‘Interstellar’ explained: Who are the interdimensional beings?
Christopher Nolan doing existential sci-fi was never going to be a straightforward ride, with Interstellar incorporating the concept of the fifth dimension into its time and reality-bending narrative.
In order to safeguard humanity, Michael Caine’s Professor Brand works on plans to move Earth’s population to a new habitable planet through a wormhole, with the fifth-dimensional beings having conquered not just the notion of space but time as well. They exist beyond the levels of human comprehension in a place where time and space don’t operate independently of each other.
They were responsible for creating the wormhole near Saturn, which serves as the gateway to humanity’s next stage of existence. In one of the many paradoxical elements of Interstellar, it transpires that the fifth-dimensional entities are human beings who set their own existence into motion by handing science the means to flee a dying planet.
Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper realises they’re not aliens at all but people who’ve harnessed the knowledge and ability to manipulate time and space, lending an assist that allows him to send information through time to Jessica Chastain’s Murph, who solves an unsolvable equation to ensure the human race’s survival.
What is Interstellar about?
Interstellar is set in a near future that’s by no means far-fetched; a global crop blight and ensuing famine caused by ecocide has rendered Earth increasingly uninhabitable.
Scrambling to figure out a way to prevent another mass extinction event, Cooper and his team of researchers are sent on a dangerous journey through the wormhole and into the furthest reaches of the galaxy in an effort to determine which of three potential planets could be humanity’s next home.
What year is Interstellar set in?
The opening earthbound stretch of Interstellar unfolds in 2067, but due to Cooper and his team experiencing time differently depending on where they are in the cosmos, almost a century passes chronologically.
Thanks to the time dilation, 23 years have elapsed to place the crew’s return from the oceanic Miller’s planet, with Coop and Anne Hathaway’s Amelia Brand returning to the good ship endurance in 2090.
By the time Cooper reunites with an elderly Murph, he’s over 120 years old in real-time, with the story rounding out somewhere around the year 2156.
