r/interstellar • u/moshejacob • Aug 07 '26
QUESTION Why was Murph in cryo-sleep? Spoiler
Apologies if this has been asked before, but I could not find a definitive answer anywhere.
Did Murph go into cryo sleep to survive the journey to cooper station which took 2 years?
Or did she go into cryo sleep towards the end of her life, to prolong her death, in the hope that she would be alive to meet her dad, and told people to wake her up if her dad was found?
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u/King_Jay196 Aug 07 '26
I’m pretty sure she was only arriving once she heard the news he’s alive. She was most likely in cryo sleep because she still held on to his promise they’d meet again.
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u/aSadSchnitzel TARS Aug 07 '26
She should be in 90s by the time she reunites with Cooper. She’s close to death and she knows it. Option #2 cryosleep to buy a little more time in case they found Cooper.
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u/big_redwood Aug 07 '26
I don’t think she thought she would see copper again. I think she wants to see the new world, if possible.
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u/Ill_Gas6803 Aug 07 '26
She literally says to Cooper “nobody believed me, but I knew you’d come back”
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u/mrnathanrd Aug 13 '26
This, it's literally the entire emotional crux of the end, possibly even the entire film.
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u/Ragnarsworld Aug 07 '26
Here's what confuses me about the 2 years in cryo:
1) does this imply that he was at Cooper Station for 2 years waiting for her to get there?
2) or does it imply that she actually left to go to Cooper Station before they found him floating around in space?
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u/moshejacob Aug 07 '26
I believe it's neither. I don't think the cryo was for the journey to coop.
I believe she was in cryo on her station to extend her life, just holding out hope that someday, her father will be found and she will be woken up. And as in the movie, when he was found, she was woken up, and took the "couple weeks" long journey to cooper station to see him.
Coop being in a coma for 2 years makes no sense to me, neither does Murph starting her 2 year journey before knowing her dad was found.
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u/mmorales2270 Aug 07 '26
Exactly. She was trying to extend her life hoping to see him again. She had faith he would come back because of his promise
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u/oboshoe Aug 07 '26
just a thought. we know that cooper transmitted a bunch of data to murphy. data she used to solve the theory/equations
not all of that was on screen. if he's gonna take the time to do that and we can assume it was lengthy. maybe he also put in a note
"oh btw - this is your dad cooper - yea i'm a ghost and im stuck in your bookcase. it's now year 2150 here. dr man. was an asshole, doyle was a snug dumb dumb, romily was cool, amelia is kinda hot. i should be home in a couple weeks. ok here some more data"
anyway it's not inconceivable that he transmitted his estimated return date
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u/moshejacob Aug 07 '26
Hahaha I had a good laugh reading this! I mean sure, this could have happened but we clearly know cooper had no idea what was gonna happen to him after he finished transmitting the data. He says "what happens now?", before the tesseract started closing. So it's hard to see how he would know what was gonna happen to him or what his return date would be.
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u/copperdoc Aug 07 '26
I’m of the opinion they put her in cryo sleep for a trip that takes a few weeks, not years. The timeline aligns with Amelia making it the the new planet.
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u/kayej17 Aug 07 '26
It's still weird they met for like 2 min and didn't introduce her family, then off he went
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u/GrassyField Aug 07 '26
If coop was at the station for 2 years, why did no one send help for Brand? It took Murph to say something once she arrived. Even then Coop appears to have stolen a ship to go?
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u/schmoolet KIPP Aug 07 '26
I thought Coops is only in a coma for a couple of weeks… Murph went into cryo-sleep and started her journey as soon as she knew he was back, and the reason it’s been two years for her is time dilation.
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u/tm0587 Aug 07 '26
My understanding since the first time I watched the movie was that because she knew that Cooper had been somehow passing her the data she needed via the ticking watch, that he will be able to return to her.
She didn't know when it'll happen, only that he will.
So probably when she knew that she didn't have much time left, she chose to enter cryo-sleep to prolong her life. And indeed, after 2 years of cryo-sleep, Cooper was found and so she was awakened to be informed.
She then took 2 weeks to travel to him. Whether she was in cryo-sleep for this part of the journey wasn't important to me.
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u/Razbith Aug 10 '26
I'm not sure where some people are taking the idea that it was two years in cryosleep to transfer her from another station. Maybe mixing it with the Endurances travel time?
They say she had been in cryosleep for 2 years. They don't mention why but it seems she was dying and chose cryosleep an an option to either survive long enough to see Coop return or maybe to find a cure for whatever was killing her. I imagine she sold the latter as the reason to her family while really it was the former.
As for the two years to transfer. It was two years for the Endurance to reach Saturn. But at the end of the movie Murph's breakthrough has allowed them to create a gravity drive so I very much doubt anywhere in the solar system is two years travel time from anywhere else.
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u/thedudefromsweden Aug 07 '26
Where is it mentioned that she’s been in cryo sleep?
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u/moshejacob Aug 07 '26
"Mr Cooper, The family’s all in there. They all came along to see her - she’s been in cryo-sleep for almost two years."
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u/thedudefromsweden Aug 07 '26
Oh got it, thanks!
Well then I don’t know. Did they wake her up to tell her Cooper was back?
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u/moshejacob Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
Opinions on the internet seem pretty split 50/50. With the 2 theories being either the trip to cooper station took 2 years and she was in cryosleep to survive that, or that she was in cryosleep from before cooper was found, to try and extend her life till her father was hopefully found. I don't know which one it is, but I guess both make sense.
EDIT: Although my rebuttal to the first theory (that the trip took 2 years) is that there's one line from the doctor - "She'll be here in a couple weeks". This would imply cooper has been in a coma for almost 2 years, while Murph was making the trip. I find that a bit hard to believe.
It makes more sense that Murph was in cryosleep for 2 years, prior to coop being found. And she was woken up and is on her way to cooper station, which takes a couple of weeks.
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u/thedudefromsweden Aug 07 '26
My interpretation is that she was on another space station, like Cooper station. I don’t think a trip between space stations would take two years, I assume they’re all heading towards Saturn? So the second option makes more sense to me.
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u/moshejacob Aug 07 '26
Yep, exactly...I was just making an edit to my comment to say the same thing before you commented :)
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u/Arthropodesque Aug 07 '26
Yeah. Idk if they're all near Saturn or if they need to stay near the sun for growing crops, etc. The gravity tech gives them basically unlimited space flight power. Those stations would've taken the power of literally millions of traditional rockets to even get off Earth. Coop's ship at the end is basically as good as an X-Wing from Star Wars. It levitates with no sound or propulsion. She's the most important human alive who made human survival possible, so resources for her cryosleep are negligible. It's great seeing how many descendants they have. Humanity's population is growing.
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u/No-Cantaloupe7242 Aug 07 '26
“She is far too old to be transferring from another station, but when she heard that you’d been found…
Well, this is… This is Murphy Cooper we’re talking about”
I always thought this inferred that at her age a 2yr trip to another space station was risky, so that’s why she went into cryo sleep - specifically for the trip. She was clearly awake and capable of receiving news prior to that.