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Assignment 1 Rev1:

Yinong Sheng
Prof, Walden
UWRT-1104-006
October 10, 2015

Interstellar (movie, 2014)

Background information: The observations below include several consecutive scenes took place
in different locations, each scene contains the interaction between at least two major actors.
Readers of this note need to be aware of the movie is based on scientific imagination, instead of
mythology or fantasy. Also essential background knowledge will be provided in parentheses.
Time is formatted in actual movie time, for example, 1:30:30 represents one hour thirty minutes
and thirty seconds in the movie.

Definition of the terms


Literacy practices: Ways of communicating that are written and/or spoken

Artifacts: Physical obj, emotions, and ideas that have cultural significance within spec. figured
world/community of practice.
TARS: Coopers comment: A giant, sarcastic robot,
The military drone: The old days when resources are still abundant and

Actors: A significant person in observations that fulfills a spec. function/role in spec. community.
Other actors may be referred in the observations.
Cooper: a widowed father of two, former pilot, NASA astronaut and engineer. His tragic past and
unmatchable professional experience shaped him into the most powerful and moving character in
the movie.
Murph: Daughter of Cooper. Very talented in physics and astronomy. (Only her young version
will be discussed in the obs.)
Dr. John Brand.: Physicist works for NASA who devoted his lifetime working on the theoretical
machine that can save the human race.
TARS: Former marine corps combat support robot that redistributed to work for NASA. This
human-like robot adds a special humanity element into the movie that unfortunately will not be
covered in obs. 1.

Communities of practice:
NASA: Dr. Brand, Amelia, TARS, Cooper. All those actors are devoted to work on saving human
race from extinction. Although they have different purposes and duties in the whole project but
the same goal made them into an unbreakable community.
Cooper family: Cooper, Donald, Murph, Tom. A family consists of grandpa, dad, one daughter
and one son. These family members are united by Cooper's personal ability. (The balance
changed by Cooper's departure)

Figured world: A large social structure that has specific rules and conventions for appropriate
behavior.

Literacy practices: literacy practices are ways of communicating both written and
spoken, verbal and nonverbal (such as body language). These can include basic every day
practices such as writing emails, texting, etc. or more complex tasks such as manners and
politeness.

Parent-teacher conference: A complaint from school teacher to Cooper about Murph's behaviors
in school, or a collision between Cooper's value and the normal value of their figured world.

Observation 1:
0:01:20 Movie starts with Cooper dreams in a failed test flight. He wakes up, finds Murph is
looking at him against the door. She asks Cooper is he dreaming about the crash again, and
mentions I thought you are the ghost. Cooper urges her to go back to bed.
0:03:00 Switch to an interview on several old people narrate their observations on the deteriorate
natural environment, how dissertation starts to render the world unsustainable.
0:03:30 Switch scene to Cooper's family breakfast. Murph mentions the ghost once again and
mock by her brother Tom. Cooper tells her it might not be a ghost but she needs to be scientific
on the process of understanding the ghost.
0:05:00 On the way to school they encounter a flat tire, all the sudden (0:06:00) a drone flies by
and Cooper decides to chase it down.
0:10:00 Cooper, Tom, Murph arrive at school then Cooper goes to the parent-teacher conference.
Teachers ridicule about the drone on Cooper's truck, mention Tom would be a farmer in future
and not going to college. Their collision happens when teachers mention engineers are not as
useful as farmers, Apollo missions is just propaganda and wastefulness. Cooper controls himself
and exits with the reason of bringing Murph to a baseball game.

0:15:00 Cooper and Murph arrive at home and found out several books are on the floor with no
reason for it. Murph thinks there is a ghost keep pushing the books off the shelf and trying to
communicate through a code.
0:17:00 At the baseball game Cooper informs Tom that Tom is going to become a farmer instead
of going to college. As they are developing conversation while watching the game, a sand storm
hits and they have to return to home immediately.
0:19:30 They arrive at home and realize the window in Murphs room is not shut. After huge
amount of dust comes in and they shut off the window, Murph and Cooper observe some strange
phenomenon: dust lands on the ground in certain pattern and it may contain some info. A while
later, Cooper figures out the info is a coordinate in binary, he decides to go the location and find
out who is behind. Murph wants to go with him but was rejected.
0:20:40 Cooper finds out she hides on the car but decides to bring her anyway.
0:24:00 The night falls, they are stopped by some fences in front of a facility. Cooper tries to pry
the fence then suddenly take down by taser by someone. Murph hears someone says dont be
afraid then sees something and yells out. A moment later the truck is driven into the facility
behind the fences by the unknown "person".
0:25:00 Cooper wakes up inside the facility in front of a brick-like tall robot. The robot speaks
like a human and interrogates Cooper how did he finds this facility. Cooper refuses his question
and asks him where is Murph. Dr. Amelia Brand shows up (goes by Amelia below, not elder Dr.
Brand), asks the robot TARS to back down. Then explains the situation: they are inside a secret
NASA facility, Murph is fine, NASA operates underground due to public opposition, and they
need Coopers speciality as a pilot for their most important mission, exploring the promising
world on the other side of a wormhole nearby Jupiter.

0:27:00 Continued tour in the facility, elder Dr. Brand explains Plan A: understand the ability to
manipulate gravity hence lift and rescue everyone on earth, but the theory is just one last step
from reality. Amelia explains Plan B to Cooper: they will have a large number of frozen fertilized
human eggs on board the ship, if Plan A fails, everyone on earth will be abandoned but the
human race can be preserved in the other world. Dr. Brand promises Cooper he would solve the
gravity problem by the time Cooper returns from the other world.
0:35:00 Scene changes, Cooper and Murph return to home, Murph locks herself inside her room
and upset with Coopers upcoming mission.
0:36:00 Short conversation between Donald and Cooper, Cooper expresses his determination to
go for the mission.
0:37:30 Next morning Cooper tries to persuade Murph to let go. Murph shows him the ghost is
trying to say STAY. Cooper promises her he will come back, gives her one of a pair of
watches, tells her time will run differently between him and her during his space travel. Murph
realizes Cooper doesnt have a return plan through his expression, throws the watch away then
burst in tears. Cooper keeps saying Im coming back until the scene changes while leaving her.
0:40:00 Short farewell with Donald and Tom, then Cooper drives away in his truck, TARS
human like voice counts down Main engine starts in T minus 10, 9. in the background.
Murph runs out house tries to chase Cooper. Scene ends.

Observation 2:
0:42:00 The rocket with shuttle have just left earth. TARS talks jokes and tries to ease everyone
from the acceleration process: Everybody good? Plenty of slaves for my robot colony? Then
Doyle explains to Cooper that TARS has this feature to fit in better with people. As Cooper
talking to TARS, the shuttle has just finished its acceleration leaving earth.

0:44:00 Crew prepare to dock the shuttle to their main ship, Endurance. People on board start
recalling the people they care on earth since this mission will probably makes them never seen
another human again. Also Cooper makes an agreement that keeps 90% of honesty since TARS
reminds him absolute honesty will not work with human being.
0:45:00 The crew boards Endurance, starts accelerate towards Saturn, their destination will be
the wormhole that leads them to the other galaxy.
0:48:00 The crew receives the last transmission from earth before they enter the hibernation
during the way to Saturn. Dr. Brand recites a poem with some meaning behind it which will
matter later in the movie.
0:53:00 Cooper and Amelia goes over the visit plan for planets, Amelia stresses on the
importance of going to Edmunds planet. As the crew goes into hibernation one by one, Cooper
catches a chance to inquire TARS privately about the relation between Amelia and Edmunds,
although rejected by TARS for the reason of discretion settings, Cooper still able to see
through TARS and realize their relation.
0:55:00 Crew members wake up and found themselves arrived at Saturn. Romilly expresses his
feels to Cooper about how unsafe and lonely a man can be in space. Cooper lets Romilly listen to
a recording of nature sounds in a forest to relieves him.
1:00:00 The wormhole is just like a hole on the paper, but in three space it expands into a sphere.
Endurance starts entering the wormhole. The whole ship starts shaking at sounds it is
approaching the limit of breaking down. Inside the wormhole it looks like a tunnel made of
uneven, dense glass, the crew can see they are passing through galaxies by using the wormhole.
Cooper loss control of the ship and the ship just flies down the tunnel.
1:01:30 The ship is out of the tunnel and enters the distant solar system.

1:02:00 The crew discuss about the planets they are going to visit. Due to lack of resources,
consideration on time shifts, they decides to take the risk to visit Millers planet. Note: time shift
is one of the factors just like resources. When they approach the Gargantua, the black hole, time
slows down in their region which means when they spend one hour on Millers planet could be 7
years on Earth. If they dont save time on that planet, the people on earth are already dead by
then.
1:05:00 Cooper, Amelia, and Doyle departure from Endurance and head down to Millers planet.
Leaving Romilly behind for him to have time to observe the black hole and hopefully gain useful
data from it to help people on Earth.

Observation 3:
Note: the events happen on Earth parallel to the Endurance crew are abridged for readers to
understand easier.
2:00:00 An explosion intended by Mann occurs in Romillys base, while Amelia attempts to
contact Romilly with hope of his survival, TARS answers the radio and sadly confirms Romillys
death. Amelia is on board with Cooper and Cooper pilots the shuttle to pick up TARS from the
still burning base. Heading to the Endurance orbits the planet, they must reach the Endurance
before Mann seizes the control. Unfortunately Mann starts pushing to orbit few minutes before
them so he will reach the Endurance first no matter what.
2:02:00 Now Mann is pushing out of the atmosphere, while Amelia and Cooper still attempting
to persuade him to not dock on the Endurance. Since Mann doesnt know the docking procedure
of Endurance, he has to rely on the autopilot, which is disabled by TARS to prevent any intruder.
TARS has a huge amount of experience working with people so he has a human-like trust
setting that tells him to secure the Endurance.

2:04:00 With the mood mixed with nervous, excitement, anger, and more, Mann proceeds to
dock manually with overridden safe settings. Without proper safe settings and authorization, the
airlock will not seal perfectly, which will cause almost a guaranteed explosion.
2:07:00 Amelia tries to contact Mann again, persuades him not to dock(which is not to trigger the
explosion). With his highest go just a step away, Mann rejects her and continue to override more
safeties in order to dock.
2:07:30 Mann opens the airlock, and immediately causes explosion, not only killing him
instantly but also significantly damaging the Endurance.

Interview:

Q: Tell me about the world at the start of the movie, what is it looks like?
A: For some reason that the corps and vegetation in their world are no longer able to grown as
easy as our world do. It will bring the world into hunger. Also the desertification starts to affect
peoples daily life due to the lack of plantes.

Q: Give me an example of how human adapts to this world?


A: They still attempt to plant the crops, although at the end of the year they will usually harvest
nothing. Another detail is they set up the table with plates and cups upside down so the dirt wont
get into them.

Q: Discuss what is "The ghost"?

A: It is Cooper when he is in the tesseract inside the black hole. At that place he can send
information across time and location using gravity, such as pushing down objects from the shelf.

Q: What could Cooper done differently and how this will (or will not) change the world?
A: He might not join the mission, not leave Murph. End up with human extinct on earth. Who
knows will the rest of the crew create miracle without him?

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