Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar has captured audiences’ hearts and imaginations for nearly a decade, and several fascinating theories allow it to be viewed in a new light. The 2014 film is known for its complex exploration of vast and imaginative ideas, from scientific concepts of space and time to internal questions about human nature. Nolan structures his plot with definitive meaning, but the sprawling nature of the film’s ideas still leaves plenty of room for theory crafting. After all, there’s never a right or wrong way to view a movie.
The beloved space epic is one of Christopher Nolan’s best movies. Though it has some of his most mixed critical reviews, the $731 million box office run for a non-franchise film in 2014 is enormously impressive, speaking to Nolan’s cultural appeal. Love it or hate it, Interstellar is an undeniably evocative piece and one of Nolan’s most emotionally contrived cinematic experiences. Characters like Cooper, Murph, and Anne Hathaway’s Dr. Brand are powerfully resonant, allowing audiences to connect to a film that covers such overwhelming and expansive material.
6 “They” Caused Earth’s Blight
Interstellar’s “they” could’ve caused more problems than the film explores.
A dark Interstellar theory examines why humanity left Earth, suggesting that “they” caused the blight to establish the chain of events. The idea of “they” is questioned several times in the film, with Cooper eventually concluding that some fifth-dimensional beings manipulating events must be some future-evolved humans that transcend time and space. It’s difficult to wrap one’s head around, especially given its implications for the film’s overarching narrative. If human beings from the future have been interfering with events from the past, it’s possible they caused Earth’s blight.
If future humans have the power Cooper thinks they do, then they may have been orchestrating events to guide Cooper to them. Their necessity for Cooper to help humankind leave Earth for their creation in the future means that a time loop is created at some point, but there’s no indicator of where their influence begins. The idea that future beings would cause blight to expedite humanity’s departure from Earth is dark, but the sort of utilitarian idea analyzed in Interstellar by characters like Dr. Brand (Michael Caine) and Dr. Mann (Matt Damon).
5 Christopher Nolan’s Films Are Connected
A theory connects Interstellar to Tenet and Inception.
In a media climate where everything is a shared universe, it’s no surprise that audiences have explored the connections between Nolan’s works. A theory from Twitter user FILMDILFS connects Interstellar with Inception and Tenet, all of which explore different dystopian societies and sci-fi concepts. The theory’s primary connection is between Interstellar and Tenet, suggesting that Interstellar takes place in the future and that the Time Bomb was created to prevent Earth from reaching its barren, uninhabitable state.
Auteur filmmakers have managed to connect their movies in different ways. Clues in Quentin Tarantino’s movies have pointed to a shared Tarantino universe, as they constantly reference one another. Lars von Trier and Edgar Wright both have trilogies of films that only share a thematic connection rather than an overarching narrative. It’s a stretch to assume Nolan went into any of his solo films with plans to overlap his stories, but it’s still fun to consider.
Christopher Nolan’s Movies | IMDb Score |
|---|---|
Inception | 8.8/10 |
Interstellar | 8.7/10 |
Tenet | 7.3/10 |
4 Cooper’s Fall Caused More Anomalies
Cooper stumbling through the Tesseract may have had bigger implications.
Cooper’s fall into the Tesseract in Interstellar’s Act 3 climax has enormous implications for the film, and while it seems like he figured things out, it’s fair to say he didn’t exactly know what he was doing. A theory about Cooper’s Tesseract fall from Reddit user marsmedia connected his fall with another critical event from the film that was never explained: the drone from India. The idea suggests that as Cooper stumbled his way through the Tesseract, each of his bounces caused some anomaly back on Earth.
3 There Are No Animals On Earth
No animals are seen or heard on Earth in Interstellar.
Another theory from Redditor gstba noticed that there wasn’t a single animal in any of the Earth scenes in Interstellar. Given the dire situation humanity found itself in, it seems that many of the remaining animals on Earth were kept for later reproduction, as the ending scenes in Cooper Station have apparent bug and bird noises. This isn’t a first-time sci-fi idea, and it’s been used in another popular dystopian sci-fi movie, Blade Runner, where animals are so scarce that electric animals become the mainstream. This was likely intentional since Blade Runner is one of Christopher Nolan’s favorite movies.
2 Cooper Was Dead The Whole Time
Cooper never survived the crash depicted in the opening dream sequence.
“X character was dead the whole time” theories are generally so tiresome, but Redditor Fleshsuitpilot presented a captivating idea about Cooper. An essential piece of the film is its opening sequence, where Cooper wakes up from a dream of a flight crash accident. The dream establishes Cooper’s character, but it’s never really touched up again, begging the question of whether it has a grander purpose in the narrative. The idea of death is touched upon frequently in Interstellar, and Dr. Mann even shares a thought about how a parent sees their children just before they pass away.
With these ideas in mind, it’s not too far-fetched to imagine the events of Interstellar as Cooper’s final images before death, imagining a reality where he’s given a random opportunity to go on a space voyage and save humanity, and by extent, his children. Other clues, like the name of the Lazarus space expedition and Murph referring to Cooper as her “ghost,” indicate a thematic undertone about the afterlife. The emotional core of Interstellar is Cooper and Murph’s relationship, and Cooper’s final wish being a mind-bending space odyssey to return to her totally checks out.
1 The Planets Were Never The Intended Destination
It never mattered to “them” where humanity settled.
In Interstellar, Cooper and the crew set out to check the possibility of inhabiting three planets explored in the Lazarus expedition. To access them, they enter a black hole near Saturn. There are many ideas regarding that black hole’s purpose, and the film only suggests it was placed by “them,” meaning future fifth-dimensional humans planted it to help humanity survive. A Redditor examined the possibility that “they” never wanted humanity to reach those planets but rather to use the black hole to discover the solution to Dr. Brand’s gravity problem.
It’s an interesting theory, seeing as it contradicts Dr. Brand’s idea that the planets and the eggs were the end-game solution rather than saving the humanity left on Earth. By choosing Cooper to helm the mission, Brand inadvertently picks the right person, as Cooper is adventurous and intuitive enough to find his way to the Tesseract and help send the equation’s solution back to Murph. To the fifth-dimensional beings in Interstellar, it doesn’t matter how humanity survives; it matters that humanity survives in some capacity and is set on a path to become “them.”
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
- Runtime
- 2h 49m
