ever and if we wanna go back to the Moon, sure, we could. It’s like no, those guys are all dead or retired. We’re not going back to the Moon. And if we wanted to, we’d have to spend billions of dollars and it would take years and years and years. We’re just done. We’re not doing that. We’re out of that business. And so people don’t think in those terms. We had to set the movie in the future in which that was abundantly clear.
Readers of this site will instantly recognize the angle Jonathan Nolan took in setting up the movie Interstellar. At the start he challenges the notion of public education when the government schools are caught lying to students about the Apollo missions—stating that they were only intended as propaganda against Russia. Public education in Interstellar is on Common Core overload as test assessments determine what kind of careers students can pursue as adults in the collective society.
Meanwhile, innovation is down, people are barely able to make food for themselves as a blight fungus similar to the current Ug99 strains that are currently moving across Africa into the Middle East-specifically target wheat and okra. Because the developed world has micromanaged the world’s resources—specifically the minds of their youth—there isn’t anybody anywhere who can stop the fungus as it thrusts the world into hunger slowly killing earth.
It was amazing how many reviewers on their first viewing of the film missed so many of the most important messages—many confused the fungus in the film to environmental recklessness supporting their global warming conspiracies when it is exactly that kind of stupidity which has lunched the world into regression. Interstellar is such an amazing film that people wanted to come away with something they liked in it, even if the premise of the film attacks many of the core beliefs that most of our current civilization holds. So there is some revisionist memory going on in almost every review I read. But it’s not fair to Interstellar because as a movie it is going to places that nobody ever has attempted before. It tackles 5th dimensional space; inter galactic travel, the nature of love, the transitory aspects of time, the foundations of religion, the deep human yearning for adventure, the magnificence of invention and the corrupt nature of politics most epically displayed in forcing NASA underground because public support could not fathom spending money on spaceships when the world needed food. The movie even tackles the premise and existence of poltergeists. There are so many big ideas harnessed in the movie that it really belongs in its own category. It seeks openly to advance the human mind—which is certainly no small feat and it succeeds on every level.
The best parts of the movie were the space sequences which reminded me so much of 2001: A Space Odyssey filmed in complete silence—just as they would have been. The catastrophes in space were just mind bogglingly beautiful. As I have also reported at this site I am a tremendous Koyaanisqatsi fan—even to the extent that I designed a line of t-shirts years ago as a tribute to the 1983 experimental film. But the problem with it was that it pointed to progress as a vile and evil thing ultimately and concluded with a rocket exploding on its way to space falling back to earth in complete silence to the score of a magnificent work by Philip Glass. Well—there was a lot of Koyaanisqatsi in this movie and the music by Hans Zimmer without being disrespectful to Philip Glass tackles the original Koyaanisqatsi score with a new level of boldness. The pipe organs from Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack gave narration to the silence of space in such a grand fashion that it will become the new standard for all filmmakers over the next century. If The Wizard of Oz brought color to film, Interstellar has brought music to space—and that is not an insult to the contributions of John Williams to Star Wars—but Interstellar is in a new category of its own that will become the new standard—it is that good. The flight sequences were so wonderfully done—they were like a concert set in space to silently floating images struggling to break the boundaries of not just earth—but previous human limitation. There were times when the thrusters to the ships kicked on and the music literally was blowing me into the back of the seat—it was jaw-dropping incredible.
I think most people seeing Interstellar will like something from it—but the movie was intended to be enjoyed by smart people—or at a minimum, those who strive to be. It is a thinker’s movie to say the least and deliberately reaches out into the audience to declare, “We feel your pain.” It is literally bigger than anything on earth, there is no mountain too tall, no ocean so great—by the time Interstellar is watched once, everything on earth seems small and silly—including the civilization we have so far built. This is easily the grandest production of ideas ever gathered for the silver screen and even challenges some of the greatest literary work put to print. Interstellar is a magnificent masterpiece assembled to please the mind—to see life beyond death, and to touch the true face of God.
When the main character Cooper finds himself in the fifth dimension it’s not aliens, or a “they” out there in space trying to help the silly ants of humanity with carefully placed worm holes next to Saturn or the rapture inside a singularity—it is us who have mastered multi-dimensional travel, who have left the door open to our former incantations so to achieve the task in a linier time—to tell the story of humanity as a struggling race beating an invisible clock against stupidity only to weave the universe into a canvas of our own creation. It is the mind of man who spills over outside of their bodies into the infinite and become the utterances of immortality. What is most unusual of all within Interstellar was the carefully constructed request from Christopher Nolan to Hans Zimmer to create music which would live up to such a lofty intention—and uniquely, the legendary composer did it in a fashion that is literally blowing minds too restricted to behold all the images with the must see movie not just of this year, decade, or era—but in the history of film both past and future. Interstellar is out of this world in every category that counts—especially in the swagger category of bolding going to places only contemplated by physics equations and warped imaginations. Now such places are available to anybody who can pay the price of a movie ticket and desire to peak beyond the shroud of impossibility manifested into the bold reality of a destiny that is there within reach, now.
Interstellar is simply a new standard of excellence and will be copied hundreds of different ways from now on. History has just been made with this masterpiece of modern cinema—it is everything that many films have tried to be. The difference is that Interstellar pulled it off.
I am likely to continue talking about the new movie Interstellar for quite a long time—because it is the latest and most exciting philosophic/scientific endeavor aimed at a mass audience that I can think of, and is a vastly important film. Below is one of the first reviews from Variety and should be read by anyone on the fence considering seeing the movie. It will tell you everything you need to know about the film. But more specific to the film and an equal part of its majesty is the music by Hans Zimmer. The score is mind-blowing good and may well eclipse the iconic music of 2001: A Space Odyssey as instantly recognizable. So it deserves to be known that Hans Zimmer, one of the premier musical composers of our age and on par in history to be known among the giants of Straus, Beethoven, and Mozart did poorly in school and did not attend college. Listen to the man himself talk about his education—or lack thereof—and what he believes is the path to success that most should take.
There isn’t a college in the country who can teach a student with tuition charges to be as good at conceiving and conducting music for films as Hans Zimmer is. There is not a band program out there who can teach an army of others to become another Hans Zimmer. The best way to become another Hans Zimmer is to get near him and start learning—then applying his techniques at decision-making and problem solving into the individual experience of the student. A school cannot teach those skills with memorization techniques. Only through natural aptitude and practice can one hope to become as proficient. There is no way to cheat the system by throwing money at a skill hoping that it can be purchased. The kind of skill that Hans Zimmer has is only obtained one way, through lots of hard work and dedication while maintaining his uniqueness on the curb of perception.
Yet government schools and colleges all across the world suggest that they can produce such people if tuition dollars are applied, and the results never come back with satisfaction. There are many who aspire to become like Hans Zimmer and they may even learn to play his songs at a high school football game through a band program, but they cannot teach a student to become a person equal to the skill of Hans Zimmer with just scholastic education methods. The aspiring artist if they have a hope of such lofty heights must apprentice themselves to someone equivalent to the value they wish to achieve and start with a total dedication of themselves to the craft. Advice is only as good as the person who gives it.
Once when I wrote an article about the failure of a band teacher from our local high school the parents of the students sent me many nasty emails about my opinions. It wasn’t hard to conclude that their vast anger was inspired by a deeply rooted fear that they had in realizing that money could not purchase skill for their children—as they wished to believe. When the famed band teacher fell from grace and was cast aside by the district as a vagabond it was feared that his students would fall as well—as if their success was attached directly to his star. Much to the terror of the parents the real answer was that their children were learning nowhere near enough about music to become anything but copycats in the music industry. They were learning to play the instruments, but they weren’t learning to make music that would play from them—which is a big difference. And these days, anybody can practice playing music with a software program. What needs to be taught are the ways that notes can be composed into new forms of music that reveals the inner sanctum of thought and all human possibilities.
It is for that reason that I seldom ever listen to any “pop” music. My iPod doesn’t have a single music track in eight gig of memory that is not a movie soundtrack of some epic intention. Over a third of my soundtracks on that iPod are Hans Zimmer scores. I still listen to Gladiator at least once a week which I think is one of his best pieces of work. Music should speak about possibilities and achievement, not just passive witnessing of the world around the listener. Band students and music classes in general are not learning about the epic scale of a subject matter, they are simply learning to repeat the work of Hans Zimmer.
If I were to attempt to teach such students I would not do so in front of a class in a stale government school with brick walls and blackboards with the smell of lunch drifting down the halls promising frozen pizza and tatter tots among several hundred other students emitting waves of pent-up rage at adolescent frustrations. I’d have them climb a mountain with sweat pouring off their foreheads then piping the Gladiator soundtrack into their tired ears as they sip for life-sustaining water from a canteen warmed by body heat. Then I’d ask them to compose the first notes that came to their minds based on their experience once the music had been silenced. That is how you learn to compose music, not just copy the notes of Hans Zimmer.
I can’t say how many times I have now listened to the Man of Steel soundtrack even in the minus zero degree temperatures on the back of a motorcycle as the snow was falling ever so ferociously—with my fingertips so frozen that they were in great pain. It has now been more than a dozen at least and each time brought the notes to a grand fortissimo inside my helmet that spoke of another world reality of possibility well beyond the grips of conventional manhood. While most men are first concerned in the morning with where they will use the rest room, what they will eat, where they will dispel their sexual appetites, and how they will earn the acclaim of their peers—such music under such circumstances dictate higher thoughts far more epic than the animal wants of flesh. It is only under those extreme conditions that Hans Zimmer can be understood as notes put upon a blank page as opposed to copied the way a band conductor of a local high school teaches students how to blow a horn and put on a show for their proud parents with their video cameras out to record the occasion—and a “yes” vote during levy time for the memory. On the way home from such concerts the parents foolishly declare that their child may become the next Hans Zimmer because they learned to play the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack. But the students never see the music as from the feelings of observation—they simply memorize the motions put in place for them by someone like Hans Zimmer.
Too many people believe wrongly that being “credentialed” equates to success. They believe that if a music instructor at a school somewhere says that a student knows something—that they know it. Yet they fail 100% of the time to create future Hans Zimmer types no matter how much money is spent on music programs and government school electives. Those good at music are still those with a natural appetite to take their skills to the next levels through extremely hard work and persistence. Credentialed these days has been regulated into being symphonious with security—and that is a path to average—which is not what Hans Zimmer’s music is about at all. His music is much more than that and is why I listen to it with great zeal and marvel at its uniqueness. That uniqueness is why it’s a joy to hear—and thus far, as admitted by Zimmer himself, is why schools cannot duplicate the efforts of the award-winning history making composer even with all the money in the world. That is because his music does not come from comfort, but experience, in a life lived and felt as opposed to copied and mimicked—and is why Hans Zimmer’s score for Interstellar will literally take people out of this world. Zimmer actually let his mind leave this world to write the music—and that is a grand achievement!
Even more impressive as an unforeseen byproduct of the release of Kip’s book into this screen format are the marketing opportunities that have presented themselves as the release date has approached. My wife and I have read Kip’s book so many times that the pages of our hard cover edition are literally falling out of the binding. The edges are blackened from our fingertips and the glue no longer holds the pages to the spine of the book—which is quite thick. When my children were very young, my wife used to take them to the pool in Mason, Ohio and let them play while she read that book for many, many hours contemplating the contents. It is one of the great books of science ever put to print. So it was bewildering to me to discover that the Interstellar websites shown below have released a game based on the film that is just fantastic. Paramount has just released the new Android game on Google Play based on director Christopher Nolan’s upcoming sci-fi epic Interstellar and it is a tad different from the normal movie tie-in as the player can not only create his or her own solar system but can also explore it as well as others made by fans.
This game is no space shooter but one that is supposed to simulate real physics as you pilot a ship through these solar systems. Here’s a quick bullet list of the game’s features:
Create your own solar system and share it with friends
Customize planets, stars and asteroids
Pilot the Endurance through friend’s and other fan’s solar systems
Upgrade your ship to increase durability and range
Earn mission patches for completing objectives
Based on Newtonian physics with simulated gravitational fields endorsed by the movie’s science advisor Kip Thorne
Slingshot between planets and return research data to Earth
Navigate past massive black holes
Needless to say I downloaded the app onto my iPad and I spent the entire weekend playing it—nearly nonstop. It was absolutely fascinating to traverse through Kip Thorne’s treasured book finally with a video game played on my tablet. Absolutely stunning! The most fun in the game is navigating past the black holes, which are rendered accurately and really for the first time ever. Part of the means for getting to worm holes so that you can punch through various layers of folded space-and time, is by sling-shooting passed the dreaded black holes.
If you have the means and scientific inquiry, this is a must have app—a real journey and best use imaginable for a few moments at the airport waiting to catch a flight. It duplicates some of the most basic concepts of Kip Thorne’s book so wonderfully. For instance, one of the ways that you collect power to stay in space is to move into orbit around a sun. It is difficult to maintain a trajectory that puts you in that sweet spot orbit, but once you do, you can load up on power to further your voyage. The trouble is, while in orbit around a sun, its imprint into the space-time continuum is much slower than the time on earth. So while you are communicating with earth on your missions, time for them is moving at a much more rapid way than it is for you during your power collection around suns. Also, the distance between planets involves many millions of miles which is passed by instantly in the game. It does calculate out the years the endeavor is taking so that it is understood how much time is passing on earth while all this effort is being undertaken.
What this does is shatter the concept of time as a liner type of thing that is currently understood. Instead, it plays with time as a force of momentum relative to where you are and what kind of mass the object you are near has on the space around it. To this effect space is divided up in the game with a grid system that shows the imprint the planet or sun involved has on the surrounding area. Within that imprint time will be affected differently than in other places within the galaxy, or galaxies involved. For a simple app, it is yet another example of a giant leap forward for human endeavor, to have such a powerful conceptual tool on a device that you can whip out in a McDonald’s over lunch and play a quick mission involving advanced physics concepts.
Often it is these by-products of such endeavors that films like Interstellar bring to the table of contemplation. And I am so excited that Kip’s treasured book is finally making it to formats of understanding that are so accessible. I knew when I first read the book Black Holes and Time Warps that there was something very special going on, and always thought that a fantastic movie could be made based on the concepts. But few in Hollywood really have the mind for something like that. I never fantasized that someone like Kip Thorne would be given a seat at the table to actually produce such a thing for mass audiences. And in a game app designed to bring awareness to the movie for marketing reasons, the Interstellar game does two things, it helps introduce people not familiar with Kip Thorne’s work to some of the basic ideals that have to be understood to relate to the actual movie. But for someone like me, who already loved the book, it provides the opportunity to dwell in that world in a virtual reality that has so far only been possible in a physics equation and the most active imaginations. It is just a wonderful addition to what is proving to be a very exciting time to be alive.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to navigate passed a black hole in a distant solar system so that I can get to the worm hole that takes me back to earth before everyone is dead by the time I get there. And I’ll do it while eating a Big Mac, drinking a nice cold Coca Cola, and eating some upsized French Fries. Capitalism at its finest!
The Overmanwarrior 