A couple of months ago I suggested that Guardians of the Galaxy deserved to be this generation’s Star Wars. In a similar vein, I think Interstellar wants to be this generation’s 2001. And, unlike some other movies I could name, Interstellar comes a lot closer to the mark. In large part because the homage goes beyond the hard sfnal aesthetics and the trippy ending, and into the theme of the movie; the fate of humanity as a species.
Whatever flaws this movie has (and it does have a few) it makes up for with an actual sense of wonder combined with an unapologetic pro-human point-of-view that seems to have been missing from SF of late. This is SF that is of a piece with Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke, and a whole generation of science fiction writers who blossomed between WWII and the Kennedy Assassination. This is SF that says, unironically, that humanity as a species is worth saving, and that our accomplishments outweigh our faults. This is SF that says that our science and technology are good things, and turning away from them leads toward destruction. This is SF that explicitly rages against the dying of the light.
Like the movie’s view of humanity, I think Interstellar’s accomplishments far outweigh its faults.