Space, Time, and Humanity: Brief Musings on The Midnight Sky
This is going to be a short mostly philosophical post. I recently finished watching The Midnight Sky and have had some thoughts building from Ad Astra and Interstellar that I want to get off my chest and into the ether. As a reference these are the three movies these movies are based on:
The Midnight Sky: 54% on rotten tomatoes and not loved by audiences
Ad Astra: 83% on rotten tomatoes and also not loved by audiences
Interstellar: 72% on rotten tomatoes (a ridiculous mischaracterization of my favorite movie) and decently loved by audiences
Human Connection in SpaceTime
The bond between parent and child transcends space and time. I think this can be more accurately generalized as human connection transcends space and time. I know this sounds cheesy but there’s a lot of truth in this that these three movies dive into (some movies do this better than others).
We have Interstellar where regardless of the billions of miles between Matthew McConaughey and his daughter their connection remained the center of his thought. Regardless of how much time passed by in relativity (wow that planet scene was MIND BLOWING), that connection still stood. Same thing in Ad Astra, even as Brad Pitt flew across the solar system alone for months during his journey to Neptune his relationship with his father and his relationship with himself played center stage. In The Midnight Sky the relationship between George Clooney and his daughter played center stage. In all three of these movies, space served not as a spectacle, though it of course is, but rather a canvas for existing human relationships to manifest themselves. No matter how many stars or planets one explores, our relationships transcend all space and time carried by our own mentality.
Just think about it. Imagine you had a child who passed away young. That’s a major event that would probably stay with you. Even if you go to Mars, Titan, or Neptune, orbit a black hole and experience 100 years in 5 minutes, your child still stays with you. That relationship transcends space and time. If anything, these movies argue in the face of the vast emptiness and beauty of nature and space we fall back on these relationships. Ironic physicists search for particles that exist through space and time and here we are with our relationships. Curious.
Space is VAST, Nature just exists
My favorite scene in Ad Astra was when Brad Pitt arrived to Neptune. The Blue Hue as Pitt floated in front of the planet truly was a visual spectacle. Another shocker was Jupiter in The Midnight Sky. These movies love shots where they show the spaceship or the small human silhouette against the enormity of these celestial objects. Sure these shots communicate the feeling of how small we are in relation to these large objects, but also communicate a feeling of intimacy. In the vast emptiness of space there just exists you and the infinite blackness. It’s sort of like when you are out camping and stargazing in the dark. With no city lights or other distractions, there’s an inherent connection between you and the universe in your shared existence. This feeling is hard to describe but easier to experience and these movies when viewed in the right context do a good job at communicating this. Perhaps it is the inherent realization that we are all stardust. Beyond this I am not sure, a subject for another time.
Another important idea in these movies: nature exists indifferent to our struggle. As George Clooney went through the tundra, the blizzard, wolves, the elements attacked him irrespective of the situation. Nature is not evil. Although the wolves attacked Augustine, the wolves are not evil they just exist. The snow is not inherently evil in their indifference, snow just does what snow does. Nature has no consciousness, nature has no inherent drive: these are just concepts we project onto nature by viewing nature as with many other things in an anthropocentric lens especially with how we consider “Mother Nature”. Is this nihilistic? No, just because nature exist irrespective of our struggle does not make it all inherently meaningless. Nihilism is in itself an anthropocentric concept with its own assumptions. In the context of the universe nihilism does not apply.
However, I digress. An important consequence on nature’s indifference and scale is the fragility of our existence. Though we build houses, have fancy phones, create complex social relationships, read articles on medium, we still do not understand much about our planet. Any day a minor ecological change could trigger a global geological change that we could not do anything about. There’s no vaccine against unbreathable air or submerged land and terraforming technologies are in their infancy. These movies do a good job communicating the feeling of helplessness against these disasters (Interstellar and The Midnight Sky specifically), where the question is not if we can stop these disasters but rather how can we survive in the context of these disaster regardless of how advanced our AI or phones are. I doubt any climate change denier would watch these movies and have their mind changed, but these movies provide an important perspective to help direct our thinking, reminding us that regardless of what Trump says, what Bill is blocked, or what war is waged, these natural forces march on, largely out of our control.
