One thing I cannot understand is... Sure, this movie was very "accurate", all these explanations can make sense, the calculations fit but.. why is nobody talking about the major obviously impossible/inconsistent problems in the plot?
INTERSTELLAR SPOILER BELOW
For example, how did he survive inside a black hole, how did he pass through the Schwarzschild radius with his simple spaceship, why was there no time dilation as he approached the black hole, why did his spaceship break down inside the black hole but he was able to eject with his simple spacesuit and survive, how did he realistically survive out in cold space (at the end, yes okay I know this is technically possible but still..)?
When I watched this movie, I saw a lot of problems that made me think "has a physicist ACTUALLY worked on this and said 'yes, this is accurate'?". And those certainly weren't the minor details like the time dilation on the planet, the structure of the black hole and the icy clouds on that one other planet.
Disclaimer: I enjoyed Interstellar a lot, it was a pretty good movie, although I felt that at times the director was pretty much screaming in my face: "SEE? WE ARE SO REALISTIC! LOOK THERE IS NO SOUND IN SPACE, AREN'T WE REALISTIC?" (sorry for caps lock but it's to provide emphasis)
The science was basically non-existing: controlling a distant device with gravitational waves? Which can only be controlled whenever it is in a specific room? Which stores the information transmitted and repeats it endlessly (otherwise, how is the daughter able to gather all information transmitted)? How long does he spend inside the black hole transmitting what must be like lots of information in morse code, by slowly pulling gravitational waves? Looks to me like several hours / days? What is the time dilation of getting into a black hole if getting into a planet gives you a 1 hour to 7 years ratio? Getting inside / outside a black hole, unharmed? What part of this is current physics domain?
More strange facts: the device in the black hole was supposedly man-made ("we are they"), by the men of the future. But the men of the future can only exist if this particular crisis is overcome. And this crisis can only be overcome if this device is in the black-hole. Granted that the man of the future controls the five dimensions, and thus time, but we currently do not, so we can not in any way survive this crisis. Which means the men of the future will never be, so they can not build the device to survive the crisis.
Just the very simple facts are maybe according to the current scientific knowledge (time dilation, gravity effects, I can even accept a worm-hole), but most of the movie is just an exercise on futility with a very high dose of emotions. Boring, slow and not enjoyable at all. The fact that they are pretending that this is a science-based movie makes it insulting. If you want to do a Hobbit, do it and I'll have a good time, but do not pretend it is based on any established science.
Gravity was a completely different sort of movie, so the comparison makes little sense. Gravity was about the here and now, things we understand and can convey rather easily. This movie explores some of the most strange edges of our current understanding in order to tell a story.
Also, did you miss all of the criticism of the physics in Gravity?
Yeah, Gravity was better, but it did not explore relativity. Its just plain hard to explain relativity, more so to make an actual movie out of it that will appeal to the general public.
possible for supermassive black holes up to a certain distance from the singularity. To my knowledge there's still the possibility of ring shaped singularities that could be passed through and we don't really know yet what would happen there. Unified quantum gravity theory needed first, so remains in the artistic freedom of the director.
* how did he pass through the Schwarzschild radius with his simple spaceship
Again the only question is whether the tidal forces would be too strong and a supermassive black hole does not have extremely strong forces at its event horizon.
* why was there no time dilation as he approached the black hole
I think there was. After returning from the closely orbiting planet they had a few decades such that he now was a bit younger than his daughter, after coming out of the black hole another 50-60 years have passed for the outside world. Granted though, as far as I understand GRT, actually entering a black hole takes literally forever from the point of view of the outside world (i.e. time breaks down completely), but again, we don't know what would happen with quantum gravity, so maybe the infinity would cancel out somehow if our theories were better.
* why did his spaceship break down inside the black hole but he was able to eject with his simple spacesuit and survive
Tidal forces act the stronger the more vertical distance from the gravitational center an object has in itself (i.e. the height of the object from the singularity's point of view). A spaceship is much larger than a human, so it will break down earlier.
* how did he realistically survive out in cold space (at the end, yes okay I know this is technically possible but still..)
You do have a few minutes in space - the coldness isn't actually a problem since nothing can transport heat in a vacuum. It's rather the pressure difference that will give you trouble, but there are some measures such as emptying your lungs that will give you more time.
INTERSTELLAR SPOILER BELOW
For example, how did he survive inside a black hole, how did he pass through the Schwarzschild radius with his simple spaceship, why was there no time dilation as he approached the black hole, why did his spaceship break down inside the black hole but he was able to eject with his simple spacesuit and survive, how did he realistically survive out in cold space (at the end, yes okay I know this is technically possible but still..)?
When I watched this movie, I saw a lot of problems that made me think "has a physicist ACTUALLY worked on this and said 'yes, this is accurate'?". And those certainly weren't the minor details like the time dilation on the planet, the structure of the black hole and the icy clouds on that one other planet.
Disclaimer: I enjoyed Interstellar a lot, it was a pretty good movie, although I felt that at times the director was pretty much screaming in my face: "SEE? WE ARE SO REALISTIC! LOOK THERE IS NO SOUND IN SPACE, AREN'T WE REALISTIC?" (sorry for caps lock but it's to provide emphasis)