That was answered by Dr Mann directly when he said "We can't send robots on these missions because they don't improvise well because they don't fear death" or something along those lines.
Interstellar | SPOILERS! | Keep out unless you've seen it
- Thread starter okLaptop1
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Mann mentions that they sent humans as they needed the "survival instinct" in the pioneers, given they only had one shot at each planet. And they did bring robots as well - Mann had Kipp. On the videos point - Romilly mentions that they can now only receive data through the wormhole (i.e. the videos), they can't transmit it.
For the most part, the plot holes people bring up are actually answered within the film. That or they just can't take the ending because it relies too heavily on heavily speculative physics (Kip Thorne admits as much himself). The only one (that I can think of right now at any rate) that I see any merit in is of how the watch stores the binary data from Coop even after it's removed from the bedroom.
Aye, but they also don't try to kill the other Astronauts, make end-of-the-world affecting decisions based on where their lover happens to be, get all emotional and make decisions based on how long until they see their daughters, or spazz-out at the sight of a giant wave.
I'd take that over a lack of improvisation and fear of death.
I'd have thought that only accounts for when the watch is next to the tesseract though, which is only when it's in the bedroom. Murph is seen observing the twitch back at NASA. Only thing I can think of is the watch gets permanently buggered after having been repeating the movements for so long.
That's why the scene worked for me. For a scientist to believe that (or at least try to believe it) was the point. It was one of the core themes in the film, definitely wasn't out of place.
It can't echo if time is relative, as it would only have been sent the one time, and then apparently "went dead" (suggesting the "echo" was coming directly from the ship until it was destroyed)...and even if it did echo, it'd just be the same signal repeating over. Don't try and justify this film's inept stupidity. It's not a battle that you can win.
It's not even a plot hole though
There is literally no problem with that particular part. All of the points you made are explainable.
Ignore him he probably hasn't even studied quantum mechanics the fool. He's a being of 1 dimension.It's not even a plot hole though
There is literally no problem with that particular part. All of the points you made are explainable.
So then park another ship outside the wormhole, transmit to that and then fly it through the wormhole to send the message?
The explanation for not sending robots is also flimsy when you compare it the plethora of possible downsides to sending humans instead.
Just because some character offers some daft explanation in the film I still consider them plot holes to be honest, but fair enough if you don't. It's just a sci-fi film, and I enjoyed it, so the plot holes (or weak story, whatever you wanna call it) doesn't really bother me.
Of course it's a plot hole. The transmission "suddenly stopped", but then later apparently was an echo, which means it wouldn't have stopped...unless it wasn't an echo and was just a repeating transmission, which it can't be if the ship was only there for a few minutes before getting destroyed. It's a very obvious plot hole.It's not even a plot hole though
There is literally no problem with that particular part. All of the points you made are explainable.
Along with the idea that a bunch of genius scientists could work out that 1 hour equates to 7 years on the planet's surface, but then be too fecking dumb to apply that to the ship that was already on the planet until after they'd made the extremely stupid decision to go and find it.
I would like to see you explain them. It'd be an amusing read.
Ok it seems that noodlehair is actually right.
"I think my biggest gripe with this moment is that, compared to the other signal from Mann's world, there would be only a snippet of information from Miller's world. I estimate that Miller was only on the world for about 26 minutes (3 years time for Earth) before Coop's team arrived. 26 minutes of data stream on a world where it could take light up to an hour of earthtime for the singal to exit the dilation effect before hitting the relay by the wormhole. Mann's beacon was transmitting for years."
A response to that
"
While they were all geniuses, they fully realized this only after escaping the the planet. Sure they knew the effects time dilation would have on them, but in their eagerness and excitement they overlooked the way time dilation was affecting Miller. I thought it was pretty apparent that this was the case.
I think there was a line once they got back on the Endurance that the constant positive ping from Miller's planet was just being echoed showing that they didn't realize it before they went down. This was around when they realized that they would have only received a few minutes of data. These realizations were all made AFTER the trip down and it was apparent that they knew they had fudged up.
These people weren't infallible or exempt from emotional decision making (a big theme in the entire film). They saw the first planet with a positive ping and were eager to go down. Even on the planet they thought the big wave in the distance was a mountain, I thought it was a wave at first myself until they said it was a mountain."
http://www.reddit.com/r/interstellar/comments/2lsclu/spoilers_the_miller_planet_the_biggest_logical/
"I think my biggest gripe with this moment is that, compared to the other signal from Mann's world, there would be only a snippet of information from Miller's world. I estimate that Miller was only on the world for about 26 minutes (3 years time for Earth) before Coop's team arrived. 26 minutes of data stream on a world where it could take light up to an hour of earthtime for the singal to exit the dilation effect before hitting the relay by the wormhole. Mann's beacon was transmitting for years."
A response to that
"
While they were all geniuses, they fully realized this only after escaping the the planet. Sure they knew the effects time dilation would have on them, but in their eagerness and excitement they overlooked the way time dilation was affecting Miller. I thought it was pretty apparent that this was the case.
I think there was a line once they got back on the Endurance that the constant positive ping from Miller's planet was just being echoed showing that they didn't realize it before they went down. This was around when they realized that they would have only received a few minutes of data. These realizations were all made AFTER the trip down and it was apparent that they knew they had fudged up.
These people weren't infallible or exempt from emotional decision making (a big theme in the entire film). They saw the first planet with a positive ping and were eager to go down. Even on the planet they thought the big wave in the distance was a mountain, I thought it was a wave at first myself until they said it was a mountain."
http://www.reddit.com/r/interstellar/comments/2lsclu/spoilers_the_miller_planet_the_biggest_logical/
Fuel is too limited to be sending ships on errands like that, and they weren't aware of the problem until they were well through the wormhole. These things happen in space travel, you have to adapt to survive. And humans vs robots in space travel is another thing that has been discussed for decades without either side landing a decisive blow, but in a film about the need for humans to explore then it would be a damp squib if they got a bunch of robots to do it all for them. Plot holes are when something doesn't make logical sense, you seem to be taking issue more with the plot devices. Some were indeed highly contrived, for instance the whole 1 hour = 7 days thing was something demanded by Nolan that Thorne had to then sit down and work out how it could be physically possible (he managed to do so). The waves were another.
No one said that the transmission stopped, the transmission stopped on Edmunds not Miller.
The exact line is "The Data Doyle received was just the initial status, echoing endlessly" so they got the 'thumbs up' from Miller and went down to investigate...
It seems that the signals sent out were misread because they didn't realise the signals they were receiving were from when she had just landed there. And it also doesn't explain why Miller gave an ok signal to the planet while only being their for 26 minutes. And because of the 1 hour = 7 year thing, the people on the ship should have known that Miller wouldn't have had any real time to gather proper data about the planet.
Where are you getting that figure from out of interest?. Brand in the movie says she landed "hours ago".
As far as I can tell Millers "status" was that there was water there so they decided on the strength of that to go check it out. They never said she said that it was all good down there just that there was water IIRC.
Yeah, so they worked out that for every hour they were on the planet it'd equate to 7 years (or whatever it was)...but then didn't think to apply that to the ship they were going to find, until after they found it and had spent some time being confused. This requires you to believe that they are all quite incredibly thick, in a film that portrays them as geniuses
If it only got sent out the once why would it "suddenly stop"?
If it was being sent out repeatedly, why wouldn't they see it was the same reading and realise that it stopping meant something bad must have happened, and known it must have happened fairly soon after the ship arriving?
The space station was meant to take people once they'd found a suitable new planet...it'd be dumb taking the entire remainder of the human race to somewhere that you don't know where it is or whether it even exists yet...but then it didn't matter because they just built some settlements in the middle of nowhere and could survive perfectly fine on them for A HUNDRED FECKING YEARS.
It explains it in the way the film tried to. Except they wouldn't have known when she would have got there, or that she even went there, because only her and the guy who went into the black hole knew where she'd that she'd gone, or how long in relative time it would have taken her...Unless all that was somehow morse coded into the watch as well? By that point though the film was too far into sillyville for it to matter.
Yes that's what it was, but when you think about it, it's incredibly dumb. Dumb enough to put you off Sci Fi forever.
They mention that the planet is closer than they previously thought resulting in the time dilation. They did not know about that till they crossed the worm hole.
I just crunched some numbers mate.
Well I also saw it on reddit - "I estimate that Miller was only on the world for about 26 minutes (3 years time for Earth) before Coop's team arrived."
Fair enough. I don't agree that they were all geniuses though. Cooper was a pilot, Brand was a biologist I think and Doyle a geologist or something like that. Only Romilly was a physicist. I would only really consider him a "genius". Even then that would be overstating I think and a total guess.
That line only got trotted out after they'd got back from the planet! Yet before hand they decided they had enough positive data to prioritise it over the other two planets.
Maybe the film should have been called Morons in Space?
Yeah I think you are actually right about the stuff on Millers planets. That is a plot hole or they are just stupid astronauts.
They didn't know where the woman astronaut had went so I guess they were forced to just stay on those space stations until they received some information (McCaughnahey when he was found). But yes considering in the start of the film the old man was saying that corn would die soon and go save your children etc...I'm not sure what they were eating for those 100 years.
Perhaps as he was shown to be a liar in the film he exaggerated how soon the corn crop would die out but that's a bit far out....
No Cooper and Brand were in the ranger still on the planet, right after Doyle got swept away by the wave.
They prioritised it because it was closest to the wormhole and had water on it.
It was prioritized because it was closest and it had water and organics on it, which given the state of the planet, 26 minutes was enough time to get that data.
It didn't take 100 years for them to figure out the equation though. It was closer to 30 (roughly) as Murph was around 40 when she solved the equation.
100 years was the time took for him to reunite with her on Cooper Station.
Yeah I know. But what were they growing on the space station?? Surely the corn would have failed by then. Or maybe the blight only effected crops on earth.
They'd have been aware of the problem once the first ship went through the wormhole though. Yeah the plot devices or whatever you want to call it, were a bit daft, but I still enjoyed it.
Yes it did.
I imagine they were able to grow stuff on the space station without the blight.
As far as I understood it running out of oxygen was the bigger concern, I think I remember a line about suffocation?
In that case the only real plot hole might be them not accounting for how long Miller was on the planet when they went in. Which you can just blame on Romilly not carrying over the 1 in his calculation. Which would be classic Romilly.
Cant remember any concerns about oxygen but you may be right.
Dunno why it keeps getting said that Miller's data stopped, it didn't, that was Edmunds' and it was one of the reasons they didn't go there in the first place.
The oxygen situation was one thing Thorne said was overplayed in the film, from his conversations with biologists and climatologists the blight's effect on our ability to breathe would've been negligible, plus we've always got a ready supply of backup oxygen as long as we're willing to sacrifice some water to get it. The main problem was the blight disease, which is no doubt far easier to guard against in an artificial atmosphere outside of Earth. And the reason they left Earth without knowing about Brand's status was that the alternative was death. As Eddie Izzard would say, when the choice is cake or death...you'll probably pick the cake.
My god, is there really any need for all this discussion about how scientifically accurate it is? It's a film for entertainment purposes, not an educational documentary! If the tiny holes in the science behind it stops you from enjoying a film then you need to get over yourself. I don't know how accurate it was, and it doesn't matter. It looked awesome, sounded awesome and, in my opinion, was very entertaining. You might not have liked it, but, technically, it is, undeniably, an excellent piece of cinema. If there are problems with it, they certainly aren't that it is scientifically inaccurate, because it really isn't a big deal whether it is or not. If anyone else had done this film I guarantee it wouldn't have all this scrutiny around it.
Oh, and I thought Hathoway was actually quite good, as was all of the acting in my opinion.
Oh, and I thought Hathoway was actually quite good, as was all of the acting in my opinion.
Well said, man. Couldn't agree more.
Endlessly looking for plotholes is so unbelievably tiresome. I swear these guys must watch a film with a notepad thinking they're Colombo.
Grab some popcorn and try to relax for a second ffs. It's supposed to be entertainment, not a quiz.
Yeah she tends to be theatrical and oversell her lines in my opinion, but not in this film. The only part I would have recast was Damon; not because he wasn't good, but because an unknown actor wouldn't have telegraphed his heel turn so much.
Anyone else find the robots hilarious? They seemed to defy the laws of physics more than anything else with their ability to suddenly create extra "limbs" etc.
They were annoying alright. Relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. It really bothers me that such a hammy, pretentious load of overblown tosh is being talked up as a masterpiece. Nolan seems to have found this niche where he makes blockbusters that take themselves too seriously to be an enjoyable romp but not interesting or subtle enough to be a proper arthouse film. I don't think I'll bother watching his next one.
You'd think he's made a glorified version of sharknado reading this thread...
Well, Sharknado was more believable...
Well, it is a science fiction film after all. Looking for things that aren't possible is a pretty pointless exercise in my book.
Especially when the things folks on the internet bring up as impossible have actually been worked out to be possible by a world-renown theoretical physicist. But hey, when's the internet ever wrong about something.