Renowned for crafting intricate and detail-rich films, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is no exception. This big-budget sci-fi adventure is replete with subtle nuances often overlooked on a first viewing. However, upon rewatch, these easily missed moments elevate the film to a higher level of depth and complexity. Nolan is known for making complex, multi-layered films that reward repeated viewings. Interstellar, his 2014 sci-fi epic about a future where Earth is dying and humanity must search for a new home, is a prime example. The film delves deep into theoretical physics and higher dimensions, with a storyline spanning years and light years.
On first watch, viewers are often left awestruck by Interstellar’s ending, grand scope and ambitious themes related to love, time, and humanity’s drive to explore. However, Nolan packs the film with small details, references, and clues that enrich the story in subsequent viewings. Moments that initially seem insignificant take on new meaning once the larger context is understood. Upon revisiting Interstellar, previously unnoticed subtleties emerge to lend more weight to the central father-daughter relationship. What first appears to be a relatively straightforward sci-fi film reveals hidden depths when given a second look.
5 There Is No Wildlife
A detail that expands upon Earth’s fate
One easily overlooked detail that takes on deeper meaning in retrospect is the complete lack of animals seen throughout Interstellar. Not a single bird, insect, or even livestock animal appears on screen. A Reddit user insightfully notes the absence of creatures that would normally be prevalent on Cooper’s farm. There are no cows to milk, chickens to collect eggs from, or dogs and cats as beloved pets. No flies buzz in the background, and no birds chirp in the skies. This absence reflects the dire state of Earth. This small detail undoubtedly makes Interstellar way better upon reflection.
The missing animals and insects underline the stakes facing what’s left of humanity; this isn’t just an agricultural crisis, but an extinction-level event. By excluding wildlife that would normally be present, Nolan wordlessly communicates the bleak reality of the situation. The specificity of the farm setting, devoid of expected animals, drives home the point more effectively than any expository dialogue could. The absence of pets and livestock on the farm also symbolizes the emotional distance between Cooper and his family. Where there should be life and connection, there is only lack. This void echoes the bigger dangers threatening humankind.
4 Murphy’s Opening Dialogue Foreshadows Cooper’s Fate
A line that is easy to overlook
A subtle detail that cleverly foreshadows the film’s conclusion is ten-year-old Murphy’s first line of dialogue to her father: “I thought you were the ghost.” This line proves tragically prescient by the end of Interstellar’s time-hopping narrative. The film opens with Cooper startled awake from a nightmare of a crashing aircraft, finding his concerned daughter standing over his bed. Her words are initially just a childlike expression of confusion over her father’s abrupt awakening. However, the script’s choice of the word “ghost” is no coincidence. After Cooper ventures through the wormhole on his space mission, decades pass on Earth.
Related
What Year Is Interstellar Set In? The Christopher Nolan Movie’s Timeline Explained
The timeline of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is confusing, because it starts off in a distant year and continues decades into the future.
When he manages to communicate with the now-adult Murphy through gravitational manipulation across dimensions, the books flying off her shelf make it seem as if her room is haunted by a poltergeist. By the finale, when Cooper materializes at Murphy’s deathbed, he has essentially become the “ghost” she predicted, a father who hasn’t aged while his daughter is now older than him. What first seems like a naive statement by a child turns out to be an astute bit of foreshadowing of how time and distance distort the father-daughter dynamic between the two central characters.
3 The Ticking Sound On The Water Planet
An audio detail full of meaning
Upon revisiting Interstellar, an unsettling background detail stands out during the crew’s urgent mission on the perilous water planet. There is a relentless, faint ticking sound underlying the entire sequence that is easy to miss. At first, the repetitive ticking fades into the tension of the do-or-die planetary exploration. However, that sound has narrative significance: the ticks occur precisely 1.25 seconds apart, signifying that each tick marks an entire day passing back on Earth. With this knowledge, the ticking emphasizes the terrifying asymmetry between the hours spent on the planet and the years passing for the rest of humanity.
The ticking signifies time rapidly slipping through their fingers; a resource more valuable than any physical tool in their spacecraft. As with much of Interstellar’s skillful sound design, this subtle audio cue visually symbolizes the abstraction and pressure of relativity. The ticking embeds the mission with palpable urgency, reminding characters and viewers alike of the sacrifice undertaken for any progress into the void. It’s a sinister metronome quantifying the extreme time dilation that adds higher stakes to the film’s balancing of scientific exploration with human attachment. It’s details like this that make Interstellar one of Christopher Nolan’s best movies.
2 References To 2001: A Space Odyssey
An homage to another sci-fi classic
Christopher Nolan was clearly inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey as there are several visual and narrative references to the Stanley Kubrick sci-fi epic. For instance, the A.I. robots TARS and CASE evoke 2001’s supercomputer HAL 9000, from their red camera “eyes” to TARS’ dark joke about ejecting Cooper through the airlock. The rectangular shape of the robots even echoes the iconic monolith from 2001. Additionally, the mind-bending geometry of the Tesseract space Cooper enters resembles 2001’s climactic “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” sequence, with similar abstract shapes and reality-distorting dimensions.
Related
2001: A Space Odyssey Ending Explained
From the Star Gate to a time-traveling bedroom, there is a lot to unpack in the ambiguous ending of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
By paralleling motifs and aesthetics from Kubrick’s classic, Nolan plants Easter eggs to reward devoted sci-fi fans, while underscoring Interstellar’s place in the lineage of cerebral science fiction that raises existential questions. It’s uncertain whether Interstellar’s human characters would catch these references to a film that would have been made 100 years ago for them, but the homages add metatextual significance. The visual and tonal similarities to 2001 heighten the sense in Interstellar that humanity has crossed into strange new territories beyond normal perception or comprehension.
1 Cooper’s First Name Is Never Revealed
Details about identity remain hidden
One easily missed detail is that the protagonist of Interstellar is never referred to by his first name. Only his last name, Cooper, is used. His background as a former military pilot is referenced, but any biographical details predating the film’s events are unstated. This seemingly inconsequential detail exemplifies how the catastrophic conditions on Earth have erased people’s past identities; only survival in the present matters. Cooper’s first name remains an enigma, symbolizing this loss of self. His surname ties him to his sole purpose, his family.
When Cooper mistakenly believes there is a “Cooper Space Station” named after him in the future, it underscores his anchor to his paternal role over any individual identity. In truth, the station memorializes his devoted daughter, Murphy Cooper, instead. The absence of Cooper’s first name suggests how interconnected identities become when the fate of the human race overshadows personal ambitions. Sacrifices are made across generations to ensure a future where Murphy’s own first name can prevail when her father’s cannot. This small mystery in the protagonist’s full name thus echoes Interstellar’s wider themes about the anonymization of the individual.
Interstellar
From Christopher Nolan, Interstellar imagines a future where the Earth is plagued by a life-threatening famine, and a small team of astronauts is sent out to find a new prospective home among the stars. Despite putting the mission first, Coop (Matthew McConaughey) races against time to return home to his family even as they work to save mankind back on Earth.
- Release Date
- November 7, 2014
- Director
- Christopher Nolan
- Cast
- Anne Hathaway , Matthew McConaughey , Jessica Chastain , Ellen Burstyn , Michael Caine , Bill Irwin
