Does Interstellar visually convey something other than the space narrative that is seen throughout the movie? Does the film convey another story other than Cooper’s mission to find another habitable planet? Despite the movie’s centralization on a group of astronauts their journey through space, there is another subtopic that is impossible to ignore- the urgency of the environment’s worsening state. So, how does Nolan communicate this urgency to his viewers, while simultaneously providing a narrative about Cooper’s journey to save mankind? 

Nolan’s Structure of Interstellar: A Notion of Alarm and A Beacon of Hope

Nolan does not waste time trying to convey the deteriorating state of the environment. The film starts out with clips of elderly individuals discussing what life was like when the environment started getting worse, years ago when they were still on Earth. They each spoke of different experiences, like the blows of dirt in the area referencing the dust storms, or the habits they had to adapt to adjust the environment, like setting the plates upside down on the dining table so that they would not get dusty from the dust in the air. What did we think Nolan was trying to accomplish with setting the scene for the movie like this? With Interstellar being a space oriented narrative, Nolan could have easily begun the film diving straight into Cooper’s narrative and the space journey. Instead, however, he sets up Interstellar to convey the message that the environment was suffering at the beginning of the movie, and he wanted to communicate to viewers that this was the reason why Cooper was forced to explore. Because that was the state of the Earth for Cooper- a dystopia consisting of environmental deterioration. 

Arguably, however, he could have also begun the film with the elderly discussing the state of the environment when they were younger to prove that there is hope for a solution. The first individual speaking of their experience in the climate was the older version of Murph, implying to the reader that there was, in fact, a solution for the environmental collapse. Without giving away major spoilers, Nolan including the older version of Murph could perhaps be interpreted as a beacon of hope. Murph in her old state is a visual representation that the journey that Cooper sacrificed his life for was worth it since she survived, and that perhaps the efforts that humanity will make in reality will be worth it as well. 

Glimpses Into Problems, A Light Into Cures  

Nolan begins the film by giving viewers a glimpse into what Earth may be like, likely sooner than we think. Viewers are given an insight into what he believes will be the future of science to adapt to climate change conditions. When Cooper finally finds NASA’s secret base after finding the coordinates through the gravitational anomaly, he meets Dr. Brand, who discusses future environmental problems and their solutions, such as blight, a plant disease causing the failure of crops on Earth affecting crops such as weed and okra, leaving corn to be the only crop available but one that will cease to exist in due time. Dr. Brand additionally makes reference to how the increase in blight will lead to less oxygen. While Kip Thorne in his novel The Science of Interstellar discusses that this situation of blight affecting the Earth in reality as it does in the film is unlikely, the concept still successfully provides reference to how plant diseases that will emerge with climate change will have a drastically damaging effect on the agricultural system. 

Despite Nolan’s emphasis on an agricultural conflict, he still offers a glimpse into a possible cure for a future interstellar population. Anne Hathaway’s character, Brand, discusses the “population bomb,” a solution for continuing the population on another habitable planet without taking everyone from Earth. She explains that about 5,000 fertilized eggs at a light weight will be taken into the new planet, and with a well thought out plan and an expectation for surrogacy, the population will be exponential. Scientists in the modern day often discuss the problems that may arise when populating a new colony in the future, including genetic diversity, environmental adaptation, and limited resources, though the plan explained by Brand deals with genetic diversity by taking the genomes from the diverse population on Earth into the new colony itself, rather than starting reproduction on the new homogenous colony. Nolan successfully sheds light on issues that will arise in the near future as climate change progresses like agricultural failure, though simultaneously brings hope to issues like future population growth.