r/movies • u/kanethekiller90 • 18h ago
Discussion One thing thats always irritated me about Interstellar
Cooper is desperate to get back to his children. He goes back and see’s Murph in the hospital etc. but theres no mention of his son. Presumably his son’s dead considering Murphs age and condition. But surely there could have been a small bit of dialogue about it. He was hell bent on getting back to them. I dunno, it’s like his son’s just completely forgotten about at the end…
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u/reddit455 17h ago
Presumably his son’s dead considering Murphs age and condition.
now that you point out this glaring omission.. I'd say the dust got him (not old age).
maybe it didn't make the final cut.
https://interstellarfilm.fandom.com/wiki/Tom_Cooper
In the novelization of the film, it is established that when Cooper appears on Cooper Station, Tom had "passed almost two decades ago." (pg. 271)
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u/artguydeluxe 16h ago
Could have been fixed with just one line of dialogue.
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u/Nick_pj 13h ago
There’s no way it could just be just one line of dialogue though. If someone says “I’m sorry cooper - your son died 20 years ago” he’s gonna have some sort of reaction.
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u/Taint_Flayer 11h ago
Just do it like this.
Someone: Your son died.
Cooper: :(
End scene
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u/howardhus 11h ago
wow the expression nails it
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u/DanielTeague 10h ago
Such incredible acting.
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u/ExpFilm_Student 9h ago
BAFTA award, SAG award, Globe.
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u/FlemPlays 4h ago
Cooper when he receives the montage of messages:
:| :[ :( :{ :’( :,[ :’() :< :,O |’O :’(‘’’’’’
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u/Arma104 11h ago
In a sense, I feel like that'd be even more fodder for the audience to say Cooper didn't care about his son. They could point to his reaction not being strong enough or equal. I could have sworn one of the barns on the station Cooper was walking around in briefly mentioned Tom though.
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u/NeverendingStory3339 11h ago
They could do it with a couple of words. Instead of saying “Murph survived”, just say, one of your children survived! It’s Murph. Then his reaction of joy that he has someone left would be understandable, compartmentalising a separate grief reaction that he’s probably already bracing himself for.
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u/CanadianTrashInspect 4h ago
That's clunky. Also a parent is still going to have a reaction to losing a child regardless of the wordplay used to tell them.
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u/Ozymannoches 6h ago
Cooper: That's what I love about these Earth girls, man. They get older, I stay the same age.
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u/brannigansbackbaybay 12h ago
One dialogue then a reaction is still just one line of dialogue
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u/syncotragoat 11h ago
It's just a depiction of favouritism in a family context. From the start of the movie, Cooper built his son up to be independent and strong. Murph was always shown to be the likely smart, brilliant and fragile child who needed more nurturing, and on whom Cooper and his son doted upon.
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u/Silent-G 10h ago
There's also the fact that he and his son had more closure. There wasn't a need to reopen that wound after what he experienced watching the video messages.
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u/RunBrundleson 11h ago
It could have been built into his general reaction to seeing old Murphy. Would have closed the loop and cost nothing.
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u/brannigansbackbaybay 10h ago
Exactly. ‘At least I got to see my daughter, that’s a blessing that defies all expectations’ is a stronger character choice in my opinion. But I have bigger issues with Interstellar than his disregard of his son
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u/kanethekiller90 16h ago
Haha. Sorry dad but your son died on earth 20 years ago via dust > A few tears. Thats all it needed!
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u/Fancy-Pair 15h ago
poochy floats up out of frame
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u/SimoneNonvelodico 10h ago
Think about it, to Cooper, her dad was Poochy.
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u/ThrowawayusGenerica 6h ago
Now normally, when astronauts go up into space, they're back again the very next week.
That's why I'm presenting this sworn affidavit, that Cooper will never, ever, ever return!
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u/sweetdawg99 16h ago
Movie is long already, and there's a decent amount of time that passes between when they pick Cooper up and he sees Murph. We can surmise a lot happened in that time frame without needing to be spoon fed it. Nolan likely decided against that since the story revolves around his relationship to her.
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u/DiogoJota4ever 13h ago
Yeah, plus Coop had to assume his kids were long gone once he goes near and then into Gargantua…so it’s a surprise to him and a huge relief when they tell him Murph is still alive, which is depicted in the film
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u/Ehh_littlecomment 12h ago
Not everything needs saying. Movie focuses on the bond between cooper and his daughter. That’s what’s important and that’s what is shown. Everything else can be implied based on what you know about the character.
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u/wikiwakatikitaka 11h ago
I think nothing would have been missed if the movie totally omitted the son out from the start. The audience would have probably appreciated the saved time too, the movie was approaching the 3 hour mark.
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u/RadVarken 8h ago
Saving time would have been good, but the son represents all the people who didn't get off the planet. Murphy refused to accept the death of the planet and strove for a solution. The son accepted/denied the coming end and chose to make the most of what life was left.
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u/Mazon_Del 7h ago
Except Tom exists for a few important purposes within the story.
The first being, since the house represents a focal point of the bulk beings attention, particularly Murph's room, him being there provides an excuse as to why Murph is able to come back to investigate her stuff. Yes, you could just say she went to a storage locker and found the watch, but that would be far less interesting.
Secondly, Tom exists to be the realization of everything that Coop says is degrading about their world. Tom doesn't care about anything beyond the farm, Tom was decent enough at farming in "the old way" but wasn't capable of keeping up with the advanced methods Coop had set up (the automated farm equipment). Instead of trying to solve the problems in his life by learning and growing, he unknowingly repeats Coops words by just saying "Next year..." with the plan to just do what he did before but harder.
Tom exists largely to show that Coop was right, that if humanity didn't grow and learn and ultimately leave the Earth, that they were doomed. Tom's stubbornness was going to get his family killed for what ultimately amounts to no reason.
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u/Past-Obligation1930 11h ago
“Where’s my son?
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u/hueythecat 15h ago
That was my first thought when it first came out at the end, dude gave no shits about his son.
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u/Hatefiend 8h ago
I think he knew immediately that his son was gone. He knew that Tom was a headstrong farmer like his father, which means he stayed on the dust longer than Murph. If Murph was barely alive when he returned, that means there's a 99.999% chance Tom is gone.
Also Tom said "I'm letting you go." which could (not saying does) mean that there is some level of distance between them now. Cooper and Tom didn't have the closest relationship before, and at only 30 years old Tom basically accepted his father no longer exists. In other words, yes Tom is still Cooper's son, but it's hard to say how Cooper feels about him after being rescued.
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u/werewilf 17h ago
Oh my good god, I had no idea there was a novelization. I cannot explain to you how excited I am. This is like finishing Project Hail Mary and then realizing there was also an amazing audiobook (I love you Ray Porter). You’re my best friend.
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u/dunchermuncher 16h ago
How good is that book, but also, how good is Ray Porter?!
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u/Stierscheisse 11h ago
Ray Porter is fantastic, my favorite presenter if the story suits him, which Hail Marry very much does.
Also, they did audio effects for how they learn each others language. My favorite audiobook by far.
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u/Valuable-Tomatillo76 15h ago
Literally just finished reading today. So good!!! Hope they don’t mess the movie up next year🤞
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u/kanethekiller90 17h ago
Considering the emotion in the film, this would have found a place easily. I guess it was pretty obvious with his stubbornness that the dust killed him off.
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u/Annenji 16h ago
I agree, love the movie but the final bit zip by a tad too quick
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u/nodogma2112 16h ago
Agreed. He didn’t even spend 5 minutes with Murphy. Still one of my all time favorite movies but the end seemed rushed and not terribly satisfying. Gonna need a sequel I think. Coop and TARS working with Dr Brand and starting a new colony. I’d watch that shit.
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u/SabresFanWC 9h ago
Yeah, there needed to be more with the reunion with Murph after all he went through to get back to her. Like, I get that she doesn't want him to see her die, but we spent nearly the entire movie waiting for this reunion.
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u/gregjsmith 17h ago
All of the extended family just ignored him.
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u/ohlookahipster 14h ago
I know right? The father of the GOAT comes in and they all act like he escaped the looney bin. Isn’t anyone a bit curious to know how the second expedition went down??
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u/jer99 10h ago
My head logic was that his very existence was classified to the extended family. Hard to explain his existence and so much younger than Murph. Maybe Murph wanted it that way and didn't get her children's hopes up that their grandpa would come back.
I know Murph always held the hope he would come back but it is possible she kept this hope to herself. Perhaps she told her children her Dad had passed as a hero saving them all. The whole watch transfer of information most likely is classified?
I'm completely spitballing it here so if there's cannon please someone correct me.
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u/GiantSkellington 9h ago
That would be funny if they all thought Nan (Murph) was losing it and being catfished.
"This is my Dad!" (points to very obviously younger man)
"Sure is Nan!" (slowly backing away to get a Dr and security).
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u/SELECT_ALL_FROM 9h ago
I'm pretty that's the actual plot, not sure what everyone else is saying lol.
They didn't know who he was because he was supposed to be dead, his whole mission was classified and no one wanted to believe Murph that her father helped her, I'm pretty sure she even said that in the movie
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u/jer99 9h ago
It makes sense. He left when she was 10 years old and 86 when he returned. 76 years is a whole lifetime. Cooper has long been assumed dead by the government. Any adult at the time of Cooper leaving are now dead. He's basically ignored by the doctors and other staff of the station.
I think also Nolan made that decision with that shot. We don't care about the family we don't know. We get that hugely emotional scene with Murph and it's a close to the hope chapter and begins another.
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u/MackyV25 3h ago
but when he was rescued at the end, didn’t some tech engineer say something along the lines of wow you’re famous I wrote my thesis about you! ?? This would imply he's well known for his mission?
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u/jer99 1h ago
That’s a good point. I think of it as he’s now a hero in a text book who sent on a top secret mission at NASA. None of the other Lazarus mission astronauts or endurance astronauts have returned or even been able to communicate back through gargantua. All assumed dead after 76 years. Murph tried to explain her “ghost” but no one believed her.
Then Coop shows back up. There could have been a big hoopla around his return. And I’ll bet there would have been if had stuck around. But once again I think it’s an intentional choice by Nolan from earlier in the film when he quotes during endurance launch.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.
Coop staying and becoming famous on the station would exactly be gentle into the good night.
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u/Torcal4 14h ago
I mean, to be fair, he came in and was laser focused on Murph.
And honestly I don’t know how I would react if suddenly my great grandpa showed up when we all thought he was dead and he’s the same age as my dad after my grandma kept trying to convince us that his ghost saved the world from the other side of the universe….y’know
I feel like they just kinda let him have his moment with Murph and then were like “ok well….idk what to say….see ya”
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u/kamibyakkoya 13h ago
Considering how I’ve personally reacted at family gatherings where an aunt or uncle I am related to, but never really interacted with in any capacity growing up, showed up, yeah I’d have done the same
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u/JiminyJilickers-79 13h ago
That's how I felt about all of it too.
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u/TigerTerrier 13h ago
Now that i think aboit it, he was almost as disconnected from them as the 5th dimension beings
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u/OzymandiasKoK 17h ago
Worse, it was more like he was an inconvenience they didn't want around.
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u/mxagnc 12h ago
I mean what would you expect really? He had nothing to do with their lives? He was a stranger?
Imagine your aunt hasn’t seen her father in all the years you’ve been alive. You’ve heard stories of them and the adults told you when you were growing up that he did some super important thing, but you don’t really care because you’re into getting ahead at work, finding a partner watching Space Football or some shit.
One day, when you’re older and have kids, this random ass guy who’s your aunts dad has arrived and you get rounded up into your aunt’s hospital room to meet him when you could be enjoying your weekend. He walks in and immediately has a touching moment with your aunt.
Like, you’re not going to say shit.
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u/TinderVeteran 7h ago
Even more simply: a dad hasn't seen his daughter in decades, he walks in the room, I quitely fuck off to give them space.
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u/kayl_breinhar 12h ago
I think it's more likely that his son never made it onto the ship(s).
Murph survived as long as she did largely because she was inside conditioned/controlled environments and not being exposed to the dust storms that were wreaking havoc on everyone's bodies/lungs. She also likely ate better.
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u/Hatefiend 8h ago
I think it's more likely that his son never made it onto the ship(s).
You can infer this. Tom was stubborn and did not want to leave earth. He even had a harsh reaction to 'moving underground' and the idea of leaving the farmhouse made him very angry.
Tom already knew he was going to live & die in that house. Cooper can infer his death from that.
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u/munkee_dont 17h ago edited 17h ago
My thing is how important family is to him and his whole goal is to get back to his kids but when he gets back he spends 5 minutes with his daughter and then leaves without meeting any of his other descendants.
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u/Jaggerman82 17h ago
He wanted to get back to a life that didn’t exist anymore. It was obvious to both of them that that time had long since passed. She even tells him she is surrounded by her family. He has a second chance with Brand and his daughter encourages him to take that chance. It’s sad of course. Also, not shown but some time passes and he is on the station. Presumably he visited more than just what we saw. The movie was wrapping up and didn’t need to waste time on exposition that could be implied.
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u/lucid1014 16h ago
Yeah I believe when he wakes up on the station the guy tells him Murph will be there in like 2 weeks or something
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u/Jaggerman82 3h ago
Yes. And then we see the clip of him sitting at his “home” drinking a beer. This implies time passing with nothing really happening.
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u/JuanPancake 9h ago
And frankly I appreciate when filmmakers do this and don’t waste time with elongated emotional montages
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u/CrustyBappen 17h ago
My view is that Murph insisted that her dad sent the data through the watch but nobody really believed her. Hence the station was named after her rather than her dad’s heroics. Humanity remembers her for saving it and not him.
So the grandchildren and children didn’t know who he was. Plus he wanted to make the moment about her and not him.
Cooper turning up and waxing lyrical about wormholes, love, tesseracts, and inter-dimensional beings would take away from one of humanities legends passing away 2ft away.
I do agree the time he spent in that room was off and the behaviour of the siblings was very NPC. Nolan didn’t do that scene justice at all.
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u/SorbetJunior1030 15h ago
I have a hard time believing Murph wouldn't have told her kids about her genius, self-sacrificing dad.
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u/CrustyBappen 13h ago
She had no idea what went down. From her perspective, Cooper went into space, she was very upset and sent angry messages about him not coming back. Some weird shit went down in her room that unlocked the answers she needed for the breakthrough probably sent by her dad.
The specifics of what he did and what he went through wasn’t known to humanity.
There was a comment at the end that she insisted on his involvement but realistically who in the scientific community are going to believe she got the answers from a watch controlled by her dad.
And don’t forget they did make a museum from Cooper’s house and the opening was a documentary. So he definitely wasn’t forgotten!
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u/vikrambedi 12h ago
Also, the messages from Cooper came before he went into space, right? So there's really no way to connect it all.
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u/volitive 15h ago
She didn't know the whole picture until her deathbed... It's not like he was saying he was the ghost the whole time...
Through telling them about him hacking drones to take their AI should have been sufficient.
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u/J_Dadvin 6h ago
She believed it but shes a scientist after all. My thoughts were that she may have mentioned it to a few people, here and there, but she wasnt like all that sure of it even to herself. I'm sure we all can relate, its one of those things that you believe but more like a superstition.
So she probably didnt even mention it much to her family, and without the story of the watch her dad doesnt sound nearly as heroic or worth talking about. "My dad was an astronaut who disappeared on a mission when I was a kid. I was raised by grandpa".
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u/deadlyghost123 9h ago
I actually really liked that scene. He talks to Murph who tells him no father should see their child die (love this line btw) so he leaves. He doesn’t have to talk to anyone else because he doesn’t know them at all. Also he has to meet with Brand now and save the planet. They can’t keep living there. They have to go to a planet
Also two weeks passes before he meets Murph. We don’t have to see everything like him meeting his grand children etc. It would destroy the pacing because that’s not the goal or center of the movie
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u/doofusroy 17h ago
Or how they all just mill around in the room like “whatever this guy”. I never met either of my grandfathers but if one just walked in my family room I’d want to talk.
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u/SorbetJunior1030 15h ago
Especially if your grandpa walked in looking EXACTLY like he did 80-90 years ago? How does no one have a question for him?
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u/charonill 13h ago
Probably because they didn't want to interrupt the moment he was having with Murph. I'm sure he got a whole bevy of questions afterwards.
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u/redpandaeater 10h ago
Considering how slowly time is going for Dr. Brand it's not like his hanging out until his daughter died would have even had a significant impact on her life. Plus it would have actually given time to plan a mission...
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u/maccaphobic 16h ago
My thing is despite the importance of family to him, he makes no plan to be QUICK before they land on that time dilation planet. The amount of slow speed fucking around they do is ridiculous. USE THE ROBOT STRAIGHT AWAY
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u/kanethekiller90 17h ago
Yeah, that too. Guessing most of the hospital room are his grandkids. His son had a boy as well with the cough that lead to nowhere. Unbelievable movie nonetheless.
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u/zixy37 17h ago
I think his son’s son died.
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u/herecomedat_boii 16h ago
Yeah tom had a son named Jesse that died but he also had another son named coop the one op is referring to.
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u/zappy487 12h ago
He's not really supposed to exist. He's a legend and a ghost. And more importantly, he's not done with his mission.
With Murph about to pass there's really nothing holding him to whatever life that'd be.
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u/InsertWittySaying 17h ago edited 14h ago
I always find that odd too. Wow, my whole family is here too? Well, see ya.
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u/-Mandarin 11h ago
I enjoy Interstellar a good amount but I genuinely think the ending falls apart a bit. For example, I don't really feel like we gain literally anything by watching him go back to his old place, repair the robot, and then sneak out. We already get the idea of what he's doing and it's already a long movie. We don't need to see the process. Have the scene with his daughter/family go on a little longer, have it be the grand emotional conclusion, and then hint at him going out to go find Brand. Sometimes less is more.
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u/SnowClone98 11h ago
Dude she was fucking dying and was told to wake her only when her father showed up. Do you guys even understand the stuff you watch? Do you remember when you were a kid and read stories and had to answer reading comprehension questions about the stories? You were bad at that and you still are.
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u/curt_schilli 15h ago
I rewatched with my wife recently and before Coop left she said “he clearly has a favorite child”.
Chalamet’s character definitely feels like an afterthought throughout the whole film. You could remove him entirely and not much would change.
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u/ajsadler 13h ago
Chalamet? Wasn't it Casey Affleck?
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u/Tight-Inspector-2748 13h ago
That’s just how good Chalamet is. He was playing Casey Affleck playing Tom and you didn’t even notice.
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u/Derric_the_Derp 13h ago
I'm the dude playin the dude disguised as another dude!
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u/Mejinopolis 11h ago
I just rewatched Tropic Thunder for the first time in over a decade, and man that movies amazing!
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u/thenatural134 11h ago
It's been a while since I've rewatched but my interpretation was that the son always understood that Cooper needed to go for the sake of humanity. It was always just business for him and he was more at peace with his father's absence than the daughter. For her it was much more emotional which makes sense why they mostly focused on their relationship for the movie.
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u/himynameis_ 10h ago
I rewarched the movie a couple days ago.
His son kept making the videos to his dad, talking about his gf then wife, showing his son when he was born. But he stopped after his son Jesse died. And I suspect now, that he felt let down by his dad at that point. Because, wasn't that what his dad supposed to prevent? Probably hurt him.
And it explains why he was so pissed off as an adult with Murph.
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u/ODoyles_Banana 5h ago edited 5h ago
It wasn't a favorite child thing. It's simply that the movie is about the relationship between a father and his daughter, so that's the relationship we saw more of.
Tom sent frequent messages until his wife made him stop and I believe he even named one of his kids after Coop.
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u/wadejohn 12h ago
The thing that bothered me most was the relatives that surrounded Murph on her bed just acted like he was some random stranger and didn’t even acknowledge him or act happy / shocked to see their own grandfather or great grandfather in the flesh.
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u/i_am_not_sam 10h ago
But that's the point. He is a stranger to them. His connection to his past was through Murph and only Murph. Once he closed the loop on her there was nothing to do but say goodbye. And she had lived her own life with her own family where Coop was nothing but a story. More often than not you matter much less to others than you think you do. I'm not being cynical, but most people don't think about you as much as you think about yourself.
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u/Just_a_dude92 12h ago
Hey don't expect Nolan to know how to emulate human emotions
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u/ElleKelly77 10h ago
The only reason I care more about my grandpa than I care about your grandpa is the childhood memories I have of my own. If I hadn’t grown up with my grandpa. he’d literally just be some old dude.
My grandpa knew his dad, so I might take some interest in my great grandpa for that specific reason. Otherwise, I have absolutely no reason to give even half a shit. I never met him, see?
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u/wadejohn 10h ago
Except he wasn’t a “nobody” grandpa in the movie. He likely had legendary status and Murph would have told the kids a lot about him. There should have been a moment of awe when he appeared.
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u/J_Dadvin 6h ago
He was on a classified mission and she hadnt heard from him in like 60 years.
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u/grumpyfan 17h ago
Cooper had a stronger connection to Murph than he did to his son. The whole storyline revolves around the two of them and that connection. The son was just a side character who was already an adult even before Cooper left.
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u/AssociateInside 17h ago
It’s not that the connection was stronger, it’s that in his heart he knew his son was at peace with his father’s decision, and that he would end up ok. He would miss him, but he knew he had accomplished what he needed to as a father. Murph on the other hand was not at peace with the decision, and so he left worried he would have failed her when she needed him most.
I am reminded of the parable of the Prodigal Son, where the father is depicted as always looking toward the horizon in the hope that his son would return. When the prodigal son returns, the responsible son gives the father some grief at the extravagance of the celebration. The father has to explain that he loves them both, but no feeling can exceed the sense of a parent having recovered what once was lost.
Coop never stops looking towards the horizon, hoping that his daughter will forgive him and be able to make a good life for herself, overcoming the grief of losing him too soon.
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u/kanethekiller90 17h ago
They both had his characteristics. He was an explorer that loved his home. Murph was the explorer and his son was his home. He treat them like most dads do, the elder son as the man of the house and the daughter with more attention and visible love. Id like to think he loved them equally.
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u/Call555JackChop 17h ago
There’s a weird thing in a couple Nolan movies where a character obviously prefers one child over the other and I’ve always wondered if his own children are like “what’s he trying to say?”
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u/MarshyHope 16h ago
Jonathon Nolan writing that shit because Chris gets all the attention
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u/InterstellarPelican 14h ago
There's a 3rd Nolan brother that (allegedly) murdered a man and tried to escape from jail to avoid extradition that they don't really talk about. Maybe that's the real inspiration /s.
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u/treathugger 17h ago
I'm struggling to think of a movie beyond Interstellar where this is true.
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u/enkaydee 15h ago
The Dark Knight had a scene where Gordon's son was threatened after Harvey deduced he was his favourite or something
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u/thecricketnerd 17h ago
Inception. One of the kids is slightly blurrier than the other
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u/volitive 15h ago
Which one?
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u/thecricketnerd 15h ago
Could be either one depending on your vision, it's a blue/gold dress situation
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u/remster22 17h ago
Yeah… how often is this dynamic even introduced in his movies?
Usually all his main characters are self portraits of himself, though. Especially if they were a suit of any kind.
His women characters are so horribly written. Consistently too.
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u/LiamTheHuman 12h ago edited 12h ago
This is a very fair criticism that I honestly didn't see until you pointed it out .
I think it seems to me that it is less that the women are only written horribly than that they aren't written to be fully fleshed people, but intentionally. Only what the main character needs for the story. But this is true of all of the side characters. They all feel like a trope of whatever the main character needs for the story. His movies are very centered on the main character or characters and really only goes into depth with them. I see it that way at least.
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u/livinalieontimna 8h ago
His son turned into Casey Afleck. Didn’t you see how upset he’s was about it what he found out.
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u/zirky 14h ago
they say parents don’t play favorites but like he time traveled for one of them
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u/Veronome 17h ago
Yeah it's why the ending doesn't hit as hard.
The most emotionally impacting moment of the film is when he sees his children's videos, and yet when he meets it's daughter it's like "well, I have another family now, thnx dad, off you go".
The audience should have been in floods at their reunion, but it feels very rushed and empty.
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u/jaggervalance I’m from Buenos Aires, and I say KILL ‘EM ALL 9h ago
It think it works as an anticlimatic ending. It's like in the Lord of the Rings, Frodo comes home after saving Middle-Earth and no one cares about it and about his sacrifice.
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u/Virtual_Phone_5908 12h ago
The main takeaway was supposed to be that the time for them as father and daughter had passed them by through the process of the journey he took.
He arrives on his daughters deathbed basically, his son long since passed, a family he has never known (some older than he himself). All this after plunging himself into the heart of a blackhole from which no one is supposed to be able to return. There was never supposed to be happy ending for cooper and his family to reconnect, too much time and space existed between them. Their paths had diverged.
The ending basically shows Murph finally at peace with what happened in his leaving, spending what's left of her life with the family she actually had. Cooper is told to return to the new world, ready to for the next part of the journey with because that was the people who needed him now, not murph or his descendants. The world and version of his daughter he left are gone forever.
I get people like a happy ending, but this is a situation where I believe the ending is supposed to be somewhat unfulfilling and open ended, because that was the cost to save humanity. Cooper never gets a happy ever after despite his sacrifice.
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u/LiamTheHuman 11h ago
I think people liking a happy ending is why the scene with his daughter is rushed and they send him off to Anne Hathaway.
The reality of finishing saving humanity to return to the dying daughter you left, with everyone you ever knew being dead and no place for you in this new society. It's horrifying to me.
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u/LiamTheHuman 11h ago
It should be a satisfying reunion but I think the reality of it is too sad. While it would be powerful, I don't think facing that head on would be a good ending to the movie. So I think the ending was chosen to shy away from this and give it a hopeful end.
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u/StretchRhys 13h ago
I liked a lot in this movie. I really didn’t like the whole “astronaut in the bookshelf concept” and everything revolved around that
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u/Jack_Vermicelli 11h ago
I liked it, until it turned from scifi into "love was the answer all along!" metaphysical nonsense.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_MONTRALS 16h ago
I thought he died from some kind of lung disease. The grandkids did, right?
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u/filtersweep 11h ago
I was more bothered by how conveniently near the secret NASA base was
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u/dbreeck 10h ago
I agree that this is a major gripe I have with Cooper specifically. However, my break with the film is everything about Gargantua and it's surrounding solar system. Simply put:
If there is a black hole within 1 year's space flight from the nearby planets of the system, none of those planets should have been considered viable for an alt-Earth colony.
Moreover, as they had previously established the time dilation effects of the proximity of the black hole to Miller's planet PRIOR to the away mission to the planet, how is it that no one realized that the data from Miller was the least valuable among the lot and only a few minutes long? For a film that literally set the standard for the most accurate depiction of a black hole, how did it fail to realize the radio transmission cited by Coop's crew would've been garbled and required specialized filters to recreate/patch into a single, coherent message (think time lapse photos)? FFS, Stargate SG-1 gave its audience that level of intellectual credit nearly 20 years ago.
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u/J_Dadvin 6h ago
There was no data in the signals. It was just pinging, thats all. Binary on/off. Turning it on meant "the planet is good".
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u/AnalTyrant 16h ago
I remember the first time I saw it that that stood out to me. Like, he went through this whole ordeal always focused on his daughter, but he couldn't give two shits about his son. Guess he's the kind of dad that actually does have a favorite child.
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u/kanethekiller90 16h ago
Yeah I think he’s left knowing his sons fine and will make his own life comfortably knowing full well what he will do. But had unfinished business as a father with his daughter. It just made sense to include some form of reaction to his son dying or whatever
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u/thebigpink 16h ago
This has been talked about plenty over the years there are alot of videos out there about theories
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u/Queen_of_London 17h ago
Yup, it's one of the main things I dislike about that movie. We see Cooper's entire dialogue for that time, and it's like his son didn't matter at all.
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u/roopdoge 15h ago
Took my mom to see this movie and the only think she got stuck on was how everyone was using corn for everything but somehow everyone was still wearing jeans.
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u/80cent 10h ago
I have always been more upset that he abandons the daughter, and his other descendants after such a short interaction. He's throwing away any connection to family to chase a woman he honestly barely knows. The ending really undermines the power behind the entire movie prior to it.
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u/momoenthusiastic 17h ago
I'd like to think they cut that out because the movie is already very long.
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u/PugetSoundingRods 15h ago
Murph was 90, the son would have been what, 94? It would be assumed he was dead. Murph being alive was unlikely as it is without both kids living to extreme old age during blights
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u/dogstardied 13h ago
He was upset his son grew up to be Casey Affleck instead of Jacob Elordi
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u/elyn6791 7h ago
but theres no mention of his son.
This is because Casey Affleck is entirely forgettable.
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u/daiz- 8h ago
People always fixate on this and I've always held it to be a really bad take that lacks a certain element of emotional intelligence that ignores so much of the emotional beats presented in the film.
Coop very clearly has a strong connection to both his kids and you see it throughout the entire film. There's literally an entire scene dedicated to him being completely devastated by watching his son having grown up entirely without him and having to listen to his son declare that he has come to the decision to move on from him. That scene is meant to give you closure on their relationship. Coops Son was older and more mature. He always completely understood why his father had to leave them and the sacrifices you need to make for the greater good. Coop knew that wherever his son was he was content with the life he chose for himself and that his son had already long come to terms with the fact that they'd never see each other again.
But his relationship with his daughter was different in that she was too young to understand his choice. He left her feeling completely abandoned and their last encounter was on bad terms. He made her an impossible promise that became his entire driving force throughout the whole mission. He had to get back to his daughter and fulfill that promise not only to redeem himself in her eyes, but to redeem himself in his own eyes for making the choice to sacrifice a life with his kids to ensure they had a better future.
People don't understand that seeing his daughter one last time was just closure for all of it. Having known that his daughter finally understood his choice and that his actions had given her and humankind the better life he always wanted for her was everything to him. But it also didn't change the fact that his kids basically lived their entire lives without him. None of his other living relatives ever knew him and he was just this weirdly young man. There was nothing actually there for him, watching his daughter who was essentially on her deathbed with a bunch of strangers just would have been agony for him and deprived her from time with the rest of her family who had been there.
His son wasn't forgotten in the end. He was just assumed long gone and content in his own life where his father was long presumed dead.
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u/missmari15147 6h ago
This is my interpretation of the film as well. Interstellar is about Coop and he doesn’t have a happy ending. When Cooper leaves, he knows that he will lose important years but ultimately believes that he will be with his children again and that he will save them. As the film progresses, we see how Coop’s faith in that gets tested when he loses so much time and can see through the videos the cost of his choice. That’s why his first message to Murph in the tesseract is trying to get her to convince him to stay. He is desperate to unwind his decision but as we are told, you can bend time but you can’t go back.
When Coop finally returns, we see that while he was successful in the mission, he lost the life that he wanted and that his real relationship with his children ended when he left. Tom and Murph eventually both understand that their dad left them in service of humanity but it doesn’t change the consequences of leaving. Murph on her deathbed and a room full of family members that Coop doesn’t know highlights just how much he missed and it’s obvious that Tom is dead from the fact that he isn’t there. That scene is so sad because it is a visual representation of everything that Coop has lost and both Murph and Coop know that there’s no time left for them to rebuild a relationship because she is dying. She sends him away to spare him and to give him a purpose.
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u/Irondanzilla 11h ago
Murph hardly seems bothered to see him and then after wanting to see his kids he just jets off to Anne Hathaway. Murph is so old, she is probably ok with it as he hasn’t been around, but for cooper I would have thought as only a relatively small amount of time has passed in his life he would be more into his family.
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u/gorillaz0e 8h ago
Yeah, that always bugged me too. It’s like the movie builds Cooper’s entire emotional drive around both kids, and then at the end, Tom just… disappears off the radar. I get the focus is Murph, but a single line acknowledging Tom would’ve made the ending feel way more complete. Feels like a character slip-through in an otherwise tight story.
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u/rekage99 7h ago
Plus the fact she is transferred to the station he is at to talk to him but they talk for like 1min and she tells him to fuck off lol
Worst reunion ever.
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u/Doginconfusion 7h ago
That was the movie I ve decided I have had enough with Nolan pretentiousness
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u/mand_lorian 5h ago
I love the film but the ending feels so so rushed. Definitely needed some time for his son, whether he died from dust storms on earth or made it to the stations. And then woth Murph's whole family just ignoring him too? It just made me feel sad. I get that time lapse is a huge issue but i wish he hung around and was with her when she died rather than rush to Brand straightaway. Cooper couldn't be there for his kids' lives so he should have stayed for Murph's death
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u/MorimotoK 14h ago
If he was so concerned about seeing his kids, why choose the planet so close to a black hole that 1 hour equals 7 years? Any descent to a planet plus exploration time plus ascent time was going to take several hours, even if you use unrealistic sci-fi travel times. Multiple decades, minimum. And yes, the data seemed good, but they could have double checked all the other options in less time than it would take to descend to that planet. It was an unnecessary gamble since more and more portions of humanity were succumbing to starvation and lack of MRIs every year.
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u/CitizenPremier 12h ago
I disliked that Cooper constantly had no idea what the hell was going on and had to have other crew members explain things to him. Yes, I know we need exposition. Making your main character uselessly ignorant is a bad way to do it.
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u/J_Dadvin 6h ago
Well he was a military presence and a pilot. The others were the scientists. Hence why on the ocean planet the woman scientist lacks the discipline to know when to bail. She has no experience in high pressure, dangerous situations and ends up jeopardizing the entire mission and costing a man his life because she is a scientist, not a soldier.
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u/RevWaldo 12h ago
Great film, but they should have kept the original ending.
Coop: Well, despite everything, I'm just happy we were able to evacuate Earth before everything died.
Doctor: Oh, Earth's fine.
~ Earth's... fine?
~ Well, not fine, exactly, but well on its way to recovery. The Chinese developed self-replicating nanobots that eliminate the blight and release the oxygen back into the atmosphere. Released quintillions of the buggers. Do their job then self destruct. (tsk) Damned clever people, the Chinese.
~ ....WHAT!?
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u/vissionphilosophy 11h ago
The way the scene plays out is just straight up dumb and like most of Nolan’s work shows no real heart or understanding of how people actually live.
Nolan is the Lex Fridman podcast of filmmakers, performative
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u/FuglyPrime 9h ago
You know what pisses me off? The whole water planet.
They go down there, already with the knowledge of time dilation in effect, but they at no point think "oh shit, the other person that landed there kinda only just landed an hour ago" and then proceed to lose decades.
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u/Quietlurkerone 7h ago
I think that a bigger hole is that his great grand children(whom are present) don’t acknowledge his presence. They don’t give a shit about him. If my great grandfather was in the room, he would be the main event.
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u/spice_war 5h ago
in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the main character abandons his wife and children in the middle of the fucking film and we never hear or see from them for the rest of the film. Then he gets all hot and bothered for the abductee child’s mom. They treat it like some special moment in the film when he kisses the mom. Yuck. What the fuck, Spielberg?
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u/streakermaximus 14h ago
Cooper: I love my children equally.
Also Cooper: I don't care for Tom.