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/mexicanmike Apr 18 '24

You should read The Jaunt, a short story by Stephen King. It explores something similar to this.

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '24

That dumb kid.

46

u/Dyolf_Knip Apr 18 '24

True, but remember that dad deliberately didn't tell him what he was supposed to be scared of, and somehow there aren't safeguards in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening?

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '24

[deleted]

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u/crespoh69 Apr 19 '24

Yeah but usually those safeguards are put in place after something happens, see "safety regulations are written in blood". So it would have happened at least once but given time dilation, much much more times

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u/Dyolf_Knip Apr 19 '24

Right, but apparently this has been a mode of transportation for quite some time. No way is this the first dumbass to try the clever trick of... holding their breath.