Interstellar or Why This Movie is More Enjoyable Than 2001

Warning: this post contains opinions.

If I have a movie manifesto, it’s this: I watch movies to be entertained with intriguing characters and a compelling storyline. The story doesn’t have to be big, but it should be interesting. I should care about the characters. I should want to find out what happens to them. Movies that showcase CGI or advanced filmmaking are nice, but not necessary; above all, the technology shouldn’t interfere with the story.

I guess you could describe my movie tastes as populist, but smart populist. My love of smart characters is why I enjoy the recent Marvel movies. My disdain for boring characters is partly why I got bored with last week’s rematch of Back to the Future III. (Which, by the way, caused quite the conversation between myself, Megan, and Charles, which you can see here.)

But I want to talk about that last point a bit: technology shouldn’t interfere with the story, because it brings me to this week’s Way Too Late review. There have been many comparisons between Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (see here, here, and here for example.) Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: Is he really going to say that Interstellar is a better movie than 2001? The answer is no; 2001 is a timeless classic that will never be equaled.

But…

At this aspect of filmmaking (characters and story over technology) Nolan succeeds over Kubrick. Since this aspect is the part of filmmaking I care about, then for me, Interstellar is the better movie.

Cue the hate mail.

I really wanted to like Kubrick…

I’ve watched a good portion of Kubrick’s oeuvre and enjoyed his movies to varying levels. Spartacus was a silly sandal epic, Lolita got away with much for the time, A Clockwork Orange features an amazing performance by Malcolm McDowell, and The Shining does wonders for ratcheting up the tension in a large, confined space. But for the most part, Kubrick doesn’t create very three-dimensional characters. (Stephen King has been saying this for years about Jack Nicholson’t character in The Shining. Jack Torrence is supposed to start out normal and unhinge over time, whereas Jack showed up on set ready for the straightjacket.

Kubrick’s characters seem less like human beings and more like props to showcase some new technique, whether it’s Steadicam in The Shining, Super Technirama in Spartacus, or the Super Panavision used for 2001. For as long as Kubrick’s movies are, I just don’t care about his characters. HAL from 2001 could blow Dave out an airlock and I would feel nothing.

And here is where Nolan succeeds in Interstellar. While the movie has a grand sweeping scope reminiscent of 2001, it is first and foremost a story about people. Over the film’s three-hour run we spend more time with the characters trying to save humanity than we do being awed about the spectacle onscreen. The science behind Interstellar is impressive, but Nolan knows audiences need people to connect with; we can’t feel anything about a black hole, even if Nolan describes a black hole in a way no one else on film has described a black hole before.

Nolan makes sure we spend as much time with his characters as possible, so their plight will have weight. This is an important point, and to illustrate it I’d like to talk about Star Trek for a second. In “All Good Things…”, the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard and crew were tasked with saving all of humanity. Fast forward to Generations, the first TNG movie. In that movie, the plot hinged on the fate of a single world, home to 240 million people. In a way the first movie felt like a bit of a letdown because the stakes were so much lower. 240 million people, when you just saves all of humanity the last time I saw you? Boring. But Data’s emotional subplot was pretty cool. Partly because it was comic relief but also because enough time was spent on the character to humanize him (pardon the pun). Over the next few TNG films, Data got a lot of screen time, meaning that his plight was suddenly more interesting.

Data perfectly illustrates my point about Christopher Nolan and Interstellar. The TNG movies took the time to make Data a three-diamensional character audiences would care for (at the expense of a few other characters, but that’s a post for another time). This is despite the fact that Data isn’t human. Regardless, we care about what happens to him. Nolan does the same thing in Interstellar. Sure all the human characters are fully fleshed out and realized, but so is TARS, the robot that accompany’s the humans on their mission. At the end, I care about TARS and all the other robots just as much as I char about the human crew and don’t want anything awful to happen to him/it.

At the end of the day, if you liked 2001, then you’ll love Interstellar. But also, if you like quieter, character-driven movies then you’ll also love Interstellar. Christopher Nolan has taken the plight of six people and wrapped their stories up in several large thick layers, without sacrificing their interesting, unique stories. It’s because of this success at making me care about his characters that I’d re-watch Interstellar over 2001 without question.

TL;dr While 2001: A Space Odyssey was a cinematic masterpiece, sometimes masterpieces are boring. Interstellar bridges the gap between masterpiece and populism, telling an engaging story while also making grand sweeping statements about the fate of humanity.