The “non-negotiable” piece of science Christopher Nolan had to change for ‘Interstellar’
More than most genres, sci-fi isn’t obligated to adhere rigidly to proven and indisputable scientific principles, but Christopher Nolan still sought to make Interstellar as authentic as possible despite its far-flung narrative.
The narrative crux of humanity being relocated to a different planet by choosing the best and brightest, packing them onto a spaceship, and shuttling them through a wormhole to their destination is hardly ripped from real life, but Nolan nonetheless went out of his way to stay as true to the facts as possible.
While there’s always an element of playing fast and loose with the physics in any expensive Hollywood production boasting A-list stars, spaceships, fictional planets, and spectacular cosmic vistas, theoretical physicist Kip Thorne was drafted in to lend his expertise and ensure that neither the screenplay nor set pieces deviated too far from the realms of what’s actually possible.
Obviously, Nolan is a filmmaker and not a scientist, so there’s an amount of creative and artistic licence applied. In conversation with Scientific American, Thorne recalled Nolan approaching him with the “non-negotiable” concept of his astronauts visiting a planet where one hour on the surface equates to seven years on Earth, which opened the doors to a heated debate.
“You know, Chris also considered travelling through space faster than the speed of light as ‘non-negotiable’ back then, and that’s something that was changed and is not in the final film,” Thorne explained. “He used that phrase in our brainstorms, but in the end, after in-depth discussions, he came around. We’d always find some way to make things work together, though, in this one instance of faster-than-light travel, I gave him a series of reasons why we were quite certain the laws of physics prevented it.”
The pair “went back-and-forth for several hours on and off over two weeks about it” until Nolan held his hands up and decided that arguing with a world-renowned physicist was going to be a losing battle. After that, Thorne revealed he “simply abandoned the idea of faster-than-light travel and moved in another direction.”
The Academy Award-winning Oppenheimer mastermind would have been well within his rights to point out that he was making a fictional motion picture that he was directing, producing, and co-writing. However, Nolan understood during his discussions with Throne that his conscious desire to ground Interstellar in as much real science as possible couldn’t be undercut by his creative impulses.
The science of Interstellar ended up becoming one of its biggest talking points among those in the know regarding its many intergalactic intricacies, something the average audience member wouldn’t even have been thinking about when they were so swept up in its visual majesty. For Thorne, travelling through space at a speed faster than light was a big no-no in his book, and Nolan ultimately agreed.
