I have a soft spot for science fiction. Right next to Faulkner in my heart lie Clarke and Heinlein. So I’m rightly excited about Christopher Nolan’s new, anticipated and mysterious science fiction film “Interstellar,” which stars Matthew McConaughey as the pilot of a team of astronauts tasked with finding a new, habitable planet for the human race. Interestingly enough, however, most of the anticipation regarding “Interstellar” isn’t surrounding the plot. Certainly there is excitement about another Nolan flick, but a lot of the excitement is about how “Interstellar” — a science fiction film — is more science and less fiction.
In fact, the top four “13 Awesome Things We Now Know about ‘Interstellar’” are about how scientific “Interstellar” is. Nolan heavily consulted with Kip Thorne, a retired and esteemed California Institute of Technology professor, over the course of the film’s production to generate equations for the computer-rendering of light around black holes and wormholes. Over the course of his involvement, Thorne actually advanced the field and can, according to Wired magazine, get “at least two published articles out of it.” However, will this scientific accuracy really improve “Interstellar”?
What should be asked of science fiction films is not consistency with our reality, but consistency with their own realities. In the original series of “Star Trek,” Spock and Captain Kirk, over three seasons, go relatively unscathed as scores of Enterprise security men get eaten, stabbed, shot, mangled and crushed by the multitudinous terrors of extraterrestrial life. In this reality, the heroes always survive; the bad guys are always terrible shots. No random goon can wound Skywalker or Kirk or The Man with no Name: badasses of that magnitude can only be taken down by other badasses. None of this needs to be explained — the fantasy just needs to remain consistent with itself.
Thus “Interstellar” is taking a huge risk when it purports to be scientifically valid. It then doesn’t just need to be consistent with the rules that it sets down, but also consistent with all of reality. The recent film “Lucy” made the mistake of trying to place itself in reality. Scarlett Johansson’s character takes a drug that will unlock the full use of her brain as opposed to merely 10 percent. “Lucy” becomes ridiculous when you know that the “10 percent myth is so wrong it is almost laughable,” according to Barry Gordon of John’s Hopkins School of Medicine. In retrospect, the movie shouldn’t have tried to justify the drug at all: then we could have accepted the plot. “Interstellar” is opening itself up to the same criticism of logic if it strays beyond reality — an unnecessary risk because science fiction should unapologetically go beyond reality.
Science fiction, despite its name, isn’t based on science — or at least it shouldn’t be. That it’s described as scientific at all is really a misnomer, because the vast majority of science fiction works are patently absurd. In “Star Wars” you can hear sounds in space, and the cruel Empire designs their AT-AT walkers with outlandishly high centers of mass seemingly for the nice view. In William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” computer hacking is performed in virtual reality, like a bank heist. But these irrationalities give science fiction its poignancy, because, unlike our own universe, which is so very often disappointing, science fiction is unconfined by reality and cold logic. Who isn’t sobered by the knowledge that the progressive decay of our cells’ DNA precludes any real chance of immortality? Who isn’t saddened by the realization that fuel constraints will probably keep the human race from ever exploring the galaxy, that we will probably never be using flying cars, or teleporters, or that none of us will probably ever make first contact with an alien race? Realistic thinking is good for retirement planning, but it’s not good for science fiction.
“Interstellar” may end up being a visual masterpiece, but it might not be science fiction. Great science fiction allows us to transcend natural limitations: to place humans in world they perhaps won’t ever see and to see how they would respond. Science fiction allows us to explore how humanity will react to the impossible. Nolan’s focus on realism is interesting, but in the end it’s just a gimmick. Whether “Interstellar” is a good science fiction flick won’t be determined by its adherence to the rational but by its imagining of the fantastic. I don’t want to see a universe where a “near future Earth has been devastated by drought and famine, causing a scarcity in food and extreme changes in climate.” That’s too immediate and realistic a concern for science fiction. Give me grand themes and strange sights, as the genre demands. Ask me what it means to be human when cyborgs have more emotion than man, like in “Blade Runner.” Show me a planet Hoth and planet Endor. Give me something as unbelievable as “2001.” Don’t give me science. Give me fiction.
That said, come November 7th I’ll still be the first person through the doors.
Brennan Edel is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at b.edel@cavalierdaily.com.
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