Is Murph Interstellar's Superman?

I have already seen “Interstellar” twice and the more I analyse and over-analyse it, the more mind bending it appears to be. What looked like an unusually straight-forward story by Nolan’s standards is actually turning out to be a complex multi-layered narrative, closer to his style of story-telling.

While I can go on and on with the space-time concepts, gravitational time dilation and their role in the plot complexities which already have their fair share of discussions on various internet forums, I surprisingly saw virtually no discussion regarding a very subtle, what seem to be intentional parallels between 'Interstellar' and the Superman mythos as presented in 'Man of Steel (2013)', which again is a Nolan produced movie. The similarities are hidden in plain sight. Let’s have a look:

The Prologue:
The basic premise of the story: a dying planet and the need to colonize other worlds. Even the dialogues in both movies are subtly similar. Sample this:

Cooper: We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.
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Cooper: We've always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments. These moments when we dare to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known. We count these moments as our proudest achievements. But we lost all that. Or perhaps we've just forgotten that we are still pioneers. And we've barely begun. And that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, because our destiny lies above us.
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Lor-Em: Our energy reserves were exhausted. What would you have us do, El?
Jor-El: Look to the stars, like our ancestors did, for habitable worlds within reach. We can begin by using the old outposts.
Ro-Zar: Are you seriously suggesting that we evacuate the entire planet?
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Dr. Brand: We must confront the reality that nothing in our solar system can help us.
Cooper: Now you need to tell me what your plan is to save the world.
Dr. Brand: We're not meant to save the world. We're meant to leave it, and this is the mission you were trained for.

The Holy Trinity: Father, Son and the Holy Ghost:
Man of Steel had strong religious undertones to it and Superman was presented as a Jesus-like figure. There was allusion to the Holy Trinity in the form of Jor-El (Father), Kal-El/Superman (Son), and the consciousness of Jor-El as a hologram (The Holy Ghost). Jor-El even refers to his son as being a God to humans before putting him in the ship along with Codex.

Interstellar, on the other hand had Cooper (Father), Murph (Son) and the ghost in the bookshelf, again being Cooper himself (The Holy Ghost) completing the Trinity. While you might say that this set hardly qualifies since Murph is a female character, it would be interesting to know that in the original screenplay, Murph was a boy. Christopher changed the character to daughter to bring in that additional intensity to the emotional connection between the father and the daughter. Nevertheless, the way Murph's character has panned out during the course of the movie, she is no less than a son.

Murph saves humanity by building the huge spaceships using gravity, much like Superman saves the world by thwarting General Zod and destroying the gravity powered world engine.

Codex and Fertilized Embryos:
Baby Kal is sent to earth through the wormhole after infusing his cells with a genetic codex of the entire Kryptonian race, with the hope that those genes maybe used to recreate bloodlines in a new planet.

Similarly, fertilized embryos  are placed on Endurance to be taken to the habitable planets with the aim of kick-starting human population on them, in case earth cannot be salvaged.

Corn fields:

While the farmhouse and the farm in Interstellar immediately reminds you of the one from Signs, it has an obvious connection with Man of Steel again.
Jonathan Kent, Superman's adoptive father is a farmer by profession who has a farm just outside Smallville. In Man of Steel, there are many scenes on this farm which seems to have acres and acres of Corn being cultivated, much like Cooper's farm in Interstellar.
In fact production design used the experience from Man of Steel for all cornfield scenes in Interstellar. 

Saturn and its rings:

While the choice of showing Saturn in Interstellar has been peculiar (more on that below), it is the most obvious thing to do these days as Saturn is the most aesthetically pleasing planet with its rings and makes for a nice CGI shot.
Baby Kal-El's spacecraft carrying him from Krypton emerges from a wormhole near Saturn in Man of Steel. While this has no significance in the plot as such, this has a striking similarity with Interstellar, where a wormhole has been created artificially by higher beings near Saturn, to enable humans to travel to habitable worlds. It has been explained by Kip Thorne that the wormhole had been placed sufficiently away from earth to avoid its gravitational effects taking any toll on earth's orbit. But then they could have placed it near Jupiter as well. 

And one more similarity: Murph uses red blanket, an obvious nod to Superman's cape.

Footnote:
Why Saturn? To me, the answer seems to be more rooted in history than anything else. In Roman mythology, Saturn is the God of agriculture, founder of civilizations and of social order, and conformity - obvious references to the plight of Earth and the only solution. 
Not just that. Greek equivalent of Saturn is Cronus. For a brief period in classical mythology, Cronus was occasionally interpreted as Chronos, the personification of time - one of the important themes in Interstellar.
Saturn also provides visual symmetry on Earth side of the wormhole, to the Gargantua on the other side. 

Book Review: All You Need Is Kill (a.k.a Edge of Tomorrow)

How many times has it happened that our mind ponders over a past unpleasant situation trying to figure out ways we could have handled it better? How many times did we feel we should have had a reset button to make it right? Like a video game. Sounds fun! Well that’s exactly what Private Kiriya, protagonist of “All you need is kill”, gets when he embarks on his solo battle. But here’s a catch: The situation that he gets to reset is his own death on a battle field fighting against a formidable enemy which has landed on earth from another planet.

The central concept of the book is like any other alien sci-fi story. The aliens called “mimics” are organisms that have tough endoskeleton and deadly weapons. They have been sent on earth by an intelligent race in the hopes of terraforming it to make it their habitat. To encounter this threat, humans have developed their own metal suits called as ‘Jackets’ that enhance the physical strength of the human inside it and allow heavy weaponry to be used in the battles without slowing them down. Private Kiriya is one such soldier who is in his early twenties. The story is told from the point of view of Kiriya and it starts with him being dropped into the war zone for his first battle ever. The situation soon turns bloody as mimics out play the humans and Kiriya is killed in action. Within moments Kiriya finds himself waking up in his bunk bed on his base, approximately one day prior to the supposed operation. Assuming he may have seen a bad dream, he relives the day, only to have a feeling of Deja Vu. He dies again in the battle, wakes up again in his bed. He soon figures out that he is caught in some time loop which he cannot exit and has to experience his excruciating death in each loop. Doesn’t sound that fun now!

The narration focuses on how he uses the looping to his own advantage. He improvises and hones his skills in one single day, playing it over and over, like a video game. But unable to exit the loop he sees no end to his ordeal. Until he meets a decorated war hero, an American named Rita Vrataski, who can also loop just like him and knows how to exit it. As they both form a team against the mimics, they soon realize that it is not that easy to win the war and exit the loop. But I will not spoil all the fun by telling you how the book ends.

The story is fast paced and laced with dark humor. Hiroshi Sakurazaka, the author of the book kept the proceedings interesting and the story short. Considering how a time loop story device is prone to be boring, he has done a commendable job. Two thumbs up! And yes, “Edge of Tomorrow” is based on this book.

Ringa Ringa, Elizabeth Ekadashi

Weekend Watch: (All Marathi Movies)

1. Ringa Ringa: A mystery thriller that for most of its run-time appears to be a psychological tale. A very good story and some well-known actors make it an interesting watch. Upside: Short length, Downside: Unnecessary songs, some really bad editing.

My Rating: 6/10

2. Elizabeth Ekadashi: Watch this movie for some heartwarming performances by the junior cast. A light hearted tale of everyday hardships that a rural family goes through to make ends meet. It makes you feel that all is not lost, that the world is still a better place. All based on the teachings of "Sant Newton" and "Sant Einstein" :). I bet we never had come across an altogether different perspective of Newton's Laws before.

My Rating: 8/10.

Interstellar

This was the most awaited movie of the year, for me.

A brilliant work that at times fools you into believing that it is NOT a Nolan movie, till the third act, when all hell breaks loose and you see the familiar hectic cross-cutting, background score with a gradually increasing tempo and an enigmatic end. Surprisingly, my favourite characters from the movie are non-humans - the two robots: TARS and CASE. They are way better than HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Especially due to their Humor setting of 100% and Truth setting of 90%.

The plot seems to be simple yet multi-layered, probably due to the inherent complexities of the concepts of space/time travel and time dilation. But we must remember, that in the end this is a movie about father-daughter relationship and rest all are in a different dimension. Great concept, stunning visuals and well executed.

My Rating: 9/10

More dissection of the work to come soon.

Trivia: All the alphabets in robot names TARS and CASE can be used to spell - TESSERACT. Is it a co-incidence or my futile attempt to see a pattern where none exists? Can't help it, Nolan's work has that kind of effect on you.    

Gone Girl

Amazing screenplay, great direction and some of the best on screen performances by the lead cast to top it off. Don't miss it.

A slow, small town who-dun-it mystery reminiscent of Mystic River. The whole plot folds over itself after the interval. And that to me is the best part. Rosamund Pike takes everyone by surprise, especially in the last 30 min. She is terrific and terrifying at the same time. Ben Affleck seems to have got his grove back with Gone Baby Gone, The Town, Argo and now Gone Girl. Waiting to see how he dons the black cape.

My Rating: 9/10.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

In recent times, the definition of a summer blockbuster (Hollywood) has become synonymous with endless action sequences aided by CGI, a bunch of characters who refuse to die in otherwise life-threatening situations, and incoherent plot whose only objective is to induce those mindless action sequences every 10 minutes. Especially the super-hero movies. To top it, these movies have total disregard for human lives. As long as the heroes - and to some extent villains - survive till the last frame, nobody cares what happens to the extras or the environs that they occupy.

For instance - Avengers, Captain America - Winter Soldier, Man of Steel (at least Man of Steel had some plot). And the recent addition is the movie mentioned at the top. It really IS an "Age of Extinction" of smart movies, movies which count their audience to be intelligent beings. Will someone please stand up and create a movie worth its billing?!!

Mark Wahlberg’s talent is wasted in this movie. Such a shame.

My Rating for Transformers 4: 1.5/10.

Don't bother going to theaters. Wait for its TV premiere and give it a miss too to exact your revenge for such a sub-standard piece of work.