"I'm drunk again."

Why? Is the reality (absence of alcohol) not to be endured without? I guess alcohol is the worst scourge of the humanity. I don't like to be drunk, it's a degrading state on the spiritual grades of a toddler. Alcohol is a nervous poison witch let nerve cells die, the brain recovers from obsessive consume only after years of abstinence. No way...

Too many of the ideas in the movie were taken from other movies, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Artificial Intelligence..

So it's good if you didn't watch those? I should check it out sometime.

Its a 'soft SF' picture that spends so much time masquerading as 'hard SF' that it fools you. The end was predictable from a soft SF perspective. That said, I liked it. It was more positive a message than Inception, and almost as interesting visually, though less truly thought provoking in the end. Much more accessible.

What's the difference between soft SF and hard SF?

Also, what was thought provoking about inception?

I thought it was great. Definitely a movie that you think about a lot for days after you see it. It actually enticed me to look into the theories relativity and time dilation, which pretty much made my brain melt.

Christopher Nolen doesnt direct bad movies.

@Yakoska, that's actually what bugged me about it initially. It spent the first 2 acts giving the impression of hard sci-fi, for Octavious that basically means sci-fi with a firm sci-fact base, then the black hole happens and it gets softer than... well you get the idea.

After coming out and reflecting on it as a soft sci-fi movie, I really enjoyed it. Sitting there in the theater expecting a hard sci-fi film, l wasn't exactly thrilled at the liberties taken in the final act. It did have a pretty good message though.

The thought occurs that a hard SF film about wormholes would be unbelievably dull :p

Octavious... for me the concept of "what is happiness?" in Inception was thought provoking, as was the exploration of "what is reality?" (Vs dream), and of course the interplay between both those ideas. Reality and Happiness.

There are good, interesting hard Sci-Fi books out there. Robert L Forward writes some interesting ones (imo). A hard SF film about wormholes could certainly use certain theories as facts, and probably create a compelling story as well. But since I am not a scientist, I couldn't tell you how :)

Spoilers ahead: the movie definitely got worse after it abandoned all pretense of hard scifi. Anne Hathaway's speech (about love being the only thing aside from gravity that transcends time and space) made me cringe, but the other characters' dismissive reaction made me think that maybe, just maybe, that theme wouldn't re-emerge later as a lazy Deus Ex Machina. I was able to reconcile the seemingly complete softness of the black hole sequence by reasoning that five-dimensional beings might very well exist and do silly stuff like make humans think love is more than a chemical impulse. Still, the ending was easily my least favorite part. I kinda wish Coop had just died in the black hole and Anne Hathaway restarted civilization with her fertilized egg pals, as that've involved a lot less immersion-breaking hocus pocus whilst still being pretty damn compelling.

I didn't mind that it was clearly derivative of 2001, not to mention a lot of Asimov's work (Nemesis comes to mind). I like seeing previously addressed ideas represented by new people. The wide shot of Saturn, with the ship slowly crossing in front of it, especially reminded me of 2001, music and all.

YOu thought it was derivative of Nemsis? Bahhh...I don't think so. 2001 of course -- but I liked that.

I enjoyed it, but I"m a sci-fi fan, both "hard" sci-fi and otherwise, so just enjoyed the whole thing conceptually. Definitely has a paradox problem...but I'm willing to overlook it. Wife and daughters...hated it. Which is not a surprise.

As for wishing Coop had just died in the black hole -- uhhh...the black hole was created by the civilization that survived because he went into the black hole....so him dying in it would be silly -- it wasn't a black hole, per se....it was a human construct, with a specific purpose, right?

Right, but it only needed to be a (five-dimensional?) human construct in order to explain how he used it to save everybody on earth. If everybody on earth died, per Michael Caine's pragmatic plan, the soft scifi would only have had to extend to the Time Lords nudging Coop towards the NASA base, and putting the worm hole in our solar system.

Not to say that soft scifi is inherently bad. With Interstellar, though, it felt clumsy.

As for it being derivative of Nemesis: means of FTL travel discovered, group of people venture away from solar system to save human race from impending doom, strong female scientist on earth labors to find a way to evacuate earth on her own since the renegades who left probably aren't coming back to help, most of the folks who left the solar system are unaware that they are abandoning earth to her doom as a last, desperate resort to preserve the human race. etc

Positively meh-worthy and painfully predictable (with one exception, see below), IMHO, overall. Although I really liked the earth-bound scenes (mostly the first act) - the extremely mundane depiction of human civilization in the decline was fascinating.

**** SPOILER AHEAD ****
I was also relieved that the robot did not give in to the temptation of all movie robots to exterminate the humans. Good God, that theme has been done to death already for 40 years. I kept waiting for it, and was quite relieved when I realized that it wasn't going to happen.

I thought it was mediocre, with a few cool scenes. 6.5/10.