Entertainment

'Interstellar' Isn't About Time Travel

by Alicia Lutes

Does the thought of time travel send you into an anxiety-induced downward spiral? Well then get ready to be sent into hyperdrive because Christopher Nolan has revealed that his latest, Interstellar, will deal with another sort of celestial travel: via wormholes. That's right: wormholes! Guess we know why The Interstellar trailer was so vague now, eh? Good luck thinking that life in this universe was ever really all that simple, ever again.

During an on-stage interview at Vegas' CinemaCon, Nolan explained that, though people had been speculating that the film was about time travel, it's actually about using wormholes as "celestial shortcuts" to the other, farther reaching portions of space that we'd otherwise never be able to travel to — something you might not have even realized was a thing. But apparently — or at least in hypothetical worlds like the movies — it might be possible. After all, Nolan has a noted theoretical physicist as one of his producers on the film, Kip Thorne. His job as producer has largely involved consulting on the science behind wormholes. And that's not all: they've also constructed spaceships instead of CGI-ing the film to life. Spaceships! Everything this man does is epic.

The director also stated that Matthew McConaughey's role in the film is that of an "everyman" — a sort of surrogate for the audience — which leads us to believe that there will be plenty of freaking out on his part. Because, if we're being frank for a minute, there is nothing alright, alright, alright about knowing that alien life on the other end of the universe could decide they want to invade earth and just pop into a wormhole and get here in seconds flat. (OK, maybe not seconds. Also... aliens. We know.) Hopefully one of the movie's other cast members — Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway (but not Matt Damon, it seems) — will calm him (read: us) down.

Image: Paramount Pictures/YouTube