If you haven’t already seen Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, I highly recommend it.
I’ll warn you though, the movie contains so many plot twists and moves so quickly that it was often hard for me to follow it. When I walked out of the theater, I felt exactly like I did after I watched Inception, one of Nolan’s other blockbusters. It was a really entertaining and visually stunning movie, but a decent amount of the plot was confusing. Interstellar clocks in at almost three hours, so there was certainly a lot of plot to keep up with.
Nevertheless, the movie raised fascinating questions about mankind’s place in the universe, the value of humanity, the value of family ties, and the future of the human race. I was inspired, saddened, and cheered, often all at the same time. One of the things I found interesting about this movie was its complete lack of any sort of government presence. On the brink of human extinction, the characters in the movie are wrestling with ethical questions about who to save and how to save them, and the only authoritative entity that makes an appearance is NASA – an organization that most people are not even aware still exists.
One of the film’s messages is that ultimately, our destiny is up to ourselves. Not government, not outside forces. Each decision that we make has infinite ramifications, not only for us, but for those we love. Unfortunately, Interstellar makes no mention of God or other divine forces, though several astronauts and scientists speak of a group of benevolent, mysterious beings from another dimension known only as “They.” Our destiny, it claims, is ours to craft. This view is problematic, but I did appreciate the implication that government is not ultimately what will save us.
See this movie review from PluggedIn if you’d like to find out more about the film before you go see it.
Hollywood, D.C. 
