English Digital Exhibit Main Menu Introduction Timeline A timeline of the ecohorror genre Interstellar Oryx and Crake: Climate Change Eco-Horror in Dystopian Fiction A drawing of the Crakers, the man-made super race created by Crake, dancing in the face of humanity's destruction at the hands of a violent plague. Dark Souls: An Overview A glance over the themes, ideas and potential complexities of Dark Souls as we analyze it through an climate change lens. The Last of Us An overview of the ecohorror themes of The Last of Us video games series (2013-now) and The Last of Us show (2023-now) The Day After Tomorrow Works Cited

Interstellar Introduction and Inspiration

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Cooper is a former NASA engineer who has been forced into living on a farm with his family. Earth is dying and low on natural resources, causing humanity to be on the brink of extinction. Cooper ends up selected to fly a mission through a wormhole to survey three planets that have been identified as potential habitats for humanity to escape to. The first planetary visit they make ends in a disaster. On the second planet, Dr. Mann, who had scouted the planet and indicated that it was inhabitable, had lied to survive. He tries to escape but gets himself killed in the process. Cooper ends up ejecting himself and robot TARS into the black hole they had been orbiting to save the last remaining scientist, Dr. Brand. Upon entering the black hole, Cooper finds himself in a tesseract that allows TARS to send the quantum data needed to propel humanity to safety in the NASA space station. In the end, Cooper awakens in the space station, and humanity is saved.

For director Christopher Nolan, the inspiration from Interstellar comes from several different sources. According to Carys Hertz, Nolan said, “The single biggest influence was 2001 [2001: A Space Odyssey] (Hertz 19).” Watching sci-fi films like this as a kid propped up Nolan’s dream to one day create something similar, perhaps of higher caliber. Watch 0:33-1:03 from Nolan's interview with CBS Mornings:

This shows the multi-faceted purpose of the film, as Nolan is trying to reveal something about human nature while entrancing the audience on a journey through the depths of space. Even though climate change is not explicitly mentioned in his quote, it makes a subtle presence in the phrase “mankind possibly having to leave the Earth one day.” We look to explore how the themes relating to human nature and climate change in Interstellar all connect to form a powerful ecohorror film.



 

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  1. Interstellar Aman Patel

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