Interstellar is in theaters, and it’s a critically acclaimed sci-fi saga that everybody’s talking about–but it’s also about three hours long, and there aren’t any monsters in it, and that animated movie Big Hero 6 looks pretty cool. Everybody’s going to be talking about Interstellar at the bars, though. After all, it’s the new movie from writer/director Christopher Nolan, who gave us the Dark Knight trilogy and Inception.
That’s okay, though. We’re ready to help you fake having seen Interstellar. That’s going to be a valuable skill this weekend. You can always avoid discussing the ending or other plot points by saying that you’re still pondering the movie. The rest of the discussion can be covered right here–starting with the non-spoiler synopsis that Matthew McConaughey plays an astronaut named Cooper, and he has to leave his daughter Murph and son Tom to go seek out a new planet because Earth is dying.
From there, Cooper explores space while his kids grow up without him. Start getting more of an insider slant below–and you can skip the more SPOILERISH details because we’ve tagged them. Take a look and start formulating whether you’ll be a fake Interstellar fan or a fake Interstellar detractor….
Complain about how quickly Interstellar gives away a major plot twist for anybody who’s remotely familiar with classic sci-fi.
[SPOILERISH: When a little girl complains about there being a ghost in her room right before her father is about to go on an epic space trip–it’s never a ghost. It’s always her father trying to communicate from another dimension.]
Start making references about how you see things as majestic mountains, but then they become really horrible. (“Yeah, I was seeing majestic mountains on Monday, but it sure became something else by today.”)
[SPOILERISH: There’s a world of water, and it’s very interesting how much a massive tidal wave can look like a mountain from a distance.]
If you want to be dissenting, complain that Interstellar aged you by 23 years in the movie theater. If you want to be an Interstellar fan, complain about people who didn’t like it because there wasn’t enough action to keep them from feeling like they spent 23 years watching the thing.
[SPOILERISH: A character ages 23 years over a short period because time passes differently on worlds of water.]
Very begrudgingly admit that Matt Damon is in the movie as a big surprise–and because that’s already kind of leaked, then also announce that there’s a certain actor who’s probably really relieved that he’s in Interstellar because he didn’t get to make a cool superhero movie like The Dark Knight Returns.
[SPOILERISH: Yeah, it’s one of the people above–and you can check iMDB to find out for sure, but the names of the characters also give away a major plot point.]
Complain that Interstellar is the kind of movie where characters get killed off in order of billing.
[SPOILERISH: Wes Bentley is probably as thrilled as that ’70s Show star to be in Interstellar, but nobody’s expecting him to live through the film.]
Say that you’d have liked Interstellar more if the movie hadn’t kept becoming Little House on the Dystopian Prairie–or maybe you admire how Christopher Nolan insisted on telling the story back home.
[SPOILERISH: Interstellar is a space saga where we keep going back to see how things are going back on Earth–which is like two separate movies, and you keep wanting to go back to the one with the cool robots.]
Make a joke about how the baseball games of the future can no longer serve hot dogs, and everyone has to settle for popcorn, but you’re pretty sure everyone already does that at the San Francisco home games.
[SPOILERISH: Yeah, that’s part of the dystopian future, as explained by Cooper’s father-in-law–who’s old enough to be John Lithgow.]
Make a joke about how you sometimes feel that the world is having a big celebration with Matthew McConaughey on Saturn, but you’re like Anne Hathaway stuck on another planet and trying Plan B.
[SPOILERISH: Interstellar might not be an epic movie, and we have some petty complaints–but there are also some really touching moments where Interstellar defies convention.]
Whether or not you decide to like Interstellar, say that it’s probably a good idea for Christopher Nolan to stop always working with his brother Jonathan as his cowriter–mainly because those two still don’t know how to write a good death scene.
[SPOILERISH: Well, some people die–but the really important thing here is that enough time has passed for us to goof on those dopey death scenes in The Dark Knight Rises. Miranda, right?]
Make a big deal out of telling everbody that they have to see Interstellar in IMAX, and also make a big deal out of how glad you are that Christopher Nolan didn’t make the movie in 3D.
[SPOILERISH: Some of us were underwhelmed by Interstellar, but we’re afraid to complain because we didn’t see it in IMAX, and the really smart film critics of NYC all saw it in IMAX.]
