Neil deGrasse Tyson was pretty cool about it, but there are still plenty of people out there with a scientific bone to pick with Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, all of them, of course, professional astrophysicists and not college sophomores with a Twitter handle and many, many things to prove. But in a new interview with The Daily Beast, Nolan says not only does he not have time for that sort of nitpicking criticism, but that, half the time, his critics aren’t even nitpicking right:
“My films are always held to a weirdly high standard for those issues that isn’t applied to everybody else’s films—which I’m fine with. People are always accusing my films of having plot holes, and I’m very aware of the plot holes in my films and very aware of when people spot them, but they generally don’t.”
Nolan went on to address criticisms of Interstellar’s depiction of the physics of black holes and time dilation (a couple of which, it should be noted, have since been withdrawn):
“That’s completely accurate, so there’s no hole there at all. Those issues are all buttoned-up, and [theoretical physicist and Interstellar executive producer Kip Thorne] has a book on the science of the film about what’s real, and what’s speculation—because much of it is, of course, speculation. There have been a bunch of knee-jerk tweets by people who’ve only seen the film once, but to really take on the science of the film, you’re going to need to sit down with the film for a bit and probably also read Kip’s book. I know where we cheated in the way you have to cheat in movies, and I’ve made Kip aware of those things.”
So, in other words, if you didn’t like Interstellar, go see it again and then buy his executive producer’s book. Well played, Nolan. Well played.