I'm just going to go ahead and call it as I see it: the Interstellar trailer is the best of the year. Some are going to try to tell you that I'm wrong and that Guardians Of The Galaxy did it better, or that Transformers: Age Of Extinction had way more involved in its trailer than the latest peek into Christopher Nolan's mind ever has. Well I'm going to defiantly stand my ground and say that this is most likely going to be the best trailer we'll lay eyes on in this calendar year.
True to form, Nolan has given us a trailer that reveals just enough pieces of the story to start putting together what we should expect come November. But what are we really learning from the awe-inspiring visuals and the emotional beats that are laid here before us? Is there anything we're not being told outright that can be gleamed from the visuals in front of us?
Here are five things I noticed while watching this trailer on repeat for a good stretch of the afternoon.
Climate Change Is The Crisis At Hand
Previously, Interstellar was speculated to be a film about climate change ruining our agricultural infrastructure, spurring us on to venture into the stars. This suspicion was confirmed simply in the utterance of a line: "We ran out of food." Subsequent shots of crops on fire and massive dust storms show a second dust bowl ravaging the heartland of America. Though the sighting of an Indian surveillance drone, as well as the undertaking of such a momentous mission into space, suggest that the problem is more global, with other areas of the world keeping tabs on how everyone else is handling the situation.
The Story Is Built On Hard Science Fiction
The genesis of Interstellar's story was a lecture given by project consultant and astrophysicist Kip Thorne, which suggested time travel as being possible through usage of a wormhole. Wormholes aren't the only "hard" science fiction concepts we're exposed to with this trailer. Specifically, we see the crew entering a sort of suspended animation, as they are submerged in liquid and preserved in plastic sleeping bags. It's a safe bet to assume that these are cryogenic preservation units that, when sealed, will freeze their inhabitants until they are reanimated. We also see the design of the spaceship, which is that of a traditional aerodynamic craft at the center of a centrifugal mechanism. If true, this means that this would be the ship's primary means of gravitational generation – thus allowing them to walk around on the inside without floating aimlessly. Both of these concepts would be key to making an extended length journey, in a scientifically grounded world where faster-than-light travel is not used as a storytelling shortcut.
John Lithgow Likely Will Be Playing Matthew McConaughey's Father
A lot of the big name cast shows up in the trailer for Interstellar. We see Anne Hathaway in a space suit, we see Michael Caine excelling in yet another field that puts him at the forefront of experimental technology, and we see Jessica Chastain and Casey Affleck ominously putting out a crop fire. Someone we also saw in the trailer is award-winning actor, and fellow newbie to the Christopher Nolan company, John Lithgow. Not much has been said about his casting, but if you look closely in the trailer, you'll see that he's right there when Matthew McConaughey leaves his family to go off into space. He first appears in the frame behind his grandson, then appears again in a "blink and you'll miss him" moment where he holds Murphy (the daughter) back from running after her father.
Jessica Chastain And Casey Affleck Are Most Likely Playing Grown Versions Of The Children
Back to wormholes and time travel, we see two characters played by Jessica Chastain and Casey Affleck dealing with a particularly hostile blaze in a field of crops. Looking at the only frame of Ms. Chastain in the whole trailer, we see her with her hair up – much like the younger Murphy does in her pieces of the trailer. She even holds herself in a similar fashion to the young girl's presence. Considering they're both working on the same fire, in the same field, and Affleck's reveal comes close enough after the Murphy's Law gag, the evidence in front of us suggests that this will be a story told in flashbacks. Or, we could be seeing glimpses of them through Matthew McConaghey's perspective as he travels through the wormhole. After all, it's theorized that if you can survive travel through a wormhole, you'd be able to see the entirety of the future right in front of you.
This Is Christopher Nolan's Steven Spielberg Film
Interstellar is ultimately the story of a man trying to save his children by saving the world. Cooper mentions this as his greatest hangup about taking the mission, and we see that the tears he was crying in the initial teaser were that of a father who may have said goodbye to his children for the last time. The story was initially going to be a Steven Spielberg project, but was ultimately Christopher Nolan's project for the making. But between the rural setting, the close knit family with a parent missing, and the grand scientific voyage about to be embarked upon; you can tell that this story still has the feeling of a film Spielberg would have made. If that's the case, maybe we'll see Matthew McConaughey make good on his tearful promise that he'll return home.
Interstellar sets it course for the stars on November 7th, 2014, and the trailer is attached to Godzilla for your viewing pleasure.
