So I’ve written some reflections on Arthur Melzer’s stunningly invigorating Philosophy Between the Lines. I confess I slighted Arthur’s message a bit to give my own very exoteric opinion.

The most invigorating movie I’ve seen in a while is Interstellar. It makes a magnificent contribution to Matthew McConaughey’s development of his persona as the very model of today’s American Southern Stoic. You might, if you want, compare his role of captain here with the captain — Marcus Aurelius Schuyler — presented by Walker Percy in the second space odyssey in Lost in the Cosmos.

The film is a lot more impressive as a visual display of theoretical physics than as showing, through coherent character development, deep truths about human nature. The dialogue is often too “philosophical” to be credible (Percy sometimes makes that artistic error, too). But it does cause us to reflect some about what we know about the limits of evolutionary theory. More soon.

For now, I will say the film is excellent propaganda for the reinvigoration of NASA. We really were (especially some of us) born for adventure. It’s natural for us wondering and wandering beings to turn our eyes to the skies. Not only that, it might be quasi-inevitable that we end up trashing this planet, and so we better have a backup plan.

I also appreciate the film’s insight that if it turns out that there really are aliens out there, they will be really advanced members of our species.

UPDATE from the genius threader Christopher Wolfe:

The first thing I thought of when I watched “Interstellar” was “Lost in the Cosmos.” It seems to me that this movie pits a variety of different “scientists” against each other. The Matt Damon character is a sort of Darwinian reductivist, and is shown to be an incredibly cold, lonely loser by the end. Anne Hathaway at first acts like she’s all about science, but it turns out that she’s all about “love” transcending the universe and is even willing to jeopardize the mission to reconnect with an old flame. Those two characters remind me of the pair of scientists from Los Alamos in “Lost in the Cosmos” who witness the Indian ritual.
Then there’s then there’s the McConaughey character, who comes to realize even more and more as the film goes on that the his love for his daughter is more important than getting help from aliens who could save earth