Interstellar again

Spoiler Alert

Yeah, finally made it to Interstellar in IMAX  yesterday(on a weekday, bunking office for a show that spans before and after the lunch time ….shhhhh). So, did that change my views on the movie, now that I watched it in a better screen with better sound and visual effects ? Before I go into that, let me tell you about the horrifying few minutes, where the movie started and every thing in the screen looked like a 3D movie sans the 3D glasses. You know where things are seen in double or triple. That is how it started and everyone looked at each other wondering if we forgot our glasses by mistake. But it was a IMAX movie not a 3D one for godsake. Then some of them went and complained and they stopped the screening for a few minutes. And when they restarted it, it started with the same blur but then it got better. Phew !!! The relief of it! The people who come to the theater should have some basic common sense , even though the theater keeps repeating some basic stuff  (like put your phone in silent mode, if you want to really speak please step out and take the call, don’t litter the theater) before the movie begins, we still hear the ringtones here and there. In one quiet moment, one lady from behind picked up her phone (which was ringing loudly of course) and told to the caller and to everyone in the theater, ‘I am in the movie hall’. Yeah, right! Seriously, when will these people learn ? And I am not even going into littering.

OK, now back to the movie. Nope, still nothing tugging my heart and making me emotional. But what was better ? The visuals….just wow. The impact of IMAX on this movie is amazing. It was like sometimes I felt like I was there in the space floating. When they were walking in Mann’s planet, I felt a little giddy. All that white and grey expanse does that to me , even if a little, in real life too. Sometimes seeing that teeny tiny speckle of space craft in that wide wide space makes you feel like nothing (not sure if that is a good thing, but then it is what it is). As my friend says frequently, ‘In the Grand Scheme of things…’

The sound effects. I could hear the dialogues very clearly and understand them better, even though they did have subtitles (which I ignored for most cases). I realized that I had missed some subtle humor in between when I had seen them the first time. I could appreciate some of the concepts much better now that I was able to hear them clearly. No disturbance or noise ruining it. The score of the movie was so so AMAZING in IMAX. I could feel the vibrations in my seat. It was that powerful. Pure awesomeness.

Since we knew the story and weren’t surprised by anything, we could analyze little bit on the characters. My friend found Cooper’s character a little annoying and a little hypocritical. No one here is the hero, except for the story. Even though we can still say that Mann was more of a villain in this.

Overall, I could appreciate the movie a lot better after watching it in IMAX both in terms of understanding (even though I can’t talk about any concepts from it related to the time and gravity yet) and the grandeur of the story thanks to the better sound and visual effects. Even if I had to spend a 150Rs more for that, it was totally worth it, except for that little scare in the beginning.

 

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Interstellar – Not quite up there

Interstellar – It’s a Christopher Nolan movie, so how can I miss watching it. Except for Transcendence, I have watched all his movies. But the only sad part for Interstellar was that we didn’t get tickets in an IMAX. So had to watch in a normal theater with some light disturbances across the screen whenever someone moved in and out of the room. I am not going into the story or any spoiler here (even though there isn’t any except for the last one part where it was a Aha! moment). Having watched Gravity (again not in IMAX) let me start first with what I felt as soon as I watched the movie. I thought I should have watched it in IMAX to see if it made the same impact , visually I mean, as Gravity made on me even in spite of me watching it in the small screen. Upfront, because of the same space theme and all, I did compare the visual effects to Gravity and so far Gravity won. My friend suggested that we should watch it in IMAX just to be sure 🙂 but let me come back to that when that actually happens. No doubt that the visual effects for this was very good for the topic and the depth that this movie had, but still.

One more thing that made me compare to Gravity was, the emotional impact. With Gravity, I had tears at the end when she makes it. I rooted for her through out, it was like a personal thing. Well, this one didn’t quite make there with that. There was one scene where they are trying to get control of the spacecraft back which was quite intense, and the whole theater was waiting with unabated breath, but I would say it was mostly due to the sound effects more than the actual visuals. Comic relief and the one liners by TARS , the robot, was very funny and cheeky. I should also accept that the whole five dimensional thing details, I quite didn’t get it. Granted that I am not very smart but I was able to follow Inception without any problem. Even Gravity was understandable to a large extent. Here I got lost in the intricate details and given that I am not a fan of sci-fi or rather the time-space related stuff (except for the movies like ‘Back to the Future’ – fyi: I love that series) I had struggle grasping the concept. And the whole love concept in between their 3/4/5 dimensional space talk was a little scary actually. There is no love angle here, which was good in spite of all those talk, if you skip the parental love that is. And you know what, I clapped so hard when I saw Matt Damon, and I may or may not have done a little jump in my seat. Man, come on, I never knew that guy was there in that movie. OK, I didn’t read anything about the movie until I saw it because it could spoil the surprise, but Matt Damon!. Just for moments like these, I should learn to whistle. And Michael Caine got the same welcome from my friends and myself. That man deserves a good welcome. Matthew McConaughey, he is in every single frame, if not his daughter is there. But I think I am glad to see him in these kind of roles, rather than the ones like ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 days’. Jessica Chastin , the Zero Dark Thirty woman (that is how I remember her) and Mackenzie Foy, the Renesmee girl from the Twilight Series, did very good too as did Anne Hathaway. Acting wise every single one did their job well. I have to say that when I heard that the daughter’s name was Murphy and she complains to her dad that he should have named her something else, I remember a blogger’s comment in my other post and made me smile :).

No doubt. Story wise, it was good. But as an end result, there was something missing. Something that made me sit at the end of Inception to wonder what was I supposed to be even thinking now because it was too much to consume that I had to go back to the movie to understand the connecting bits again. Something that made me cry and my heart almost ached for that woman to finally make it on her own in Gravity. Something that made me sit back in shock and surprise and wonder in The Prestige. Everything was there, but then something definitely was missing to make me remember this movie like the rest. And I don’t know what it is.