#mango pickle

i have before but ill do it again!

interstellar touches me for many many reasons.

first off, the entire premise and setting and the world building in it. the dust storms, the failing crops. the protagonist does say at one point- "humanity was born on earth. they were never meant to stay here" and that just,,, hits me you know? presently we've seen the emergence of no human exploration besides the probes and the ISS. there are plans but the same curiosity just seems dead. interstellar stretches that and shows us what would happen when human curiosity and the desire to explore would die. we'd kill everyone on the planet and soon starve ourselves. the blights- the illnesses- the dead medicare- that's a very bleak future, but a very real one. the movie does both its part about scaring the viewer about it- as well as giving us hope about wormholes and quantum data and singularities and how we'd save ourselves. you can see that the old generation is talking about their days and how better or worse it would be. in the end, on the cooper satellites, you see the interviews being played- and it really breaks me. that was a generation that thought it was the end. the end of human life. the final descent and that was it. and then they see the five dimensions and getting lifted and their lives are essentially turned around. this isn't just the older people though. we see that the gen z then, like cooper's son have also mostly been brought up to *live*. we see that he tries to get into school and actually get into uni and find a job in one of the remaining sectors of the world which still offer something other than farm corn- raise family. You see that the teachers also say this? they teach them to fight blights and sustain crops because they’re losing more and more to disease each year. Humanity’s slowly being packed up and demolished and they aren’t seeing it coming. at all.

then there’s the quote which is recurring throughout the movie:

“do not go gentle into the good night”

the professor says this all the time. as they’re leaving- his last few dying words- as they’re preparing. and you know what? i’ll say it. this is where the next important theme comes in. Desperation. When he initially sends them out- he hasn’t solved gravity yet, and he knows he never will. Not without the quantum data from a black hole- something again, he can never get. Which is why he implies that there’s a Plan B and cooper can see murphy again (this is also very important- scroll down for this). He breaks all their trust- and he knows he’ll die before seeing the end of the mission- and you can’t die with guilt, not really. He knows that he can’t be held accountable because he’s dead. He’s well aware that his plan is a hail mary- and it wouldn’t have worked anyways. He’s counting on Plan B, and that’s all there is to it. He uses the quote as a reminder to himself- because he’s torn too. He isn’t inherently evil, at all. He’s the precarious thread the entire mission dangles by- but he’s willing to risk that too. He’ll be long, long dead before humanity dies- or moves- and this is his last try.

Now for the second part of this quote. As I talked about before- the quote feels more like a reminder to himself- and not actually something that inspires hope in the crewmates. But ironically, it ends up becoming what guides murph. As the professor is dying, she tells him “you’ve been doing this with both your arms tied behind your back”- that’s actually when she finds out about his whole plan. This is the failure of the professor- but at the same time, it becomes the moment he passes the torch to murph. The professor died, knowingly sending his own daughter into the reaches of space. He prioritized his need to save humanity over the love for his own daughter. But, murph isn’t like that. When she finds out about this, she remembers the promise her dad made to her.

“I’ll be back when you’re the age I am now”

and now, she knows he’s lied. But he hasn’t done it on purpose. and she understands that. She makes it HER goal that they don’t go gentle into the good night. She knows that this is probably futile, but she’s going to try. and she’s not going to try thinking that she’ll probably fail- like the professor did (in resignation for plan B)- she’s going to try to bring cooper back.

Third, coming back to desperation. A bold, bold act of desperation is what dr mann did. (I have some qualms about the actor playing estranged astronauts- anyways). Him sending out that sensor- knowing that it will bring humans back to him, while simultaneously jeopardizing the entire mission, and possibly the fate of humanity. He knows what he has done- but he has gone insane alone- and he’d betray his entire cause to see a human face again. This movie really says something about what humans are willing to do. On one hand, you have a woman who singlehandedly saves them all- for human love, and on the other, a man who is willing to commit genocide (that’s what i think it is, dont ask) to see someone else. He messes up everything, deliberately, and goes from “the greatest and bravest man to walk the earth” to a “cold and desperate villain”. This theme has a lot to do with what is happening right now too. Forgive the activism, but we do have people who knowingly exploit and burn and ravage the earth, for their own good- and they’re insane to the point that they genuinely can’t see right from wrong. Sure, you could argue that he was motivated by the need to preserve your own life. But if you give his cause *any* context, you see how wrong he is. This is flailing human desperation, pure and simple.

Now, approaching the themes that actually make it as good as it is. Dr Brand is easily my favourite character in the movie. We get to see her as a brilliant scientist initially, and her arc- is perfect, honestly. For example, take the wormhole handshake- as their going through interdimensional space- where time isn’t linear and your brain gets fried if you try to comprehend it- she recognizes a *being* in that space. If you recall that scene, she reaches out, and meets *them*- someone she knows is otherworldly and entirely above humans (we later learn it is Cooper in the matrix- and i have things to say about that too) and makes contact. She suggests, as both a human- and a scientist- that it may be love that transcends dimensions. She makes first contact with beings that may be their salvation- or destruction- and i think that is definitely the peak of human existence.

She argues that love may be what connected the crew to higher dimensions, and I'll dare to say that she’s right. Love is what made Cooper try to contact murph. Love is what made them dare to save humans. Love was what got her there. She tells them to go to Edmund's planet- not just because she loves him, but because she also makes relevant points AND her gut. It might be stretching it to say that was why she was right- but it is worth introspection. Dr Brand represents the best of humanity and she does carry it, doesn’t she? She settles on the planet for ‘the long nap’ in the end. She tries to save everyone- like on the mountain planet- and she loves. She hopes and she trusts and is unwaveringly honest and courageous. This could become a Dr Brand stan blog for all I care.

Moving on

We have the ‘them’. These are the mysterious threads that tie all parts of the movie together. A black hole to a little girl’s bookshelf. Worlds galaxies apart. A very important thing to note here is that the characters recognize that this is humanity, just very, very far out. And most importantly, wise. This is a civilization who has surpassed the ordinary dimensions, and *mortal* time. They could’ve easily saved all of humanity and given them the planet they were looking for. But their entire ineffable plan, and only putting things where they were needed- was what made them greater than just someone who helps others. Only being able to get binary signals through an intergalactic wormhole, building bookshelves that become a huge metaphor for humanity trying to claw at knowledge- and actually slowly pushing the books forward. The ‘them’ weren’t ordinary humans at all. They definitely hinted and gave me a brief, fickle glance beyond what humans could be- raw possibilities.

Then, we have cooper. This makes it hard to write for him- and do his character justice- but I will try. His character, essentially, is brought down to selflessness, love, a brutal, brutal sense of humour- and the courage- the heavy, heavy courage to sacrifice himself. He’s also the polar opposite of what Dr mann stands for. 

His first important point- in my opinion- is when the movie is starting. I didn’t walk in expecting this from him, not really. You see a dying earth- and this man is (alone in his fight, NASA doesn’t count yet) fighting the system alone. He fights for his son, tries for his father in law, and then the most important relationship- his daughter. He’s seeing an earth where not even *children* are curious, or willing, or interested in anything greater. He sees this in his daughter, though. Hence, the bookshelf- the gravity, and the plain curiosity. 

I’ll dare to say that at this point, humanity’s a dying, dying flame. And what he sees in his daughter, what we see in his daughter, is a rebirth of potential. She has the human spark, so to speak. He sees that, and he makes promises, and is willing to bring the world to its knees to protect her. And he knows he might not be there when Murph burns strong, and bright, and becomes the saviour of humanity- but he hopes.  An important element is the promise, which I mentioned earlier, but it defines their relationship. The promise that he’ll be back when they’re the same age. They both know that it’s not true. They can see the lie, but that promise also empowers them to do what they did when their paths diverge.

Cooper goes to Mann's planet with the vague hope that he’ll be back in time. Murph does most of what she does because she thinks that it’ll bring her father back. Even towards the end, when Cooper willingly jumps into gargantua, a supermassive black hole- which is the literal heart of darkness, he does it in the attempt to save his daughter, and hopes she can get the quantum data at the cost of his life. 

About Murph, we mostly see her through the eyes of Cooper in the beginning. A curious and lovable and stubborn tween who just wants to grow up with her dad and do their science experiments. Her perseverance is phenomenal- she loses her dad despite her warnings and asking- and realizes that her loss is something undefinable, but there. In a way, she grows to understand both her responsibility and her part to play, and why her father did what he did. The ‘ghost’ is another plot device- a mysterious figure who messes with the gravity and knocks her books down. And she sees a message there. She tells him about ‘don’t go’ and i can’t begin to describe how beautifully poetic and heartbreaking it is that they realize the significance of that at the same time, and how it ties together. It is hard for me to fathom that scene really- cooper is in an interdimensional matrix, inside a supermassive black hole, and he tries to tell his daughter two things. (a) trying to stop himself from going out and on the mission, which he knows is deemed to fail and (b) sending the quantum data, because that is what mattered in the end, anyways. The ghost comes full circle- and also says what he had to say, when it was most important. And for those who’ve seen the movie, i just really have to put this quote out there:

‘It was you. It was always you. You were my ghost, dad’

And in that, the movie completes itself. It talks about unfailing love, the peak and fall of humanity, and the potential of curiosity.

OH FUCK THIS IS SO TOUGH TO DECIDE

Okay um

@everchanging-mentality luv her she a good 'ne 'n she deserves the best also not forgetting you @stella-navigatio and @badasscinnamonroll luv you guys

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