re: The official Interstellar thread (spoilers)

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Maybe they felt he should leave before the wormhole closed.

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So, all this back and forth about the wormhole had me thinking, it really doesn't matter either way. Ultimately we believe the same ultimate ending. Cooper ends up with Brand. Murph's space station will find a way to Brand's planet. The ending result is the same. Even if the wormhole being closed creates a bigger problem for Cooper, I still believe he makes it. Either by intervention once again from the 5th dimension beings, the love connection he has with Brand, and/or finding another wormhole.

Hopefully this brings a little peace to some of you who are mad about the notion that the wormhole might be closed. After all, we all loved the movie. That's the most important thing, right?

bump
I just saw this last night, and wow, I thought it was great. MM did a good job, Anne Hathaway
was

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the love connection he has with Brand

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Why do people keep referring to this non-existent love connection? There was absolutely none of that in this movie. Maybe in the first script, but not in the actual movie

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Pretty weird and cool that it was only a few feet deep

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I think it might only have been temporarily that shallow due to the massive wave that was forming

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Perhaps there are always giant waves rolling across that face of that planet.

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There are

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There are

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Exactly, that was made clear when they deduced how Edmonds was likely wiped out minutes before they got there.

Saw this last night and I'm still trying to pick up the pieces and put my brain back together, but I loved this movie. I'm still trying to process everything so I don't have a lot to comment on right now, but I can say I was blown away how they were able to capture "time" in the tesseract(sp?) and its infinite structure. Then he starts playing with the actual fabric of spacetime and, well I don't have any words for just how awesome that was. I could have probably impregnated a man at that point.

I'm going to have to see this again, but I'm lacking in the badass home theater department so I'll have to go back to the theater.

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However, what do you believe was the intention of Cooper at the end of the movie? To just find a way to Brand or die?

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As I've mentioned throughout the thread, I don't think it's as black and white as "Find Brand or die."

One of thematic propositions of the film is that humanity is at its best when it casts itself into the unknown. Cooper's character represents this concept. As Donald mentioned numerous times throughout the film, Cooper never quite fit in with society. He was a dreamer and an explorer, and didn't want to merely subsist. The night before he left, Cooper was drinking a beer out on his porch with Donald, and said something to the effect of, ""Cause goin' out there was something I was born to do."

There was nothing left for him on Cooper Station, especially after he met with Murph. In fact, it was essentially the same scenario he was in while on Earth, represented by the facsimile of his house. Humanity was drifting along, simply surviving.

Cooper was going to leave irrespective of whatever Murph had told him. Murph didn't give him a death sentence - Cooper was a perfectly functional adult, and could obviously make his own decisions. If your grandmother is on her death bed and tells you to hike Everest, you're not suddenly conscripted to that action - that's a decision you'll make on your own. Cooper was going to leave regardless of what his daughter told him to do. Not only because it fits in with him as a character, but because this ties in to one of the greater themes of the film - exploring the unknown.

Cooper knew it was highly unlikely that he was going to find Brand, but again, that wasn't his singular purpose. His departure at the end was far more profound than "Find Brand." It was a visualization of one of the core themes of the film, and it was Cooper staying true to who he was and doing what he wanted to do. For Cooper, dying out in a corner of the galaxy would have been far more rewarding than dying in a hospital bed on Cooper Station.

And, ultimately, we don't know how far Cooper could have gotten. Remember, this is a human civilization that has fully realized AI and perfected cryostasis. TARS was in the back seat, and Cooper's seat could have easily retracted into a cryostasis chamber. Cooper could have drifted along for hundreds or thousands of lightyears in cryostasis, and could have told TARS to wake him if they closed in on anything meaningful.

In the end, Cooper was doing what he was going to do anyway, which ties in to one of the primary themes of the film and results in a thematically gratifying ending. The film felt the need to explicitly reveal to the audience Cooper's old age at the end - 124 years. We subsequently see Cooper's departure from humanity, and this satisfies one of the persistent literary motifs of the film.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light...