I.
II.
III.
What follows is not an overstatement: terming the incomprehensibly vast canvas upon which [grandiose descriptions, use concrete examples] "space," is the understatement of the millennium. It is an understatement that betrays the parochialism of our vision. Even when gazing into the face of God, we can only see ourselves. "Space," we say, because we can only see that it is empty, that it the abyss incarnate. We look up to look in.
So this is the final frontier? A sprinkling of cold rocks and hot gas bobbing in dead, dark waters. The final frontier is just the shipwreck of its own singular, explosive beginning. The universe died the moment it was born. We're ashamed of our hopes for the final frontier, but we're unashamed of our ignorance.
If we're disappointed with space, it's because we're disappointed with ourselves.
We don't realize that the void above us is a pool of ink, waiting to be put to the pages of our humanity. The canvas overhead glistens with the oil of the lamp we can't see. The color of potential is charcoal.
IV.
Interstellar harnesses the overwhelming sensory prowess of modern film technology to restore our wonder at the cosmos. It makes us infants once again, infatuated with the promise of the world above.
The film is at once humbling and empowering, at once profoundly humanistic and staunchly anti-humanistic. It glorifies humanity in the same breath that it reduces it. It teeters at the edge of a triumphant Promethesianism and a humbled religiosity.
