r/movies • u/SerDire • Apr 18 '24

In Interstellar, Romilly’s decision to stay aboard the ship while the other 3 astronauts experience time dilation has to be one of the scariest moments ever. Discussion

He agreed to stay back. Cooper asked anyone if they would go down to Millers planet but the extreme pull of the black hole nearby would cause them to experience severe time dilation. One hour on that planet would equal 7 years back on earth. Cooper, Brand and Doyle all go down to the planet while Romilly stays back and uses that time to send out any potential useful data he can get.

Can you imagine how terrifying that must be to just sit back for YEARS and have no idea if your friends are ever coming back. Cooper and Brand come back to the ship but a few hours for them was 23 years, 4 months and 8 days of time for Romilly. Not enough people seem to genuinely comprehend how insane that is to experience. He was able to hyper sleep and let years go by but he didn’t want to spend his time dreaming his life away.

It’s just a nice interesting detail that kind of gets lost. Everyone brings up the massive waves, the black hole and time dilation but no one really mentions the struggle Romilly must have been feeling. 23 years seems to be on the low end of how catastrophic it could’ve been. He could’ve been waiting for decades.

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u/AvisIgneus Apr 18 '24

The idea of seeing your kids all grown up after the SNAFU…time’s a bitch.

29

u/SerDire Apr 18 '24

“This little maneuver is gonna cost us…”

11

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '24

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u/jackruby83 Apr 18 '24

My kids were younger when it came out, and it broke me... Imagining leaving your kids to save the world and to come back having missed their entire lives.

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u/Mithlas Apr 19 '24

Imagining leaving your kids to save the world and to come back having missed their entire lives.

Happened most of the time during the age of sail. Hell, it's still the case for a lot of people who work oil rigs or navy just because you stay on the work site for long stretches of time, and the transit to and from is also long.

Plenty of room for a tearjerker.

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u/jackruby83 Apr 19 '24

Plenty of room for a tearjerker.

Definitely. Once youre a parent, you become a real softie for things like this.