“Interstellar” says the world may not end

If you are still marveling over Stanley Kubrick’s great sci-fi film 2001, released 46 years ago and still stunning, you will probably like Interstellar. In both films, the follies of humankind have just about extinguished our species, and help has to come, if at all, from somebody in outer space.

The difference between the two movies is dialogue. Kubrick’s characters barely explained anything, which led everybody to go back and read Arthur C. Clarke’s original book to find out what happened in the movie. Interstellar is so full of technobabble, and so long (clocking in at 2:49) that some would consider the explanations a distraction.

Kubrick’s characters had no discernible personalities. That was an important part of what his movie was saying about modern life on Earth. Director Christopher Nolan’s characters in Interstellar are full of emotions, dreams, hopes, and despair. Romantics may be disappointed in the love story that is set up perfectly when super-attractive stars like Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway are thrown together for years on a spaceship, but everybody will be enchanted by the father’s raging love that McConaughey displays over and over again for his daughter. She is played, by the way, by three extremely accomplished actresses.

Both films, I’m happy to say, run counter to most American sci-fi in that they show positive hope for humanity, even though it has to come from outer space. We don’t starve to death, poison ourselves, blow ourselves up, play ‘Hunger Games,’ or get taken over by mindless terminator machines in this future. Thank goodness!

Photo: “Interstellar” official Facebook page