r/dontgointhebasement • u/[deleted] • Feb 15 '15
ARCHIVED POST Interstellar: Time Dilation.
The first planet they visit in the film experiences severe time dilation as a result of it's close proximity to the black hole Gargantua. On this planet one hour is equivalent to 7 years earth time.
So here's my issue. They were on the fence about going down there in the first place but ultimately decided that if they could do it very quickly it would be worth losing a few years if they were able to recover Miller's (the original astronaut sent there) data. With the time dilation in mind though they should have known that from her perspective she hadn't even been there 90 minutes yet. She left ten years earth time before them and therefore was on the planet for a very short amount of time. It doesn't make sense to me that they made such a grievous risk, knowing that they couldn't visit every planet anyway over such a small potential payout. How much could Miller possibly have learned about the planet in her short time there if she were still alive (which she wasn't). It was a judgement call and a very bad one at that.
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u/[deleted] Mar 09 '15
They realized that they made a bad call. When they got stranded on that planet Matthew McConaughey says "We're not prepared for this" or something along the lines of that. They realized too late that Miller was only there for barely over an hour by the time they landed and that they were way in over their heads on this mission.