Interstellar - Chris Nolan's new film

Was interested to ses Nolan hit back about comments on the audio mix - I personally thought the cinema I was in was fucking it up, but no, it's intentionally muffled.

Lolan.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/17/interstellar-sound-christopher-nolan

But tbh I hate hans zimmer's scores for Nolan, same 3 notes, forever, yeah, brill. And being the sound artist that I have a BA in I would actually push them to the background rather than bring them to the fore, the 'I can't hear anyone the rockets are too noisy!!!!!' thing was pretty good though, added to the believe.

i'll be watching a bluray file and can mix the score with the sound effects and vocal audio anyway i want, hopefully. Although it won't matter when i'm just skimming through in search of nice cG bits.

I actually thought they'd forgot to turn the centre speaker on in the screen I was in.

  On 11/18/2014 at 3:07 AM, fenton said:

Was interested to ses Nolan hit back about comments on the audio mix - I personally thought the cinema I was in was fucking it up, but no, it's intentionally muffled.

 

Lolan.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/17/interstellar-sound-christopher-nolan

 

But tbh I hate hans zimmer's scores for Nolan, same 3 notes, forever, yeah, brill. And being the sound artist that I have a BA in I would actually push them to the background rather than bring them to the fore, the 'I can't hear anyone the rockets are too noisy!!!!!' thing was pretty good though, added to the believe.

 

ah so the voices where turned down on purpose? wtf

You could put it like that.

Still don't get how Cooper...

  On 11/18/2014 at 12:09 PM, jhonny said:

Still don't get how Cooper...

 

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comes out of the singularity thing and it's just floating near Saturn and someone pops by to pick him up. but I'm an r tard so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

  On 11/17/2014 at 11:05 PM, ThatSpanishGuy said:

There's been a lot of jokes on twitter lately about Nolan's tendency to over-explain everything and treat his audience like retards lol

While the over-exposition is annoying, the audience is really dumb. Having followed discussions on various TV shows and movies on the internet, it's clear that most people miss a lot of very obvious stuff. Is it due to them being too busy live posting on the internet while watching something or just don't have the attention-span to follow a plot-thread for over 30 mins, I don't know, but the fact remains they are dumb. I used to think that the audience isn't as stupid as Hollywood may think they are, but I've started to question if the professionals in the entertainment industry actually know what they are doing when dumbing it down. Hooray for the lowest common denominator!

  On 11/18/2014 at 3:07 AM, fenton said:

Was interested to ses Nolan hit back about comments on the audio mix - I personally thought the cinema I was in was fucking it up, but no, it's intentionally muffled.

 

Lolan.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/17/interstellar-sound-christopher-nolan

 

But tbh I hate hans zimmer's scores for Nolan, same 3 notes, forever, yeah, brill. And being the sound artist that I have a BA in I would actually push them to the background rather than bring them to the fore, the 'I can't hear anyone the rockets are too noisy!!!!!' thing was pretty good though, added to the believe.

Luckily the movies here are subtitled so didn't miss any dialogue, but there were a few scenes that the sfx and music overpowered the dialogue something fierce. Watching the last Batman movie also had some really loud scenes. That said, these latest popcorn flicks seem to go for the loudest soundmix anyways, for better or worse, since I happened to like how the seat rumbled for the take-off scene in Interstellar.

I also wonder if these sound mix issues with Nolan has to do with his somewhat luddite stance on technology. The billions of surround speakers in theaters today are there for a reason, to have the music and sfx away from the center channels, where the dialogue should come from. I guess Nolan would prefer his movies in stereo or quadraphonic at most.

  On 11/16/2014 at 6:51 PM, Squee said:

 

  On 11/16/2014 at 2:09 PM, Timothy Forward said:

Nolan's weakest film by a country mile imo. No desire to see it again

 

The last 30 minutes of Dark Knight Rises was fucking terrible. It takes first place. This one was pretty good. Nothing mindblowing. Just good fun.

 

Yeah that was poor, granted. A shame because I thought the rest of the film was actually pretty decent before it took the nosedive at the end

  On 11/17/2014 at 8:58 PM, Hoodie said:

the whole "we don't need engineers, we need farmers" thing is nonsense. engineers make your farming exponentially more efficient. we already have technology like this: http://qz.com/295936/toshibas-high-tech-grow-rooms-are-churning-out-lettuce-that-never-needs-washing/

 

i'm assuming if humans were technologically at the point where rockets were fuel efficient enough to break out of the gravitational pull of massive planets multiple times (as their shuttle did), engineers could figure out how to feed the planet. it doesn't help that nolan used a vague "blight" as the explanation for humanity starving. if it was something more concrete like "yeah, nuclear fallout is making all the plants die and all humans riddled with cancer, we need to get off this planet," i think i would've been more satisfied with that component of the plot because it would've seemed like a more insurmountable problem that would require leaving earth.

Putting the cheesy dialogue and hammy acting to one side, this really is what ruined the film for me. They are scientifically advanced enough to do the things they do in the film but they can't solve the crisis (whatever it is) with science. Doesn't make any sense at all. Synthetic biology? Moving away from mass cultivation that rapes the land and pours pollutants all over the place and having everybody turn their gardens into allotments instead? In this film instead of seeing the problem coming a mile off and doing something about it (which we are already doing today), humanity just keeps doing things wrong and keeps farming crops the same way until only one type of crop is able to grow? That's so far beyond stupid I don't even know what the fuck.

No idea why they use a massive rocket to get into space if the little ship they use later can take off from planets with more gravity than earth multiple times without any problems at all. Would have been stealthier too surely. Firing a massive rocket into space in the middle of the day if you're not even supposed to have a space program isn't very covert is it? Did nobody else on the supposedly really overly populated Earth notice? Really?

No idea why they even send humans in the first place if they have those awesome robots that can basically do everything humans can on the mission and more? That would have negated 100% of the relativity issue too? Send one or two to each planet, await recon results, send more with seeds and animals then send humans later. Simple.

Also why did the super intelligent future dudes that have transcended dimensions make the wormhole go to shit planets that have tsunamis every few hours? Are they retarded? Why did they make the wormhole next to Saturn even? That's not even one planet away from Earth for fuck's sake!

Added to all that, I thought Zimmer's score was pretty unmemorable. There's usually a tune or two I want to track down from him but nothing that really grabbed me here. So yeah, poor music, dubious sound design, a paper thin plot that's laughably bad if you think about it. It did look nice though, so I guess it deserves to get 7 or 8 out of 10 somehow. Was quietly looking forward to this film but it disappointed.

+1. Really liked the design

Nolan's films always has audio geeks flipping out about the dialogue being muffled and the music being too loud. If Hans is sitting for the mix, that would explain the music burying the dialogue. Most composers never feel their music is loud enough since they mainly see the story told through their score. I've rarely had a composer say the score was too loud. Or maybe Nolan feels that the dialogue isn't incredibly important for the plot in those scenes and just getting the sense of what they are saying is enough.

I felt the mix was lopsided at times, but not broken. I couldn't really make out Michael Cain's death bed dialogue, but I still got the gist. Mixing a film can be tricky in that you need clarity, but keeping it safe all the time makes for unexciting mix. I like it when the re-recording mixers take risks as it makes for a more interesting experience even if it bucks against tradition. Listening to the producers' qualms about every little mix decision just makes for boring mixes.

regarding modern cinemas and sound... i can't remember the last time i went to cinema without ear plugs. too fakn LOUD wtf?! am i the only one having problems with the loudness in cinemas?

ones-or twice i forgot to bring ear plugs so i used a toilet paper, used of course, for more lush experience

i mean, i really need my ears! also, one beethoven was quite enough

  On 11/18/2014 at 2:45 PM, Timothy Forward said:

 

No idea why they use a massive rocket to get into space if the little ship they use later can take off from planets with more gravity than earth multiple times without any problems at all. Would have been stealthier too surely. Firing a massive rocket into space in the middle of the day if you're not even supposed to have a space program isn't very covert is it? Did nobody else on the supposedly really overly populated Earth notice? Really?

 

No idea why they even send humans in the first place if they have those awesome robots that can basically do everything humans can on the mission and more? That would have negated 100% of the relativity issue too? Send one or two to each planet, await recon results, send more with seeds and animals then send humans later. Simple.

 

 

i didn't even think of these two... the second one is really damning. i know it was mentioned in the film that robots can't make complex decisions like humans can, but... frankly, that's bullshit. if the earth was on the edge of destruction, i'm sure you could gather all the best coders in the world and they'd crack ai in a couple of years, minimum. elon musk thinks we're only five or ten years away from ai being so advanced that it could potentially cause a worldwide disaster if it escaped into the internet: http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2mh8tn/elon_musks_deleted_edge_comment_from_yesterday_on/

but even worse than that is the crux of the film: moving all of humanity to another planet across galaxies next to a black hole, where you're not sure what grows, what exotic viruses exist, etc., just because your range of crops is slowly dying out and the soil is suffering from erosion, does not sound like a good idea to me. we might one day be able to reclaim the sahara with technology designed to turn back the clock on erosion. technology that we have already developed, mind you. there are definitely less drastic measures to be taken before we should decide to abandon earth. overall, it seems to me that christopher nolan doesn't understand the current state of technology and what our capabilities are. there's very little excuse for this other than laziness, considering that isaac asimov was making correct predictions about future technology in the 1950s.

basically this movie:

  On 11/18/2014 at 6:55 PM, Hoodie said:

elon musk thinks we're only five or ten years away from ai being so advanced that it could potentially cause a worldwide disaster if it escaped into the internet: http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2mh8tn/elon_musks_deleted_edge_comment_from_yesterday_on/

Really interesting discussion going on underneath the OP in there. I like the suggestion that adolescent AI could unwittingly be more destructive as it learns and plays in it's environment than mature AI may prove to be

Nice love story. Beautiful space imagery. Soundtrack way too loud during a few scenes.

After Gravity, my last cinematic experience which was severely fucking disappointing (mainly because of my high expectations), I went in with 0.00000000000000000 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 1010 10 1010 1 1 g-forces of expatiations.

So I was pleasantly surprised. I am not going to post an extensive review because I really don't feel the need to dissect (and piss on) a Hollywood experience because

A) 3 hours is really not enough to explain all the intricacies that are needed for exploring fucking space (+at the end it was really obvious that all the kids were dying because of the constant dust)

B) If it's truth you want, do not go see a fucking Hollywood movie (really guys,... really?? you're moping that Hollywood is not reality enough for you?? I laugh at you)

The visuals were just stunning. Really AAA+. Topnotch. The Blackhole was amazing to look at. The Wormhole travel was the fuckken bomb. Matt Damon getting blown to pieces was a nice treat as well.

Most people really don't like the McConaughesanse, but I found him compelling back in Contact (way, way back in 1997), and have liked him in True Detective. He was pretty much good to look at. Anne Hathaway wasn't so obnoxious, which was good. That black dude and that one other dude were nice additions. Sad to see them go, but exploring other planets ain't no picnick. The Robots were a great, fun addition as well. Some great jokes in there,, nothing to cheesy like in the Batman experience.

There were some plotholes, for sure, but what the fuck ever; it's not perfect, will never be perfect, and that's just fine by me.

Soundtrack was meh: I got really bored with those same notes over and over and over again. The sound were Matt Damon got blown to pieces (woohaa) was amazing; it really triggered an "OH SHIT" response, which I exclaimed in the cinema as well. The sound where Cooper dives in the wormhole was really something; deep, dark, invoking.

Why Saturn you ask? Saturn is a bomb ass planet, and has a lot of ties with astrology + portals 'n shit + have you seen the poles of that planet??? hexagonal beauties.

8/10

Would not watch again because i've already seen it.

dayum i walked straight in to them spoilers

Yeah, spoiler tags seem to be a dying art. People are getting less courteous in society as an whole i've noticed, walking their dogs off leash again, not picking up their dog shit in the little bags like they used to as often, not even thinking to bother to call their off leash dog back when it runs up to you and starts licking you or bothering to apologize if you look annoyed it's like they're upset that you didn't thank them for getting to share some space with their barking and shitting machine, not sharing the path with someone coming in the other direction. (just came back from a walk, so heh).

I hear you on the dogs thing. I walk/hike 4-5 days a week and have experienced this a lot this past summer. I get pretty focused on my breathing and pace, and having to make sure I'm not about to be attacked by a giant cute animal can sometimes be a disturbance. At the same time, I don't mind too much. It reminds me to keep an eye out for more dangerous wild animals like bears, coyotes, and the most evil of all. The Badger!

  On 11/20/2014 at 5:30 AM, cloud capture said:

I hear you on the dogs thing. I walk/hike 4-5 days a week and have experienced this a lot this past summer. I get pretty focused on my breathing and pace, and having to make sure I'm not about to be attacked by a giant cute animal can sometimes be a disturbance. At the same time, I don't mind too much. It reminds me to keep an eye out for more dangerous wild animals like bears, coyotes, and the most evil of all. The Badger!

Heh, it gets sweaty here, so i have to wipe my brow a lot to stop it from running onto my sunnies. I also use hankies because of my allergies. Consequently i do no want to have for the next however long of my walk, someone's pet jizz all over me. It's my personal space, i'm a gentlemanly fellow and nod or greet every passerby (this is something that they rarely respond to either) when hiking up the track, so respect my right not to have your dog near me (or the wildlife) whilst we're going about our own business.

It's funny the other day, some woman pulled me up because i mentioned that she needed to call her dog back and tried to charm me about how she'd just had her own dog die and her neighbour had lent her dog so she could walk it, and on and on, i think she was having some sort of moment, so i politely listened (ironic that generally no one says hi heh), but interjected to mention stuff like, i wrote in the previous post, especially the leash thing. Anyway, at the exact moment that i said that her dog ran to attack a magpie that had been standing off under some brush watching the proceedings. There is a family of magpies, mum, dad and the fledgling that generally are to be found at any time of day wandering around the leaf litter to either side of that part of the track, looking for grubs and things, or just frolicking in a familial way as baby makes it's cooing sound hoping for free tidbits. They are very relaxed as i pass, stopping to note my presence, or wondering why i'm doing one of their calls as a greeting.

Anyway, this fucking dog ran straight at the mother magpie. She was so shocked by the sudden assault that she nearly allowed herself to get snapped up by the dog's jaws.

The dog lady saw the exact same thing and did not bat an eyelid, in fact her sainted dog deserved a pat. I did not arc up at this, i'm a civil chap, but it did fill me with sadness, as this women proceeded to unload with whatever bullshit she needed to tell me for a further five minutes.

Another time, a couple of weeks ago near the crest of an incline a manic fox scrambled in a dash, head down, hackle positively erect, out of the long grass to the left of the track and down the other side into some scrub. Weird, i thought. I'm not a fan of foxes being an introduced species with an huge body count of natives behind it's jaws, and not particularly happy that they appear to be denning in my local area (they have only recently been penetrating into the inner suburbs of my city, over the past 2-3 years i have noticed them on evening promenades). Moments later an huge dog, it's shoulder height likely higher than my waist so a vast beast, bounded across the path obviously in pursuit of the fox. When it saw me it hesitated and dashed back from where it had come.

The track i wanted to take veered off down the hill, incidentally in the direction the fox had taken. After proceeding that way for a few minutes, i encounter the dog and, bashing it's way through the brush, and again when it catches site of me off it runs. This unattended thing has no owner with him, probably jumped his fence for a wander through the forest. I hope it doesn't attack some unsuspecting school child on his or her way home from school.

nwae, dogs

[Note: i like animals of all kinds, but when i have to choose between nature and pity sponges of the worthless, nature wins. I also find it abhorrent that in today's age, we in full knowledge of the nature (pack animal, in need of constant companionship) of this cool animal called a dog, would leave it idle and unloved most of the day, just so we can get some 'feels' for the half and hour that we choose to give a shit. It's a corruption of the selfless nature of the dog, which will end eventually.]

  On 11/16/2014 at 7:39 PM, autopilot said:

Chris Nolan movies usually don't work with repeat viewings (outside Insomnia & Memento). My reaction is always "this is enjoyable" while watching them, then a few days later when I really think about the events that transpire in the movie I go "wait, none of that made any sense."

  On 5/17/2014 at 8:31 PM, autopilot said:

it's a newer nolan film so it will be rife with spectacle and make no sense when you think about the plot a few days after you saw it

You're very consistent

even the date and the time almost match up

And consistent.

yeah that's better

  On 11/20/2014 at 3:28 AM, tauboo said:

dayum i walked straight in to them spoilers

Your own damn fault for coming to a thread about a movie that's been out for a couple of weeks.

Hey I didn't moan about it and I've seen the movie anyway