Today is November 7, 2024, and it has been a little under an hour and a half since Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi masterpiece, Interstellar, made its debut.
Admittedly, that statement might leave you scratching your head a bit.
This is understandable because while Christopher Nolan is known for crafting captivating blockbusters, his penchant for playing with time can make his films somewhat challenging to grasp.
The film, starring Matthew McConaughey, is a prime example of how time manipulation can lead to some perplexing moments.
For enthusiasts of the movie, you know well that it didn’t actually premiere today, as you would barely have had the time to watch and then read about it.
However, I’m not referring to the movie’s release date in our conventional time—I’m speaking in Interstellar time. Stick with me on this.
As the film illustrates, when black holes and wormholes come into play, along with other science fiction elements, time becomes less linear and more unpredictable.
Take Miller’s Planet, for instance, the water-dominated world orbiting the black hole Gargantua where the Endurance crew lands; here, one hour equates to seven years on Earth.
Calculating the film’s release using that time scale shows it’s been approximately 1.43 hours (or 1 hour and 25.8 minutes) since we first met McConaughey’s character, Cooper.
If you’re skeptical or interested in delving into more calculations, a Screen Rant report analyzed the numbers back in August.
The breakdown: The number of hours in ten Earth years is 87,660 hours.
On Miller’s planet, one hour equals seven Earth years, which translates to 61,320 hours (7 X 365.25 X 24 = 61,320).
The hours elapsed on Miller’s planet = 10 years of Earth hours (87,660) / Earth hours per hour on Miller’s planet (61,320) = 1.429 hours = 1 hour and 25.8 minutes.
Thankfully, most of us will probably never have to deal with the time distortions that Cooper, Romilly, and the rest of the crew faced, but the contrast between the passage of time in the movie versus real life is undoubtedly a complex concept.
If you assert the film only premiered about an hour and a half ago, then it’s perfectly reasonable for you to still be baffled by it.
At least, that’s what we can remind ourselves.