Interstellar had everything to be a good hit within movie theatres; the great overall direction of the movie, along with sublime orchestration made it a hit among mainstream media during the time of its release. Despite this, one thing tends to be overlooked when it comes to the discussion of the movie, and that is the scientific accuracy that the movie has. Christopher Nolan-- the director of the movie-- is known for ensuring utmost scientific accuracy within his movies; one of his more recent productions-- ‘Tenet’-- for instance, involved suggestions from a Nobel Prize Laureate and renowned physicist, Kip Thorne. Taking all these into account, the question remains, just how accurate is the science within ‘Interstellar’?
Before we get into the actual space exploration aspect of the movie, there is one thing that needs to be brought into attention, and that is the reality in which the movie was set in. Set in the far future, the Earth that humans live in within the movie is one plagued by constant dust-storms and weather anomalies, along with an overall shortage in a variety of foods. The setting of Interstellar on Earth is actually a future that is quite possible considering the current state of affairs; as of the moment, with temperatures rising, droughts will continue to intensify which may lead to 32% of croplands worldwide being severely affected by it. Additionally, with our Earth’s temperature predicted to rise by 6 degrees celsius by the end of the century, the extreme weather events displayed within Interstellar may just be much more commonplace and widespread in the future.
Moving on to the ‘space’ aspect of interstellar, the movie has actually been praised for a fair share of scientific and visual accuracy it had during the duration of the film. For instance one of the most famous scenes-- where they showed the ‘Gargantua’ black hole-- actually held a substantial amount of scientific truth. During the process of producing the scene, the production team consulted Kip Thorne-- the aforementioned physicist-- to create formulae for the computers to produce an accurate rendering of the blackhole. Such was done successfully, with the blackhole in the movie being seen bending the surrounding space in a sphere-like manner, seemingly spinning at the speed of light, and the iconic accretion disc lining the event horizon.
Another concept that is emphasised in the movie is one of time dilation. This was especially showcased when one of the characters explained how time on Miller's planet-- the planet that the crew went to which is orbiting the black hole ‘Gargantua’-- runs weirdly, as one hour on the planet means about 7 years on Earth. The truth behind this idea lies in the concept of how getting too close to an object having a massive gravitational force will cause time to move more slowly, relatively speaking. After all, with the weight of gravity essentially stretching the fabric of spacetime, such an anomaly is bound to happen. On the topic of Miller’s planet, the anomalous events that the crew experienced could also be attributed to established facts. For instance, the gigantic tidal wave that the crew had to overcome as they were adrift within the ocean of Miller’s planet can be explained by the tidal effect ‘Gargantua’ may pose on the planet.
Finally, one of the key themes highlighted in the movie-- wormholes-- also has significant scientific truth to it. In one of the scenes where a crewmember explained to the protagonist what a wormhole is, the crewmember did so accurately as he highlighted how wormholes essentially fold/punch holes in the fabric of space-time to create a passage between 2 separate places in the universe. Despite this, they slightly missed a mark as the movie failed to adequately explain how the wormhole came to be in the first place.
Overall, Interstellar managed to capture mind-boggling actions, along with breathtaking sceneries while remaining true to scientific concepts. By holding some scientific ground, the movie managed to create an interesting and realistic experience for the moviegoers, engaging them both visually and intellectually. Interstellar is not only a testament to the genius of Christopher Nolan, but also to the endless possibilities and opportunities for sci-fi genre movies adhering to established scientific facts and evidence.
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