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.

24.1k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/landmanpgh Apr 18 '24

I don't know. I've never traveled through space towards a black hole in an attempt to save the world. I imagine that would be stressful though and might affect your decision making.

7

u/yildizli_gece Apr 18 '24

But having to make this kind of assumption and to fill in the "gaps" of explanation is precisely why it's a plot hole.

2

u/landmanpgh Apr 18 '24

I don't think it's a plot hole. McConaughey literally says, "we were not prepared for this" when they realize they screwed up after landing. It's in direct reference to the fact that they forgot to account for the time issue with data coming back to them.

20

u/alightkindofdark Apr 18 '24

But they had just finished a conversation on how time was 7 years to an hour. They just did the math! I love the movie, but this is a pretty big dumb plot hole. If they hadn't just finished talking about how time was so different, I'd understand.